Hey, good morning, Terry. It's a Sunday morning. Thank you for taking the time. I'm with Terry Singh Extremely excited to have him help us do the first interviews of the speakers This is for the open data science conference which is coming to India for the first time and we are super excited that Terry and a group of his Researchers will be joining us at the conference Thank you so much, Terry for accepting our invite to come to the conference. Thank you for having me Norish. Thank you very much Terry, could you please tell us what got you interested into data science in AI? So great question. I think as a kid I was always very interested in in how the world around us is sort of you know defined and how things look very inquisitive not just about earth, but also universe and and space So, you know as a kid I used to Already, you know picked up early math And and couple of other friends from a dad coming from various countries around the world You know from Russia from Israel many other countries. I Got pretty interesting math books at an early age Fast-forward another 30 years or something Today you see the same things are being applied in in AI or About in the form of deep learning or machine learning and it's possible with data So as you know, I you know galea Galileo said a long time ago The nature of book is written in mathematical symbols And I think we are beginning to see those symbols and all these equations So I think it's fascinating and for me. It's just like being in you know, the Lego and playing with it Absolutely, I think there is a lot of excitement about the the scale at which we have data and the using AI machine learning and others Basically make sense out of that data While there is a lot of excitement I also personally feel there are still quite a few challenges both on an individual level as a data scientist and as a Industry in terms of data science adoption. Could you please share some of your thoughts on that? Yeah, so I think there's there are a lot of challenges both an individual and on on more market Adoption level whether it is in the market itself or by enterprises I think my advice is or at least in terms of challenges that people should move beyond these you know tests and dummy data sets that are available and And also move beyond and take the step higher to move from the online MOOCs Into doings and trying to solve a practical problem Eventually, it is the application of AI the practical application of AI in your local community Whether it's medical industry or in retail industry or in public service You should find a way to solve that problem at an individual and at The group level or enterprise level. You don't do that that you will keep stuck in key. You'll keep getting stuck in Trying to solve, you know problems which people have already solved which is you know, actually it's a no-brainer So I would say, you know move we need to you know get above this job problem and try to solve practical AI Problems That's a that's a really good advice Terry. I think you know Taking and solving real-world problems Even if it's a small-scale problems is is important as a way to move forward and I think that's that's that's pretty cool I Think you're so you'll be traveling You know, you're you're traveling across many cities before Coming through the conference in India, but you would be traveling from Amsterdam all the way to Bangalore So what got you interested in participating in this conference? Great question. I think you know pretty simple, you know what you're doing nourish with ODSE Which is a huge sort of internationally known a community of open data science Conferences you're bringing it to India, which is great I have been a professor for almost two years with the data science community across very different regions in India from North India South India various regions and it was just not happening So my first excitement was obviously that wow, this is happening So I have to be there, you know to enable and empower my colleagues and friends and peers in India and To I was very much impressed with the way, you know Your value systems and our value systems from deep half as well how they were aligned and that is very important for us because we really make sure that You know, you know said alone that we have operational sort of you know cost that we need to run our companies We do believe that we need to democratize it We need to bring it to students and we need to find a balance to to make it run to to make it useful for everybody So in a bit all these these both two things came together and we are like super excited to be there Awesome awesome And I completely agree right when we first spoke the value system seemed to align really well And I was really excited that people do Have similar thought process and you know what we are trying to do people can see the value in it So very excited to have you partner with us on this conference and really looking forward Now talking about the conference itself you have Some very interesting things that you're doing at the conference you have 90-minute tutorial where you're going to be talking about your deep Residency program and then you also have a full-day workshop where you're going to be talking about neural networks And you'll be going to deep dive into them Can you can you give us a little bit of an early glimpse to what we expect in these two sessions? absolutely, so I think You know the the most important thing is that I can just jump into you know Share a screen a little bit so you can see what the real practicality of it is So this is we are creating a notebook in which we're trying to sort of you know how to help Developers and enthusiasts from you know cnn into capsule networks the the theory which we are really super excited about And so this is a full-day program in which we are going to talk about How convolution neural networks are great and how capsule Capsule networks are trying to improve upon convolution neural network. We'll talk about our research in detail in our In a workshop And and and also potentially help you play with this activation function, which is amazing written by Narendra Pupwarden Who is a researcher? Eshwari is writing up currently is already way ahead creating this notebook So you're seeing an older version We're going to talk about matrix capsules which is written is continuously continuously being explored by Huadang Leao And I will also be talking about she mays are you know neuroscience researchers work on on deep learning So this is a full-day program in which we'll play with this code and we're going to have a lot of fun In the 90 minute session, I will talk about how deep remote residency program works How we as a team combine our insights and ideas and constantly continue to challenge each other to work And is that a potential for you as a researcher? Do you want to be part of this revolution? Do you want to know how we work? I'm very happy to have this conversation. So these are the two things we'll be doing And this is a little bit of a sneak peek on on the notebook, but I mean again, you'll see more action coming up Great. Thank you for giving us a glimpse of this I know people are super excited about having you here and there is a lot of buzz We also greatly appreciate that you have graciously accepted to extend the 75 discount to the students as a way to help The student community to come in and participate in your workshop So it is it is really good You know a way to support that community and thank you for agreeing to do that You know again, we talk about the value system aligning really well here Absolutely. I think this is great. One last thing since you know just quickly showing You know, I think it's very important to bring the researchers and students Into this, you know, uh, for example, you know, just giving you know the observing the nature around yourself The aria function is all about trying to you know understand how the growth function from botanical perspective how trees grow So we have you know kind of taken this and our researcher also proved that it's uh, you know superior than the activation function that exists So I hope you know getting young people involved You know, we want to provide distance with students because as you and I in the same principles principles we We follow That people should be able to have access to it If you are uh, you know in a company convince your boss to be there because odsc in india is i'm sure It's happening now, but it's definitely going to be at a much larger scale going forward We are very very happy to collaborate with you and it's all about you know You know bringing deep learning into the most practical and applicable sense to the industry So that's the last thing I wanted to say Um, and finally very very happy and excited to meet you people there. Thank you so much nourish once again for inviting us All right. Thank you. You have a great day daddy. Bye. Bye. Thank you. Bye. Bye nourish


So here's the challenge. And you laid it out really nicely. To deepen social connections, whether to turn, you know, acquaintances into allies, whether to turn strangers into friends, or whether just to sort of get a deeper connection with those we already love, but don't talk to that often. We need to reveal a little bit about ourselves, right?  What'd you do today? And we have this sort of fatic nice kind of get to know you conversation that that's good. It doesn't hurt, but it doesn't make us feel that deep emotional connection. And so to do that, we need to reveal a little bit of things about ourselves. We need to be a bit vulnerable. We need to talk about some things that show depth. But the challenge is to do that. We've got to already feel some sort of social connection, right?  The person would be like, what?  What are you deeply worried about in your life? They'd say, I'm not going to answer that question. And so you need to sort of build a base to get to that deep revelatory stuff. So how do you do that? There's a series of questions called the Fast Friends Paradigm, which asks a simple set of questions and then a more complicated set of questions and eventually an even deeper, more revelatory set of questions. But they lead people in sort of 45 minutes to feel more connected to anyone, whether it's a stranger, initially, whether it's someone that you already know.  And the way it works is it starts safe and then it builds. And what do I mean by that? Well, it starts really in a very basic, simple, non-revelatory way.  Right? That's an easy question that anybody can answer that doesn't feel too revelatory. But by asking some of these initial questions, revealing some small, simple, beginning things about each other, we start to build trust. We go back and forth.  I start to feel like I know you a little bit better. And now when we get to some more of the deep, more revelatory questions, we're both more willing to answer and play that game, because we feel like we have that base to build from. And so don't start with the deep revelatory stuff and don't end up with the really sort of just surface level things. Start surface, use that to build a base. And from that base, get to the more deeper, more revelatory type of questions. And what I love is allowing an opportunity for both of you to share. So so often we'll feel like, oh, if I just keep asking questions, maybe it's on a first date, or maybe it's the first time hanging out. And we're not revealing much about ourselves, right? We're doing follow-ups. You heard from the show, follow-ups are likable. I want to be likable. But if you're not revealing, that's the other piece to this. So if I were to call you and say, hey, Jonah, I've really been struggling with this deep fear of public speaking of mine. I've taken courses. I'm not sure about hitting record on the podcast. And I reveal that to you. If I go, hey, what have you been struggling with? You're more likely to think about something in that vein to, again, meet me in the middle to mimic to foster that connection. But if you're just asking a series of questions without divulging your answers, right? So the study was both sides participating. That's something that trips up a lot of our clients. And the work that we do is they get so excited for the magic word and the question to ask the prompt, and they forget that it's a two-way street you have to be sharing in the vulnerability to build that fast connection. Starting safe and building only works if both of you are sort of revealing things, right? If one person reveals a little bit, it makes the other person more comfortable with revealing, which makes the other person more comfortable and sort of it builds by going back and forth. I think we all have friends. I can certainly think of one in my own life who is really interested in how my life is going, and that's great. And they often ask me questions, but it's basically just like question after question after question. And it's nice in some ways. It suggests that they care, but I don't really have any understanding of how they're doing. And at a certain point, it feels a little bit forced, right? It feels almost like we're walking through an exercise rather than you're really asking how I'm doing. And so it's very important to do a little bit of that back and forth and not just ask, but reveal as well.


Attention West Colfax residents. This is a community notification of a new sexually violent predator in your area. Please stay tuned to the following short program for more information. Hi I'm technician Ron Hackett with the Denver Police Department. The sex offender registration and compliance unit at DPD is responsible for the registration monitoring and tracking of all registered sex offenders and sexually violent predators who live in the city and county of Denver. Here's a brief history of sex offender legislation in Colorado. Our state laws trickle down from federal government mandates. In 1994 we had the Jacob Wetterling Act which mandated that states would establish a sex offender list. Magans law of 1996 said that the public would have access to those sex offender registration lists. The Pam Litchner Act of 1996 stated that some offenders might have to have lifetime registrations and the Adam Walsh Act of 2006 unified sex offender laws across the country. In Colorado the legislature has determined that sexually violent predators by definition pose a higher risk to the community at large and therefore mandated that upon their release from the Department of Corrections the community must be notified. Sex offender notification in Colorado happens in two ways. The first is passive and ongoing through the sex offender registration process which is a list maintained by local police department. The second way is active via community notification for those offenders determined to be sexually violent predators by the courts or by the parole board. Most sex offenders in Colorado are supervised by the criminal justice system in our communities. Most sex offenders engage in crossover behavior which means they may have been arrested for one type of crime but be apt to commit another.  There is no typical sex offender but all tend to be deceptive, manipulative and secretive. 80 to 93 percent of sex offenses are committed by someone known to the victim. Sexual deviancy begins in mid to late adolescence. Sex offenses are not impulsive.  The community has a vested interest in helping offenders to be successfully managed in the community. Sex offenders have the same need for housing and employment as any other citizen.  There are approximately 16,500 registered sex offenders in the state of Colorado. About 65 percent of convicted sex offenders are placed in the community on probation. The remainder are in the Department of Corrections or Community Corrections. Offenders may be caught for one type of offense but be at a high risk to commit another type. Crime of conviction is only one indicator of risk.  The offender's residence must be verified quarterly by the Denver Police Department. The full sex offender registration list is available by calling the Denver Police Department Identification Bureau at<PHONE_NUMBER>. Convicted felons and those with multiple convictions are posted online at denvergov.org slash police.   Now, here's a look at the newest sexually violent predator living in Denver. Here's an overview of the registered sex offenders currently living in Denver. There are 2,402 total living within city limits. In Denver Police District 1, there are 252. Precinct 122 has 68 registered sex offenders. Of those 50 have felony convictions and 18 have misdemeanor convictions. Melvin Daryl Fisher, who identifies as Melody Fisher, is a sexually violent predator currently living in Denver. The offender is 56 years old and was born on September 15, 1967. The offender is Asian Pacific Islander, five feet four inches tall, 140 pounds with black hair and brown eyes. The offender is currently living at 1290 King Street in the West Colfax neighborhood of Denver. Schools located within one mile of this offender include Lake Middle School in Strype Prep Lake, both at 1820 Lowell Boulevard, Cowell Elementary at 4540 West 10th Avenue, Eagleton Elementary at 880 Hooker Street, Fairview Elementary at 2715 West 11th Avenue, Cheltenham Elementary at 1580 Julian Street, Colfax Elementary at 1526 Tennyson Street, Yeshiva Torres-Heim at 1555 North Stewart Street, Esquela de Guadalupe at 660 North Julian Street. Parks located within one mile of this offender include Rood Park, Sloan's Lake Park, Hallock Park, Diamond Hill Promenade, Platte River at Elich Gardens, Martinez Park, Weir Gulch Marina Park, Sanchez Park, Lakewood Dry Gulch Park, Lower Lakewood Gulch, Sandos Park, Gates Crescent Park, Jefferson Park. Recreation centers located within one mile of this offender include Rood Rec Center at 2855 West Holden Place. Bus routes located within one mile of this offender include Route 10 12th Avenue and York Street, routes 10 and 24 12th Avenue and Josephine Street, Route 24 York Street and 13th Avenue, Josephine Street and 13th Avenue, York Street and Colfax Avenue, routes 15 and 15L, Colfax Avenue and Josephine Street, Route 15 Colfax Avenue and 15th Street. A brief history of charges against this offender.  The offender is currently on parole and registered with the Denver Police Department on September 19th, 2023 to 1290 King Street in the West Colfax neighborhood of Denver.  Melvin Daryl Fisher, who identifies as Melody Fisher, has been determined as sexually violent predator after meeting the following criteria. Criteria one, age 18 or older on the date of the offense or under 18 and tried as an adult. The offender was age 39 at the time of the offense. Criteria two, the crime must have been committed honor after July 1st 1997 and convicted honor after July 1st 1999.   Criteria three, the relationship to the victim was one of the following. Victim was a stranger to the offender or the offender established or promoted a relationship with the victim primarily for the purpose of sexual victimization. The 13 and 17 year old juvenile female victims were known to the offender. Criteria four, positive results or the passing of a risk assessment instrument administered by probation parole staff and a qualified treatment evaluator. Positive results include an assessment for the presence of a mental abnormality, a level of denial regarding the offense, treatment, appropriateness and motivation, presence of sexual deviant interests. The offender was evaluated by the Montezuma County courts with positive results, determining the offender to be a sexually violent predator.


Hello friends, I am Mrs. Geetha Dhunjarwad, Assistant Professor of Communication Skills, Department of Humanities and Sciences, Vulture Institute of Technology, Sholap. At the end of this session, student will be able to learn effective soft skills for personal and professional success. Soft skills refer to a cluster of personal qualities, habits, attitude and social graces that make someone a good employee and compatible to work with. Companies value soft skills because research suggests and experience shows that they can be just as important indicator of job performance as hard skills. Candidates with strong soft skills are in high demand for many different types of jobs. Soft skills are the interpersonal attributes you need to succeed in the workplace. These are related to how you work with and relate to others. In other words, it is called as a people skills. So in this session, today we are going to discuss about some of the most common soft skills employers are looking for and will be assessing you on. The first one is strong work ethic, then positive attitude, effective communication. Next is ability to work under pressure and time management, then problem solving skills, acting as a team player and flexibility or adaptability. Henry Kravitz has said, if you don't have integrity, you have nothing. You can't buy it. You can have all the money in the world.  So in his thought, he has given the emphasis on ethics. We are going to discuss about whatever the soft skills in them. One of the most important soft skill is work ethic. So before thinking about work ethic, it is very necessary. We should know the meaning of ethic. So let's discuss what is meant by ethic. Take a pause, think about the question and try to write the answer. So ethic. Ethic comes from a thought meaning character or what a good person is or does to have a good character. The word ethic is defined as moral principle that governs or influence a person's behavior. In other words, the discipline dealing with what is good and bad and with moral duty and obligation. So work ethic. Work ethic is a belief that hard work and diligence have a moral benefit and an inherent ability, virtue or value to strengthen character and individual abilities. It is a set of value center on importance of work and manifested by determination or desire to work hard. Employers look for job candidates with strong work ethic.  They are able to budget their time and complete their work thoroughly and can work independently. A strong work ethic is difficult to teach. So employers will be impressed if you can demonstrate it in your job application. The next most important soft skill is positive attitude and all of you know that attitude is the key to success. So project a positive image. The most famous author Francis Harrison Burnett has said in his The Secret Garden, if you look the right way you can see that the whole world is a garden. Even the great famous writer Walt Whitman has said, keep your face always towards the sunshine and shadows will fall behind you. So positive attitude at work. Luis He has said every thought we think is creating our future. So if you have a negative attitude, you can't get along with others. A professional image includes a well groomed and neat appearance, confident walk and posture, varied and pleasing voice, the use of direct eye contact, clean professional clothing and attire. Employers are always seeking people who will bring a positive attitude to the office. They want employees who will be friendly to others, eager to work and generally a pleasure to be around. Here are five ways to keep a positive attitude during a job search. So first one is don't feel sorry for yourself. Second one, embrace change. Third one, don't focus on the negative. Fourth one is don't worry about pleasing others. And the last one and fifth one is don't give up. Next soft skill is effective communication. Communication skills are important in almost every job. You will likely need to communicate with people on the job, whether they are clients, customers, colleagues or employers. You will also need to be able to speak clearly and politely with people in person by phone and in writing. Employers want employees who cannot only communicate their own ideas but who also listen emphatically to others. Listening is a particularly important skill in customer service jobs. Next soft skill is problem solving. Problem solving does not just require analytical, creative and critical skills but a particular mindset. Those who can approach a problem with a cool and level head will often reach a solution more efficiently than those who cannot. This is a soft skill which can often rely on strong teamwork too. The ability to know who can help you reach a solution and how they can do it can be a great advantage. Acting as a team player. It is said that talent wins games but teamwork and intelligence win championships. Work is the ability to work together towards a common vision. Alone we can do so little, together we can do so much. So acting as a team player means not only being cooperative but also displaying strong leadership skills when necessary. Employers with strong teamwork skills are sought out by employers for many reasons. They demonstrate leadership skills, collaboration and good communication. Employers expect employees to be team players as teamwork is required for almost every industry. Next one, ability to work under pressure. Everyone has to deal with pressure both in their personal and professional lines. In the workplace this pressure often manifests itself in the form of tight deadlines, demands from your boss, employee performance issues and other obstacles that get in the way of you doing your job. Recruiters prize candidates who show a decisive attitude, an unfiltering ability to think clearly and a capacity to compartmentalize and set stress aside. Here are some ideas to put into action to impress your supervisors and work colleagues with how greatly you handle the job pressure. The first one is remain calm always, stay focused on what needs to be accomplished and the third one is take your breaks. Time management, time management is closely related to the ability to work under pressure as well as within tight deadlines. Employees who manage their time well are able to efficiently prioritize tasks and organize their diaries while adopting an attitude which allows them to take on new tasks and deadlines. The last one is flexibility or adaptability. In the 21st century, companies need to challenge at the speed of light to remain competitive. So they want workers who can also shift gears or change direction as needed. Ability in the workplace is when an employee can be flexible and have the ability to adapt to changing work conditions. An adaptable employee can work independently or work well with a team. As an engineer you have to be adaptable to the constant changing of technology. Those soft skills are the skills that make you stand out against the pack. They are those intangible qualities that can improve work performance regardless of the job. They are skills that you can and will use in any job and any industry. Go through these references. Thank you and have a nice day.


All right. Good morning. I think we got the mic figured out. So hopefully we'll roll smoothly here for the formation You guys could stand at ease. I promise I won't be that long But once you guys stand in there pray rest and fall it out on me So we don't do formations very often at DPA Admiral Baparo, Mr. Baparo and family Thank you for joining us today. Giving us the gift of your time It's a sum of our alums. I see Johnny Webb and to our VSOs distinguished guests. Thank you so much for being here and joining us and to the DPA family here. Thank you guys for coming out on April 7th, 2001 We lost the lives of not just seven service members, but nine VNO the Vietnam office for seeking missing persons who support this mission For the last 38 years It's a good time to just honor their sacrifice And I'm taken to a proverbs that says take steadfast love and faithfulness and bind it around your neck and Etch it on your heart. That's what these service members and these Vietnamese officials did Going out to recover our missing service members from the Vietnam War With sacrifice, courage, commitment, steadfast love It's just One thing that I think from this tragedy tragedy that we learned is What we need to do to ensure the safety of our teams We send teams out. Every mission that we have is a live fire mission We are sending teams to 16,000 foot mountains in the Himalayas, rice paddies, mountains, cliffs throughout Southeast Asia The underwater missions off the coast of PNG Throughout the Indo-Pacific and we still send teams out to the battlefields of World War II in Europe and Day in and day out you guys are doing that exact thing taking out steadfast love courage commitment to never leave a falling service member behind I Can think of no other mission as noble and honorable as what we do here day in and day out I'm getting emotional here. I didn't even know these guys, but I know they are just like you day in and day out our attachments our civilians Are our counterparts and we're going into countries. We face the forces of nature sometimes earthquakes and PNG Cliffs in Laos we face Torrential downpour leeches You name it our teams are going through and and doing those things So as we today honor their service and their sacrifice I just want to tell you that I thank you guys for what you do I thank you for your commitment In your dedication to never leave a service member behind to keep that promise and not only for the Vietnam War Which is our operational priority but for our World War II our Korean War our Cold War and The first goal for losses that we were seeking So thank you for what you do day in and out This is probably one of my last ceremonies as the deputy director for operations here And I can't think of a more fitting way to tell you guys how humbled and honored I've been to be able to serve you in this in this capacity on this mission, and I appreciate what you do and Keep going at it. I will tell you that what we have learned from this tragedy is we do carb inspections We make sure that our helicopters that we put our service members and our partners on meet airworthiness standards based on those inspections every mission that goes out has a Risk assessment the team leaders the planners the team sergeants identify the risks that we are exposing our service members to and Do everything they can to mitigate those risks before we even send a team out to the field Those of risks are approved the mitigation those risks are approved by our regional directors Both Europe Medits reign in and Indo-Pacific So we are doing our very best to ensure that we are setting you up for Success and to ensure your safety and security day in day out Because the last thing we want to do is have another Incident where we lose your life seeking to recover Those who gave the last full measure of devotion and service to their country It's something we will continue to do we do it at risk because that's what sets us apart I think as a nation and as a human race We go out we never leave a service member behind and we will continue that effort with steadfast love faithfulness and Your commitment to duty. Thank you very much All right. I know we have some J-PAC alumni that were here and know these Men personally so if you want we want to give you an opportunity To step forward say a few words If you'd like to add anything Dr. John Byrd our laboratory analysis director, I I Good morning and thanks for coming out to recognize all of our friends And I will recognize mr. Webb and Steve Thompson over there who I know were also around with us back at that time Yeah, I knew a lot of the guys that were involved We were in the laboratory We were still high at the time which meant we were mostly the scientist in the 92 mics is mostly what made up still high mr. Webb was one of the leaders of the organization and Because of that we were most close with sergeant Murphy You know he was a had been a team sergeant a lot of our scientists deployed with him to the field and He had a reputation for being highly competent and always on top of what he was doing And so that was a terrible loss for us when we lost sergeant Murphy Colonel Corey was the debt to commander Colonel Martin was the incoming we didn't know him He was new coming in from Fort Bragg But Colonel Corey was somebody who had was coming to the end of his two-year tour and We had worked with him as a debt commander All that time and he was very popular with us with us civilians We liked him very much, you know as debt commanders came and went over the year some of them You could kind of forget Happily and others you do remember for being really easy to work with and being great at Facilitating the work we were trying to do in the field and and Colonel Corey was a very popular debt commander with the scientific staff And I think with the teams in general and so he was missed. I did not know personally a lot of the other Service members they were assigned to the JTF FA and they were analysts and did other functions And I didn't interact with them a whole lot but What I do know is that all of them were valued and all of them were sorely missed by their colleagues after the incident and You know that it was an accident didn't didn't come from neglect or Safety problems or anything like it was an accident that could happen, you know to anyone at any time It just goes to what colonel Brandon was saying with the risk that we take sometimes with the mission that we're doing Just an unfortunate accident, but but I will say that the the people we lost The people that I worked with and knew were outstanding people They did excellent work and and I would agree with Colonel Brandon. They're just like you guys I See what a lot of you you're just like Sergeant Murphy, you know, he was always on top of his game Again very professional very easy to work with very adaptable to things we encountered in the field and a lot of you are are just the same and You know, hopefully we won't ever have to do this again for anyone else But but I'm very grateful to all of you for coming out here to recognize our colleagues and friends and Does bring back a lot of memories For me, and I'm sure it does for a couple of others as well, but thank you very much This is star Levin, I didn't want to speak first because I'm a little emotional I was a joint task force member Joel Patterson was one of my bosses back then been here since then I Will tell you I did know the analysts I work with them. I'm here because of Steve Moser He encouraged me to be here encouraged me to take that step out and Be in the joint task force. I had to learn a lot and put myself in situations I had never been in before because I was an Air Force airman very young Air Force airman, so Air assault school repelling these things were not something I was used to But I did it and because of them I Had the privilege when I moved into operations of actually hiring Murphy's cousin Murph and I'm Just like his cousin. He was a super hard worker Amazing individual and we were so blessed to have him on our team and he carried that legacy as our air operations officer and but because of them we're we are doing things better and more efficiently safely and I'm just I'm really proud to have been able to be part of their legacy. Um, not only that Those two organizations still high in JPEC. This is one of the catalysts that helped us start Determining that we needed to become a joint organization become JPEC and weren't together and So because of that we became JPEC and now we're here as DPA and Really proud to have been served with all of them and even the VNO SMP They they were very dedicated to our mission and I got to work with a lot of them. So If any of you've been to debt too, we actually had a bar and in the in our old debt house called BN's bar named after Colonel BN Our medical center was named after Gonzalez so Long long-standing legacies of these folks So I have thank you Ladies and gentlemen Colonel Brennan and Sergeant Major Worsley will pay respect to the fallen by placing ladies upon the memorial Ladies are a common symbol of love friendship celebration honor an Essence a symbol of aloha an ancient Hawaii wearing a lady represented wealth royalty and rank at this time we invite our VSO guests to come forward and place a lay if they desire at this time We will call for a moment of silence to honor the fallen I would like to thank everyone who made this ceremony a success. This concludes today's ceremony Mahalo for attending


Hi everyone, Joe for jaspyscasebreaks.com coming at you with 2021 Upredeck Skybox Metal Universe Champions, random letter break number 24. The last box of this first inner case that we opened from a fresh master case. So break 25, which you can see is loaded up in the store right now, jaspyscasebreaks.com is gonna be a one box break from a fresh inner case, the second one of that master case if you're keeping track of all that. So there's break 24 right there and no randomizers because Chad picked up all the spots. Thank you and good luck. No randomizers makes life easy for me. Need a knife, I appreciate that Chad. Thank you for getting in on the action. So we got a little Amazon Prime action happening right there. We do have a TV here, but it's a dumb TV so it can't connect. To the inner webs that I can wash on my phone. For whatever it's worth, I'm on Denver minus three. Who does everyone have in this game? We did a Twitter poll. Usually we get a decent amount of votes, but not today. I don't think anyone was really inspired by the matchup tonight, Indianapolis at Denver. I think Mr. Flyerhawk broke the tie on the poll and went with Indianapolis plus three. Like our both teams kind of banged up. I think Jonathan Taylor's out for the Colts. Denver lost, Denver lost to Vonte Williams last week. So, yeah, but the TV's also mounted kind of high in the corner of the room here. Did I pick it up big cord or, I guess suppose I could just get one of those, a fire stick for this TV. I think it has one of those in the back but then I have to get a ladder and crawl up around there. Has there been a Holland poll yet in Mosaic? No, just base cards, Brandon. Maybe an insert, but nothing too significant in terms of a hit or something like that. All right, well, here's your PMG early, Chad. Metalized Jalen Johnson, 90 out of 150. Obviously, all card shift, you'll get all these. Gilo's saying Neum Heinz just had a concussion, so yeah, injuries already. Safety, the numbered one looked a little different. Got Intimidation Nation, Tiger Woods. It might be leading to be part of Ryder Cup leadership which is next year. I think the PGA is in Vegas this weekend. I was actually thinking about going, but just did not have the time. Speaking of golf, there's Matthew Wolf, the Shriners. Not too many huge names there, but some up and coming names. It's kind of a big tournament. It's been around for a little bit. Shriners, Children's Hospital tournament. Matthew Wolf might be there. Skybox Premium, Josh Giddy.  Dennis, what's going on? How are you? We got Reaching for the Stars, Trey Sermon. Die cut, Tiger Woods. Are the golf carts the size of Shriners' cars? In the PGA, they're grown-ups, so they walk. They gotta walk it. Not sure if that might be a short print. Another Skybox Premium, Mack Jones. There's some fun inserts here, Chad. Anna LeBron James. Anna Sabrina, INSQ card as well. There you go, Chad. Hey, thanks for grabbing all those spots in that break, I appreciate it. All these cards will go to you. I'll see you next time for the next break. Bye-bye.


I will admit that I'm just used to catching lightning in a bottle. Every business I've started, I have no business plan. I have no idea where the capital is going to come from. I just march into CEO's offices and talk my fire brand and I leave with a check for $300,000. But Ever Walk is this initiative. It's a national walking initiative. We've got a cool app. We've got a great website. But except for private funding, it's kept us afloat. We haven't landed one corporate sponsor. So what am I doing wrong? And you just sort of reminded me of Christopher Reeve saying to me, well, you said all those years ago you were going to live every day so you can't live in a fingernail bed. Is that what you're doing? And I was backed up against the wall. And I said, no, that's not what I'm doing. But I have to pay attention. Do I really want it? Do I want this to make it? And what are the next steps? Because whatever I've been doing has been wrong. This is Startup and Storefront, the podcast where we inspire entrepreneurship through truth. Today's guest is the one and only Diana Nyatt. The author, motivational speaker, and long distance swimmer has swam around the island of Manhattan from the Bahamas to Florida and most famously from Cuba to Key West. She is the first person to have ever done that swim without the assistance of a shark cage. She defied intense currents, venomous jellyfish, and even her own age in order to complete the 111 mile open water swim. Even though Diana is the epitome of the phrase, you can accomplish anything you set your mind to, she'll be the first to tell you that it doesn't always come easily. It often requires heartbreaking failure time and time again before you finally achieve victory. She is very candid about the struggles of running her ever walk foundation, but if her past is any indication of her future, the smart money is always on Diana. So listen in as we cover everything from drawing her inspiration from those who are alive and engaged with the world around them, how she lost her direction in life during her career as a sportscaster, and she even shows off her skills on a bugle. Now back to the episode. Welcome to the podcast on today's show, Diana and I at a national treasure. Thanks so much for joining. We're going kind of big. We are. Just over there, Diego. It's earned. It's earned. Yeah. I wanted to have you on for a couple reasons. I'll start with something that's deeply personal to me and so very few people I view as heroes in my life or very few people have lived a life that inspires so many. And I think as a human, we have this responsibility to do that. We have the responsibility to inspire even, let's say our children or our friends or our circle. And then there are very few people who have inspired a big circle. And I think my mom for me gave me, she lived a life of hardship that made me realize I have a life of responsibility and there's something I have to do on this planet. Obviously that we have everyone has heroes. We all have our own stories. When I hear your story, I just connect with it in a way that says, she's she gets this to a degree that very few people really understand. And the circle of impact you've had is tremendous. And I think in that comes a responsibility for you, a reality of living the stream and telling your story and it's inspiring and it's amazing. And so I consider you one of two people, at least that I've impacted my life in a way or at least your story has that I put in my pocket and say, this is mine. This is something that can get me through whatever I'm dealing with because I'll never deal with what you dealt with. And when I think about my mother's story, I'll never deal with what she had to go through. And in that, it's okay. It's like, let's go. We got this, right? Find a way, kind of a thing. And so thank you for coming on. I know that's deep to open with, but at least that's my story for you. Well, it is deep and Diego, Nick, thank you for having me. Thanks. I'm looking forward to our conversation. But I'll tell you, I think honestly, and I don't know your mom's story, but I can sort of glean a little bit from what you're talking about, what she went through. I think that what happens is you don't sit around and orchestrate. I want to be inspiring to a lot of people. That's my goal.  What do I need? What turns me on? What makes me feel alive? And to broaden it, to the nth degree, is that for some reason, I'm honestly not a special human being. I've been lucky and traveled the whole world, been in the interior of Borneo, swam with whales in Antarctica, been in every major city. When I look at the globe, sometimes I think, I just, there's nowhere I haven't been, at least for a short time anyway. During those travels, I find people courageous, engaged, tribes people, people in my neighborhood whom you'll never know, they're never going to achieve any fame, and they're just living an authentic life of what they think is right. And for some reason, I caught on to that young. Most kids in single digits, when you're eight, nine years old, you're not thinking about unless in a very cliched way, oh, one day I'm going to be an astronaut, I'm going to be an Olympian. But you're not really thinking of who you are and what you want to become. And for some reason, I had a fear and a drive very young about this whole life going by too fast. I wrote a little essay for third grade, so you're eight, and the essay was, what are you going to do for the rest of your life? And so most people in my class were, it was simple. I want to be a nurse. I want to help people. I want to be a firefighter. But I wrote, well, I never got to know any of my grandparents, but I understand that they all lived in their mid, to be in their mid 80s or so. So I'm eight now. That means I only have 75 years left. I've already wasted eight. I didn't do enough with that eight. So I've had this ticking of the clock, and now I'm older, I'm 71 now. I'm a pretty vital, healthy 71. I don't put any parameters or limitations on this age. I might at 91, but so far, I don't feel any limitations whatsoever. I was a better athlete when I went back to chase the Cuba swim in my 60s than I was in my 20s in all kinds of ways. But somehow for me, the deepest, deepest drive is an appreciation, a gratitude for this life we get to live. And I'm an atheist, so it doesn't come from a God space, even though I respect anybody who feels a God space. I don't. And so what I feel is somehow I got this lucky organism that I'm living every day. I got this fortunate beginning in life of health and some privileges. So I've been able to chase my dreams, and I haven't grown up in dire poverty.  It affects my little girl inside. So we all have something. We all suffer heartache and whatnot. But I think honestly more than, oh, what made you become a champion swimmer? There is that story, but it's a narrow story, honestly. What I'm living is every day I go to sleep every night saying, whew, I just couldn't have done any more with that day than I did. That's my goal. One day might be just to go to the beach with my old dog and take a look at the sunrise. That's good enough. It's not always chasing being a winner. That was younger. That was the ego days. Now my day is just be engaged, be alert, be awake, don't sleep too much, and go to sleep that last final day whenever that comes to say, I wish I had more time. I wish I could have done more. I wish I could have helped more people. I wish I could have experienced more. But what I did, I did the most I could with every waking hour of every day. So that's kind of my baseline. And if that inspires people, if what I've done because of that drive has inspired people, then nothing could mean more to me. It really couldn't, Diego. Thank you for opening with that. You know, okay, here we are to kind of talk about me and my life and my philosophies.  My mother, who had a lot of hardship, she overcame a lot. And so I'm sort of like, well, am I just going to leave that dangling somewhere? What do you mean? Your mother, what happened? And so to some extent, I mean, in the fifties, my mother was born in 53. And she was really born into a family of privilege in the sense that my grandfather was in the political scene. My grandmother was the first woman city council member of Lima, Peru. And so trailblazers at the house, you would often see political fundraisers for the president. The president of Peru at the time was my mother's godfather. And so very close. And so you can imagine at that time, given historical context, most women were never, like, she wasn't going to be raised to work, right? Or even seek political office. And so she met my father, who was a military man, and really in Peru at that time, you were in the military, and that was your ascension to continue on and become involved with politics. And my father gets assassinated in 86 when I'm 28 days old. You just, so you never knew your father? No. This throws my mother's life into a completely different thing. And mind you, at the time, it's not only that this just happened, but it's like there's a terrorist group going on, and they're seeking political targets. So it's like the whole family's on alert. And so my mom leaves the country with two kids, right? She had gone to an all English high school, and so to some extent she knew the language. But it wasn't like she ever thought she was going to really need it. And so she moves to America, decides Massachusetts. So we ended up growing up in Massachusetts, my sister and I. And I remember being a kid, and we would sit. Her first job was cleaning motel rooms, and so I remember sitting in that motel room on the carpet, super shaggy carpet, watching Care Bears. And I loved it. I loved it. It was like every day we went to some new adventure. And then she got a job in the probation system when we become a chief probation officer. And we had a great life growing up, amazing life. But I think about her life, and I say this often at our family events. I often say, we'll never have that problem. I'll never have the problem of having to raise two children in a foreign country and have to learn the language and figure out. And having your husband assassinated. The trauma that comes with that. The survival of that. And so I really put that one, that one's personal to me. It's personal in the sense of, one, I think she's, I mean, that's amazing. It's amazing that people can do that. But it also shows that humans can do a tremendous amount, right? So I just take a step back and go, I'm so lucky that I have her as my mother. But this also shows what we're all capable of. And how many people really figure that out or really are even interested in taking a step in that direction. Whether it's mental toughness, whether it's some sort of physical activity. And I think that's the thing, right? And so for me, when I first got here, the problem was how many Peruvians do I know who are successful? And if you look around, you don't, it's hard to find one, right? And so I needed like an uncle or I needed someone to be like, this is how to make it in America, per se. Whatever fashion that was or was professionally or financially, whatever it was. It was hard to find. And so it's like, that's what I'm gonna do. That's my why. That's the whole reason. And so I'm gonna do things in life that I'm sure people can say, I wanna swim the marathon and then they can look at you and go, let me teach you something about that.  And so I've always just wanted to be one of those people that someone can look up to and say, this is an example of someone who has done something really amazing. And that's always just something that is in the back of my pocket all the time. And it's just like this constant driver. I hear you.  Who's the list of your top ten people you've admired, dead or alive? And I say, well, yeah, of course, like anybody, I could list the Nelson Mandela's of the world. Of course, on the other hand, it's so hard to relate to.  For her two kids to lose her husband in that dramatic, horrible way assassinated. I mean, not many people on earth have lived through that and decide, I'm getting out. I'm going somewhere, I speak some English, I don't know how it's gonna go. But see this little boy and girl? I'm taking there some, so I'm gonna give them a life. There's a woman in my neighborhood, first of all, to back up a little bit. There's a man who lost his wife young, she was 38 to cancer. And he had three kids and they as a couple had made kind of the old school deal that a lot of American couples made that he would be the breadwinner. He'd be the one who went to the big MBA and work hard and make a lot of good money. And she would take care of the home and the kids. And then when the kids were up and out and gone to college, she would get a chance to choose. And he would support her, whatever she decided to study become. Well, the kids never got there by the time she died. And she was 38. Well, then forward the story a little bit.  Working two jobs, just not doing the job for her kids that she'd like to do.  And she decides this guy is having a lot of trouble. The other guy, raising all of a sudden these kids by himself. He's got the money to hire somebody, but he wants the kids to have a parent at home. So the second woman makes out a big sheet on the clipboard and goes around to all the people in about six streets square in our neighborhood.  What we're gonna do for two years, we're gonna get dinner together every night for Steve and his three kids. Like a good home cooked meal. Don't be going to Kentucky Fried Chicken, I don't wanna hear that.  So every day by 6 PM and here are your dates. If you can't do it, get somebody else. But you are in charge of that dinner for these days.  Well, to me, that's a hero. To me, that's someone who's talked about engaged in her neighborhood. Whereas a lot of people lock the door and I'm not judging. Sit on the couch, watch some bad TV for maybe 8, 10 hours a day. They don't know who's suffering down the street. So my barometer of who I admire are people who are awake and engaged. Whether it's Nelson Mandela engaged in the world at large, making it a better place. Or my neighbor, making one guy's life and one set of children's life a little bit better when they had it kind of bad. And your mom falls right into that category. There's an interesting component where it's like also the hard part, right?  You know what you're specifically what you're capable of in a lot of different ways. Not only is it just in a physical setting, but it's also in a mental.  Like you lose yourself to find yourself, you've done that. And so what happens is for me, the hard part is I want everybody to do that, right? Part of this podcast is inspiring entrepreneurship through truth. Is I want everyone to go explore what they're meant to do. And I put that responsibility on everyone, probably unfairly. But I do that, I've done it to make a million times. And so it's this thing of like, it's hard, right? Like for you, is that, is that something you deal with?  Does everyone want to, you know, open their eyes and figure out what life is all about and what their life is all about? I'm not sure. My buddy Bonnie, who Nick is a Yukon graduate. So, you know, gotta throw that in there once. Fellow alumni. She's a husky. She's a husky. I say Bonnie, honestly, and it doesn't mean, I mean, she was by my side as the head handler, the head of the Cuban expedition through all these things. She was very focused and she was the number five racquetball player in the world for a long time. So I can't say she hasn't been somewhat driven and chosen things and worked at them. On the other hand, day to day, whereas I wake up just in a, in a froth. Every day I just wake up, I play my bugle.   She doesn't think that her life is all about becoming everything she can be. You know? She has more peace to her than that. And I'm attracted to people who are not necessarily chasing that dream. But what I am glad to service, if I can, is people who want to chase that dream. They feel they've got passion and they've got discipline, but they're not even sure what, what dream to chase. A lot of young people say that to me. You know, kids who are just out of college or whatnot, they hear me speak somewhere and say, I've got that kind of fire. I do. I, I would throw myself, but I don't even know what to throw myself at. And I try to use that old gir to sort of a, you know, phrase of, there's magic in beginning things. You don't have to know every step you're going to take. But rather than sitting still, take a step somewhere. Maybe it's the wrong thing. Maybe you start some PhD and you figure after a while, it's not for me. And there's no shame in dropping it, dropping back. But at least you've gotten your momentum going somewhere. You'll, that will lead you to taking another step and another step.  Just because I tried, I tried this and this and this. You know what means the world to me is springboarding from what you said in the beginning, Diego. And that is that I didn't swim across that ocean to inspire other people. But we all work on multiple levels at one time. And there was even the Cuban-American connection. I got to go to Cuba with President Obama in his entourage in 2014 because I was an emblem of someone who went off one shore and touched the other shore. Couldn't we come back together? So there were a number of things happening during that swim, besides the actual swim. But what means the world to me is when I do finish a talk or people write me, you know, maybe a fan letter type of thing. And they have nothing to do with swimming. They have nothing to do with sports at all. Can't relate to it, aren't involved in it.  Somebody's been in prison for a long time and they're out. And they're free but they don't know where they're going. They're lost.  I'm just, you know, Tony Robbins has made a lot of money. Maybe I should have gone in that direction. But I don't. I don't stand up and say, now here's the way to live a winning life. You know, number one, you do this. Number two, you do this. And number three, and then you're there. So I just tell my own story in a kind of organic way. And hopefully that, you know, has tendrils that go out. But it sounds like a sports swimming story. But in the end, it really has to do with dreaming big and failing, you know, the courage to fail. If you shoot the bar high, you might not make it there. But on your way there, that journey, you discover everything you are. And maybe you will make it there one day if you just don't quit. So there's another part of it that people, there were thousands of people on that beach at the end. 25 million people followed the final swim across. And you know what, they weren't sports fans. Very few wrote me and said, oh, yes, I followed the other swimmers who tried this before. And no idea.  Every time we failed, almost died one time, no hyperbole, we didn't say never doing that again. Never going back there, dangerous. We got the next level of the learning curve, the science, the technology, how to tap the human spirit maybe better the next time.   And when you go in the next time, you might fail again. Then you up your game again. And eventually you get there. So that's the story. And it's the real story that I lived out loud. And I like to think I live it out loud every day now. That swim, honestly, in my 60s was meant not to break that record, that's nice. But you know, I don't care if somebody else breaks it now. Maybe I do a little, I'll probably follow that. But that swim, I did to wake myself up, to say to myself, am I living the largest life I can every day? I'm not. I've kind of receded back into a just take it as it comes. But I knew that that swim, because I know that swim, is the toughest swim in the world. The best have been trying since 1950. Men, women, young, strong, fast. Nobody's ever made it for a lot of good reasons. That swim woke me up to putting myself into my life every day. So I'm retired now, again. And I'm not gonna do ocean swims. I could look at the four fifths of the globe as blue. And I could say, well, you could swim there or there or there, 1,000 million places you could swim. I just want to live that same life of never give up, dream big, have the courage to fail, you know, be awakened, alert every minute of every day. That's the life. And that Cuba swim woke me back up to that. That's what it was all about. Well, that's an interesting paradox of the more individualized a story is, the more universal it becomes. Because there's something that can resonate with just about everyone, no matter what it is. Like you said, all these people who wrote to you and followed the swim, it's not that they were huge swim fans or anything like that. It was that what you were doing, the perseverance that you showed, the dedication to what you were, the goals that you set, the fact that you were so willing to see it through in any way, shape or form, that resonates with a lot of people because people have their own internal goals that they maybe fail from time to time.  That resonates with people because they can see, okay, I may not succeed now, I may not succeed tomorrow, but I'm gonna keep going and I'm gonna make it and I'm gonna eventually reach my goal.  And what I'm interested in is that kind of living in the present, like I think of people, they can fall into two categories. They either live in the future where they're always thinking about like the next thing that comes down the line, like I have an aunt who every time we get together, she's like, oh man, when's the next time you're coming back? I was like, well, I'm here now. Let's enjoy this. Like let's not think about the next time, like we're in the moment and I try and do my best to always be present, maybe not to the degree where I'm waking up every morning, like on fire, chomping at the bit, but it's something to aspire to. And so I wonder, like you said earlier, that there was a moment where you felt yourself kind of getting away from that and that swim brought you back into it. How long did that moment last, do you think? Yeah, it's a good question, but let me ask you something, I'll get to it because I know just where you are now. You said something right off the top, Nick, of your comment about something about the specificity of a story often leads to the bigger sort of philosophy of the story. How did you say you put it? Yeah, the more individualized it becomes, the more universal. There you go. And that's a good way of putting it because I mean, honestly, if you think about it, you couldn't get more eccentric. Let's take not my story, let's take Helen Keller's story. Sure. How could you get more eccentric in terms of disabilities and bad luck of birth? Just name it all, blind and deaf and all that stuff. And somehow, yes, her teacher, that was a big part and we all learned that, but nevertheless, there was some spirit going on in there that knew that life was more than what she could do.  So we listened to her story to say, well, how am I gonna relate to someone who can't move, who can't speak, who can't hear, who can't see? That's not a story for me, but when you see underneath that it had to do with desire and wanting to live a life and the drive to do anything, to become more normal, shall we say, it's universal. You know, your word universal is really great. For me, I'm gonna backtrack to tell you a story. It's one of the stories I love of my life because it's real and it comes out with a little moment that I use and have used through my life. And I was not a great sprinter, I was a good sprinter, I was the best in the state of Florida and it's a big swimming state, but I wasn't the best in the United States or the world and the chances of my making the Olympic team, 68 Mexico City were just about zero. But I worked for eight years, 4.30 in the morning, every morning, that's a swimmer's life. And I don't need to tell you, Nick, although as a real 50 meter sprinter, it's hard to find respect for you. Trash it, trash it, this is good. It's the old conflict between the sprinters and the distance swimmers. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was a decent sprint swimmer and I had a little chance at least to go to the Olympic trials, not the Olympics, the Olympic trials, and there was that last 100 meter backstroke. After eight years, 1,000 sit-ups every night, never 999. I was a truly driven little sprint swimmer and I didn't know yet that my talent as an athlete lay out in swimming the curvature of the earth, you know, in the ocean and swimming almost as fast as I swim 100 meters is what I swim 100 miles at that same pace. So it's the night, one more 100 meter backstroke I've qualified for the finals and the top three in this heat is actually was by time. The top three times are gonna go to the trials. I'm walking down that pool deck with the weight of the world on my shoulders.  Sexual abuse by my coach whom I adored and had on a pedestal and I was so confused. How did that happen? I was silenced and I was a fiery, sort of, you might even call me combative. I was a tough little teenager. I was silenced by this man because the shame and the humiliation and the confusion were so extreme that I just was in a state of paralysis through these years of sexual abuse and he did it to many kids of my era. He's in the international swimming hall of fame, by the way. So I don't wanna spend my whole life undoing that injustice but I will do something about it. Any case, I'm sorry, I went off on a tangent. I'm walking on the pool deck toward this 100 meter backstroke and I'm thinking my brother and sister gave up some of their dreams because my dream was so big. Everybody in the house has gotta be quiet when I go to sleep because I'm the one chasing the Olympic fire and I'm walking to the pool deck, a buddy of mine, Suzanne, she has her own chances in the butterfly. She shakes me and she says, what is wrong with you? You look like you're in the days. This is the most important race of your career. What are you thinking about? And I started in with all the sacrifices and she said, stop it, now's not the time for that. We're not in the big picture perspective right now. You're in it. You have one more race, you're in it. So come on, get up there. And when you blast off those blocks, why don't you dig in with the shoulders that you've built for eight years?  Why did you do it? Swim this race with all of that. And when you touch the wall, don't look around at the time. Don't see what the results were. Close your eyes, close your fists and say to yourself, I couldn't have done it a fingernail faster. She says, if you do it that way, it'll be okay. No matter what happens, what more can you do? So I thought, that's what, I got a vision now. I got more focused, I got up there and I blasted off with my shoulders and my character. And when I touched the wall, I closed my eyes. I had no idea where I finished. I closed my fists, I closed my eyes and I said, I couldn't have done it a fingernail faster. I knew it. And I looked up, I didn't make it.  And I walked out, I remember it, that's a lot of years ago now for me, high school up to age 71. But I remember it like it was yesterday, it was night. The stars were out. I walked out onto the pavement in the parking lot and I looked up and I said to myself out loud, I just stood there, I threw my bag down and I said, no matter what you do, no matter where you go, you do every day of your life so you can't do it a fingernail better. You'll never have a regret. And so I was in that and then there was marathon swimming in my 20s and there was graduate school, there was love, there was life and all that. But I wasn't in sort of that dramatic world of one race, don't leave a fingernail behind and so it trailed off. It diluted after years and years and I started working as a sports announcer. I could say, well, I always worked on the national stage. I had a pretty good career, I made some good money but from 30 to 60, I was not living so you're living a fingernail better and I met Christopher Reeve, you know, who had gone from Superman to a quadriplegic in a hundred thousandth of a second falling from his horse. He loved sports, he loved sports stories. We were behind a curtain, that's something we were both appearing at. He was the big fish and I was a little speaker and he said, tell me your athlete story from all those years ago when you were a swimmer, you know. I told him the fingernail story and he said, I love that story, I'm gonna tell my son Will tonight that story, do everything so you can't do it a fingernail better but the clear question to you, right here, standing here today, that was a lot of years ago. Have you kept your promise to yourself? Is that the way you're living your life? So every day you can't live a fingernail better and I said, whoa, not even close. Hardly am I living like that. Doesn't mean that I wasn't trying, keeping in shape, whatnot. That's different than not a fingernail better, which I think I live now. And so that, my mother dying, announcing, kind of standing with the microphone saying, well, you know, the field looks pretty strong behind me here today. It looks like Diego's the favorite so we'll just have to see how it turns out. Then I go to the side, then they do the race and I come back on and said, what Diego got beat today? Nobody expected that. Well, everybody have a good weekend.  I'm not saying I didn't enjoy it. After the end of 30 years of doing that, I thought I am not living anywhere close to a fingernail better. And I started flirting with the idea of the Cuba Swim. That was what was gonna draw me back into focus, discipline, desire, put it all out there, make it or not, do it so I couldn't do it a fingernail better. And we did, we did it that way. Our team, we did it that way for four years. Not a fingernail better every single day. And that's why we made it. Hang on, hang on. If you're not subscribed, can you go ahead and do that right now before we get on with the video? Helps us out tremendously. That's all we ask. And we're back. That's a tough conversation to have with yourself. To realize that this is way too harsh to say like you were failing what you had set out to do. But it's more like you weren't living your truth. Like I see you now and it's like this is your persona. You just embody this carpe diem mentality.  And that's not one, that's not an easy conversation to have as an interior monologue, but two, it's almost like you really did take that to heart, that not one fingernail faster.  I didn't know what was next. I had always thought of myself as an athlete first and then didn't have a plan B or anything to fall back on. And so rediscovering who I was after that race took some time. I don't know that I can say, and this is kind of sad. I don't know that I can say that I finished my last race, like not having been able to go on a fingernail faster. And maybe that's kind of what played into the rediscovering taking a longer time. But with you, I see after, after you finally completed the Cuba swim, I was curious just as a spectator of how you adjusted to life after the goal that you had worked years and years to achieve. And was it as easy as I did it that's over and with onto the next project or did it take some time to be like, well, now what, what comes next? It's a complex question with a complex answer. And that is, I think every world-class athlete, every who retires and unlike other professions, you retire when you're young as a general rule. That's sports. Although I had this resurgence of my 60s. So I wasn't so young when I retired the second time, but there is a drama and a black and white sort of lifestyle to sports. You know it, Diego from tennis, is that you don't say, I'm gonna be the best investment banker in the world. Who's gonna decide that? Whereas if you wanna say, I'm gonna win Wimbledon, we have a very concrete goal in front of us and we know just what to do to get there, whether you can or not. So I think there's a depression, not only in being the best and being lauded. Michael Phelps has gone through a lot of depression. Well, he's admitted in his chemistry he has depression but also to be, can imagine, to be that, the king of the world. And now, all of a sudden, you're just in the airport with thousands of other people.  A little bit different, yeah. They do, but as a general rule. So I admit that for five years, which is a very long time after someone who's just done a solo event, usually when we see the Phelps of the world, I mean he's winning, you know, multiple medals over multiple Olympics. This is just epic. Whereas I did hold a number of world records, but to the world at large, I was sort of a big deal at the end of the Cuba swim in my 60s. And for five years after, I was on a rocket. I was doing three speeches a day, flying by helicopter here and there, going international, just, you know, jet setting, telling my story, writing the memoir. People were doing a documentary film. I did an off-Broadway show, which I've always wanted to do, my own act it all out and all that stuff. So I was just on a rocket ship at the end of five years, what you're talking about next started to settle in. I'm not chasing that dream anymore. I'm not even kind of dealing with the aftermath anymore. I'm on to what's next, what is life? And probably never will I have something that concrete, that dramatic to chase again, but I realized that what was at the bottom of it was the pursuit, was the pursuit of my potential. So Diego will tell you how laughable this could be, but honestly, I started playing tennis at the age of 68. I'm never gonna be anywhere in the category, for instance, of Diego's wife, Natalia. I won't be, she's a superstar on the court, and she's nowhere near going to Wimbledon. So there's a big gap between the ceiling of what's great, but I have a sport now. I have a pursuit of a sport. I have a little training center in my garage that's all tennis oriented. I'm a little slow off the mark, like a lot of swimmers, so I have to make up for that somehow. I play seven days a week, you know? I just try to learn from all the greats at our club even and watching on television, but I'm so thrilled to be back in the pursuit of my potential at a sport, which is very different than pursuing your potential as a business person. It really is, it has, as I said, it has a more black and white defined, you can write down in your notebook, what is it this month I gotta improve at? That follow through on the forehand, I've got to get that going. So I think there is a depression and a difficulty when an athlete steps away from their sport. Are they gonna feel that talented at anything again? Are they gonna feel that passion at anything again?  But I like to think that everything I do has a bit of a vision and has a largesse to it, you know, that inspires me. I wanted to touch on something. So in my head, you mentioned something which is how I kind of view or would like to kind of reframe the entrepreneurship game, which is something around not so much starting something, but just chasing momentum. Like I think there's a lot of pressure that society puts on, let's say, launching a company, starting a company, or even your swim, right? But I think if people just looked at it like, I don't know if I'm gonna start a company, but I'm gonna move in that direction to your point. I'm just gonna chase the momentum. And in that, I always tell people that procrastination be your guide. Like if you're not into it, like just stop doing it, right? If it doesn't get you through the next day or if you don't wake up the next morning with this zest and move on from it. And I think business has a way of inspiring us to keep moving forward and then keep those improvements going. We're all like constantly chasing improvement. In business, the approach I take is kind of one that Ray Dalio takes, which is Ray Dalio basically gives everyone on his team, his entire company, a baseball card. And that baseball card on the back of it has what you're good at and what you're not good at. And so then there's like a real formation. Let's say public speaking, let's say you're a 10 at public speaking. But let's say in Microsoft Excel, maybe you're not that great. And then- Trust me, I'm at the bottom of the pocket. And so in that, this is what your baseball card would say. And then it becomes, okay, what is this team gonna pursue? And so now we decide to pursue something. And then on the, so someone on your team would be maybe a 10 at Excel and maybe a two at public speaking. So now you're bringing on these experts. And I think what gets lost, and I'm speaking directly to our audience in this is the ability for people to create teams and how important teams can be to moving everyone forward, right? And on your swim in particular, you had a team. And those people we could argue and you'd probably say are the best in the world or are the best in the world at what they do. And without them, who knows if it's possible, right? And even at that stage, all of you are learning together. You're all learning together. So you have to iterate. You're constantly trying to figure new things out. The jellyfish, how do we deal with this new problem as a team, as a team of experts? You've achieved it all. How do you kind of view the next thing that you wanna do, the momentum you wanna move into? Maybe this is where we talk about your new foundation, the Ever Walk program, and the team you decide to bring in to kind of achieve this next step for you. Yeah, I'm gonna reach out to both of you right now. Because here I come in here sort of to be lauded and say, wow, look what you've done and look what you mean to a lot of people. And that means something to me. It's not shallow. And on the other hand, I will admit to you, and because you guys coach entrepreneurs and because entrepreneurs are listening to your podcast, I will admit that I'm just used to catching lightning in a bottle. Every business I've started, I have no business plan. I have no idea where the capital's gonna come from. I just march into CEO's offices and talk my fire brand and I leave with a check for $300,000. But Ever Walk is this initiative. It's a national walking initiative. We've got a cool app. We've got a great website. We've got pretty cool little programs within it. But except for private funding, it's kept us afloat. We keep open, the doors open with our private funding. We haven't landed one corporate sponsor, no capital raised in the corporate world. And here we're in this world of walking. And I'm a pretty good spokesperson. And Bonnie's right on my coattails with that. She's better sort of with the public, like if we're at a park, she's got them all doing yoga and starting walking. Whereas I'm giving the philosophical speech about walk the curvature of the earth the way I swam the curvature of the earth.  So Y has no company. We have three different brand managers. All of them have a terrific track record companies who took us on a year at a time. We paid them from pretty good money out of what we had. And not one of them landed a corporate sponsor.  So what am I doing wrong?   Is that what you're doing? And I was backed up against the wall. And I said, right away, no. That's not what I'm doing. So you just said, you're going after something.  That you're kind of letting it slide?  Or are you working at it because you're so excited? And I have to admit, since maybe about January this year. So that's, we're gonna be half the year. I've been sort of stalling, hemming and hawing, not figuring out what to do about it. Upset and not sleeping well because I want ever walk to make it. I believe that we should make it. But maybe I'm just tired. Maybe I needed to refresh the batteries and I've let it go for a minute. But I have to pay attention. Do I really want it? Do I want this to make it? And what are the next steps? Cause whatever I've been doing has been wrong. I'm not catching lightning in a bottle on this one. It's gotta be more of a grassroots, and build it up and get 700 people here to walk in with us and then another thousand there and build it.  But we've done a lot. I'm proud of what we're done, but we have to say we're not making it. And I need to figure out the next step. Before that, because you're pushing me to it today, Diego, I need to figure out is if that's what I really want the next step or do I wanna let it go? You know, no shame in letting it go, but it would hurt, you know? Yeah.  You could just maybe give it away. Well, yeah. You know, if I could give it away if somebody wanted it, that would be a partner already. We don't have that partner, you know. Tell everyone a little bit about what it is. We don't have the capital to hire. Okay.  We've walked everywhere. And if you travel to Europe and South America and Africa, people are walking everywhere and it's starting here, a lot of it's COVID driven. It's the one thing we could do and walk. But not really, you know, people in this town still drive a quarter of a mile to get a newspaper. The length of an oval of a track, they'll drive there to get a newspaper. So our sort of thing is why don't we turn America, there are all kinds of statistics on how sedentary we become. We become, you know, sitting is the new smoking is the phrase du jour. So our idea and there are lots of walking groups, great groups, we like to be in with them, mostly raising money for, you know, sort of disease prevention, you know, the Susan B. Coleman walks for cancer, that thing, which is great, we support all of them.  Even if you walk to a lousy mile a day, you know, that's not really your great exercise.  But if it were part of your everyday life, you just say, that's what I do, I walk a mile every day. You know, after a while, some days you walk five miles, you have more time, some days you know, you and Natalia wanna walk all the way to the beach, make a day out of walking. But if you walked a mile every day, if Americans said, that's what we do in America, we don't sit around on the couch and watch television all day long, we all walk a mile, that's what we do.   That's kind of in a nutshell who we are and what we wanna be to the whole nation at once. Do you have a dream sponsor, like someone you would really like to have on board? You know, there are so many, but honestly, number one is Adidas because under our umbrella, we also have an organization called Oceans Commit to walk and raise money in the name of reducing plastics in the ocean. And Adidas now, with their Parley brand, you know, makes most of their sneakers out of plastic bottles. So they're big in the, and because they make a walking shoe, you know, you use a running shoe, it just makes so much sense. And they have sponsored us to a degree, they've made t-shirts for our events, things, but we haven't landed a big financial contract with them, but they're number one. It seems like a marketing no-brainer, at least from my perspective, and I think about this. I know me too, water. I mean, you could think of so many different things. Anyway, you know, when you two become my partners, I'd really, really appreciate it. I'd give you 25% of the entire business. Yeah. We're on Shark Tank now, for 50%. Oh, I see. Okay, okay, I see I'm easy in negotiating, okay, 50%. Has there been friction from their side that they've at least told you, like, as to like, have you had the negotiation where they've been like, well, we're happy with the t-shirts, but we are just not ready to do, like, move to this next step. Have you gotten any kind of feedback? There has. And that is that, you know, I'm not some huge celebrity, and unfortunately, or fortunately, I just haven't spent my time with social media. I have a social media manager. I have about 80,000 people who follow me on, particularly Facebook. It's more my generation than Instagram and all that. So you could say, well, that's not shabby, but it's certainly not Kardashian numbers and whatnot, but EverWalk, for some reason, my fans haven't followed me over to EverWalk as much as I talk about our events. We've done these wonderful epic walks. We walk from Boston to Maine, and we walk from Philly to DC and from Canada down to Seattle and from here to San Diego. We've done these epic walks, but they've only affected 200 people who've come with us. They haven't been a big news event. It's not like some incredible thing. No one's ever walked from Boston to Maine. So we haven't developed a huge following for EverWalk. We literally only have about 20,000 people, you know, who are constantly on the website and part of it.  I don't know anywhere to turn to anymore in terms of come on out and walk with us on Saturday. You know, we have our group and that's who we market to. I appreciate you being vulnerable with us. I mean, that's another part of this podcast. Like you're literally in the midst of starting a business and you're wondering how to figure this out and you have this chicken and egg problem, which is what everyone who ever started a company deals with. As a developer, this is always my problem. It's always, I need this to get that and that can't happen until I get this. And it's this thing of like, I have to go chase both. I love that problem. To me, a person like that excites me the most. That problem only because I know how hard it is, but it means everything, right?  Somebody who really valued athleticism, but with a big name. Then now it becomes a no brainer for someone like Adidas. Now all of a sudden you're setting terms, right? And so that seems to be- That's a good idea. The problem, yeah. And I know, I mean, there's plenty of people that exist and your mission is so, like the beautiful thing about, well like how I view what you're doing, you have you and that's it. Like you have you, you see? That's when I say, I don't understand why we're not bigger. I mean, you look at, there's so many walking groups, programs, initiatives, but none of them have a sort of a tried and true, known, inspiring personality by them. They just say, hey come walk with us every Saturday morning, virtually, we do two miles over there. And some of them actually, frankly, most of the big walking movements don't have big numbers either, but they're not looking. You know, like our board says to us all the time, it's you guys are doing a great job. Your website looks great, the app looks great. You're offering all these different things. We have a naturalist and she's a, you know, PhD and naturalist and if you're on your walk and you take a picture of a rodent or a flower or a tree and send it into our app, she will quickly come back to you and say, oh no, that is a Cooper's hawk. And the female gets about a third bigger than the male. It's the only hawk where the females bear.   I want to walk into someone's office and them saying, we love it. We're going to put EverWalk on the map. You and Bonnie are going to be the coaches for United Healthcare and we're going to have our 240,000 employees walk in the EverWalk mile downloading their calendar. So I made all those proposals and I haven't gotten a signature on the dotted line yet. Yeah, we entered the attention economy. That's what it's all about now. What'd you call it? The attention economy. Where it's all around social media numbers and the pull you can bring in from that. That's the thing that these companies need the most. That's what they need. And so I keep saying, you build it with us and we'll get there. You know, you have incentives you can offer them. United Healthcare has deals with Apple Watch, all kinds of things. So if they were, we were going to be the coaches of all their employees for this walk, they say whoever gets 30 or 31 days every day, they're going to get an Apple Watch and they'll give it to them. I'm almost thinking about this like it could be, I'm just solving this problem on the fly. Please do. There's another part of it where it's almost like you could reach out to smaller brands like Art of Sport comes to mind. Art of Sport came on the podcast. Basically they make deodorant, body wash, soaps. Kobe Bryant was the founder, co-founder of this company. Skincare were designed with the athlete in mind. But like James Harden, so they heavy, heavy, heavy in terms of the NBA. And so a lot of the NBA players are both investors and also they use all the products. Participants, yeah. But in that, it's like you can get a smaller brand which leads you to get the bigger brand later. But the smaller brand gives you credibility and then all of a sudden now you have the firepower that's called the social media that you need that's required that checks that box and the bigger brand. So the thing is all these smaller brands are always being watched by these bigger brands. And so it creates a safe space for them to start to communicate, which probably lends itself to a future acquisition. But in the interim, it's a way to collaborate and everyone uses their own resources. So it's safe. Well, you know what they say. I don't know what the statistic is now, but pre COVID is an American, if you're starting a small business, the chances are you'll be out of business in five years. You know, very few make it and you know, are in the black or is it the red are in the profit after five years. And if you want to start a movement, so it's not even income oriented in any way. Now you're really marching uphill. But Dan, what I love about your story and you know this so well, and this is something that I tell myself every day.  I throw that away.  I throw it away. I go great. That's why you're not doing anything, right? Good for you for looking at that data. It does nothing for me. I'm gonna go create my own data. And if I fail four times, well, on the fifth, it's gonna be pretty exciting because you've created your own data. You know, and I think your story captivates all of it. It is failing. That's part of it. But the end of it is so much sweeter, right? And that's what I like about it. I like this. This is good. It's sparking me. Like my wife, my wife is terrified personally to have like children. She's like, oh, cause she runs, she has her own company. What am I gonna do? All this stuff. All of my friends, I Googled this. These things might happen. We could get divorced. That's a lot of pressure on business owners having, you know, children. And I'm like looking at her like, or you just create your own data. Like stop Googling. My mom created her own data. Diana created her own data. Well, and we say that these are the things what I need to do then is find partners who aren't thirsty and bound to social media numbers. That's not there because so far that's the only road we've been traveling. And that's the negative response. Even the science, right? So the science today says the same thing. Like the science says every American should walk 15 minutes a day at minimum. If they want to have a good life when they pass, you know, past 65 now. And so forget the big brand community. Now there's even the scientific community that can say, hey, look, this is for the future of humanity. Like this is so much bigger than Adidas, right? This is about the planet. This is so much better and bigger. This is about keeping your grandparents alive. And so I even think like these things can be part, it's a different direction, but it's totally, directionally correct, you know? Yeah. So again, as we're thinking about this out loud. I will not give up on ever walk. I'm in love with our movement and what we stand for. And I can speak it out, you know, well, but so far I haven't been able to fund it well. But you're giving me a lot of good ideas to think sideways. We've been going after the exact same, you know, down the same road each time and knocking up against the wall each time. Everything in your life has been non-linear. If you think about it, you've done things that don't make any sense, right? Like that Cuba Slim is a very non-linear thing. And I always tell people like, get out, stop, put your Excel sheet away, get off the linear path.  Do something completely left, take a left and then go exponential, right? And you'll figure it out.  As soon as someone's doing a linear sort of thinking, I'm out. Like I'm like, no, you have it wrong, go left. Well, you know, I guess the last thing I'd like to discuss with you guys is, I hate to say that, you know, the words because we're just getting off the linear path, but the formula for success, the nuggets that create success, I find in different worlds, they're not necessarily the same.  And I've become because of, I won't call it failure, but you know, Bonnie and I still haven't spent a dime of our own money. We haven't lost any money on Everwalk in five years, but we're not at the numbers and the capital, you know, to bust out and do many more events and launch things that we'd like to launch. So we haven't been a big success yet. Let's put it that way. So I'm sort of curious as to why I'm hired to stand up in front of thousands of people by the end of each year to tell my story, which as we started to come full circle in our conversation extrapolates to people living any kind of life they're living, you know, being parents, whatever they're doing, and they extrapolate what, you know, my courage to fail and all those precepts, then why have not those precepts worked for me in this, so far in this movement, this Everwalk movement? And I think that's what I have to start, you know, grappling with and saying- You're just at the jellyfish stage. You're totally where you need to be. You think? 100%. This is just part of it. You're at the jellyfish stage. All right, well I wish Bonnie had come today. I'd like to hear this too, you know? Yeah, I'll tell Bonnie. That's the thing, this is not linear. This game is not linear. It's not what's required is so much different.  No one realized it. Or until later, right? Until like, this is what was required for us to ultimately be successful. And so there's a jellyfish stage in any business, for sure. There's a moment of like, do we really want to move forward? You start judging yourself. Imposter syndrome sets in. Yes, yes. Am I really capable of this? What am I doing? I've never done this before. Can I get back in the pool? I was safe for them. That's when you're alive. The struggle is when you're happy. I mean, I've had imposter syndrome multiple times and what I realized was, I'm just being selfish in this space. The world isn't getting better. No one's walking, right? Nothing is moving in this space. Let me get out. Yeah, we're not there for sure. Some people are moving. And for those people, you've impacted them on a very positive note, but it just takes a while for it to trickle down. It takes a while for them to share it with their friends and say, hey, my life has gotten better since that walking a mile a day. And especially in today's culture and climate, that might take some convincing for the general public at large, who is not used to it. I think of infrastructure problems around the US as a big catalyst for why more people don't walk.  But I found that to be more often than not, very, very difficult to achieve because it's all like many highways and no sidewalks, no infrastructure for pedestrians. Certain areas of the country do this very well, but most do not. Well, yeah, no, we've discovered all of this for sure. You don't just tell a kid from the inner city or a mother from the inner city, just let your kid go out after dinner in the South Bronx and walk around. So it's a little apple pie idealistic. Let's everybody, all of everybody walk a mile a day, but there are millions who could. There are. Anyway, thank you, thank you for that. I hope I gave you guys something, but I'm really taking something away. 100%. Yeah. Life is such a gift by many. I'm very thankful to have you on the show. So, like I said, I wake up every day at dawn and I go in my gym, I have a neon sign, I click it on and in orange letters, it says persist. Because you know, any of us to do well in our lives, you need some talent at what you're trying to do. You need a team around you to support you and you can rely on. You need some luck, you need some timing to come together at the right time. But more than anything, you need to persist. You need to just wake up and do it again and again and again until you get there. So at four, it depends on the day, but like today was 4.45, I get on my gym. My neighbors, it's dark. My neighbors are all soundly asleep as they should be in their beds. And I play. Which means get up. I yell it out the window, get up. Don't sleep your lives away.  Sorry, I had the first couple of notes were off there. No one's gonna judge you for that. No one's ever. I'm not a professional horn player. Great note to end on. Yeah, thank you for having me, both of you. Thank you very much.