Okay, we're back. This is Dave Vellante at Wikibon.org. We are live VMworld 2011 here in Vegas, Sin City with Two of my squeaky clean colleagues Brian Reagan Steve Kenes. You say that after saying sin city coming on. You know, we don't have time to enjoy Vegas I know running around like crazy. Absolutely right. I'll work welcome back I think this is my like hundredth time in Vegas this year. I don't know why but everybody's having shows in Vegas So we'll take it VMworld 19,000 people Quite an event. We had Rick Jackson on we're talking off camera next year. It's moving back to San Francisco, which is Definitely a change of pace, but Brian back at IBM great to see you as an executive in a cloud role Absolutely. How's that going? Great to be back here at Wikibon and and silicon angle and and the cube. Yes, it's it's 30 days in learning a lot Really trying to understand And the reason we're here at VMware is really trying to understand what this inflection point means is more Mission critical applications become virtualized. What is that? What are the implications in terms of disaster recovery business continuity? I was encouraged to hear Paul Moritz talk about how DR is one of the most natural use cases for the cloud And we couldn't agree more so that's that's the business that I'm focused on in running right now And Steve you are a storage efficiency evangelist at IBM. So tell me what that means so Essentially what I go out and do is I talk about how storage efficiency both for IBM and for the end user is really affecting them What are the key technologies? What are the trends? What should they expect to see from IBM? Where's it coming? What are the different products? It'll be either embedded in or how can they acquire it? Where is it going? You know so Brian and I do some work together about talking about as we make storage efficient in the cloud How important is that? How do you sell it? How do you promote it? That sort of thing So Brian, I actually think you're in a great spot. So your scope is a disaster recovery archiving as well archiving as well That's correct. Okay. You're in really good shape. Here's why Everybody is talking about how your applications for the cloud are cloud 1.0 That means it's becoming real. There's money to be made here, right? We actually we had Sikhi Jinta on and She's with a competitor at CSC and she's saying look, you know, it's a lot of hype out there But the real stuff is happening, you know in You know these day-to-day applications absolutely are in archiving are right there So what are you guys seeing in the customer base in terms of adoption cloud adoption specifically in those areas? well, it's I would break it down into two main areas one is as In terms of traditional DR the the traditional model of I have applications sitting on infrastructure at my primary location I need a secondary site so in case Irene or other natural events occur or if it's just a natural downtime event which can occur from you know Data integrity problems or human error and the like we all know the the reasons why systems and applications go offline People are naturally starting to evaluate how the cloud can Change the dynamics of that disaster recovery model for the better cost will come down naturally And maybe they'll get more agility out of their infrastructure Maybe they're they're 24-hour RTO and RPO can come down to six hours if the data is persisted in the cloud as opposed to just at a Secondary physical site, so that's sort of use case number one Use case number two, which is related is very often in the traditional DR model Tape was the the media of choice We would back up our systems images back up our data put them on trucks ship them to the Recovery site and hope we never had to use them And very often those tapes would be kept for a very long period of time Fast forward to the disk-based world of storage and all of a sudden what we're talking about is An archive use case that first really serves a storage optimization purpose But ultimately as we start layering and more information management Governance compliance search and discovery capabilities on top of that That obviously expands and extends the value that we can offer to our clients as they preserve that data for long periods of time So I want to drill into the cost a little bit and then I come back to the optimization piece cloud is rental Right and rental is almost always. Maybe maybe always more expensive than than owning. Why is cloud less expensive? Well, I think it comes down to very similar to a traditional managed service model where yes, the physical the capital the capital cost is more expensive to rent But the operating expense for rental I'm essentially nearly eliminating the operating expense and as data grows and as the Information environment becomes more complex those opera op-ex costs go up So what we're really doing is we're neutralizing or minimizing or almost eliminating the op-ex Well, perhaps seeing a slight bump in the cab-ex. So if I could translate that a cloud service provider Which you are is going to do be more efficient at managing infrastructure be able to pass those savings on to the customer The point I've been making a lot today Is every customer we talked to? Almost everyone anyway Budgets are flat We're asked to do more with last headcount is down is does that describe your business that? If it's going to the roof yeah Absolutely if our CFO we're here you'd be talking about how we need to continue to take costs out of our environment Well, you know why efficiency is absolutely vital to our business, but you're growing right at the point Oh, yes, absolutely. So absolutely and so the innovation is the cloud service providers are innovating They're pouring money into that innovation Whereas the traditional IT shops are like, okay, keep it flat cut it. It's not our business, right? And so now that brings me to optimization. What's Steve? What's the intersection between what we're talking about here in cloud services and optimization? Is it fundamental? Is it a nice to have is it a one-time hit give us give us some insight there I think Brian nailed it on the head in you two talking about the economics of it All right if I'm going to continue to get hammered on on the economics of running my complete infrastructure And I'm going to sell to the CFO that I'm going to outsource this And I've already sold the fact of the matter that I can actually take the operational costs and extract it from from my My environment right now. What am I doing? Okay the next question from any CFO? I know is what's next right? So if I can compress it locally or if I can shrink it locally or deduple locally or provision it better Locally and become more efficient and then whatever I do in the cloud I can get a better dollar per terabyte rate because I'm using less physical space right all of a sudden I'm really now having a much deeper impact on that financial budget at the end of the day right it's really going to come down to finances and You know we've all witnessed that curve that shows you know Disdoubling every 18 months and when they double they're the most expensive ones But I need the capacity using optimization technology You don't have to ride that wave anymore right you can actually stay behind the curve Wait for the expensive diffs prices to fall be able to put more data and have more capacity available to you without shelling Out the money every time you turn around because they need more capacity So how about pricing? You know everything's cloud services. You think Amazon swipe the credit card. Okay get a monthly bill for s3 or EC2 DR is a little bit more complicated than that isn't it so what's the pricing model? How's it shaping up? Well, so we do have a few services in our portfolio where you literally can go online to IBM comm and swipe a credit card and download and that Typically would serve for example a PC or laptop backup type of need So pricing on that is going to be you know as you would expect it to be somewhere in the five to ten dollars a month You know per user proceed DR on the other hand really takes the shape of How much of your infrastructure we really talking about it's verily one server right is it a physical or a virtual server? So that's going to change the pricing is it you know, what is our your objectives in terms of recovery? Would you like a you know very short window of exposure? Can you tolerate 24 48 hours of exposure all of those variables kind of play into? Both a capacity-based cost as well as there are service costs on top of that So in the case of a declaration in the case of a test those tend to be more one-time charges versus ongoing rental charges Is that a belly-to-belly discussion that that an IBM sales rep or an IBM channel partner has yes with the customer? It's so we're not at the point now where we can have that discussion in a way That's standardized across the customer base do you do you see that ever happening where we can just sort of dial an RTO RPO because people don't know what RTO and RPO is correct explain it to how much data you willing to lose right nun Right, okay. You want to pay five hundred million dollars? No, right? Okay. That starts the conversation. I don't know how it ends I think Dave that what I'm seeing here at VM world is We are getting closer to that non belly-to-belly conversation, but it's going to be very workload specific It's going to be you know first in the wind-tell and lintel environments where there are fewer variables in terms of the application sitting on top of them So we can let the users sort of self-select into some You know online a little more click transaction type of DR services, but when it comes to the I need to protect my enterprise my enterprises, you know Revlon or Southwest Airlines or any of these other enterprises that we've heard from They're not doing that by just swiping your credit card They're they're designing and really building resiliency into their business Dave I think what you're seeing right is is this whole notion of RPO and RTO really just changing to a quality of service when you get to The cloud right so it's now no longer. You know, what is it? It's here's what I want How do I get it and if I can actually get get a better quality of service because I can move more data more efficiently by Optimizing it in some form or fashion now all of a sudden I've increased my my QoS and if I can do that and we can be the the leading cost effective Evangelizers of a better QoS for the user it you know this stuff just kind of works now a lot of its commodity I've been walking the show floor, you know in the old days used to have to internet in to go see a demo through now This stuff they show it up. They wheel it on the floor just works. So we've gotten past that hurdle now It's I want it to work better. I want it to work smarter I want it to work more efficiently and this is what the cloud is enabling right now I think that point about quality of service is a really good one because that allows you as the cloud service provided a Package things guarantee a level of quality of service and maybe it's not just cost-plus. Maybe it's a value There's a buyer. I'm happy to have you to pay that so that's um, that's good My last question Steve is is Ken's things like real-time compression actually speed recovery or is Is that not the case no absolutely right if you think about if I can actually Compress and let's just hypothetically take a 50% compression ratio If I can move a file back to my storage over the over the land That's 50% smaller in theory. I get 50% better performance So instead of moving a terabyte of data. I'm moving 500 gigabytes if I'm moving 500 gigabytes I can move 500 gigabytes faster than a terabyte that becomes hugely valuable to me and it helps me increase my quality of service And what did I do? I added a little layer of compression. All right guys. We're out of time. Thanks very much for coming to the Cube Brian Regan Steve Keniston from IBM appreciate you sharing your knowledge and your insights great to have you


Hey, we've got Deb in the house. We got some more fun. Hey, Deb. I'm delighted. Actually, get on. I'm going to get right to the question so that I don't get too. Jonathan, I want to know if I'm moving too fast. OK. I'm living in Zimbabwe. I met a man on OK Cupid two months ago. OK. I had two chats on OK Cupid.   I'm getting on a plane and I'm coming to meet you. So I was in a state of shock. Within a few days he arrived, 10,000 miles. He traveled to meet me. Where did he, by the way, where does he live again? He lives in Greenville, South Carolina. And you live in Zimbabwe. That's 10,000 miles, everybody. He came to meet me. So I took your advice and didn't go for the tall dark handsome. He is short. He's a little bit extra. Only he was married once. He married his, he's with one woman in his whole life. So I went for either. So he came up. We went to Victoria Falls, which is one of the seven wonders of the world. I took him there. We had a fabulous time. He met all of my family and all of my friends. That was his mission. Went back to America. He's contacted my family in America and is spending Christmas with them. And I'm in a little bit of a state of shock because I've been single for 15 years. And I've been preparing now, I know, all this time because I've been following you all that time and seeing all metamorphosis. And I know that I'm ready. And I'm excited. Well, I got a couple of questions for you, Deb. Yeah. First off, earlier when you said I followed your advice, I didn't go for the tall dark and handsome person. Folks, that's not my advice, by the way, to not do something. I just want to be clear about that. And my advice is to go where your heart is and not your ego is. Okay, so they just want to clarify that. So why don't you tell me, how do you feel? Okay, did you guys have sex? Yes. Okay. If I caused a fence by saying I didn't go for the tall dark. Oh no, no, you didn't cause a fence. I just want everyone to be clear of what my advice is. So. What told them?  How was the sex? It was good. But I wanted you to know that I actually, he had very bad profile pictures. And I couldn't tell which one he was on the profile picture on Okay, Cupid. So I read his very, very long profile and I decided to reach out to him because of his profile. I didn't know what he looked like, but he sounded emotionally mature and he just ticked all my boxes. And I was not disappointed to find out that he was. Okay, so when did he return home? He was only here for 10 days. And since he's been home, we had to. Hey, by the way, I want to give you an example of what women do. I asked your question, you answered something completely different. I said, when did he go home? He went home three weeks ago. Three weeks ago. Okay, so just I want to give everyone an example of communication, okay? I asked a specific question and you started to tell me a story. Okay, so he left three weeks ago. In the past three weeks, how has your communication been? We check for between one and three hours every evening. Okay, so what is the game plan for the two of you going forward? We are applying for my visa and I'm planning to go for my birthday in April. And he has already asked me to marry him. Okay. So, well, first off, Deb, I know you from my group called Midlife Love Mastery, everybody, if you want to. Deb is someone I know, this is new information to me because you haven't shared this in the group. So, I don't have, to the extent, I don't have a lot of significant advice to share with you. I would invite you to watch a TV show called 90 Day Fiancé. 90 Day Fiancé the other way, 90 Day Fiancé. Why, here's the thing, relationships with people from other countries, now there's always exception to the rule, is you don't really know a person until you actually spend a significant amount of time with them in each other's respective environments, okay? Now it sounds like you're considering moving to North you said North Carolina, correct? I'm going for between six and 12 weeks to live with them at home. Yeah, I own my own business. So, a lot of people in the 90 Day Fiancé show do that. Okay, they spend a significant time. Here's the challenge, when you move to another location. Okay, so let's just say you're there. A, you don't have your circle of friends with you, number one.  So, what oftentimes happens, by the way, I'm not taking this from a pessimistic point of view, a realistic point of view, okay? What oftentimes happens is it puts a hundred percent of the, is he retired? No, no, he's a soft-weight. Okay, so he's going to work and then you're going to be in his home by yourself for a significant amount of time throughout the day while he's doing his professional life. What often, huh? He works from home. Okay, works from home, okay. So, and that could be a benefit. Well, that could be a benefit or it could be a curse too, because then there's no autonomy for each one of you to have your own space, okay? So, the real question is doing, here's the thing, you can't really get to know a person until you've seen them in a multitude and a variety of circumstances or situations. This is how you get to know someone. All of that time on the telephone or video chatting is partially getting to know someone. You're partially, and quite frankly, you're getting to know someone in a cerebral perspective and not the physical perspective. And I don't mean sex, okay? How a person operates. Do they put the toilet seat down? Do they treat you with courtesy? Are you showing appreciation for one another? All the little micro things that happen with your day to day, okay? If you guys survive the 12 weeks that you're together, and I use the word survive almost as a defeatist point of view, certainly you can give it a go of it.  The question is, so long as you don't give up your sovereignty because if it doesn't work out, what is your plan? Like I really, a lot of people don't go in with the plan of what to do when it doesn't work out. They're always focused on what does, like the hope versus the real preparation. So, hey, you know, I've known you for months now. I mean, this is new news. Thank you for sharing this. You must share this with the group. So we all know. Billwind, it's all happened so very fast. And that's why I'm saying to you, does this sound all too quick for you? He's doing eight dates with me. We're doing that together. He's Rachel Book, so he's rated the four agreements. He's in about 10 of your books.  Let me interrupt. You said, are we going too fast? Well, I mean, from a spiritual perspective, time is an illusion. But I don't subscribe to fast or slow, okay? What I subscribe to is being in your own lane, okay? Being in your own sovereignty, your own power. And look at, many of you know, Marie and I moved in together rather quickly. It was five months after we met. Was that too fast? I don't know. All I know is I had an amazing experience. We weren't meant to go the distance and we left in a very conscious uncoupling. I mean, and I don't regret every second we were together because we were in appreciation with one another. We showed each other respect. And each person is on their own individual journey. I'm okay. And my point in bringing this up is, fast or slow, it's a personal thing. What my most concern is, is don't give your power away. Maybe do that. Or the fantasy. That's the real issue. Don't give your power away to the idealic, the fantasy of what might happen and be really mindful if you're taking red flags and painting them green, okay? Which I talk about incessantly. So, I'm single, one single server, Ava. And one thing I do want to say is that you have just taught me not to hold out any attachment to the outcome. And that helps hugely. If it doesn't work out, well, I'll be okay. I'll be fine. I love myself. And I know that I don't need man. And he doesn't need me. We're both financially stable. As I said, I have my own business. Even though he's met my kids and they really like him and all my family and all of my friends, I really believe that we will be friends if he meets someone else or it doesn't work for some reason or the other. But I do have family in the States and he's with my family. Can I respond to that for a second? Yeah. So I'm gonna say this tongue in cheek, but I love how we rationalize things will be friends, okay? Now let me be tongue in cheek here for a second, okay? So me a friend drives me to the airport. To me a friend is people I get to break bread with. To me a friend is someone I'm gonna share emotional things with, okay? I think it's okay. But by the way, if you're saying, well, at least be a friend.  Okay, number one. Now it's okay to say I'll be friendly to this person, but I don't believe it's healthy to share, to talk about your future dating experiences with a past lover. I think that's just an unhealthy thing to do to talk about your current dating situations with a past lover. I just think that's, it's fraught with, and then by the way, it's not clean, okay? That's just my perception. Take that for what it's worth, okay? So I think what's most important is if you recognize that if the two of you don't work out that you do it consciously, a conscious uncoupling like what Catherine Woodward Thomas talks about in her book, Conscious Uncoupling. Okay? Of course I've made all of you. Yeah, so I just rather than creating a story to kind of justify it, just simply say, you know what? My goal is to go into this passionate and open. And what I mean is open to the experience, detached to the outcome. Now here's the problem. We can still get rather attached to another human being. It's difficult not to get attached. And it's difficult not to get attached to the outcome. If you have a propensity in your past experience to be devastated, to be, you know, to feel heartbroken when something doesn't work out, then you probably are going too fast, okay? If you haven't healed from something like that, okay?   So do what feels right for you, but maintain your sovereignty. Absolutely. And I appreciate your advice. I really do. I mean, if it wasn't for you, I wouldn't be here. I wouldn't be here at all. Well, you know what? Into the one time that we did have a perspective coaching call. I'm here to say I'm happy for you. I'm excited. I wish you all the best. Let me give you a prayer as I take on some more questions before we wrap up. Dear God, universe spirit, we invite in for Deb Locke a juicy, delicious, healthy, happy relationship that starts with individual sovereignty and neither one of you giving your power away to the other person. And the communication and connection between the two of you is rather easy and the banter can go on for hours at a time. And if the two of you do experience a conflict, you're able to resolve the conflicts with ease and that your lifestyles are blendable with one another and you share the same passions doing things together and you also share the same values that builds the deep roots of trust because when two people trust one another, they have the makings for a juicy, delicious, healthy, happy relationship.   At least that's my opinion anyway. God, universe, spirit, I invite that in for Deb right now. Amen. Thank you. I appreciate you. And I'm gonna let you know how that goes. Okay, big, gigantic shot and bear hugs. Thanks, Deb.


Hey folks, welcome to the podcast. Today I had a great chat with a guy called David Royston Lee and David is a leadership coach and a personal branding expert and he wrote a great book on personal branding. So we had a chat around what the essentials are of personal branding, how to tell your story, get it out there, become more visible and build your online brand which is extremely important nowadays. So I hope you enjoy the conversation. Hey it's Lewis, welcome to the podcast. Enjoy our conversations anytime, anywhere. Cool, and we're live. David, thank you very much for joining me on the podcast. My pleasure, my pleasure. So what is your background? I'm a psychologist by profession but I'm also a recruiter and an HR director and a management consultant and a marketing person. So I've gone through quite a few different kind of transformations in my life. So you started out doing psychology at university and then? That's right. Psychology at university and rather than join a psychometric firm as most psychologists do, I decided I didn't want to do that. I was interested in people and I went to my local employment agency to find a job and they offered me one. Oh nice. So within about virtually a year I was the operations manager of this recruitment agency but the interesting thing for me which is what I do now is all about is I had my kind of epiphany, if you can call it that, probably the first day of my work in the recruitment agency because I was given the graduates and I didn't realise that was the job that no one wanted. They don't have no idea what they wanted. They have no idea what they want and you don't make any money out of it. No, that isn't a fire. Absolutely and I thought as this cocky psychologist all they had to do was look at their educational background and see what they did at school, what courses they did, what university they went to, what course they and bingo, I'd be able to channel them into that job there or the other one there but within the first four people I got things like yeah well my parents said I needed to do accountancy. I hate it but that's what I did at university or I've done this course in whatever law. I really don't like it. I want something else. Yeah so you learnt more about people in that first couple of weeks in your whole degree course in psychology probably. Yeah and the thing was it started making me think so how do people really find what they want to do and that became the thing that I've been doing for the rest of my life. No it's interesting I mean I meet so many people and most people have no idea what they want to do or you end up doing a bunch of different things where you have like you and actually probably eventually like me three careers in your life and your parents do tend to push you into something you know a profession because it's safe and it's safe that's the point but do you enjoy it and and most people I did correct me for wrong but most people I meet don't actually enjoy what they do. No and that's that's my mission to try to help people find a job that they really enjoy and want to do and get you know a lot of satisfaction out of it because I have the premise you only live once. Absolutely. So why not enjoy what you're doing. That's true very true so after your your graduate recruitment stint did you stay in the industry? I stayed in the industry I became the operations director at the time and then I got involved with the institute of employment consultants as it was then okay and on their learning and development side and realised there was a big job there got more and more involved and eventually after about three or four years of the agency I I'd done everything I really needed to do. Yeah I professionalised it so to speak I trained people in different things and basically the the six branches at that time had good managers I've made myself redundant. Yeah and I got more interested in all the work that needs to be done to professionalise the industry so when I was off of the job to run it I grabbed it. Great great and so how long overall did you stay in the recruitment sector before? Probably about seven years six seven years great you know the last two I was doing my MSc in occupational psychology while I was at the institute. Right right right so and my thesis was on the recruitment industry actually. Okay interesting yeah interesting yeah and then now so you just published a book yeah well 10 years ago was that 10 years ago yeah wow it's been translated into seven languages wow including Greek and Korean wow amazing so it's quite well and then you sell it on Amazon and yeah yeah mainly through Amazon yeah yeah it's published by Pearson's. Great and how what like arrived you at writing a book and actually it was it was on a program with some friends of mine who were setting up a kind of a group of headhunters and they had a kind of a way weekend basically a jolly and I met someone on that weekend who became my co-author on the book he was a headhunter with Hydrix and he was talking about writing a book and I said funny and funnily enough I've been thinking about that and we decided that brand U was the book to write. Awesome awesome so what is personal branding? So personal branding isn't what a lot of people think it is when you're looking for a job it's not about deciding what you're going to be it's about actually understanding who you are so what we're concentrating on is the authentic you not the one that you'd like to find yeah because many people have this idea that you know they're attending to their personal branding well sorry you know you can't sort of make it up it's got to be real and it's got to be authentic so that was the reason for for that book because by the time I'd written that book I'd been working at KPMG as a management consultant for many years working with a lot of people in the last recession because in the 80s where they were being made redundant for the first time right and they didn't know what they wanted to do so I was dealing with about eight people every day for about god knows how long yeah four years to be honest right so I created a way of helping them to understand who they were what they wanted and if you like help them to kind of carve a journey for themselves out of their future interesting and you and you did and you wrote this book before instagram yeah and instagram's interesting because um you know big criticism is that people are portraying you know who they want to be their best self their best life um yeah what do you think about that have you seen a change or um I actually think well interestingly the this authenticity which actually has been much more in the news in the last five years whereas before you know it was all pretend to be who you were and all my work with organizations were they were saying well this is our culture and had all these grandiose terms saying how wonderful they were and you go in and it's a cesspit really you know full of people stabbing each other in the back yet apparently you know we're all collegiate and everything else so you know it that's that's changed now because in today's world you know graduates graduates new people in the industry even those into their twenties and early thirties they walk in and they can assess quite quickly whether this is a good place to be or not 100% once it can also I mean you can also do your research on people before you can look on social media online I mean yeah and you can see what's happening in that organization yeah you can talk to people you know through LinkedIn through everything now yeah before you go and I encourage people to do that you know see if through your contacts have you got any contacts with people in that organization talk to them first before you go for the interview yeah because if nothing else you're going to be the person who who's actually going to say in the interview well I was talking to one of your people and they said and it shocks the interviewer and actually if nothing else it reminds the interviewer of who you are yeah so even more I mean this is even more important now with social media and getting your brand right on social media online you know making sure you're you're you know you've got a good LinkedIn profile and all that kind of stuff that's right and the LinkedIn profile actually needs to be written not like a CV if you notice on LinkedIn a lot of people kind of put their CV on it yeah it really should be more about who you are and what you do and what you want to do you know so that you would you not do your you so how would you do it would you do the the career history obviously but then would you do like well the profile at the beginning would be so what am I into now what I'm what am I really interested in uh okay it might be a little bit uh difficult if you're in the job you don't want to be by someone from that company looks at your profile but you know try to be you know I think it's really important because for LinkedIn certainly it should be one of those places where you're more you and people are thinking actually he looks like a good guy yeah yeah but people are people have a very different opinion on it I met I met someone at a training course the other day and and she you know she didn't want to connect with she was very very selective with who's she connected with yeah she's very minimalist with what she put on her profile um but she was hoping to find her next role and she was in a role at the moment and she was very concerned about her colleagues you know she didn't want to connect with me because I'm a headhunter and what would my colleagues think if they saw ruled by fear yeah that's what a lot of people are nowadays and it's one of the things that I'm researching at the moment this whole area of fear and taking risks because there's this fear of fear of what fear of well like that person virtually everything yeah you know fear of being present anywhere hiding behind a minimal CV yeah you know I mean how how is anyone going to actually find this person and actually know whether she's any good yeah unless you start talking about it absolutely the thing with LinkedIn is all the profiles are public and you're only you'll only really want to be on there if you want to be found I mean the point for me of LinkedIn it's a professional networking site and it's it's there for people to find you exactly and the other social media platforms you know you can be quite close and it's you know it's your social group Facebook whatever yeah it's all about building your network of people that you want to be linked to yeah yeah you know and and uh get encouragement from support from and of course if you're looking for a job naturally you start yeah contacting people in your network and possibly outside it through your contacts yeah so what do you think then for professional LinkedIn platforms for your for your personal professional branding the place to really like focus and make sure it's I think it should be it isn't as much as it it could be simply because people use it just like a place to put their CV if you see yeah so I don't need to write another yeah that's that's true that's true and so what are the like what are the essentials around personal branding what do people need to be well really doing of course the the thing that is different about personal branding from a CV a CV is just about what you've done in the past right so it's a one-dimensional picture of you that is purely based in the past what the personal branding should be building a kind of three-dimensional picture of you so it should also tell people but well one of the things that most people aren't very good at is actually knowing what their talents are yeah you know you've got your skills that you've learned uh you've got your degrees maybe or courses that you've done but what are your actual talents and do people really understand what their talents are plus also what are your values you know if I asked most people I asked if I asked straight out yeah what are your values there's lots of umming and earrings and then they've come out with things they think should be a good value not really what their values are so you have to you have to uh when you're developing your brand you have to start with an analysis of yourself not if you which I think most people do they think here I am now I want to be there so I have to create yeah kind of presence that allows me to be in this place yeah but actually you need to start with understanding who you are first yeah who am I first where am I going and then how am I going to get there whereas most people do it the other way around how am I going to get there well they look at like I don't know I want to be that person or I want to be a CFO or and how they got there and they look at you know this career path which is a fair way to do it but but yeah very few people look introspectively and think about like what motivates me what do I like to do or you know yeah I do a lot of work with leadership development the difficulty that a lot of people have even quite senior people in the world uh is their belief in what a leader should be is based on people that have led them yes rather than actually understanding the leader in themselves and who they are as a leader they try to emulate someone who is well I've been working with someone recently who because their bosses are bully as soon as they got into a position of responsibility guess what started bullying interesting yeah because they thought this was what you did as a leader yeah no that's a good yeah I guess you yeah your go-to style is he yeah if you're lucky you might learn how not to do things from those types of people yeah so the key thing I think I think I need to say is you need to be get a sense of detachment from what you're doing and actually understand yourself and how you interact with the world yeah so you need a bit of a gap so at any point in time you're you're actually thinking here I am this is the world how am I really interacting with it or am I pretending to be someone else because I think that looks good yeah yeah and then how do you go about communicating that story or telling that story well actually one of the things we do in the personal branding book is we talk about stories you know everything's about stories yeah yeah you know you know as a recruiter that you say well given me a time when you know and you ask them to tell a little story well I try to get people to to to identify what are called crucible moments okay in their like an aha moment aha moments or or times which they they really felt they were in flow yeah yeah using a psychological I love that yeah yeah and and then talk about that so we identify help people to identify a number of different stories now out of those stories when they start talking about what they did how they did it with whom in what situations you start to build a picture and you can find out the talents from that you can start you can find out the values yeah and you can also get a sense of actually this kind of environment is the kind that actually suits this person down to the ground and then what they can so they can use that knowledge to think about what job they've been most suited to or that's right and and and the thing is it you know it though honing those stories so that they're clear about what those stories are saying about them and they're real yeah not pretend they're incredibly useful when you're they're coming in front of someone like you as a recruiter absolutely no it's all about telling the story I mentioned this like almost every podcast but we did we did a quite a bit of training on storytelling and it's so powerful very important you know really really powerful stuff you know you know that of people that blooming hopeless oh yeah I know you can always improve but you know you get put on and if it's if you're in an interview scenario or you've met someone for the first time and they're uncomfortable situations which a lot of people don't like to be in and and their mind goes a little bit blank or they default to like the technical aspects you know I went to KPMG I did my ACA I'm a yeah yeah you know rather than really you know telling a great story and because you feel a much more affinity to someone when you you've bought into this story yeah sure I mean it's yeah really powerful stuff yeah and so and stories of course the most important stage to get your stories right is at the beginning of your career yeah you don't have work stories but you have life stories yeah you can tell a recruiter and that recruiter can say oh that's interesting what were they doing there that shows that they've got a bit of gumption that shows that they've they've actually got something that I would quite like to develop in this gun yeah yeah do you think now in kind of the age of you know technology where you have linked in and you know it's super easy to find you know every CFO in the financial service industry in a few minutes you know to really stand out now do you think this storytelling has got more and more important and more weight to it I think so I think being able to tell the stories genuine stories yeah yeah in a in a clear way so you give people a real understanding of not just what you've done but what you're capable of doing yeah yeah I think is important that is that's the goal yeah definitely so the CV can get you through the door once you start meeting people in your interviewing and the storytelling and making sure your brand is on point will ultimately secure you there exactly exactly yes fine and then so how how would one become more visible so I mentioned it just now but you know if we do a search for someone that I mean the world is our our talent pool now right I mean with the internet with technology with linked in you know suddenly you're hunting from a global talent pool rather than just the black book and yeah and stuff so any advice on how one can become more visible and maybe get across their brand better I think I believe in the new uniqueness of everybody the difficulty often when you're looking for a job is because you want to be all things to every recruiter you kind of like wrong word but blandify yeah what I mean yeah like that blandify your CV so it can catch lots of things rather than actually be quite honest and say that is what I do and I do it in that way yeah and and I think it's about it's it's goes back to what I was saying a bit earlier about risk yes yeah taking a risk and being clear about the key things that you're you're really interested in and what it is you do what do you do how do you do it and in what ways and really push on that and be a bit of a maverick yeah no no it's it's and you'll stand out I think it's going to risk it's very risky yeah because you meet a lot of people in there um you know they might want to change industries or change careers slightly and it's very hard to do and you know they're more likely to get another job if they kind of stick to their area of specialism but so I feel it's a lot of people think it's a minefield of you know what do I do how do I pitch myself how do I move from you know here to here how do I do it how but the thing is you see most of the people I've worked with have been sort of people mid career who've decided I've had enough of being a partner in a big accountancy firm and decided to do something completely different as an example yeah yeah absolutely I mean we do you know we do board level search and but you still you still see a lot of people they want to maybe they want to move industry yeah which is challenging um maybe they just want to do something completely different um which is also tough it I think it's it's the you know courage or well but the thing is it's interesting because of course there's the verticals if you see yeah yeah but what's going on verticals just being so finance it whatever it might be yeah or but it's the horizontals I'm working on yes in a sense is what you can do in each of those verticals yeah you know what you do in I don't know chemical engineering yeah actually how you operate with people in managing that business can equally apply to any other actually absolutely absolutely very little change but when people are scared they think by moving out of a vertical they've got to change everything but actually no what do you think about just turning it around slightly if you're hiring someone and they've come from a slightly you know talk about the technical skills they could probably do the job slightly left field um I found that certainly given the current economic environment and various things that have me um people are very scared to make a bad hire or take a risk on someone but given what you've just described I think if companies are looking at the the softer skills and the wider piece they might actually end up making better hires much better hires I would maintain yeah it's this issue that you know of what investment banking dare I say you know uh where do people look yeah normally what universities do they look at normally top ones what do they get all the people are exactly the same as everybody else yeah and then they wonder why they can't compete with the others in the market because they're hiring from the same pool it's ridiculous if they can actually open their eyes and start thinking about some of the potential mavericks that are on the edge of their their kind of recruitment pool yeah who who got something a little bit different to offer I mean it's it's a bit like when I was at Oglediz as the HR director there uh you know we always hired from Oxbridge how come because that's what we did yeah but we got the same people yeah Rory Sutherland who's the vice president you know they're now who I knew at the time you know or if you look now they hire thirds from another university really right because they're looking for something else magic stardust thing that it's the creativity yeah rather than the academic excellence it always used to be academic excellence that doesn't mean to say you're going to be any good at business very true very true so what do you think of the psychometric stuff personality questionnaires the well I'm a psychologist so I can't say very much but I believe it's valuable for hiring you know it is valuable for hiring yeah as a guide right and as one part of the process okay not they'd be all in end all which it used to be where I remember uh talking to some uh business people and they would hire everybody with the same profile and then they wondered why there was chaos oh so you have like a standard we will hire someone with this personality set basically you know a high-powered salesman yeah yeah so you can imagine an office full of those people yeah they're they're stabbing each other in the back the whole time yeah and actually not selling very much no definitely but so what so how would you think about if you're hiring someone and you want this magic stardust creativity um they're they're tools that they can use rather than just seems like a nice chap or nice girl and well I go back to the stories I go I always go back to the stories I'd rather the thing is with psychometrics is of course what what is happening when you you do a psychometric you're being compared with other people yeah and you're being put in kind of boxes really yeah um I'm more of the the view that if I want to find a uniqueness of the individual and find is that something that actually we're looking for for the future what do we need not just to fill that position now but what do we need if we develop that person where do we want to go with that person what do we want to achieve as a business you know what's the competitive landscape like what's the economic situation like yeah what do we need in the future because we've got to be recruiting for that not just filling a job yeah and do you think humans are better at that than computer algorithms and big pools of data and uh I think you need both yeah you know because of course you need some kind of basis on which to to filter out the ones who maybe doesn't don't suit your organization yeah but I would certainly look at things like values yeah you know very important if you're hiring a CEO or a CFO absolutely organization yeah because they will alter it because they're in a senior position and it could disrupt it too much that's true yeah but then in other situations you you want disruptors to come in because your your organization your effectiveness is starting to not be as good as it used to be you're getting a bit old and a bit decrepit and you need to get more life into your business and you need to move it on into this digital age well you're not going to do that if you keep hiring the same people you've always hired and use the same recruitment processes you've always used and you seeing people are still doing that or yes because it's safe yeah yeah it's safe we get safe people but safe people aren't going to end up uh creating an Uber or a Airbnb no no you're just going to be doing the same old same old yeah I think I was running Steve Jobs there was an interview with him and they asked him you know how do you come up with these crazy ideas and new and new products and he said well I find people with maniacal tendencies I lock them in a room for a day and then open the door and out floods all of these amazing ideas and yeah I'm working with organizations now who you know get a cross section of their staff they give them a project to do and they do it and then they don't interfere with it they let them do it literally there's no senior management interference it sounds frightening sounds risky but what has happened in this particular organization I'm thinking of it's it's it's created an amazing difference awesome no amazing what's harder though is asking let's say a mid-level manager to hire a maverick and if they get that wrong they're out the door you know that's that's a challenging yeah but the middle I suppose it depends who the mid-level manager is because of course we all tend to recruit in our own image absolutely no most people do for sure yeah yeah definitely we like people like ourselves yeah so the thing is you again that detachment I talked about when you're recruiting you've got to be really detached in terms of am I do I just because I like this guy I've got something in common with this guy it's the bias thing that yeah yeah the Daniel Kineman yeah all of that yeah I mean you know that is you have to be really careful about that yeah so do you think then to sum up the HR director the CEO the senior leaders need to put the right structure in place to enable them to take a risk on a maverick or I I think it's increasingly important in today's world where things are moving faster and faster you need to bring in new ideas innovation needs to be at the center of organizations not something that you you play with on the edges yeah it's got to it's got to be part of of the way you conduct your business talking about innovation you started a new company called future resume yeah um what is it well it's basically goes right back to those at first few days in my recruitment agency where I just relied on the CV and ever since then the CV has gotten the way of helping people to get a decent job yeah because it's all based in the past and if you think about seeing these they were developed when people had jobs for life so all you did was look at what they did in the past and you'd know what they were going to be doing in the future in today's world people change jobs massively yeah so you need a different process so all I'm trying to say by with future resume is I'm starting the process I'm just throwing a pebble in the pool of recruitment to say shouldn't we be thinking beyond just a CV why are we just looking at the past where and not looking at the talents not looking at the values of the person not looking at the stories that we've talked about yeah but what we've so what I'm saying is we need a three-dimensional picture created and that's what future resumes trying to do we just add the present and the future to the past of the CV interesting so how does it then actually work in practice so I come and see you or I go on your well it's all digital of course in today's I go on your I visit your website yes uh do you have an app as well or it's it's it's on yes it's basically you can use it on amazing and then and then so what what do I so there's a hiring manager because that's what we're aiming at yeah uh what we're we're saying is we have we have the CV we get them to follow some interview questions and we create a future resume as well as the CV awesome so it's targeted it so I'm hiring yes I receive applicants and I and I I ask them to complete the questions absolutely what are and and you and the applicant get a copy of the future resume great it's completely as the person wrote it we don't alter it at all so it's authentic yeah and what it what it's there for is in a sense to reduce the need to have the first interview you know the bits where you find out something about yes yeah yeah we've got the stories in there we've got the values we've got the the talents that they've identified so it enables a hiring manager to reduce the the time spent interviewing right okay and so that they move up straight onto the second interview and do they have in mind a baseline profile that these people should be matching well actually they might yeah but I I prefer to suggest if there's a little bit of the consultancy coming into it yeah suggest that they look at the applicants that they've got because of course going back to what we said earlier about the blandness and recruiting people in your own image and maybe you need something with a bit of spice someone a bit different but you actually look at these candidates and you think oh actually I wouldn't have thought of interviewing that guy before but he sounds quite interesting and she's actually brilliant but initially with the CV I wouldn't have seen it and would they have seen the CV first they might have seen the CV first yeah you know because the difficulty of course we're having is it's something new and everybody's used to just using CVs so people are all a bit reticent oh I'm not sure about this I'll just rely on my psychometrics and my CVs and my gut feel or whatever yeah and all I'm trying to do is say come on let's let's try and disrupt this recruitment process a little bit I love it I love it and see what happens how long have you been going for well we've only just started great launched January this year perfect and gone well it's starting people we're getting a actually from a LinkedIn point of view yeah it's all through LinkedIn we're working so the marketing activity and branding and yeah everything's through that right okay which is relatively new for me but so as in even the the actual questions and well everything you don't go through LinkedIn you go through our website yeah all our marketing fine yeah yeah yeah but we're getting you know the hit rate we're getting is quite massive and we're we're aiming at new tech new techie companies you know small ones yeah as well as the big ones as well as the middle ones we're actually testing at the moment and we've had a good buying from the like startup tech yeah well they're of course more interest they've got no the raping to new things no history yeah yeah I love that anything that's new they're more interested in looking at yeah and did you think they'll make a better hire as a result I think so because what what they're they're given is more information on less people so they spend a bit of their time actually thinking about actually this guy you know we can build some really interesting teams with these kind of people with these kind of attributes yeah I love that I love that we're good luck with that thank you I hope that goes well thank you very much for joining me and yeah look forward to speaking to you again okay thank you thank you all cheers hey folks thanks for listening don't forget to subscribe in all the usual places


American Finding His Way here on Think Tech. I'm Jay Fidel and joining us Tim Appichella, Stephanie Dalton, Cynthia Sinclair, Winston Welch for our regular discussion about American Finding His Way. Today, we're going to focus on Congress. We're going to ask whether Congress is failing in its duty. Democracy requires the checks and balances in the Constitution, and all three branches have to be functional because they check and balance each other. So let's talk about what is going on in Congress vis-à-vis its own protection. It failed in the run-up to January 6th. We know that there was intelligence and nobody acted on it. And then we had a right, a destructive murderous right, which has never really been resolved. And you can say that the Department of Justice is prosecuting, but we have yet to see anyone really get prosecuted. It's just a question of making it public or what. And then more recently in hearings on this, and Amy Klobuchar was involved, we saw that, it popped out from General Walker, the National Guard General in Washington, that those guys are ready to go to the Capitol hours after before they got the permission to go to the Capitol. They've been told not to go to the Capitol without permission day before, either Joint Chiefs, I find that very interesting. Joint Chiefs knew enough to warn them not to go to the Capitol the day before. So they're waiting for permission on January 6th. They don't get permission for two, three hours. They're ready to go. They're in the buses ready to get right down there and defend the Capitol, but no permission. And just one more thing to add is that right now, the Capitol, I guess it's the police force and maybe the committee that's involved, the dysfunctional committee, if you read about that, has asked to extend the time of the National Guard in Washington DC to protect the Capitol, especially today, because today there's supposed to be a counter inauguration. And the Joint Chiefs has not responded to that either. They got a problem with communication. Command control, or is it much worse with Mike Flynn's brother there? So Tim, what is going on? If we can't protect the Capitol, what good is it? I think that's a very good question, Jay, and they are protecting the Capitol. They just didn't protect the Capitol on January the 6th, which is now almost 60 days from where that was. I just think it's gonna take more time for investigations to take place. I think we're gonna know more. I think we're gonna find out there was a breadcrumb trail from the Desire for General, what's his name? From Washington DC, National Guard. Clark, Wagner, Warner, Clark, something, yeah. Yeah, so I think you're gonna see a breadcrumb trail from the instructions for him not to move. I think he wanted to move around 1.58 p.m. He didn't get there until 5 p.m. So there was a three hour and nine minute difference according to his testimony. And I think you're gonna find as time goes on, you're gonna find names and communications somewhere in the Pentagon that will support the theory that there were forces at hand to try to prevent the National Guard from backing up the Washington DC police. And I can't wait for that to happen because it'll be a part of history. And from that, there's a basis to possibly look at criminal charges for those involved. Yes, sir. You know, one thing of interest is their excuse, the Joint Chief's excuse, including that committee in which Mike Flynn's brother, the general, was on that committee. They said they didn't like the optics of having optics, quote optics, having the National Guard come to the Capitol. And this was hours after the Capitol was being ransacked, by the way. Do you accept that? Is that logical for you, Tim? Absolutely not. That sounds like one of the senators in Congress coming up with reasons why they won't support a bill. I mean, they just pull it out of the thin air and that's their explanation. It's ridiculous. The Capitol was under attack. And they knew that they had enough information from the FBI, they had their intelligence. They knew this was gonna take place. I go to my comment yesterday why Donald Trump didn't intercede for hours with to support the Washington DC police. Why didn't he intercede? Well, he didn't want them, he didn't want them blunting the invasion force. He wanted them to get in there. He was at home with his television set, reveling in the festivities. Of course he was. But you know, from a logic point of view, just looking at this logically. So there's a two or three hour delay, which could have saved the Capitol. Honestly, it could have. And it could have saved the Capitol Police too. And there's a delay and you know, this is the 21st century. They all knew what was going on. All they had to do was turn on a television or even their cell phone. And they would have known exactly what was going on out there. And they don't do anything. They do not respond, you know, which is actually more troubling than anything else. And that the general in the National Guards, they would answer me. We were begging them and they weren't answering it. It was very interesting revealing testimony. They wouldn't answer me. So, you know, what do you make of that? It means that somebody was telling them not to answer. And the reason they've advanced so far is a funny reason. So, you know, to me, I draw the line to Trump or a Trump supporter in that committee and the Joint Chiefs makes you wonder about the military. Well, remember Donald Trump appointed new personnel to the Pentagon within the last month and a half of his presidency. They weren't there just because they were loyal followers of Trump. They weren't necessarily qualified for those positions but that's why he pointed them. So, you know, start there and work your way back. Yeah, I hope we find out. Amy Klobuchar is doing a good job. She's talking to the public about it. So, Stephanie, you know, if I feel hesitant into my own reading skills and I decide that I cannot read the English language very well although I've been elected to office to read bills all day and I tell you gee whiz, could you please have the clerk read me 700 pages before we ever get down to dealing with the Senate, to dealing with the COVID relief bill? What do you think about that? That is an amazing question, Jay. I think the same way I think about all of what the Congress has been involved in. It's just making more messes. This is the Trump, since two years old, this is the Trump gig. Make as much a mess of anything that you can. Create chaos, do damage as much as you can. So, that's what they're trying to do. They tried to do that on January the sixth because if we go one step forward, what about if they had said, you know, that Arizona and Georgia and their votes were not accepted? Then what? Okay, then we would have another mess, which is the happiness for Trump. There he is with this big pile of crazy. And then we go to the Supreme Court and it just goes on. So, now same thing, all of these people that, as you say, are still linked in with him are continuing his two year old gig that he has mastered over 73 years. So, I just think it's more of the same and they're mimicking him and it's to their, it's to their eternal disparagement, these people that are doing that. What about the rule that permits any senator to stand up and request a reading of the bill? Here in the year 2021, how do you feel about that? Should that be a rule of the best, highest deliberative body in the land? Or is that a phony baloney rule? It's clear as it can be that it's completely useless and just to interrupt. And I guess I'd rather hear green eggs and hamdons and shorter, but I think that, yeah, it is a phony baloney. So, why do they have it? Whatever would have been the original purpose of having that in there? And why don't they repeal it right now today? So, I just wanna point out too that this is gonna go on, one of the reasons I think, as we all know, we've heard so much about it, including from Mary Trump, but as you think about the Congress and its constitution now and their wins in the election, Trump is the only person that lost of all of these people. I may be wrong, I haven't gone over every single, I'm sure there were a couple that didn't make it, but this is the final blow that I know he can't absorb this, but he is the only one that lost and all the rest that they made gains in the House, they barely, they could have had the Senate, thank God it turned out as it did. I just wanna point that out because he's up against some really horrible reality that he can't go to, he'll never go to that. Well, it's like the pathological kid, he's unhappy about something, so he burns the house down. That's the truth. That's pathology. Cynthia, let's go to you. Let's talk about the filibuster rule. This also binds the Senate and ultimately binds legislation coming out of Congress. It's old, it's been around for a long time. Do you see it as a positive anyway? Is there any redeeming feature about it? What should happen with the filibuster rule? Well, I think there may be a redeeming feature to it as in it's really set in place to ensure bipartisan workings in Congress. Unfortunately, we are so far away from that that all it does right now is tie the hands of whoever it is that's not in. So it's like you can't get anything done and it will completely stop everything that Biden tries to do in its tracks right now. So I don't know why they haven't gotten rid of it yet. I'm still, I don't understand that one. I understand they couldn't get rid of it for the impeachment, has to be two thirds of the Senate, all that stuff, two thirds of the Senate present. But this one, I don't understand. It doesn't make any sense to me that we are still even talking about it. Why hasn't Chuck Schumer gotten rid of it already? Why is it even still there? You know that if the other things were switched on the other side, the Republicans would get rid of it in an heartbeat. They would change everything. They would move heaven and earth to get their way. So I believe that they have shown their true colors fully well and we cannot count on them when we got a handful of them that were bold enough to come out in the impeachment, but even they are starting to kind of walk back their talk about the impeachment even. So I don't trust Republicans to come around and I think that Biden is wrong to drag his feet on getting rid of that filibuster. He's got two years and he can get a lot done but not if he keeps going, well, let's see if they'll be nice. They're not gonna be nice. We already know who they are. They have shown their true colors and I think it's time to stop wasting time and get busy getting stuff done for this country without being in charge, the Republican. So Winston, it's really important that Biden after a non-transition transition should get going here. And yet in his main initiative, we got through the House okay with resistance from the Republicans, but now it's in the Senate and thank goodness that Schumer is the leader of the Senate, but my goodness, there's so many ways the Republicans can delay that and they are delaying it in every way possible. Even though what they're doing hurts, visibly hurts their own constituents, it's quite remarkable, but at the end of the day, it seems like every legislative initiative as opposed to proclamations that a president can issue, which is always reversible, it seems to me that Biden is not gonna be able to get through his initiatives, including the COVID, including the voting rights bill, including, you name it, gun control, and on and on and on, immigration, all his initial infrastructure, he's not gonna be able to get it through. Why? I like your opinion on this because the Republicans don't want him to succeed at anything. They're all winding up to criticize him as Trump is already doing and beat him in the 2022-2024 election. So this is a problem. Do you agree it's a problem? Do you, I like your thoughts about how broad and serious a problem it is and what we can do about it. Well, it is a problem, but I think we can expect normal partisan behavior, but as Cynthia was saying, we're beyond normal partisan times. This is tribalistic. These folks should be Americans first and say, what do we need for the country? Like you said, the constituents there, they're not serving their constituents, but their constituents are not connecting the pieces of the puzzle. I thought it was particularly sad that Mitch McConnell came out and said, there is zero question that Donald Trump was culpable for the January, it was the sixth, is that our date, insurrection, zero doubt. And then what, a week or two weeks ago, he was saying, but I'll support him for the next presidential run if he wins. That was beyond sad. It was devastating for America. When you have a man who has said, this man is actively trying to overthrow our system of government and indeed, his own life was at risk. If they were going after Mike Pence, would they not go after Mitch McConnell who had very well been on Donald Trump's target list for years, the front line has come out with something a couple of few weeks ago, I suggest people check it out. It was a synopsis of the last four years. It was just devastating on how the takeover of our government happened slowly, drip by drip. And they condensed each month into about 10 seconds, but for the astute or even casual observer, you can see the pattern over time. Look, Jay, this idea about getting rid of the filibuster, look, Cynthia says, it was there for a reason to have bipartisan support on bills and to make sure that people were on the same foot. That's assuming that people, that they're not going into this weird, cultish behavior, slavishly devoted to one man with no ideals or principles. If there was something there, if there was something in the something sandwich, that would make a difference. If they were fighting for some principles, but they're not. And it's just craven political power, that doesn't work. And so, however, I remember when Harry Reid got rid of something in the Senate, and I thought, oh, the Democrats will ruin the day when that comes back. But at this point, when we're faced with the existential threat of our nation existing, it may be time to get rid of the filibuster so that they can act meaningful voter reform, meaningful reform across the channels, because otherwise you're looking at things, there've been 250 bills put in to local state houses to restrict voting, when you have such gerrymandering, it's, the Republicans realize that they are very, that they will, they could very easily get back and take power again. I mean, they're one person away, basically, right now. And so, you know, as much as I would say, keep that safeguard in place, it's part of the rails there. Right now, the rails aren't, the system. But what I don't understand, that what a lot of Americans don't understand is why, after the Democrats made such a big thing about the two senators in Georgia, and why, you know, you got email every day asking for money, and why, you know, we worked so hard in order to achieve majorities in both houses of Congress, why the Democrats are having such a problem in moving anything ahead in Congress.  Why can't a party that has had majorities that does have majorities in both houses do anything? It's the cultist devotion to one man, and not the devotion, it's fear of him. And so, they're afraid, and instead of doing their jobs, they're worried about not having a job, and you know, these folks can go out and get jobs in the corporate world very easily. They've been senators. But they have a majority in both houses. Why can't they do anything? The extra 10 people who will vote on principle about something, and if you just said the Republicans decide on principle what was good and right for their constituents, you'd easily have these numbers crossing over. They're not gonna like everything in the bill. No one ever does, but it's about compromise. It's about relief to the states and the cities, and tens of millions of people facing hunger in this nation and being evicted in. There's so many, there's so many initiatives, just like it's not only the COVID bill, but it's a lot of other legislation. You did mention about Joe Biden and ruling by executive order. You know what? That's the way it's gotta be done. He has an enormous amount of power. We've been seeing the office of the executive over the last couple of decades become much more so over time. I don't think it's a really helpful thing. You know what, Fred Winston, that goes for the proposition that he has to do that, and the reason he has to do that is because Congress is dysfunctional. So he has to do it now, and even if it's temporary, if he needs to do that, and whatever he can do, he needs to do, because he's been empowered with that, just like Donald Trump was. It's too bad though, because it tells you that checks and balances and our system of government with three branches isn't working. So Tim, you know what's really important in Congress is the members, you know? Whether they're Democrat or Republican, they're elected by the people. And you know, that's gotta account for something, but we have such problems now because the Republicans have taken it on themselves to do gerrymandering, voter suppression, the most hideous things possible in the face of a democracy that relies on the popular vote. It relies on the popular vote for all these, you know, congressmen. And what is happening now, what began to happen around the same time as March 6th, is we've had Republicans in various states push through bills in the state capitals, suppressing votes, votes that affect the election of people who go to Congress. So they're pulling the wings out of Congress in the States. And, you know, a couple of days ago, the Supreme Court, and, you know, to her credit, our newest justice there voted in favor of voting rights. But, you know, how confident are you that the federal court system, which is populated largely by Trump appointees, and he appointed hundreds of them during his time, and the Supreme Court, which has, you know, three judges he appointed, that they will continue to uphold, you know, the right to vote. How confident are you? As confident as I didn't know how it was gonna go with the court cases of election rigging, you know, that Donald Trump and his supporters brought to the Supreme Court and to the federal courts and to the federal judge's credit and to the Supreme Court's credit, they came down on the side of the democracy. The fact that there wasn't evidence that you can't just yell fraud and not have an evidence for fraud. And so, when you look at these laws that are passing, I mean, it's pretty obvious that they're steep to do one thing and one thing only, and that's to discourage people from coming out to vote. I forget what state it was, but you had someone testify in a court hearing that if he allowed mail-in ballots, that would be advantageous for the Democrats and there's no way Republicans would win. You don't say that. That was in that Supreme Court argument a couple of days ago. I don't think you say that in front of a judge, you know, but he did. And so I think at some point you passed a giggle test on this and you ruled that, which is obvious. And so I do have confidence that the federal judges or the Supreme Court will come down on something that looks overtly a process to disenfranchise voters. A lot of litigation is gonna happen. A lot of litigation. I agree. These bills are gonna go into 50 states. Some of them will get passed. They'll have to be countervailing political interests that challenge those bills and have the funds and political will take them up to the Supreme Court. And then of course they'll be met with resistance, those suits. And so we'll have a battle, a whole national battle over voting. The national bill needs to be put out. You know, I think the House just passed it this morning.  Yeah, they could do it. They could do it. The Congress could do it. Yes. So let me ask the second half of my question to you. How confident are you that the Congress will do it? Well, it takes one vote and that's, you know, Joe Manchin needs to probably get in line. And so you have a 50-50 and then Kamala Harris, Vice President Harris will come in and break the tie. So yes, I am confident it could happen, depending on if anyone defects from the Democrat side. Yeah, it's scary. It's scary. Because Congress will be all the less functional if these bills start taking a toll in the 20-22 or 20-22. Executive orders won't win the day on this. No, no, they can't reach that far. Right. Stephanie, you know, we've been finding out that what was going on in the Department of Justice in the last days of the Trump administration was really unholy. And the cases were being buried, cases against Trump and his friends were being buried by lawyers who swore to uphold the Constitution in the Department of Justice, the senior law enforcement organization in the country. And we don't even know all of the incidents where this took place in the Department of Justice. It may take some time for us to find out. I think one of the most interesting ones is the story of Elaine Chao, who was the Secretary of Transportation and the wife of a friend, Mitch McConnell, and who is the daughter of a shipping magnate in China, building ships in China and the sister of another Chao, who runs a huge shipping organization. And that somehow got buried. It's now coming up again. The question is, can we clean this up? What will it take to clean this up? How do you clean it up? And Merritt Garland has not yet been confirmed. Yeah. We're still waiting on pins and needles over that. I'm astounded that Elaine Chao has been under the radar for all this time. It popped up a couple of two years ago about her ill doings. And finally, one senator from, was he from Oregon? The senator from Oregon insisted on an IG investigation of Elaine Chao because that rich father, I mean, this is a crazy rich Asian movie, kinda rich. And she was doing all kinds of things for him out of her office. And there were all kinds of missteps. He finally got IG to take it on and they just closed the case the other day, today or yesterday, that they didn't see anything that was at the level of criminal. So she kept all of that, all of that sidestepping and horsing around for him, for the dad and the family and trips to China and Mitch going along too, got all that under the radar. Don't forget Mitch got a $25 million birthday gift this past year. And so she's been, she sneaked out of her role early. I think one of the reasons she went out early is because she knew this IG investigation was going on. But the senators very disappointed that it came, that they've closed it and didn't find anything. But they did the investigation. So I'm grateful for that. But that has been very weird that they have been able to act that out and nobody paid any attention to it at all. My other concern relating to the most wonderful topic that you brought up, you and Tim talking about these judges. Yes, all during those cases, Tim mentioned where he was satisfied that they were doing their duty according to the principles of law and right, wrong and the other guiding principles. I want, I challenge that Washington Post and New York Times to start tracking these people, these judges.  They did all that right.  So who's checking just like the list of lies? Can we check on who's these judges are and how they're ruling? And so far it looks like the records clean, but what's gonna happen going forward? Well, you're right. We have to look at them, we have to watch them, we have to report on them. And if they do things that are shameful, we should call them out on it. We should shame them. There's no reason why we can't shame them. And even for incompetence, Jay, because lots of these people got pushed through, they had nothing, but I guess the 4.0 or so, or they were okay with the bar, the ABA and the other people that and those others that approved them. There are some don't feel that the bar did much of a job on those judges. Let me move to Cynthia. And one of the things we should discuss is the other bills. This is an extension of what I asked you before. There are so many initiatives. There were so many problems. There were so many things that have to be cleaned up and rolled back that happened in the Trump administration. Yes, it was chaos for four years. And things were being destroyed. The government was being destroyed in the four years. So here we are in the house, which has some clarity under Nancy Pelosi and in the Senate, which doesn't seem to have as much clarity. And they move so slowly and they get involved in these rules we talked about. And the Republicans have no interest in moving ahead anything that Biden comes up with and they have no agenda or platform themselves. Their only platform is to stop him. That's their platform. And win next time, you know, achieving power. And so the question is, can they do anything on all these other initiatives? I'm naming only a few, immigration, infrastructure, social security, gee whiz, what else? I know I'm healthcare in general. There's so many things that we need to attend to. Why? Because we're in the 21st century. Things move fast. Technology is another one. We haven't addressed it. And it seems to me, while they've, you know, fritter away the days they have today on dealing with what Trump did, they don't have time left. And the process is so cumbersome, they'll never get through these issues. How confident are you that this Congress will be able to do anything in the next two years? I wish I could say I was really confident, but unfortunately I'm not. I was extremely upset with Nancy Pelosi for putting into the COVID bill some rail structure for San Francisco. That made me mad. Cause I'm thinking, wait a minute.  Yet, where's the integrity in trying to put in a COVID bill some sort of rail project? So that alone right there made me go, that's a Democrat shooting themselves in the foot. And I see that over and over and that's why I don't have a lot of confidence. And I see them watch the Republicans. Now, Mitch McConnell got rid of that filibuster in five seconds flat. Didn't even take him two seconds. Everything that they were able to get away with doing was because of that. Now, why are we waiting? And I also see the Republicans playing the long game, right? Their state houses are full of Republicans now because they've been playing the long game. They've been looking at this from scratch out. And I feel like the Democrats are looking at it from up here back. And so it doesn't go forward as much as I would like it to. I would like to see Democrats having absolutely pristine integrity because after what the Republicans have done, the only way to call them out for it is to have that kind of integrity. And Nancy Pelosi in my mind just threw that out the window when she wanted her rail project. So that kind of stuff is what makes me go, I can we really count on these guys to do the right thing? All of them. So we know the Republicans probably won't can we count on the Democrats to do the right thing? So Manchin's getting a lot of heat for complaining about that part of the bill. I'm sorry, I think he was right to complain about it. I don't think it should have been in there. This is for COVID relief, not rail projects. And that's basically what he said. So I agree that we all, they need to all be on the same page. All the Democrats need to stay together and be in line together. But I think if one of them's not acting right, they need to be called out. I wanna see the Democrats. Okay, well, I don't know. There are those who disagree and I wonder how Winston feels about this. Wouldn't it be better Winston if the Democrats could get together on things? The Republicans are together pretty much on stage. The Democrats are not. They shoot themselves in the foot and now they're involved in the attacks on Cuomo and on the California governor and it's fragmented. The Democrats are fragmented. Now you can say, well, that's the way of democracy. That's what, what was his name? No, that's the nature of democracy that you have all this discussion and argument and whatnot. But where in crisis? Our government is in crisis. The future of our country is in crisis. Wouldn't it be better if the Democrats simply bury these little issues and got along to participate in what amounts to be a civil political war which is being waged right now? Wouldn't it be better if they got together? It's nice when you have one Uber commander who can tell his troops what to do and how to do it but we've seen that that doesn't really work out well in the end and we've got a few nation state examples of that and yeah. So no, and I agree with Cynthia. Like the Democrats have to realize, okay, if they're not gonna win back the hearts and minds of true believers on the other side but there's those people that are like, I don't like the shenanigans that are going on on either side and the problem is that when they turn on Fox News or it's on already because someone else turned it on in their house or one America, then they hear about these things and they hear about the pork that goes in and of course there's going to be pork going in because that's the way the system's been built for decades. It's just getting more extreme. It was similar to Joe Biden providing funding for abortions internationally. This is something that's going to enrage, inflame and make the right historical and say, why did he do that when Planned Parenthood or whoever else could step in and do that role when they know that that's something that's absolutely like a trigger. Gun control, do they need to go after the guns? Right now, I would say the guns are here to stay. There's, I don't know, a billion guns or something, half a billion guns in this country. That's not going anywhere. So they can stay away from the super red meat of the opposition and still get a whole bunch done by cleaning up their act internally, not marching to the beat of one drum but a drum of sanity and I don't want to say moderation, but one of thoughtfulness that's not just going to. Okay, all right. Why don't we let you make a last comment of one minute, okay? Winston? Oh, okay. You know what? For all we come on, this is our democracy. We get to complain about it. We get to criticize it. We get to condemn it. And that is a wonderful, amazing thing. And so God bless America if you believe in God or Buddha or nobody, if you're an atheist. But you know what? We got a lot going on right in this country, but it's up to us to step up and to say, I don't like it. I don't see it. I want to change something better and to work with others to get the best country that we have because otherwise we're going to get the country that we had for years. So I think that we're, I'm hopeful. We have a wonderful president who's just said every single American is going to be able to get a COVID shot by the end of May. This is an amazing thing that he's, look at his list of accomplishments and let's just kind of work to get behind him. Work to get behind him. How about that? Get behind the best that America can be and stop with the petty BS. Yes, there you go. All right, Cynthia, your minute. Okay, I won't take a whole minute. I'm going to read a quote by George Orwell, which I think is very provocative. So I'm going to describe this quote. The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history. That's it. And he who ignores his history or her history is doomed to repeat it. And there are some awful scenarios that we could repeat. Stephanie, what's your minute? Yeah, Joe Manchin, will you back off? What is going on with this Joe Manchin? He is the head of Appalachia, the largest white poverty community in the nation. Will he get on with serious business and quit interrupting Biden?  So would you stop the hoarsing around now, please? And let's go as many, many of this group has suggested. Okay, Tim, you know, we have not heard of a counter inauguration today and I take that as a good sign. Yes, I do too. Although we are going to be facing a tsunami here in Hawaii in a bit. So we'll see how that goes. Let me say it's not a problem. I know. But the question, the question I put to you is here we are, we have this kind of civil war going on, call it a political civil war. And we have Trump trying to recover, trying to reemerge, retake his presidency. And all of us, we talked about a month or two ago, we talked about the possibility that time would go by and the same sort of, you know, media cycle phenomenon that he has been using over his four years will happen to him. Other things, like for example, Biden's success in the vaccine, that is certainly worth thinking about and the media is playing that up. And the negative things like Cuomo that distracts from Trump's efforts to retake the presidency. So is that happening do you think is the mere passage of time in the news cycle, taking the power away from him? Do you think? I think you're gonna expect this no matter what administration. There's always something to distract from the efforts in which you're trying to put forth. Just sound corny here. President Biden will get his bills passed. He just needs to buy his time. Is that a play on words? Yes. Yes. And that's corny, I know, but that's the best I can give you right now. Okay, what a great discussion as usual. Tim Apachello, thank you so much, Stephanie Dalton, Cynthia Sinclair-Wilson, Winston-Weld's first class discussion. Really appreciate all these ideas and arguments and positions. Gee whiz, we do our job. We do investigation. Thank you so much and we'll see you next week. Aloha.