What's going on guys, welcome to a brand new movie review. We're talking Dan Fulgerman's new film, Life Itself. As I know who Dan Fulgerman is, he is very much known for writing a couple of notable scripts throughout Hollywood, but especially known for This Is Us. Now I'm not a big fan of the TV show, I've never actually watched it, heard great things about it, that's my thing, it's hard for me to watch TV, but Life Itself, I didn't see a trailer going in this movie, I heard who was in it, I was excited for it, I was preparing myself to get very emotional during this, since it's by the guy who made This Is Us, and I've heard that is a very emotional show, and I went into this movie with open expectations. The only thing I'd ever heard about this film is what my friend Griffin from Men Vs. Movie said, he said, hey, this film got me emotional, I enjoyed it. So I went in without expectation. And for certain, this movie did get me emotional.  There's gonna be no spoilers for this, so it might be a little bit hard to talk about the movie, so I'll do the best that I can, but it's very mixed for me, and that's probably the best way to explain the film. I guess I should tell you what the story is about. Well, the story is, well, what is the story? Oh, well, I guess the easiest way to explain it without spoiling it is it's about a couple different lives of people intertwining, that that's the best way you can explain it.  I guess we'll go off of what the synopsis says. So the synopsis for this film is, as a young New York couple goes from called romance to marriage and the birth of their first child, the unexpected twist of their journey create a dynamics that echo over continents and other lifetimes. Part of that is correct, and part of that is not. Let me just say, I watch the trailer after walking out of the film, because I like to not watch trailers if I have to before the film, and after I walk out of the film, I wanna see what they were marketing. This is one of those trailers where they were completely BSing you on what the film is actually about. The trailer gives maybe 1% of what the movie's about. The rest is kind of BS to be honest. Before I get really into my rant, I do wanna give my pros to this, because there are some notable pros in here. One, performances from everyone are fantastic. Oscar Isaac kills it. Olivia Wilde, sweet, charming, amazing. Daniel Benderis himself shows up here, he's great. Gives it one of probably the best performance throughout this whole entire film. Then there's some more notable stars in here as well, like Annette Benning, Olivia Cook, but they're never really given much substance to go about them, but really those three main cast members do such a fantastic job in this movie. Being honest, Dan Fogelman, I thought the film was shot perfectly. I thought the film, what it was going forward was shot great, and that Dan does have a good job of doing is getting these character interactions together. The way that character stories are told, the way that life plays itself out, and he's always really good at getting that out. And to any film that he's ever directed, written, or anything he's ever been a part of, he's really good at getting that, and life itself here is really good at getting you there. Emotional film for sure, that's for sure. And at times, yes, it does feel manipulated because it wants you to cry, it wants you to like the film, and sometimes it's trying a bit too hard. That's cool to see how all these different stories intertwine, but sometimes you gotta disbelieve some of that stuff. The biggest thing about the marketing for this movie is there's only one thing that's actually true, and it's on the poster, it's the tagline, it says, September, life will surprise you. Because let me tell you, this September, life did surprise me while watching Life Itself. Do you mean that? I mean, it's insane to me because my cons route from a different type of dynamics, because like I said, the film does feel a little bit manipulative when it's trying to get you upset.  The first half of this movie is excellent. I think amazing work done, with Oscar Isaac and Olivia Wilde doing such a fantastic job in this movie, I was shocked that by the back half of the movie, I started getting uninvested and I still appreciated these characters that it was telling the story of. But I found myself sitting there going, I know exactly how this is gonna go. It's gonna get very predictable right here and this and this and this are gonna start happening and then it's gonna intertwine here and that's how the film ends.  That's where it kinda got me disappointed. You know, the first half is so excellent. It's wacky and a bit, seriously, when the film opens up, the tone shifts so much throughout this movie and that's another thing that doesn't really work. At times it's funny, at times it's emotional, at times it's sad, at times it's really wacky with a narration of this film being opened up by Samuel L. Jackson. I was really confused at the part because I was sitting there and I was like, am I in the right movie? Did I go into the right theater? It played the right movie going on. I was watching Life Itself for a lot of my cons stem from in this movie. It seems like he took a lot of the ideas from This Is Us that were kinda throwing trash and put them on to one film. Every single one of the stories told in this movie would have worked in its own type of film. Different arcs and different character dynamics would have worked better on separate different stories instead of trying to push them on to want to intertwine them in a very smart way, I guess. That's what these films try to do. From trying it, it just never worked out. I do appreciate how it connected. It was cool to see it but it was very predictable in those routes. Life Itself, the film tells yourself life itself. It's, life is very unpredictable and this film is kinda predictable towards the end but unpredictable in the beginning which is why I really appreciated it. There's a bunch of different stories in here that really do work out on separate stories but when they're trying to be connected it just feels very unreliable. And I didn't like that. I love the first half this part but once it starts getting to the back half as much as I appreciated and there was some good performances and I liked where it was going. If predictable, it felt very manipulative at times and I just don't think this is very much a good film. Since it's a hard film to recommend but maybe it's just me that felt this way because I'm just a guy going to see movies and seeing life itself, in a sense I feel like this is made for a certain audience that wants to get emotional and feel that manipulative stuff but that's not me. I don't like films like that and maybe I might be in the minority on this. Maybe there's a ton of people who love this film and in a sense this could be a crowd pleaser in some senses even though it's kinda depressing so I don't know how it would please crowds but I mean maybe crowds will go on droves to like this film because they do like this as us. I mean the film did not work out for me so with all that said I'm gonna give life itself Gotta hear your guys thoughts down below in the comments. Tell me are you guys excited for this film are you not excited or are you a fan of this as us? Let's talk about it. And if you guys are looking forward to this film I know it's out in some markets but mostly it should be going everywhere on September 20th that weekend so make sure to look out for it. I know in Arizona it will be out here but guys if you guys are new here hit up sandwich on films right down there cause right down there you guys can get into advanced movie screens, check out some movie news and even some movie reviews but of course guys until next time thank you guys so much for all the support and stay classy.


It is July, which means a new theme, and this month's theme is Mastering Connection. Now we want to kick off this episode on making long-lasting connections, whether it's personal, professional, or romantic. And our hope is that by the end of the episode, you'll have the necessary knowledge to strengthen the bonds that you already have in your life, whether that's the connection with your significant other, friends, family, or coworkers. Next week, we're actually going to talk about the problems that can arise and how to prevent or repair them. Johnny, how are you feeling about this toolbox? I'm excited. Let's get to it. This is something that everyone can dive into. We all have different types of relationships that affect our lives in many different ways, and we want to make sure that we have the tools to develop all of them to where we want them to be, to get the most out of them, and to be able to give the most to them. And I know over the last 16 months, we've really focused on building new relationships, new habits, adding to our lives. This month, we really want to focus on the relationships that we have and how to deepen them and how to communicate more effectively. And obviously, this is not a skill that we are taught in school. You know, I was doing a podcast interview this morning, and he was asking me about my experience learning about this stuff, and unfortunately, there are no classes around mastering connection in school that I encountered. What about you? Absolutely not. In fact, one of the letters and questions that we get more than anything is, why isn't this stuff taught in schools, and I don't have an answer for that. I don't know why, but that's why we have a job, and that's why we get to have fun discussing this stuff on a weekly basis. And because it is so essential to your life, I've become obsessed with these inner workings, and obviously, a lot of you have as well. And I want to be honest, we're going to get vulnerable ourselves here, because we've struggled with these areas, and sometimes I'm continuing to struggle in these areas, and we're going to talk about some specific methods of communication that we need to be aware of. Some of us may be doing it, some of us may be receiving it, but a lot of us are unaware of these levels of communication. Well, there was a word you just used I wanted to bring up first. You know, this idea of mastery, we hear it all the time, but I think people look at it in the wrong context, because we're talking about life skills that are constantly going to be sharpened, and you're going to get better. I don't think that you ever mastered, I mean, you never really mastered any of these skills. Self-development is something that you master. The mastery is over oneself to be able to develop these tools, and if you look at it, how many people do we know are like, oh, well, I'm going to get to that as soon as I read this next book, or as soon as I master this new technique, then I'm going to... You don't master anything. The mastery is in understanding it in yourself so that you can get to work on these things. There is no master, and that's where I think there's some of the issues coming, because people think of it as something like either I've mastered it or I haven't, but there's no in between. No. All there is is in between. And we've had Kobe on the show. Kobe has missed some shots. He's lost some championships. Talked a little bit about that, and you could argue he's mastered basketball, but it is a process, and that's what we're talking about here, effectively communicating with the people that matter in our lives. And as we know, we haven't learned it in school. Some of us have learned it through experience. Some of us had great role models that we're also going to touch on a little bit later, but let's face it, your relationships equal life satisfaction and quality. And we've talked about this a ton on the show. Now, in this toolbox, we want to lay the groundwork for connection. We talked about dating at length in May. We've talked about identifying toxic relationships in March. So we now have great people in our lives. We have relationships that we want to develop and connect on a deeper level. And some of us might feel like a character on Game of Thrones here going, what the hell happened in season eight? Oftentimes we've heard this over and over again. I'm a great listener, but my partner, my friend is yelling at me saying, you don't listen to my communication. And we're going to talk about why that is happening because a lot of us are giving value, attention, acceptance, appreciation in different ways. And just because we're giving value to someone in one way doesn't necessarily that they're going to reciprocate in the same way. What we're talking about is the love languages, the five ways that you can speak them, and we're going to get to that after the break. But beforehand, we want to make sure that we have some things set up when it comes to relationships and the expectations that we go into them with. And a lot of us put heavy expectations on the other person. Well, you know, if you have high expectations for yourself, you're going to put a high expectations on others. However, what we're talking about here is the right expectations. And what we mean by that is some people sort of look to others to complete them, whether it's intimate or whether it's their social circle. We hear it all the time of people looking for other people to bring them into different social circles or to be accepted. And if you haven't accepted yourself, how do you expect others to? And then to put these expectations of other people to open up their worlds to you. That's certainly setting yourself up for failure and a lot of heartbreak. Now, here's a little thought experiment for those of us who are feeling incomplete. As we said, coming into a relationship with the idea that your partner's going to complete you, your friend's going to complete you, not a winning strategy. And it is counterintuitive because on the surface level, that approach seems to make sense, right?  You want someone to help make you a better person. But listen, just because they have a social life, they have activities they want and they have expectations doesn't mean that there's going to be a direct match. And all of a sudden, ooh, I'm a perfect whole human being. So let's talk about this little thought experiment. Indulge us here for a moment. Let's say the tables are turned and your friend, your significant other, your spouse has no social life, no friends. They need you to introduce them to all of your friends to build out that part of themselves. Everything you love doing, you now need to do with your partner, because all of a sudden they want to do it too, from Spanish to rock climbing to mountain biking, whatever the case may be. And that's really the only way to get that person out of the house with you. And you're the one who needs to buy all the ingredients and supervise everything from cooking to what is the wine we're picking out at dinner. How are you going to feel with that burden and that weight on your shoulders? I don't know how many times you just saw me roll my eyes in the thoughts of having. I hope our listeners are tuning in on our YouTube channel, The Art of Charm TV, to see your eye roll because I felt it from across the table. Yeah, and this is difficult because you're now expecting the other person to bring all the value into your life and allow you to feel happy because of the missing pieces that have eluded you. And this is the thing that we were talking about this when we were prepping this, which is, you know, I think it's a fairy tale idea that this other person is supposed to complete you. And I think we've all have been stuck in that idea at one point or another. In fact, I personally know I have. And let's let's talk about that. So in my 20s, I just remember, you know, certainly being at my worst in my 20s. And what I mean by that is a typical 20 something knucklehead, rock and roll kid, right? And and it was always, you know, I would hear things like, you know, when you're going to get it together or all the all kind of stuff like that. And I was like, what are you talking about? I got it together. Well, yeah. And like, I need somebody to come in here and straighten me out. Yeah, I just got to join this band. And then next thing, you know, I'm off to the races. Well, for me, it was always the I will straighten up when I have a girlfriend that straightens me up. Ah, you the fixer. Yeah. And so and in the in the thing about that. And I think that certainly has played a role later in my life when I became the fixer. However, let's wait on that. But because I was waiting for somebody to come in and fix me or give me a reason why I should straighten up my act, which was, well, if you're going to bring in then where you're bringing in. So the idea here is that you are supposed to complete yourself, be the best person yourself so you can attract the best person for yourself. If I'm going to be a complete mess or wait for the person to come fix me, the only people that I'm going to be bringing in are other complete disasters. So now we have two people who are complete disasters looking to complete each other. And the only thing that can come out of that is insanity, chaos and drama. And when I think back about that in my and some of those relationships and we're going to talk about some of the languages that was used in them they were exactly what I just said they were.  The girl trying to fix me. Doting on you, chasing you around. Yeah, but but she has her own issues because that's what I had brought to the table. Yeah, to the table. And this is where, of course, self development comes in. Because as we talked about last month, at some point you say to yourself, enough is enough time to make changes. And I grew out of that idea. Possibly because of one too many failed relationships. It was like, all right, perhaps the issue is my mindset is going into this thing. Right. And so. And there was a lot to probably to that moment, but that was certainly one of them. And of course, looking back, it's like there was a lot of of insanity that didn't need to be there. But, you know, you put two incomplete people together who are now a co dependent on each other to making each other feel whole. And then here's the best part. When you don't feel whole and you're looking at your significant other like, well, you know, I'm still here, half empty. What's going on? So now the resentment is going to your partner's way. And they're like, what did I do?  Yeah. It sounds like a puppy dog. Yeah. Following you around everywhere, can't make a decision for themselves, needs you for everything in their life. And like, hey, pups, I love you, but sometimes I need a break from you too. Could you imagine that in a partner or a friend? So we can't go into any relationship looking to be completed. If we're not whole and we're just going to put it out there, that's who we're going to bring in. And of course, this is going to add to it.  And now what are you bringing in? You're attracting the best people that you can, who if you've done a good job working on yourself and making yourself whole and being the high value person that you can be. Now you're bringing in other high value people. So when problems and issues do arise and they will, they are relationships that you're able to work through them. You're able to be vulnerable, have a conversation and address these at these issues as adults. Rather than he said, she said, you did this, I did that. Then we've all been in those relationships. And how many people listening to this have friends, maybe on social media that who seem to perpetually be in these relationships for decades, because these behaviors are not going to change. Unless you've consciously decided to to go through the efforts of changing yourself, these things are going to continue happening. And let's face it, the problems you brought into that relationship. These are replicated of behaviors that you have learned from the environment in which you grew up in. So there is a there is a chain here how this is where this is coming from and where it's going. And if you don't fix it, guess what? And then your children are going to be doing it. It's a vicious cycle. And it reminds me, we were at Scout Camp last week. That's how puppies injured his paw. And what did we learn? We learned that in communication, there's a sender. Yes, there's a message and there's a receiver. And as we start to talk about these love languages from Gary Chapman, I want you, as you're listening, to not just think about the receiver of the message, but think about the sender of the message. Look at your communication as much as you're looking at your friends, partners, coworkers, communication. And you will start to see the full picture that we're talking about here. Now, let's talk about love languages for a bit. I had a good buddy of mine, Kenny introduced me to this concept. Man, I guess five or six years ago, he went through this with his now wife, trying to understand how to communicate better and deepen their relationship. As Kenny was explaining to me love languages and understanding his partner's love language and his own, it really got me thinking about my past relationships and the struggles that I've had communicating with friends and partners. And it's funny sitting there and thinking retrospectively of all the conversations I've had around, you're not hearing me, you're not listening. And me as the receiver, being like, of course, I'm listening. Of course, I'm paying attention. I like to think I'm a great listener, not understanding the nuance that Gary Chapman broke down in these five love languages. Yeah. And I love this. And certainly one of the reasons I love doing this show is because of the research that I have to do that ties into my favorite obsession, which is self development and human behavior and communication. And this book has been on my list for, I don't know how many years. However, the title had always, I just managed to push it away. It's called the Love Languages by Gary Chapman. And I'm just like, I don't need to read this mushy love language book. It's it was always been in the list, but it always got pushed off by something that was more sexier and then this kind of stuff for me. And the, but as getting into it and finally reading it, the thing that I had learned is it may be titled the Love Languages. And that title may be a bit off because the way I see this is the long, the love languages, then the five that we're going to discuss are how you speak to giving value, attention, approval and acceptance, which is our, our cool principle, our core principle here at the art of charm and how you deliver attention, approval and acceptance and not just to your intimate partner, but everyone around you. And you will be doing that five different ways. And this is really exciting because one, if you can understand the one, the language that that you speak in and what you need, then you are going to be a much happier person. But also when you're able to recognize how others, how others use these languages, then you are better equipped to give them the attention of value and acceptance they need. And you may have thought from listening to show, and this is to add on to what you were saying is if you listen to show, you know about emotional bids, you know about attention, approval, acceptance and you know about giving value and being a high value person. And you may have given your attempts, your best attempts in some of these relationships and possibly have been a bit perplexed to why it didn't seem to work or didn't go anywhere. Well, slighted, frustrated, felt you were showing up and wasn't receiving what you would hope from your friend, your partner, your lover. Absolutely. And the reason being is because though you're giving the the value out that you know they so well needed and deserved, you gave it to them in the wrong language. And so this is wonderfully written book. And all the science, there's some science there behind it. And I certainly know when I read it, a lot of light bulbs went off for myself as well. So I'm excited to get into it. Well, good news. Dr. Gary Chapman wrote this book in 1992. Yep. The five love languages. It's a wildly successful bestseller. And he's gone on to write love languages in business. Love languages in friendship. And then thinking about the title, I really think it's trust that we're talking about here. OK, so I think not to be dissuaded or uninterested because we're saying the word love for those of you who are in Johnny's camp and your thoughts of feelings on that. But understanding and when Kenny shared this with me and shared his love languages, I was like, oh, now I see it even in our communication as friends. It really got me thinking about myself and the way that I show up for the people in my life. So the first one in his book is words of affirmation. That's when you primarily use words to express your love and affirm the other person. And for a lot of us, OK, AJ, Johnny, that makes sense. Who wouldn't use their words? Yes. But this is one of five languages. And we all rate those languages in order of importance differently. For some of us, it is the words. I love you. I trust you. You're my best friend that we need to hear to validate to allow us to feel valued by the other person. I can say that after I had taken the Gary Chapman's quiz, this is this is tied at number one. And I will point out my other one as well. I certainly know how much encouraging, supportive, affirmative and anything that builds me up. It's a fact. In fact, it's because it's the way I like to be treated. I tend to use that as my language to others first and foremost as well. Puppers and I are nodding our heads in agreement here with you. And for me, this is not as big of one. You know, growing up, my family and I ended every conversation with I love you. And it's a meaningful phrase. Don't get me wrong. But when you're using it in greetings and everything, it wasn't as important to me to hear that from partners, from friends. Now, the second love language, this one happens to be high on my list and it's tied for number one. And this is acts of service. I can agree with that. People that speak this love language will use actions to show their love and affection. That might be cooking dinner, doing the grocery shopping or even taking out the trash, pitching it on a project, helping you with some slides, practicing a job interview, showing up for your best friend with a meal when they're sick. These acts of service, supporting someone through actions are another way that we give our partners, our friends, our coworkers value. And I just want to say as we're going through these and I don't know if it's I just want to make sure it's stated that none of these rank higher than the other and accept to you because certain ones speak louder and you need more. And for the other people, it will be it'll be a different one. And what's great about this is, well, you know what, let's talk about it. Because, you know, this this has been a big one for me and I've actually had arguments in relationship for those of you who've been in relationships with me or are currently in relationships with me. You were probably nodding your head in the car listening that I love saying actions speak louder than words. I say that incessantly with people that I'm in relationships with. I'm saying look at my behaviors. I may not always communicate effectively verbally, but look at my actions because that's where I am affirming you. That is where I am showing you love and trust. And this has has frustrated my significant others, my friends as to why I am not so big on words of affirmation. Yeah. And a lot of times I've realized that in relationships, I've struggled. Their love language has been around words of affirmation. So acts of service for me came third. And so I'm able to recognize it. I'm able to see in others. And when acts of service are done for me, I am very appreciative and they're acknowledged. Now, where did this come from? Right? We're talking about this being imprinted in our childhood. I remember distinctly my dad being over the moon, happy with me when I just did things around the house without him having to ask for it. Knowing that he's working hard, blue collar guy, oftentimes coming home from work exhausted and understanding that the most important thing in his life was to come home to a clean, tidy house. Now, were you given words of affirmation and allowed you to feel good because of those acts of service? As I said, words of affirmation were used constantly. So it just lost value to me. I did not. Like I remember I've had arguments with ex-girlfriends that I would say I love you too fast. And I was always perplexed. Yeah. Because it was just something that my family and I use and continue to use. And every phone call with it that to me, yes, I love you. I'm saying I love you. And for some people, those words are so powerful and they have to happen at a certain point in the relationship that it led to fights, arguments, frustrations with me. How could you say you love me? We haven't even been together that long. This is just something my family and I use so much that it almost lost a little bit of meaning. Gotcha. Unfortunately, acts of service had a lot of meaning in our household, making my dad's life easier, being thoughtful and empathetic to his plights and struggles working to support me and my sister. You know, the garbage went out without him having to ask, making sure I tidied up the kitchen after cooking a messy dinner. All these little things to him led to pats on the head, hugs, affection towards me. I can say to go along with that, seeing how for me, words of affirmation were were tied at number one. There was tied with quality time, but we'll get to that in a bit. But my house wasn't wasn't a very expressive household. My my mom would express herself much, but not my dad. My dad found other ways to express himself because he was a musician. He was an artist. So and he was basically usually pissed off from the factory. So and grumbling a lot.  Like, and so I had learned to want about complaining that I did not to do that. And I would have to find other ways to express myself. And because my dad did it through art and music and things like that. Of course, I had taken to those as well. And not only that, you could say that there's other ways that I express myself through dress, I express myself through music, I express myself. And I'm I tend to be in a very expressive person, regardless. And practically everything I do, I can attest to that. So so of course, right, that one is why mine's up top. So now we have my top one and your top one. So the next one is the one for me was on the bottom. And for me on the top, this is, this is funny. Now, this was the one that when you mentioned it, I, I knew about the access service that was that being for you. I was like, that's, that's AJ now receiving gifts. This is one that I didn't think about because I never think about it. It's the one that annoys me in fact. So when, and because of that, that you brought that up, I was like, I had to go back to our friendship. I was like, totally makes sense. So why don't you go ahead and set it up? Receiving gifts, receiving gifts that doesn't have to be a sports car, a watch, a luxury cruise. In fact, it doesn't even have to cost any money at all.  Yeah, it's it's that people are speaking this language when they receive a gift, even if that gift is just a run through the park or a hike or an experience together. The gift doesn't have to have a monetary value, but it's the thoughtfulness behind that expression. And again, for me growing up, me and my sister, it was little gifts for my dad, little things, tokens of gratitude, appreciation, whether it was, Hey, I thought of you at the grocery store and I picked up your favorite snack, or whether it was, Hey, I got you a Detroit Tigers baseball cap from the bar, even freebies, right? Things that are like, Oh, a schedule from the post office for the Tigers upcoming season. These little gifts for me were signs from my dad that he's thinking about me, he loves me and cares about me. So of course, going into relationships, you know, and I've had this issue with friends where I'll give a birthday gift, right? Bottle of booze, a little gift here, a little gift there. And my birthday comes around and nothing. And I'm like, what in the hell, man? And I've realized now that again, it's not just about my wants and needs and my communication style. It's understanding. Well, obviously, you're going to always think about the one that you need the most, right? That's what comes naturally. Yeah. So for me, this is a big one. Now, for you, we laughed about this in the prep. Yeah, this is, this causes grief. So this was, yeah, because so because it was the last one on my list, it got so if you guys don't know what your your love language is, you should take the quiz. You can find it on. We'll link it up in the show notes. Check it out. The other charm. So this one, I had, I had, I got a one on it and I was laughing.  Like, and I'm like, why? Like, it just doesn't ring with me. And I know that, and I have certainly dated girls who gift giving was their thing. And to me, it was an, an, an annoyance. I was like, why are you giving? Like I could, I understood the thought behind it. But, but for me, I was like, why would you do that? I just couldn't figure it out. And then now you're giving me this. So I'm just going to lose it. Great. Like, and so it just, it never held much to me other than, okay, I know that you put some thought into that and you were thinking of me, but you don't have to do that. And getting the gift was, as I said, it was this annoyance thing. And I would just put it there and like, okay, I put it on my shelf. Is that what you wanted me to do with it? Like, not even like, you know, I was, it was so bizarre to me. And then of course, the, the idea is because of the annoyance that it gives me, you can imagine things like Christmas for me, where I'm just like, you got to be kidding me. And this is the gift giving holiday. And I still can't get behind it because I'm like, this whole thing is annoying. And it has, of course, the, the, the thoughts and the appreciation behind it is there. It just doesn't, it doesn't vibe. It doesn't vibe as much with you. And that's why we wanted to delve into this.  Again, we were talking about relationships that matter in our life, the people that we're trying to connect on a deeper level with. And for some of them, these little tokens of the shot glass from Tulum and the little recipe book from Europe matters a lot to people if this is their love language. Now, number four, I know is huge for Amy. Yeah, this is quality time. Yeah, I like quality time. Now, what people value more than gifts, words or actions is just plain spending some dedicated quality time with the other person, phone on silent airplane, present, engaged, only focusing on the time spent with that person. And I was hanging out with my buddy Till yesterday and we had a great time. We had quality time together. We're looking at our phones, any of that stuff. And at the end of it, he was like, we can do this more. And I'm like, I see now. So as we're going through this, I want you as a listener to think about the people in your life, your really good friends, your significant other, your parents, your family and your coworkers and how are they expressing these things? How are they receiving your communication in these ways? I think this is also something to just play. Well, obviously this plays into EQ and for some of us, we can easily read these from other people. You see how they're interacting with you and you reciprocate in the same manner because obviously if they're going through the efforts in that manner, that's in the manner in which they want to be treated, treat others how you want to be treated. And however, we're losing these EQ skills to sticking our face into a screen all day. And also, I noticed that quality time was high on mine and I totally understood. My question is, I wonder how the quality time rise so high and is it due to the fact that that is becoming rare and rare as we move forward with all the technology that's happening? I think absolutely everyone is struggling with this, being fully present. We've talked on the show about playing a game where you turn your phone on silent, put it in the middle of the table, first one to grab it, has to buy dinner or drinks. People are aware of this now and I think quality time to your point is becoming more and more valuable as a way of expressing. And we're going to talk next week again even more about the non-romantic relationships. So AJ, obviously you've been in a relationship for quite some time now, but I know that there is some other times when you're having some business meetings and stuff, but I don't know if you're looking at quality time the way I am, certainly for somebody who's still out there dating. If I go on a date and they pull out their phone in the middle of the date, that is so rude right now. And that's how I know that quality time is going up and how I'm viewing it. We had this date planned and now we're hanging out and you just picked up your phone and looked at it in the middle of this. Same in business meetings. I remember you having to wear sunglasses because you're getting frustrated with some members on the team who in the middle of meetings are answering emails, hopping on slack and totally engrossed in something else. Yeah. And it's like, hey, we're having a meeting here. This is quality time for us to get done what we need to get done. And let's be honest. You're not there if you're answering email. If you're texting your friend back and having a giggle in the middle of the meeting, you are not physically present. And you may think that you're being responsible by showing up. But showing up is half of it. Mentally and emotionally being present is just as important as being physically present back in the day when I was doing a job that I hated. Like, you know, as a kid, 21 years old, I was I was doing construction, building, framing houses with 12, 12 picture. It was a job that I had no business being. I had no idea what I was doing there. And my job at the time, at least what I thought it was, was to get from whistle to whistle without getting yelled at. The actual job was to build houses, but I didn't know how to build a house. So the job to me was getting from whistle to whistle without getting yelled at. And I remember thinking, and because I was 21, I just moved into a new town. This was in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. I'd go out partying. It was a college town, plenty of girls. And I'd show up to work the next day, completely hung over, possibly even still drunk and you know, endangering everyone's lives. And I'm like, I'm responsible. See, I'm at work. I'm here. There's nothing responsible about that at all. I'm just I'm thinking about the listeners who are living in the houses that you built right now, looking up and then going, what yeah, just happened. Well, there was a there was a the saying that we would use if it kind of looked kind of funky was, I can't see it from my house. Have you own real estate in North Carolina? I feel a little trouble. Hillary governor's club. Now, the fifth love language is physical touch. Yes, we know the importance that touch builds trust. Fires oxytocin allows us to feel intimate with one another. And of course, we want it to be appropriate to the situation. But this is an important love language for some for me. Honestly, I don't like massages. I'm not a big fan. I don't like public displays of affection. Sorry, Amy, and all of my exes. Was this was this on the scale? Was this at the bottom one for you? Oh, yeah. Yeah, big time. So mine, mine was, as I said, was receiving gifts. This was fourth. You know, I don't get me wrong. I love intimacy in the bedroom and at home. But I'm not a touchy person. If you were to gift me a massage, I would be torn because the gift I'm like my love language touch me. No, no strangers touch me. Leave me alone. Yeah, you know, it's so funny. I could. So I had to go to that experiment. What if I got the massage so comparatively is the massage or a picture? Right? I would want the I don't need her of them. I'm like, I'm still they're both kind of annoying, but I would the picture. I'm like, that's going to sit on the counter for forever. Now, why is this important? Obviously, we're guessing as you listen, you probably recognize one or two of these things that really matter to you more than the others. And according to Chapman, everyone has a primary and a secondary love language. But while it's helpful to know your own preference, it's even more important to know the preference of your partner, your friend, your coworker, so you can communicate more effectively that value, that appreciation that we're talking about. Yeah, you know, once again, we talk about adding value, giving people attention, approval and acceptance to add value to the world around us. And now you have five different ways to receive and deliver that value. And what's great about this is playing the game of what is everyone's language around me and then feeding them exactly what they want and watching what happens after a week, after two weeks, emotional intelligence and the charm that we've been talking about the last 12 years. Now, we've covered some romantic examples next week. We're going to dive into the nonromantic relationships even further. But let's talk about how to do this. And this is all about open conversations. When you are trying to discern what your friend, partners, coworkers, love language is we got to be open and vulnerable with each other. So how do we do that? And we know with friends and coworkers, it's not so easy, but it's worth it because when you're not having effective communication around trust, value, appreciation of the other person, well, we can see the communication breakdowns leading to some problems. Well, as as Gary Chapman, he talks about that each of us have a an emotional tank. And that tank needs to be filled with love. And if we are not, if our tank is on empty, we're going to look elsewhere in order to get that filled because as we talked about in many other episodes here, when that is filled, you feel connected, you feel wanted, you feel appreciated, you feel safe. When you when that is empty, you don't feel safe, you feel scared. And and of course, at that point, you're not going to be filled, you're not going to feel very good about yourself and where you are and the people around you. Now, before we get into open conversations, let's talk about some simple ways that we can start paying closer attention to these behaviors. The easiest way is to look for how people around you behave when you've done something amazing that you're proud of. Are they touching you? Are they giving you a gift? Are they celebrating you with words of affirmation? These are the little signals that we need to be paying closer attention to and as we've obviously covered before, Dr. Gottman's research around emotional bids, understanding people's ways and methods for trying to connect with us. For those of you haven't been listening, you know it's important for us to examine the science behind the concepts we teach. That is what this show is all about. And Chapman's love languages are clearly written outside of the realm of scientific literature. So we did some research about their scientific validity and we found an interesting paper by Nicole Egbert and Denise Polk that was published in 2006. They write, all of the claims bear a striking resemblance to literature about relational maintenance. Relational maintenance refers to behaviors enacted to preserve desired relational features. The use of these behaviors has been connected with equity, love, satisfaction and commitment. As I was saying, trust, right? Several typologies of maintenance behaviors exist. And many of these items parallel what Chapman in 1992 calls love languages. So don't let the woo woo love languages. I know my scientists listening, my analytical guys who are like, and gals, wait, what love language? Come on, AJ, Johnny, I thought you guys are into science. The science is in what we're talking about. These examples, science is buried out are how we equate love, satisfaction and commitment and trust with someone else. Now, Dr. Gottman's concept of emotional bids we've covered. If you haven't listened, go back. Emotional bids episodes will link them up in the show notes as well because they are important. And some of these emotional bids that your partners make will be their primary love language. Now just think about the the efficient and powerful conversation skills that you are going to pick up by listening to those two episodes, including this one and the emotional bids. How many people have written us telling us that their communication had completely changed and how they view communication changed after listening to the emotional bids and now we've just added Gary Chapman's love language. And now we're rocking. Now we're cooking with gas as AJ likes to say. Well, we got to have open conversations. How we express ourself comes down to the crux of what we're talking about here. And we know that we're not here to find ourselves completed by our partner, but it doesn't mean that you aren't important in getting your wants and needs met either. And here comes the scary part. You need to open up and let the other person know as you listen to this and you identified your primary, your secondary love language, sharing it with others so that they can communicate more effectively with you is an important part of this. So a lovely thought experiment. Think about the person you spend a lot of time with your partner, your coworker you share an office with or maybe even your roommate. How much easier would life be if you knew what they want, what they struggle with and what makes them happy? How much easier that make your life? Think about that. Well, you can't force them to do that. But as we've said before, you can lead from the seat you're in. You can lead by example. And the truth is the way we communicate is something that we learn during our upbringing as we shared stories with you about our family, our other relationships and how it's impacted us. And this is not about persuading or manipulating. This is about understanding how to more effectively communicate with the people that matter. How many I see it all the time. Well, we get a lot of questions. How do I get my partner to do this? How do we get my partner to do this? How do I get my coworker to do this? Can't make anyone do anything. And, you know, when I'm reading Gary Chapman's book, he says, love is about requests. It's not about demands. And I love that. It's perfect, right? And how do you make those requests? First and foremost, you do the very things that you want to be seen from other people. You treat people how you want to be treated. That's that's a golden rule. It certainly is. And that's the request.  I would appreciate if you could do it in this way, which would allow me to feel much better. Right? Now you're making that request. And how are you going to to affirm that request? Well, by using one of the love languages, there's two mindsets we need to focus on here when we're having open conversations to try to connect on these love languages. And the first is your views matter. You're coming to the table and your perspective matters. Some of us dismiss our perspective, especially if we're codependent and we just focus on our partner's perspective and we allow it to beat ourselves up.  And these views and your love language matters and sharing them with your partner, your friend, your coworkers can help make communication more impactful, effective and allow you to feel safe, loved, trusted in those relationships. Being able to have open conversations is what's necessary to form a strong connection with someone. And if you don't share what's important, well, you've taken yourself out of that relationship. So that's the first mindset. This this mindset of entitlement, you can allow yourself to be authentic. That's what mastering connections is all about. Now, we're not talking about the millennial entitlement. I know entitlement right now, it's a bad rap. And it's used to to smear millennials. But you are entitled to expressing your views and your love language to your partner, your friend, the people that matter. That's what a relationship's about. Yeah.  And why? Why would you fear that? Did you attract somebody who's wrong for you? Did you attract them on false pretenses? That's very well, right? If you if you had lied about who you are through your behaviors and and just flat out lying to attract somebody in, well, how are you going to deepen the connection when you have to be honest about what it is that you need and want out of this relationship? And I know that we've gone through over the last 12 years, a lot of advice about becoming someone who's fake, changing yourself, being a chameleon to persuade and manipulate and try to get your way. That's not at all what we're talking about here. We're talking about being open and clear about your views on communication and your love languages. The second mindset is it's not easy and it never gets easy. That's why it's called vulnerability. Yes, being authentic and open in conversations is not your comfort zone. Understand that recognize that and trust the process. Because these conversations involve vulnerability, assertiveness and setting boundaries. All three of those things can be very scary, but they're worth it. And guess what? If you wait until you're just comfortable with all this, well, you're putting the cart before the horse. Yeah, one of the things about vulnerability, and this goes with a lot of Brene Brown's research. If you express yourself, there's two parts of that. One, you being open about whatever emotions or whatever you're trying to express. And the second part is the person who's receiving it. We were just talking about the sender, the message and the receiver. So if you are going to express yourself to 100 people randomly, then you can imagine that a lot of there's going to be people out of that 100 who are not digging what you're putting down. And because of that, you're going to have a gut reaction to that to where may cause you to close up because of the negative feedback that you had gotten from people you don't didn't really care about. Strangers. And if you've done that, and I know as an expressive person, as a child, I had gotten a lot of of pushback because I was just always being very expressive. And because of that, I there had been times where I had found myself quieting up, putting myself in a shell, only to realize later that that now has gotten me in trouble because I'm not able to get the things that I want. I feel that I'm playing second fiddle. I'm now I'm being quiet. And of course, because that's I was not able then because of that to create the life that I wanted for myself. And in order to do that, I had to learn to get comfortable with being vulnerable again. And what I had learned.  And that is very supportive and comforting.  And I'll be honest, this is something that I've struggled with and I continue to struggle with opening up and being vulnerable. And it's scary for me to and doing the research for the show and thinking about the mindsets and and having an opportunity to reflect on past relationships, like I know that I haven't fully showed up for friends, family and my partners, my significant others because of my upbringing and my lack of vulnerability going into, you know, being in a foster home being separated from my dad at a very young age and separated from my sister and being in an environment where when I expressed my wants and needs was basically told, shut the hell up. This is what you get, right? And a foster experience can be an amazing experience. Oftentimes it's a very difficult experience. And that really imprinted on me. And it's something that I've continued to struggle with. But it's okay. It's okay to struggle with this too. You know, I was talking about this on the podcast interview earlier today, that a lot of times, whether it's listeners or our boot camp participants or our coaching clients, you know, they often look at us as, OK, well, these guys know the science, these guys explain the stuff. They've mastered it. Right. Going back to your point earlier. Yeah. It's a process for me still. Yeah. And I would love to get more vulnerable. And even this episode is a little bit more vulnerable than I've probably been in the last year. And we're still working on it. But I understand the value behind it. And it's important to lead by example, because then that allows the other person in the relationship to get more vulnerable. Yeah. And to to have an understanding about these things is to be able to to work through them. And once again, it comes back to that case that we made earlier about this communication. It's not about mastering it. It's about being open to get better. The mastery is that you're willing to own your issues and to want to work to work better. Next week, we're going to talk about boundaries and asserting yourself. I know we lightly touch on it. We're going to be digging deep into that. Here's our challenge for you this week. Sit down and think about your own primary language of affection or trust. Here are the five love languages that Dr. Chapman found once more. Words of affirmation, acts of service, receiving gifts, quality time and physical touch. But that's the first part. Yep. Then we want you to sit down with your significant other, your bestie, your roommate, and ask them about his or hers. Have that open conversation. Be a little vulnerable. Share the podcast. I learned this about myself. I wanted to share it with you. I love to learn more about you, right? Lead by example, open up first, step into that dark room, be vulnerable first and you'll be surprised at what you hear back. Some of the behaviors that you've been encountering might make a lot more sense. Some of the miscommunication and frustration you're feeling now might actually be explained to you by this conversation. Let us know how it goes. We want to hear from you. What is your love language or love languages? Some people have more than one. Some of you listening might have been like, Oh, yeah, it's going to be tough for me to pick my top two. We want to hear it. Email us questions at the art of charm.com hit us up on Instagram at the art of charm. Well, everyone wants to know why we have so much fun living our lives. But when you understand these languages and emotional bids, life is fun. You're able. These are the cheat codes that make everything easy and worth waking up early every day to get after it. I certainly loved it. I'd love doing research for this and I can't wait for next week. It's all about showing up for the people in your life and understanding how to connect in a deeper way. We would love for you to do us a huge favor. Could you head on over to iTunes and rate this podcast? It would mean the world to us. We put in a lot of effort for you. And I hope you're enjoying the show as much as we are. The art of charm podcast is produced by Chris Olin and Michael Harold, engineered by Danny Luber and Bradley Dunham at cast media studios and sunny downtown Hollywood. I'm AJ and I'm Johnny. See you next week. See you guys.


channel for physics please subscribe my channel hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of physics partner today I brought some information about one majoring device known as vernier caliper it's actually an instrument for making very accurate linear measurement and so introduced by 1631 so it utilizes two graduated scales the bigger one is a main scale and the smaller one is considered as auxiliary scale or it's also called vernier scale the scale that slides parallel to main scale that enables reading to mate for example, if you can move it like this you can see the scale which is sliding parallel to the main scale and enables reading to be made in the fraction of division on the main scale. So, vernier scales basically are widely used in scientific laboratories and in manufacturing for quality control measurements vernier calipers also used in education for almost all famous curriculum as a measuring device. So, let explore more about let me make it more closer I would like to share the parts of this vernier caliper. So, you can see in the screen the main one is considered as main scale as I told you before and this small one is called vernier scale and this and this is same thing actually both are vernier scale, but the difference you can see it's from this point let me make it more closer to you the inches here it is 1 over 128 inches and 0.05 millimeter here down. So, mostly measurement is done by 0.05 millimeters which is actually a least count of this device what do you mean by the least count. So, for example, your wall clock or your watch cannot measure less than second is considered as a least count. Let us talk about more parts. So, you have you can see the jaws and the upper jaws and the lower jaws they are used to find out the length of something when you need a very accurate reading in engineering for a small length you are using vernier calipers. Similarly, you can see there is a upper jaws also which is used to find out the internal diameter and external diameters I am going to show you the four uses of vernier calipers. So, the first use is to finding a length of something now you have vernier calipers and you want to find the length of something you can use vernier calipers this is the first use. Secondly, you can find the external diameter of any object for example, you can see here you can find an external diameter of something and similarly the third use can be the internal diameter of an object. So, you can find an internal diameter of an object also and finally, the depth of something. So, four basic use of vernier calipers measuring length internal diameter external diameter and the depth of an object. So, this is the purpose of the vernier calipers let us see how can we calculate before going for calculation I would like to share this also. Nowadays, there are so many advanced digital vernier calipers or other vernier calipers are available which can show you the readings directly. Here, I have made a small program. So, this can calculate our measurement. So, I will show you how to calculate the measurement let me make it more closer for you again and let me put something inside. So, explain how to measure it. So, I have fixed an object here you can see that. So, let me explain the numbers which are appearing on the top of the screen. So, 20 is actually the main scale reading you can see the blue arrow which is showing a 0 here on vernier scale and before this is only 20. So, on main scale what we covered is only 20 which is the main scale and the blue one is the subdivision of 20. You can see there is one which is now 20 and 21 and what is 0.25? 0.25 is the most matching line here which shows let me make it more closer to you. So, what is 0.25 here? 0.25 here is most matching line of vernier scale with the main scale. So, you can see here 0, 1, 2 and 2.5. So, because it is in millimeter and 0.05 is a least count. So, it is considered as 0.25 this line is completely matching with the main scale. So, first of all the main scale reading which is 20 and it crosses 1 also. So, 21 the blue line. So, 21 and you have to see the most matching line which is 0.25. So, this will be the reading 21.25 will be the reading on this scale. 21.25 will be the reading which is showing the length of this object is 21.25. So, I hope you understand that it is very easy, very simple, very precise to measuring device to finding the length internal diameter, external diameter and definitely you can find out the difference between internal diameter and external diameter to check the width of any object. In the last I would like to discuss some precautions you have to take while using vernier caliper. In exam usually the examiner ask about the precautions as well. So, remember number one is the object should also always be gripped gently between the jaws. This is extremely important while measuring object which are easily deformable for example, wires. Second thing is before taking any measurement make sure that vernier caliper does not have a zero error. It means it should be fixed completely the lines should be matching with the main scale and vernier scale lines should be completely match. Number three the surface of the object which need to be measured should be clean and dried. The lower jaws should be opened slightly and their inner surface should be clean and dried with. So, let us see some applications of vernier caliper in industries and in schools. So, you can use it in different places as you can see on your screen. So, that's all for today. This is a small video for vernier caliper. What is this device, what is it used for and how you can use it for the measurement of different objects in terms of their length, internal diameter, external diameter and depth. Thank you very much for watching and listening. Take care of yourselves. See you in the next video. Take care.


Today on my show, we have Gary Kakazu, the owner of MetroGro Hovain. We will be discussing vertical indoor hydroponics, which is meaning he's growing fresh, pasting nutritious and clean local produce all in an urban environment in the heart of Kakaako. Welcome, Gary Kakazu. Thank you, Wendy. Nice to be here. Yeah. I'm excited to get started because this is a topic very close to my heart. Anytime we can have growth, get it? Growth? We're in good shape. It's when we don't grow, as long as we're in trouble. So before we get started, Kerry, can you just share a little bit about your background? Sure, yeah. So as you mentioned, I'm the owner-operator of MetroGro Hovain. We're the first vertical farm in Hawaii. People ask me how I got started with this, and sort of a combination of all my different interests. My training, academically, is actually in plant physiology. So I got my degree, biology degree from UH, and then went for graduate school at the University of California, Davis. So I've always been interested in growing plants and how plants work. And then sort of a secondary career, I got a lot into the technology field. So I spent some time doing academic computing and sort of use of technology and education. And then finally, just really interested in Hawaii food scene, love to eat, love to cook. So this, you know, getting into hydroponics and using technology is sort of a nice combination of all three of those interests. Wow, every step of your journey has prepared you for this.  And well, congratulations. No wonder I see such a big smile on your face because you're doing what you're your purpose for. So I'm really excited for you for that. So I just wanted to ask you, which came first, your name of your company, Metro being city, through Hawaii or the location? And then you named it. Yeah. Well, I started off, I think probably the location where I came first, but I thought the idea was always to try and do this in an urban setting. The funny part is the initial location of still in Kakaako. I was working at the time at the Cancer Research Center down in Kakaako. So I was doing the hydroponics part time, but I need to find a location where I could go back and forth easily. So that's kind of how I got started. But you know, I like the idea of being in Kakaako, near restaurants, near people with the idea that when we start selling to the restaurants and people, I'd be close to where they are. And really part of the whole sustainability package was to make sure that we keep the transportation time and cost down to a minimum. So I always wanted to be in town. So from that, then it was sort of, okay, how can I incorporate an idea that we're doing this in an urban setting, really make that prominent? And that's where the metro came in. Wow. I mean, so spot on, you found your purpose and the right location as well, right in the heart of Kakaako, where it's built as a walking community. So your neighbors can come and we'll talk about that after down the line, but we'll talk about where your neighbors can just walk up and get fresh produce. The best quality that you can provide for them right there. And so how brilliant is that you're giving them the best. Your best right there in their neighborhood. And I just wanted to take a side note. I watched you grow.  It was like a dark room. It's your warehouse. It's your garden. I'm thinking, wow, this is so cutting edge that you're in this room with you and your plants. And I didn't know how large or any of that was, but they did a brilliant story on you. I don't even know how many years ago, but I was very intrigued and very proud. And as I said, I've watched you grow and so congratulations. The people of Hawaii have caught up to you because you are so cutting edge and you are ahead of your time ahead of all of our time. And so now you're bringing to the people of Hawaii what they should have, what they expect when they travel, but we can get it all through you locally. And those are your brings that you're going to talk about in a little bit. So I just can't wait to get started. And I know you have this place called your lettuce room. So please tell us, what do you have growing in your lettuce room though, but I want to hear it from you. Well, surprisingly, we have lettuce growing in our lettuce room. Amazing. Yeah, that's sort of our main, the biggest room that we have that I like to include this picture just because it shows the whole concept of vertical farming. So we're number one indoors, as you can see, and we're growing in multiple levels. That's where the vertical comes in. And so it's really a space savings compared to a traditional farm. So just from looking at this picture, you can tell at least three times more growth area per square foot, just by having the three levels. And for some of our other greens, we actually grow up four levels. They're really saving quite a bit of space. And we can also have a very high density. One thing not real obvious from the picture is that those racks are all on wheels. So we can move them around and really only have to have a minimum of aisle space. And we just move the racks as we need to get between two harvest. So even more space efficient in that case. The lettuce is grown with a system called aeroponics. So a lot of people are familiar with hydroponics, which just means growing without soil. And in that case, most of the hydroponics systems either have a bed or a tub of water or a stream of water continuously flowing. There's quite a bit of water. Aeroponics uses spray nozzles to irrigate just the roots of the plants. And that way you use even less water. You don't have as much water circulating to the plants. And the other advantage is that the roots get the optimal amount of oxygen available.  So that the lettuce room is all aeroponics except the nozzles fire off every 15 minutes for a few seconds. And then that water recirculates back into a reservoir and then is sprayed back again. And we just refill it as the plants use up the water. So I mean, you must be using at least 50 to 75% less water than conventional farming in Earth or in the Aina. And that must be another one of the advantages, right? Yeah, all the vertical farms have different statistics. I've made kind of a rough measurement. I was estimating that we're probably about 90% compared to our field growth of lettuce. Wow. And so would it be safe to say if your ceilings were higher, you could do more levels? Like right now you said three to four. But if you had a higher warehouse, could you go higher? Yeah. So some of the large vertical farms on the Bayland, I've seen them go up like 15, 20 layers.  So that it's definitely possible. We kind of, I kind of avoided that because when you start getting that high, obviously the logistics of harvesting are pretty difficult. In fact, that warehouse that I just mentioned uses vertical man lifts, like little forklifts to go up and down to harvest. So we kind of said, okay, I'm going to cap it here at where we can reach. So we have one steps to it. That's enough to get to the top. So it's just a matter of convenience. And also obviously the bigger the space, we do air condition. So we want to really cut down on the bottom space that we have to condition. So we want to stay a little bit lower. But yeah, you do lose some efficiency that way. Okay. And so now I know that you said you use water and your irrigate and you spray with water. But what is a nutrient source for the plants that they're being fed? I mean, I know that water is not enough. Yeah. So we use a pretty typical hydroponic fertilizer solution. It's a mixture of different nutrients that you can vary the concentrations depending on the plants. But like I said, it's a pretty standard one. It's in a liquid form. So we just dilute that in our water source and spray that on the plants. So it's not, it is inorganic nutrients, but it's all non-toxic and safe for consumption. Wow.  So there's a big difference between the two of them. So you've blended, you've married the two systems together and you're using both systems with your growing in your farms. Yeah. So the aeroponics, I guess, is what we do in the lettuce room. We started off doing aeroponics for the microgreens that we're going to discuss later also. But what we found that with the microgreens, because they grow so quickly and have such short cycle times, that there wasn't much of an advantage to doing the aeroponics. And it's a little bit easier to run that system. Aeroponics really kind of takes off when you have longer term crops, things that would grow a lot longer, bigger root systems. And so where I got the idea to use aeroponics actually came from the cannabis growers who know everything about everything for growing plants in those. That's where you see a big advantage for aeroponics. But for the lettuce, we did some informal testing also and found that we can probably take about five days off of the growing time compared to even just regular hydroponics. Wow. All that really matters and I know the bottom line is the dollar, you know, the profit margin so that you can stay in business as well as supply the best quality for the right price to your customers. So I can understand.  And I know you're putting it into a good purpose. So you're finding the best advantages of both systems while you're creating the best quality of food for the people of Hawaii. And I just wanted to congratulate you, Kerry, for your outstanding performance and always striving to reach those highest levels. And that's what's so cool about you. And you're just so humble about it as well. So Pat on the back to you, Kerry, you did a great job. Thanks. So let me see. Your systems of hydroponics, aeroponics, did you actually, when you went to school, were these systems in place? Did you actually study the systems or did you learn about them? And did you implement both and then through trial and error, you found what works best for you? So there was a little bit of mention. Again, plant physiology is a very sort of basic biochemistry. So it wasn't that much of a practical application in a lot of cases. So the hydroponics part kind of came afterwards. And now I know about plant nutrition. I know about how plants grow. I know about light requirements, how does it apply to actually growing plants. And so hydroponics is sort of the practical application of that. And a lot of it was trial and error. And again, the cannabis growers have studied this to some infinite degree, trying to optimize their growth. And before, when I first started looking at hydroponics, that was really probably the only crop that made sense. Lights were like a thousand watts each. You can imagine electricity to grow that with electric lights and you have to take care of the heat. Then you have to do this and you have to do that. So really it wasn't really practical to grow food crops using these kinds of systems. It wasn't until probably the LEDs started coming out and where we could get down the energy costs to a fraction of what the tip of the world lights were. That I think most vertical farms can go back and trace back to that event as being the impetus for starting a vertical farm. Well, so I am sure it's safe to say that you have a lot of friends in that field, right? As you guys share information. Some of them are kind of anonymous. They don't like to hear that much. Gee, I wonder why. But I have some friends, yeah. Yeah, some friends. Okay, we'll leave it at that. It's safe to say that your living lettuces and microgreens are the freshest, has more nutrients and is longer lasting and clean. And that's so critical a statement that should capture everyone's attention when we just talk about the safety features of your produce that you're producing. I mean, that in itself, I mean, yes, it's fresh. Yes, it's clean, but it's safe. Can you just address some of these features, Carrie? Yeah, sure. So the living lettuce is, as you saw that picture, there's a little plug of rooting material on that that we leave on the lettuce. So that contributes also to the freshness in that because the root plug is still there, you can actually stick that in water and keep growing. But we find that our lettuce can last almost a month in the refrigerator without much degradation at all. And because of the roots being there and they're still basically growing, nutrition decreases slower, so it should stay fresher and more nutritious much longer. And then because we're growing indoors and we don't water the plants from the top, there's really very little risk of any kind of contamination from the water. Our water source is municipal water that we filter to even make it even cleaner. There's that safety level and then of course everything's indoors. We handle everything with gloves. Our prep room is certified like a commercial kitchen. So we really feel very much aware of food safety and keeping everything clean. Wow. So I got to ask, I know you're, I've been to your place and it looks like a surgery room or operating room, but it looks very sterile. But have you ever had any bugs, like a little infestation of any kind of pests come your way? Yeah, so far I mean at my old location, first location we've had various kinds of pests. Even here there's always gnats and things flying around, but most of the bugs that get in there are things that are eating allergy and other degrading materials. So we don't really bother the lettuce. We haven't had any of the pests that normally are associated with, you know, posing the leaves or anything like that. So we don't have to use or don't want to use anyway. Any pesticides or herbicides to control that at all. Wow. Again, back to that safety lettuce, you've got the best, the cleanest of freshest. So come on Hawaii, let's jump on this and let's kind of just go towards that direction. Oh, sure. The key word is it's safe. You know, and I love that. So Carrie, I know you mentioned about microgreens. So what are microgreens and what varieties do you specialize in? So, yeah, we started off the microgreens are obviously when we first started our primary clientele, what were the restaurants. And so chefs were looking for microgreens, which are used commonly as a garnish. They're very pretty. They're basically the very young stage of all different kinds of plants. And so the definition, sort of technical definition is the first set of leaves that come out of a seed when you germinate are what they call seed leaves. They kind of look like the shape of the seeds. Most of the plants look the same. They're just a little round or oval shapes. But the true leaves, the ones that have the distinctive shapes come out a little bit later. So microgreens are usually harvested right when that first true leaf starts emerging. So you can at least kind of tell what kind of plant it is. And then the colors start coming out at that stage also. So like I said, they make very pretty garnishes sometimes mostly for the color or the shape. Other times is for the taste. When the pandemic came along and we started shifting more to online sales and direct sales to consumers, we started shifting some of our growing to more microgreens for nutrition purposes. What a lot of studies have shown is that microgreens have way more nutrients than the mature counterparts. Wow.  Yeah, it kind of makes sense because they're very young so they haven't had a chance to grow very large, have lots of fiber, which is good too. But most of the plants just really concentrated nutrients because they're so young. And that's great that I never say thank you to pandemic or COVID for anything, but for something like that we're going to say mahalo because it really addressed the issue of health and nutrient intake. So your customers were looking for just like you said, something that had a bigger bang for their buck and brought them better quality of life through the food choices that they were making.  So again, congratulations to you Kerry, right on. Always ahead of the game and that's where I like to play so that's why we get along. I've heard of microgreen. Sometimes they're called baby greens or Nalo greens are also salad toppers. I know that there's a craze out there for this and you know it's a trendy thing. So is this why you chose to farm and market the baby greens and then pandemic came and it just confirmed that you were in the right direction. Yeah, so we did some limited number of that, even for the restaurants and for supermarkets and things, but the big shift came when again we shifted more to consumer sales. So for example, we introduced a lot more of this micro mix, which are members of all the different brassica or cabbage family. So kale, kohlrabi, fizzuna, all those things that have a lot of the agents that all cabbage family plants have. And then we also started growing broccoli micro greens. And obviously, you know the health benefits of that. Once again, the broccoli micro greens have a lot more concentrated nutrition in them. Wow.  I'm just waiting to see and hear even more crazy things than what I saw in your shop. But what I appreciate are the things that I already know. So I know that you do specialty crops, and that excites you and it also excites people like me or foodies. So please share a little bit about some of them. Okay, so yeah, we, I think, like I said, the micro greens are a lot. We also do a lot of different shoots. So we have pea shoots and corn shoots. And those, the pea shoots actually we sell to Kulam farms, so they take a bulk of that. Then the corn shoots are pretty unique what they're kind of a golden color addition.  Or actually they're younger than micro greens, but they grow a lot taller. So they're good as salad toppers again as you mentioned. Chinese often do stir-fries with the pea shoots. That's another way of eating them also. But they're really good color and nutrition and sort of. And the flavor, you know, there's different flavors that come out of these shoots. And it's like, well, what was that, you know? Yeah, the corn shoots really unusual. Oh yes. That one is, you can see they're yellow and they're golden because we grow them totally in the dark. Right, right. That's the way actually the chefs use them. Because what happens is you don't get that big grassy taste. It's just super sweet. It just takes like really sweet corn kernels.  Every time I see that little sprout or the shoot on something, I always grab it and I just chew it. I close my eyes and I just enjoy it. And people are like, what are you doing? I'm like, okay, just do you know what this is? And they go, yeah, that looks like, you know, some grass or something. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no.  They close your eyes and just chew on it. And I asked him, so what do you think it is? And they're like, I don't know. It's like, kind of tastes like corn. I don't know, but it's not corn because it's not green. So, and it doesn't look like kernels.  It tastes like corn. The little yellow shoots taste like corn. And so when I went to your shop, I was very impressed though that you, you gingerly take this time and make it through the natural process. It's yellow versus green. And again, can you just go through that step one more time, Carrie? Tell us how, because shoots are green, right? Although the shoots are green, but how do you keep them yellow like corn? Yeah. So we started the, you know, I think it was ever germinated seeds before. When it first comes out, it may not be very green, especially if there's not much light. So really it's the light that activates the photosynthesis. And that is the green pigment that we see in plants. So you grow a plant in the dark, total darkness. They usually are a kind of yellow color. And so same thing with the corn. They'll start off when we germinate them and they're in a dark tent. And we keep them in the tent for that whole time. And we actually have to be really careful about not letting light in or else they will start greening up. And once they start greening up, at least for the corn shoots, the flavor gets a little bit more like grass. And so it's not really desirable for the chefs that want to use it on their dishes. So we'll grow it and luckily grows very quickly. So from, it takes about eight days from seed to harvest. And in that whole time, it pretty much total darkness. And just when you take it out and we'll cut it real quick, take it back in the refrigerator, keep it in the dark. In fact, if you buy it and you leave it out of us in the light, you will turn green.  That's amazing. I know we talk about a lot of your commercial accounts, but I know, I know that with COVID, let me just take you one year back, you know, in 2020. How has COVID affected your business, Carrie? So as I mentioned, yeah, we started this and we always thought, you know, restaurants would be our primary target at once. And it's, you know, again, they're looking for the specialty crops, which we focus on. And so when pandemic came and restaurants started closing down, I think we estimated about 75 to 80% of our revenue was gone. So, you know, we had to really pivot pretty quickly. Again, sort of our luck was that it was just at a time when we moved into this location. And so, you know, we're kind of ramping back up anyway. We had slowed down as we made the transition. So we just slowed down even more. Didn't really build out everything right away. And just started slowly ramping up as demand increased. And then when the, we switched to online sales really quickly, again, having my tech background helped a little bit. So we made the switch to online real quick. And then that helped to kind of tide us through. Wow. So being flexible in business really helps, huh? Yeah. And you know, I had also the same experience there. When I was running my chocolate factory, we focused on wholesale market and just wholesale. And then when the economy crashed, we went towards retail. And the blessing is that we realized that retail was even sweeter and made chocolate sales, even sweeter. So then we focused dominantly on retail. And then the whole sale was like a 25%. And then the 75% was the direct sales. And it was so much sweeter and wow. So sometimes when we make changes in adjustments, it really is to our benefit. So, you know, as of today, do you feel the upward motion of Hawaii's economy returning? I see the restaurants are booming again. And you've got weights and all of that. So what is, how do you feel? Do you feel the upward trend of the economy now, Carrie? Yeah, we're definitely improving restaurants. I've opened up a summer account. We've got some new accounts and some other chefs start to reach out. There's definitely a bit of shift though in the menus. Chefs are kind of still simplifying their menus. Carry over from when during the pandemic. So, you know, in a lot of cases things like microgreens, which are just sort of a garnish and just to make it look prettier, they aren't using as much. So I think it's going to be a somewhat of a change. Again, see how things are and focus on. Right. And so I know I was impressed and then, you know, I always want to say you're like a scientist in that room or what are you going to do?  Right. But I guess this is something I've never seen or pasted before. So when I had the opportunity to, to are your urban farm, you shared with me something that I've never experienced. And I want to share it with everyone.  That's how you got to get the name. They're actually cells filled with salt water. This plant is designed to take and grow in high salt conditions. So you'll take that salt water and sort of push them into these cells that can continue growing. And so that gives the plant a really salty and crunchy taste. I loved it. Yeah that people really enjoy. Yeah and it is pretty as different so it's like the curiosity and that's like like what is that? What is that right? So it's kind of like the seausparagus that we have here but softer, more succulent and a little bit less salt. It's cuter. It's really cute. Yeah so sushi bars, it goes a good with poke. I'll kind of see food. Well so I know everyone's getting excited. They're salivating on all this nutritious lovelies and I know they want to get started. So how would everyone get to know where you are and how can they start enjoying your own or fresh produce from Metro Grohawaii? Yeah so like I said we have an online ordering system so the best place to start is to check out our website at metrohawaii.com and you get information about us, what we have and we have an online store that's really easy to order and so we take orders throughout the week. We harvest today. We just got done harvesting. Wow. So as soon as I get off of this I got update inventory. Get back to work. Yeah very good. Tuesday afternoons you can really find out what we have and place your orders and pick up on Thursday right here at the shop or you can come to the farmer's market and award on Wednesdays and purchase there also. Wow I'll go there and look for you but unfortunately we ran out of time because of all this great food and great foodie talk but um we have to leave for now. You've been watching Taking Your Health Back on Something Tech Hawaii. Today we've been visiting with Kerry Kakazu, owner and head farmer of Metro Grohawaii, Vertical Indoor Hydroponic. Thanks for participating Kerry and thanks to our viewers for watching. I'm Wendy Lowell. We'll be back in a few weeks, actually two weeks, with another edition of Taking Your Health Back. Aloha and Mahalo Kerry. Thank you.