All right, what's up everyone? So this is going to be a new style of video. So at MIC, we're always trying to improve. We're always trying to give you the best resources possible to become the best trader possible. So in addition to the normal psychology videos on YouTube, what I'm going to start doing is I'm going to start doing these daily, possibly weekly trade recap videos. So let's get started. So before we get into the questions and everything else that comes with this video, I want to talk about one thing that I think is going to get you guys really excited. So number one is we are hosting a live trading event again on April 25th on Zoo. So this is completely free for MIC annual and MIC lifetime members. So if you are an MIC annual or you are an MIC lifetime member on April 25th, you get to watch me and bow trade live. We will be doing a screen share, we will record our screens, we will walk you through how we build a watch list and execute these trades. So market calendars, April 25th live trading Tuesday. So that's number one. Number two is I'm going to pass it over to Joe who is going to announce a new feature for MIC. So Joe, take it away, bro. What's up guys? How we doing today? So we're going to flip the screen share here and we're going to show you the latest and greatest for MIC. What you are seeing here, ladies and gentlemen, is the next step in providing some of the best day trading education out there. A lot of people are unsure about MIC, but as you know, we are one of the top notch peoples out there providing top notch education. And top notch memes, don't forget the memes. Yeah, right. Yeah. So our team, all the mods, everyone involved, junior mods included, they are now going to be posting everything on the MIC blog.  This is going to be updated on a weekly basis and sometimes even daily, but there's categories to go along with everything. We are now transcribing our after hours podcast as well. So if you're somebody like me that likes to be able to read it while I listen to it and take notes as I go along, these are going to be perfect for you. Those, as you can tell, we've been hard to work on that, but there's 15 pages of posts on here right now. You can search by authors. There will be more authors as this comes along. This is brand new just coming out. We're super excited about it and we hope you guys like it. So go check it out at myinvestingclub.com slash blog. Also, Joe, I think you should show them an example of like one of the blogs that like has to do with like on the categories there you got stock basics tips and tricks. So not only is this a place for general information, this is also going to be a place where you could find an encyclopedia of day trading terms. So not only do we have our video library organized and categorized and searchable via video topic. Now, if you're more of a learner that likes to read your content rather than watch your content, we now have day trading guides for you as well. Exactly. Yep, all of these, the videos that they're linked to will also be at the top of the post as well. So if there's any kind of YouTube content that we've created in the past, it's going to be linked inside the blog as well that way that you can jump to the video if it's out there for the public to see all the notes to go along with it. And as you click down here, you can navigate through the entire blog post right there along with everything on the side. So it's a fully interactive table of contents. We did our best to make this thing state-of-the-art and we look forward to you guys giving a positive feedback here. Now, Joe, I have a question. So right now, mods could write blog posts, but what about members? Do we have a feature for members to start contributing as well? There is no feature right now for members to contribute to it. However, there is a comments and interactive section that will be labeled on every single blog post that's coming probably in the next couple of months that way that if you have questions and you're not a member and you have a question about something written in that blog post, you can write it in there and then the team of mods for MIC will answer it. And then later in the future, there will be an option for members themselves to create their own blog page. So that is a feature coming in the future. Exactly. So not only guys will you be able to read, you guys will be able to learn. Maybe your biggest takeaways you could leave as a comment, just like Nancy did when she was going through all our videos. And then in the future, this opens up for you guys to not only share your plans, maybe you can post watch us over there, but you know, grow your own following using our blog. So today, I didn't really trade anything because I was just a little bit shell shocked. So let me kind of talk about that first, and then we'll get into some questions from you guys. So as you guys know, we just had a three day weekend for Easter. And what is the happening is trading is all about your routine. So if you wake up every single day at like 6am, 7am, you're going through routines, going through routines, it's almost like you do it as an instinct.  You just wake up and do the thing. But after a long weekend, I kind of hesitated. I felt like I was not in my routine. I felt like I wasn't really being myself. I felt like it's like, imagine if every single day you're waking up to exercise at 6am.  So I felt like I lost my routine today. And because I felt that way, I kind of hesitated. I hesitated and decided, you know what, I don't think I'm going to place a trade today. And that's something that I've been trying to do a little bit of a better job this year specifically, especially with this $35,000 account challenge is I want to be a little bit more selective.  But the way that I trade, you know, I like less is more. So I've been trying to show you guys by leading by example, that just because stocks are moving every single day does not mean that we have to find a trade every single day.  So I would say it is a pretty solid trade. But anyway, point is guys that I didn't feel it today. And trading is about feeling not only feeling confident but feeling like you have an edge. And today, after a long weekend, I just didn't feel it man, I really just didn't feel it. So rather than trying to force a trade, rather than trying to flex my muscles, I say, you know what, I'm just going to sit back and watch today. And that's a lesson that I kind of want to emphasize on today's recap is not all days require you to trade, not all days require you to force. If you are uncomfortable, if you are fighting with your girlfriend, if you're fighting with your significant other, if you are having a bad day, if you just got into a car accident, you got a flat tire, whatever it may be, that may be your trigger to you know what, take it slow, because what ends up happening is we take those extra emotions with being uncomfortable, being annoyed and flex them into the market.  It will keep destroying you. So for me, I didn't fight with my girl. I didn't fight with my parents. I just woke up on the wrong side of the bed after a long relaxing weekend stuffing my face with grandma's Easter food that I say, you know what, rather than trying to trade ups, take it a little bit easy today. So that's kind of the lesson that I want to show you guys.  And after nine years of trading and hundreds of thousands, if not billions of dollars, you know, the lessons are finally starting to stick to me.  And if I'm not feeling too hot, I'm probably not going to take a trade. Yes, there are days that I make an exception and yes, no one is perfect. I'm a human. I'm a mess sometimes. But in the long term, if you're really not feeling it and the opportunities are kind of feel a little bit sketchy, don't feel like you have to force, take some time off. So that's lesson number one starting this video. So do you guys have any questions on that before we move on to the next topic? Cool. I want to open it up to you guys with questions that you have. So let me see. Do you use volume along with resistance tops to pick a good resistance point? Is volume important? Yes, volume is important. As you can see, like, look at GFI here, guys, GFI on volume and had a death candle. So volume is very important to pay attention to. These videos will be a lot more intuitive and a lot more detailed when I kind of have my trade reviews up here to kind of review the trade all together as a group. But today, because there wasn't really much trades, I just want to kind of go over, you know, the mental side of what I was feeling. If you were still doing the $35,000 to $1 million challenge, do you think you would have tried to push through today? Not really. Because that is even more of a reason to not push because I have to be even more selective trading like that, you know? As traders, we have this false notion that we must be trading at every moment and every day because the real world has programmed our brain to say, I have to show up and if I work, I get a paycheck. In trading, the longer you work, the less of a paycheck you are guaranteed because the robots are going to take all your money away. So trading is a little bit counterintuitive as the fact that less is more, less is more. From knowing the stock's balance or reject from these key lines, I've annoyingly started to trade short and long stocks and always result in overall losing days. My assumption, Aaron, I am assuming is you're probably buying the breakout and shorting the tank when you should be shorting the bounce and covering the dip. So that's what I'm assuming. You could correct me if I am wrong, but what I assume is that you are doing the opposite. Can you talk about when you start taking profit? I'm either late or too early. So profit is just based on the chart, right? So it depends on support and resistance. So for example, let's pretend like we're trading GFAI, right? GFAI, we see resistance here around 1775. So if you're shorting 1775, your support would be your cover target. Let's say you're shorting the bounce here at 17 after the death candle.  Hey, if support is here at 1650, you could take off a little bit of support at either A, set a stop at break even, or B, set your other target to the next support line. So your target or your profit target or your exit should always be based on the chart. It should never be based on your artificial, arbitrary price target in your head. So question about locates, guys, and I'm going to just show you, come to the library, right? Locate. How to determine when to locate shares and how to not lose money on locating shares. So what I'm going to do, guys, is I'm going to link this for you. And so you guys have it handy. Do you guys ever have any questions on the video library? Next, I find myself stopping out with more size than my winners, like AFC and GCTK. I had 30, 40% size. The last week, my winners were mostly 10% size. How do you navigate this problem?  So my challenge to you would be on AMC and GCTK to not go above that 30% size. And on those 10% of the winners that you have are on the winners that you have to go larger than 10%. So first things first is what is the 10% of the stocks that you win out? What is the stocks that you are making the most money on? Is it the low hanging fruit? Is it a death line? I don't know what that answer is, but what stocks are you making the most money on? And use larger size on those rather than the losing stocks that you're adding to kind of maybe get yourself out of a hole. So does that make sense? All right, guys. So I'm going to wrap it up here. And then what I'm going to do is I'm going to post this replay for members inside MIC. And you guys will be able to access this together. On April 25, we're going to have the live trading for annual lifetime numbers. And let me know what you guys think of this. You guys like these types of recaps. I know today was kind of weird because I didn't really trade today. When I have trades, it'll be more in depth, higher level trade recaps, everything. And we'll try to do these as often as possible because I think this will really help accelerate your guys' learning curve. So appreciate it. And I'll see you guys hopefully tomorrow. I'll see you guys for live trading. And let's just trade well and back to business. Thanks.


QuickBooks Online 2022 Comparative Balance Sheet Creation. Get ready because it's go time with QuickBooks Online 2022. Online in our browser, searching for QuickBooks Online Test Drive, going into the Test Drive and then selecting the United States version of it and verifying that we're not a robot. Sample Company, Craig's Design and Landscaping Services holding control, scrolling up just a bit to get to that one, two, five percent. We also have the free 30-day trial version open just so we can look at the business view and compare it to the accounting view. If you don't have access to this, that's okay. We're going to work on it more in the second half of the course. Going back to Craig's Design and Landscaping, we're going to be opening up a few reports. Going to the tab up top to do so, right-clicking on it and duplicating it. Going to the first tab again, right-clicking on it and duplicating it. We're going to go down to the reports as we do, so just note, I'm going to jump back over real quick to the online 30-day free trial version just so we can look at the business view where the reports are in this business views section at this point and there are the reports. Note that if you were to change the view to the accounting view, which would be down here, it'd be back to similar to what we're looking at here over at the sample file. So back to the sample file. Now we're in the second tab over. I'm going to go to the reports on the left-hand side and we're going to be opening up one of our favorite reports, that being the balance sheet. Opening up the balance sheet, we're going to do a range change on it up top from<PHONE_NUMBER>121 to start it out with. Run it, closing up the hamburger. Going to the tab to the right, we're going to open up the P and L just for comparison's sake, for the sake of comparison and profit and loss. That's the one we want, the P and the L. The income statement. Range change up top from<PHONE_NUMBER>121. Run it, run it and close up the hamburger. Going back to the first tab, we want to make a comparative balance sheet now. Notice that you could have some kind of comparative reports that are given to you by the QuickBooks system, but all they really did was alter a standard balance sheet. So in other words, if I go to the first tab over here and we go down to the reports down at the bottom, then we do have some reports in the business overview section where we have, for example, a comparative balance sheet. If I go into that comparative balance sheet, you'll see some of the items that they chose up top, which is going to be, if I hit this previous dropdown, they used this previous year, and that's all they did to make the comparative report. So if you're dependent on this one, then you're somewhat limited because if you learn how to actually do it, then you can make other comparisons and you're not limited to a particular period such as the previous year. So let's go back to the tab to the right and see how we could basically construct that. Now there's a couple different ways we can have comparative reports in terms of multiple periods. If we want two or more periods, then what we can do is we could change this dropdown instead of having totals only. We could use the days, the weeks, the monks, the quarters, for example. So for example, here we have the range going for the entire year. So an appropriate item might be the quarters. We might go down to the quarters down below and run that report. And so now you've got multiple periods. And remember, this is a balance sheet. So we have multiple periods as of a point in time for each of these multiple different periods. And also note that we have the oldest period up front. So we're kind of reading from left to right in terms of chronological order. Now the other way we can do a comparative report is if we're just comparing two periods, then I might want to compare two periods and then take the difference between those two periods. So to do that, we have a different setup that we want to do. And let's try to do this one this time with the month of December and then look at the prior month to compare it to. So I would like to look where we stood as of December, where we stood in the prior month as of November, and then possibly take the difference between the two and possibly look at the change between the two with a horizontal type of analysis. So to do that, let's bring this back up to our starting point. Back to the totals only, running it. And what we do first is we set the current period that we want. We could do that with the custom dropdown or the dates up top to pick a date range that's automatically set up for us. Or we could just do the custom range. I'm going to start off from 12, 31, 2, 1. Hold on a sec. Let's say 12, 01, 2, 1. So December 1, 2021 to December 31, 2021, one month of December, running that report. So then I'm going to go up top here and we're going to select the dropdown. And we have a couple different items. We've got the previous period, and then we've got the previous year. So let's just look at both of them very quickly. Let's start off with the previous year and then run that report. And so we'll run it running. And so now we've got December 31, 2021, the current period that we put in place, and the prior year period, that being December 31, 2020. So now we're comparing to one month, the month of December. And in this case, we're not comparing to the prior month of November, but to the same month, to the same time of year and the prior year, which is a very common type of comparison that you might have. Now let's do it the other way. So I want to compare it to the prior month to November, hitting the dropdown up top. I'm going to uncheck this one. We're going to go to the previous period this time, previous period, and it's selecting the custom period. And it gives us the range here, which is nice because you'll note that up top we put a custom range, which of course is December, which has 31 days and comparing it to the prior month of November, which has 30 days. So you can get a little mixed up in terms of do I want to have exactly the same number of days, or do I want to be comparing month to month? Most likely you'll be comparing month to month most of the time. So I'm going to do this comparison. We're going to run the report, run it. And so now we've got the current month up front. So now we're reading from left to right, but this time we're not reading from the oldest to the newest periods, but rather, from probably the most important period, the current one to the prior periods. And so we've got the December numbers and the prior period numbers. And remember, this is as of a point in time. So we're looking at two points in time as of the end of one month versus the end of the prior month, where we stand as of that point in time. The next thing we might want, of course, is a change, a difference. What was the difference between where we stand now and where we stood in the end of November? So we can hit the drop down again and say, let's add the dollar change item here, dollar change and hit the running it, run the report. So now, of course, we have the difference between the two. So this is the current month. This is the prior month negative change of 2002, 2040. This is the current month. This is the prior month positive change of 800. We then have the accounts receivable current month, prior month positive change of the 3,107.52. The next thing we might want is a percentage change. So I could go up top and say, let's add the percentage change. And let's add that in place and run it. Now the percentage change can be useful when you're making comparisons to like other companies, for example, because if you're comparing to some other company, oftentimes one that's larger than you because you're trying to benchmark to some company that's doing, being successful, then you can't really change the dollar amount. The dollar changes that they have are probably not going to be applicable because they're going to have larger dollar amounts. But we possibly can get a little bit more information from that percentage change that takes place. Now the percentage change, if I do the calculation, this is kind of a horizontal type of analysis, pulling out the trusty calculator here. Let's pull out the trusty calculator. And we're going to say, let's make it a little smaller of a trusty calculator. Now obviously the difference, if we take the cash number here, we're going to say, all right, well we took the 2101 minus the 4321.4, that gave us our change 222.4. We're going to take the difference, the change number, and divide it by the prior month. The prior period. That's how you're going to calculate the change, so the percent change. So we're going to say, divide it by the 4321.4. And if we move the decimal two places over, you can multiply it by 100 if you want. That will give us the 51.38%. So we could do that on down here. We could do that, of course, for the accounts receivable. We have the 5281.52 minus the 2174. 2174 gives us the dollar difference of the 310752, taking that divided by the prior period of the 2174, gives us a 1.42, or if I multiply it times 100, 142.94% change. So once again, the dollar difference is not something that we'll be able to compare to benchmark, especially to larger companies, but the percentage change that they're showing and comparing that to what we show could give us possibly some more information. So that's the general idea of it. Then we could go up top and we could kind of clean this thing up a bit. We might want to clean it up for external reporting purposes. One thing we might need to do is we could say, hmm, it shouldn't be really a balance sheet as of December 31, 2021 at this point because it's really kind of a comparative balance sheet. So we might want to say, can I change the name here? Instead of calling it a balance sheet, I'm just going to click here and change the name and maybe call it a comparative balance sheet. And then this date down below, possibly I could just remove it because I have the dates down here. So I'm going to say it's not really as of December 31, because I got two periods in there. So maybe I customize this report up top and say, let's go down to the header and the footer. And we're looking at a header right now, the period, the report period. Let's get rid of it. Let's get rid of it and remove that. And so now it's gone. So now we've just got these as the date ranges. That's okay. Then we could go up top and say, is there any other customization we might want to do to it? We could say, let's remove the pennies. So how about without the pennies? Let's go and say that we want the brackets maybe for the negative numbers and to make them red. So I'm going to say, run that report. And that gives us a little bit more of a pop for those red numbers there. It's a little bit easier to read possibly. We also have this footer down below. Do I need the footer? I think not personally. I think we could do without the footer. So I'm going to go up top and say, let's customize it again. And the footer, I don't like that tattoo on my foot down there. I'm going to get rid of the text that someone inked up on my foot. And we're going to go down and say, let's get rid of the date, prepare, time, prepare, and report basis. And then say run it, running it, scrolling down. And so now we've got nothing on the footers. We've got a pretty clean comparative balance sheet. If I was to look at it in terms of a print preview up top, let's do a print preview and see what it looks like if I was to print this thing out. So it looks pretty good comparative balance sheet. So if we were to give this to like a client or something, they'd be impressed, right? We should raise our price. So that looks pretty good. So note you can make endless kind of comparisons in this kind of way. Obviously, even if you only have two months that have taken place, you can imagine a situation where you want a comparison possibly of the first and second month. And possibly if you're in a quarterly system, like if you had three months, you might want three months or the year to date in that first method by using the month or the quarters. You can imagine a situation where you would also want a month by month comparison comparing to the prior month. You can imagine a situation where you will also want a comparison to the prior year as of the same time period. So even with just like a simple comparative report, just altering the balance sheet, the number of reports that you can come up with that you might be giving to a client or to a supervisor, let's think about it as a client in this case, could go up a lot. And what you want to then is consider what kind of reporting do you want to batch together as you report your progress and your data input if you're doing like bookkeeping or accounting and how are you going to batch them together and provide those to the client.  And then you want to think about how you're going to group those reports together and provide them to the client in the easiest way. Once you've kind of determined the reports that you want, you could start to save and save these reports so that you can then have them and go right to them without having to reformat them at the end of each period. We'll get more into saving reports in future presentations.


I'm here with Sansen Tech, and who are you? I'm a cousin. And you have a very big all-winner tablet right here. Yeah, yeah. How big is this? How big? Okay. This is 23 inches, right? Yeah, yeah, 23.6 inches. And 1080p? Yeah. All right. And let's go and show, can you show? Okay, okay. Like settings, and about tablet. Yeah, you show here. 4.4, 4.4, yeah, all-winner A83, of course. And the system have been routed. You can install your own app on it, and it's free. Nice. Yeah. Let's show some other stuff. Okay. Like, this is our all-in app demo. Yeah. It's for advertising. Yeah. If you want details, you can click. And for more details, you can click next. Yeah. All right. That's cool. How much it cost? For this size, it's about $270 USD. $270 USD for how many pieces? MLQ. The MLQ is about $200 USD. $200 USD, yeah. And then you have here, you have also the camera. Yeah, of course. And we can see the camera at the top. Yeah. It can be used for all kinds of different apps. You mean what? I can do many things with the camera, maybe in different apps. Yeah. And so there it is. And all manner. Yeah. You already sell many? Yeah. How many you sell? Do you mean this one? You have Ethernet and two USB. Two USB. It's on there. And the SD card. And any other in the price you request. Cool. Yeah. And how many screens do you sell every month? Your company. Your my company is about, for every day? Yeah. Every day, like, I think about $1,000. $1,000 every day? Yeah. And you have a bigger one, but this is no touch, huh? Just no touch. You can do touch also? You know how to do that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. How much for touch? So price for touch, I should confirm.


Next question is from Brian Pada. What are some good starter exercises to become more explosive and agile? Is going lighter on compounds focusing on speed a good place to start? Going lighter on compound and lifting faster is a good way to build explosive power, but not a great place to start. I mean, start with something even more because explosive movements are the skill level to perform them with lower risk of injury is very high. Explosive movements require the most skill of all exercise. All exercise, it just require a lot of skill. So start real basic. Jump in place. Let me say your body weight is a great place to start. Yeah, it's basically everything you've been doing, but now we're going to add acceleration. We're going to add speed, you know, elements there too. But so everything you've done in terms of stability and mobility, things to really prepare your joints for this is crucial. But yeah, now body weight is the perfect place to start with lunge jumps, you know, squat jumps, you know, explosive type push-ups, things like that are real basic, but like really trying to like move your body quickly and under control and be able to, you know, slow yourself down as well as another vital component to moving faster. One way I would apply this to people initially would be I'd have people hold on to something stable and I'd have them stand on a pad. So something with some give on it. I'd have them take their shoes off and then I'd tell them to jump in place. Not like bounce over and over again, but rather just jump once, get your stability, hold on to something for balance, and then do it again. And then from there, it's easy to progress, right? Then we go from that to doing it without holding on to something, to doing it on a hard surface, then to doing it to jumping on something. But that's a great place to start.  It's about organizing your entire body to move with it and move quickly. So, you know, before we really start getting into then, you know, complicated Olympic lifts where you got to use the barbell to move the barbell in a certain linear path. It's really hard to do to organize your body. Check out this kid, Alex. His Instagram page is Real Game Period Athletics. Oh, he's awesome. I've been actually trying to track him down and get him on the YouTube channel to actually create some content around this exact question because I think most of his page is like literally dedicated to this. And I think it's a great place to start. Most all of it is all bodyweight movements, but I love the way he teaches guys incredible mechanics. Super smooth. It makes it look effortless. And that's really the goal of this is to, you know, be able to stop in a really smooth and organized way and have like a lot of control with this as well.


Next one, growth. How do you create growth? Seek growth is number six. Seek growth. How do you really scale it? How do you make it big? Growth is a function of understanding why people do what they do and also a function of understanding what specific elements in the business are those things that the masses are going to want. And generally speaking you will find that there's a little curve that happens like this and most businesses actually only get to about here and what happens is they build their business to a point where there's enough money for them to live on and then they kind of plateau out and they stop doing the things that made them successful in the first place. See, this might be, this could well be perhaps let's say one year, one year of operating that business and you go help the leather on that first year and the moment that you start making money and the money starts, you start taking a wage from the business we kind of start to slow down a little bit and we start to realize that this business is pretty successful I can live off the business and we stop doing the very things that made us successful in the first place. So how do you get across this chasm? And this usually can be a tough place to get through. Well, this is scalability and this is the next stage and this is what I do for work. We help businesses scale. We help businesses become market leaders. We help businesses acquire other companies that are already doing the things that they want to do in the future and that is the fastest way to build a business. You can try and learn everything yourself but it might take you a thousand lifetimes. The best thing to do is find a business that is already moving forward and then look to grow that business internally but mainly externally through acquisition. And if you look, I challenge you in fact to look at everyone on any of the rich lists. They've all made their money through acquiring businesses. Even Warren Buffett. You might say, well, Warren Buffett is a stock guy. Well, yeah, but the only real way that Warren Buffett is able to invest in all these companies is because he owns certain companies outright. Like Greco. Some of you might know that insurance firm. That's Float. You've got an insurance company. It's a great business because you get all the money up front and you just hold it. So now you can invest in all these other companies. But if you really look at the most successful people, you will notice that what they do is buy complementary businesses and scale that way. You can see it's obvious, isn't it? It's the fastest way to grow a business. Who out there currently has customers that we want to acquire? And we go and get those customers. We go and identify those customers and we build the business. And then the last one, the last law, if you will, is give back. And I think everyone here knows that I don't really need to tell you why we need to give back. I do believe what goes around comes around. And if we can make the world a better place by what we do and the impact that we leave on this planet, then that will be paid back to us. In 1982, moments after Air Florida's Flight 90 left the runway at Washington's National Airport, it was clear that the plane was not going to fly. As it shuddered and stalled, the pilot turned to his co-pilot and said, we're going down. Three seconds later, the plane slammed into the 14th Street Bridge and plunged into the icy waters of the Potomac River. Onlookers watched in horror as the fuselage, which were broken free from the tail section, sunk beneath the water with its rows of passengers still in their seats. Within four minutes, four, five, and six people were left bobbing and trying to hold onto the tail section. Only six people were left. The rest had died. Priscilla Taredo had a newborn baby with her on that flight. She was screaming hysterically, trying to find a baby. Her eyes were filled with jet fuel. Hamilton had broken his hip and his arm, and he was holding on to another passenger, Kelly Duncan, who was a flight attendant who'd made it. But it was freezing cold in the water, and as Onlookers watched on, they realized that they couldn't get across the icy water, so the only way that they could get these people out was by helicopter. Five minutes later, that's a long time in a situation like that. Five minutes later, the helicopter could be heard thwacking through the sky, dangling a lifeline. As it dangled over that carnage, R&D Williams, a balding middle-aged bank examiner from Florida, grabbed the first line, and he handed it to Bert Hamilton. Bert Hamilton grabbed it and was pulled to safety very quickly. On the second trip, the helicopter came back. Kelly Duncan grabbed it with another individual. As they went up, this second individual fell back in the water. An Onlooker from the shore jumped in to help her and save her. She was the one with the jet fuel in her eyes. The third and fourth time, R&D Williams caught the line and he handed it to the next person. On the final trip, when he came back, the helicopter came back, Williams was gone. He hadn't made it. Now, you and I will never have to be in a situation like that, I'm sure. But if someone like that could do something for strangers, how incumbent upon us is it just to do something with our business or our professional life that can impact others in a significant way? Most of the businesses that are successful today and have really made it didn't start out with the intention of making a lot of money. They started out in creating a need, understanding demand, and really trying to execute against that to help people create a better life. I just saw a gap. Usually they say, I just saw a need, I just saw a demand, and I wanted to create something. So if you go after the money first, you might be successful, but you won't be fulfilled. Does that make sense? Understand that it's important to recognize that why am I doing this in the first place and let the money come after that? Self-worth is always more important than net worth. But if you get that right, you can look forward to the net worth. One last point, and I'll be done. This is a poem that I learned a few weeks ago. I read it, and I thought this really applies to what we're talking about here today in understanding what it takes to be successful in our lives as individuals just trying to get ahead in the world. It goes like this. A lady was waiting at an airport one night with several long hours before her flight. She hunted for a book in the airport shop, bought a bag of cookies, and found a place to drop. Engrossed in her book, she happened to see that the man who sat beside her as bold as could be took a cookie or two from the bag in between which she tried to ignore to avoid a scene. As he munched on cookies, she watched the clock. As this gutsy cookie thief diminished the stock, she got more and more agitated as the minutes ticked by and said if I wasn't so nice, I'd blacken his eye. With each one he took, she took one too. And when there was only one left, she wondered what he would do. With a smile on his face and a nervous laugh, he took the last cookie and broke it in half. He offered her half while he took the other. She snatched it from him and thought, oh brother, this man's so rude why he didn't even show any gratitude. She'd never before felt so appalled and sighed with relief when her flight was called. As she gathered her belongings, she headed to the gate refusing to look back at the thieving ingrate. As she boarded the plane, she sank in a seat and opened a book which was almost complete. As she reached in her bag, she gasped with surprise.  If these are mine, she thought would despair then the others were his and he tried to share. In a moment of clarity and a moment of disbelief she realized that she was the ungrateful one, the ingrate, the thief. Why do I share that with you? For one reason. Sometimes we think we know what it takes to be successful in life. The only way you can truly be successful in life is by getting around people that have already done it and I challenge you to do that. It's been a great group. Thank you very much for this. Thanks guys. Have we got some time for questions? Just so you know, we've got a few copies of the book. If you want to get a few copies, you can see James at the back for those if you're interested. If you guys have any questions, by all means, shout them out. I'd love to answer them.


All right, so our last speakers for today are actually from San Francisco Public Library. They're in two very diverse roles, so we're going to hear some very interesting perspective about policy enforcement through an equity lens. So I'd like to bring up Leah Squiera and John Kuhnha, where, where, where are they at? Oh, I see them. Okay. They're on their way. Whoo! It's good? Yeah? Okay. Thank you very much for being here today. Thank you for having me. It is an honor to be here today at PLP, actually at the San Francisco Public Library where I work. So, um, so my name is Leah Squiera and I'm the social worker at the San Francisco Public Library. I also supervise the San Francisco Public Library social service team. As some of you might already know, San Francisco Public Library is the first library system to hire a full-time library social worker. I started 14 years ago, yes, that's 14 years ago. Um, in 2009 I'm still here, very happy to be here, and I've been providing direct social services since and overseeing the social service program, which includes a team of amazing, amazing team of health and safety associates, or HASAs. By the way, so HASAs are peer, library peer outreach workers who have lived experiences of homelessness and issues that are often associated with homelessness. So, um, so when the shelters close at 6.30 in the morning in San Francisco, people experiencing homelessness have nowhere else to go except, you know, I mean, not except, but to sleep, rest, or attend to their personal hygiene. And San Francisco Public Library becomes one of the very first places where and how people can find refuge and solace, as well as access these basic needs until they start lining up for the shelters again at 5 o'clock in the afternoon, or leave the library to sleep on the streets. I'm sure that this reality resonates not just here at the San Francisco Public Library, but at your library as well, but also in the U.S. and also all over the world. Because the recent being is public libraries filled the systemic gap created by the lack of resources that are necessary for unhoused individuals and people living at poverty level to address even their most basic needs of food, safety, and shelter. The reality is that there are more needs than resources. So this picture was actually taken, I took this picture a long time ago in 2020 during the lockdown. It was a safe space, a slave sleeping space between here and Asian Art Museum. It doesn't exist anymore, but it included it as a representation of the homelessness crisis in San Francisco and I'm sure in your community where homelessness is very visible as I'm sure you have seen coming to this conference. So when patrons experiencing homelessness come to our libraries often, if not always, they might also be experiencing mental health challenges, substance use, chronic illness, and social justice issues including extreme poverty. These issues at times translate into challenging situations at our libraries that library staff are not equipped to deal with as they're not professionally trained to respond to these issues. These challenging behaviors or situations could include patrons with poor hygiene, people experiencing mental health challenges such as paranoia, delusions, or making loud noises that are disruptive to other patrons. And these behaviors might or might not be related to mental health, substance use, medical issues or developmental issues, behaviors that might pose as a safety issue for others when the space of other patrons are invaded or, you know, threatening behaviors. So these are the situations that prompted San Francisco Public Library to hire a professional social worker in 2009, which is me, and to support the staff and community and to connect patrons with social services. So let me give you a brief background on how I started at the San Francisco Public Library as the nation's first full-time library social worker. I've been told because I wasn't here yet, around 2003 I believe there has been a survey down among staff to assess the areas in their day-to-day work at the library where they need support. The results show that the library staff need support in dealing with challenging situations that I've mentioned earlier. San Francisco Public Library reached out to the San Francisco Department of Public Health for assistance, and in 2009 a partnership between two distinct city departments was formed, which is the Department of Public Health and the San Francisco Public Library. Through the partnership I became an embedded resident social worker at the San Francisco Public Library, where I remained to be an employee of the Department of Public Health until July of last year, where officially I became a staff of the San Francisco Public Library. Hey. So I started my role as what would become a model that continues to be emulated by many library systems, not just in the US, but other countries such as Australia, Sweden, and Canada. And the reason I'm mentioning all of this is because the challenging issues that we witness here in San Francisco and in our communities really are global, homelessness, lack of resources, substance use and overdose, mental and medical health issues, unemployment, social justice issues related to immigration, LGBTQIA+, racism, and many more. So these are complex issues that deeply affect our communities as we grapple with crisis in mental health, drug overdose, crime, racial inequity, homophobia, et cetera. And the trauma that our unhoused patrons, when they come to the library and those living at poverty level, when they come to us to use our library, the staff also experienced these hardships because we deal with the hardships of our patrons. So a brief overview of what I do as a library social worker, I provide training for the staff around the challenges of our underserved patrons with issues I mentioned earlier such as mental health and substance use. And because I like to say that we're all in this together and I really do believe that it takes a village, some of the trainings I provide are healthy professional boundaries and limit setting, humanizing homelessness and understanding mental health challenges and substance use, trauma informed approach, self-care and resiliency. These trainings are important for the library staff to understand the experiences of our underserved patrons and also for the staff's well-being as well. I also maintain and build partnerships with community organizations that we collaborate with to bring their services to San Francisco Public Library through tabling and outreach. So the library becomes a one-stop shop for the day as the patrons use the library services and accessing social services. So this was the pop-up care village before the pandemic. We used to host pop-up care village in partnership with Love and May that doesn't exist anymore and it used to be attended by 300 people and 30 community organizations. We do this but on a very, very, very small level or scale after, you know, when we came back. And also one of the strengths of being here at the San Francisco Main Library here in this area is that we're escaping a hop away from resources and organizations. So I develop and maintain a database of free community resources that the Health and Safety Associates or the Hauses provide to patrons during their outreach and that the staff can also refer to. So we provide over 60 resources based on the needs of our patrons and some of the popular ones are housing. So when people are looking for housing, we refer them to the city's coordinate entry system for adults, youth, and family. There's also, you know, popular where to eat, where to get clothes for free, shower. But we really have a lot of resources. And also what I do as a social worker is I'm always available to respond to assist the library staff, to support them when dealing with social service issues that are no longer reference questions or situations are beyond the capacity of librarians or library staff. So I would either respond in person to challenging situations. Also that might be beyond what a Hausa who are peer outreach workers can tackle. So those situations could be child abuse, elderly abuse, or chronic mental illness where a patient might need a mental health professional to assess and coordinate care. And as I mentioned, I've been supervising the Hausa program since 2009. So before I go any further, this is just let me mention that the social services team, including myself and the Hauses, we are not part of the security team. Johnny's going to talk about that later. Nor our roles have anything to do with security. However, to our presence and support for the staff and the patrons, we're being a level of safety and comfort to our patrons' physical, emotional, and psychological well-being. So as I mentioned, Hauses themselves have their own experience of being unhoused. Many of them understand the challenges of our library patrons when it comes to mental health and substance use. And they have a personal experience of actually going to, for example, general assistance or food stamps because they have used those resources themselves. The Hauses reflect the community that we serve. So they're really truly the ones who are at the forefront of face-to-face interactions with our patrons through outreach and the relationships that they build with our patrons, the community, and the staff. The Hauses walk around all six floors of the main library and some branches that we identify as high needs. During their outreach, they seek to connect with patrons who might seem to be needing assistance and meet them where they're at. They carry a thick binder of resources, as you can see here, that I mentioned earlier, binder of resources and try to connect the patrons to resources that are popular, as I mentioned, shower, free heat, shelters, how to access primary care, mental health. And so that's one of the Hauses in action. Hauses do not function as security. Their main role is to link people with services using a compassionate and non-judgmental approach. In this manner, Hauses indirectly complement the security team, as not every situation is a security situation. Examples of situations where asking for a Hauser to intervene would be a better approach, for example, a patron who might not be appropriately dressed, you know, such as not wearing a shirt or his barefoot, a patron with a poor hygiene that makes the area no longer comfortable for other patrons, or sleeping at the library, or experiencing a mental health situation. So in these situations that I've actually mentioned, library staff will most likely call for a Hauser than a security, or a security staff to assist. Or a library staff might still find a patron and still enforce the court of conduct relating to proper hygiene or those situations or no sleeping policy, but in the process they have something extra to offer. So they can offer the patron to speak with a social worker or Hauser. So the patron can be provided with information on where to get, for example, free clothes or where to shower or get shoes, or even to sleep instead of sleeping at the library. And also connect them with medical mental health or substance use treatment, you know, if that's what, if they're interested in those services. So this also gives the patron an opportunity to return to the library instead of being excluded because of these barriers. Really our goal is to help as much as I can, as much as we can, to remove those barriers so our patrons can return and return to the library to use its resources. So in terms of working with library security staff, our library security staff are compassionate and well trained in escalation techniques. However, many of the un-housed individuals have experienced trauma in dealing with authority figures or people in uniform. Underserved patrons tend to feel more comfortable when speaking with a Hauser, you know, who does not wear a uniform and who look just like everyone else. So this is one of the Hauses, excuse me, or most effective. They can communicate with the patrons without triggering the trauma of the patrons. So as they walk around they might also find people who might be experiencing possible overdose or having a medical crisis. Having, sorry. She is always on call, yes. Of my cell phone. And it's actually the library staff calling for outreach. Sorry. And I think one of the Hauses probably is responding. She's in the back. So sorry about that. So having a mental, so you saw the Hauses are actually really good at, you know, responding when in situations like mental health crisis or feeling, you know, or it doesn't have to be a crisis. A patron might be feeling alone, isolated or depressed or just really having a bad day that might escalate into a behavioral issue. All the non-security, the Hauses, comforting presence might mitigate those situations from escalating into a crisis. And in few situations the Hauses were also able to reverse overdose as they administered Narcan. When someone is experiencing mental health challenges, that could be disruptive, but it's not really a safety issue. Hauses kind of approach through peer-to-peer support might be enough in many situations to calm down the patron's anxiety or personal crisis. So because of the presence of the Hauses, underserved patrons have access to people who have firsthand knowledge of their challenges and staff also get the support that they need beyond their roles or capacity as library staff. So these interactions are wonderful opportunities to be able to reach to many individuals who might be difficult to reach because some of them have actually given up. You know, they've got laws in the system, they've given up trying to access services or feel like no one really listens or can understand them or answer their questions. So I like to say about our approach. It's bringing services to those who cannot access traditional base, traditionally based services by meeting them literally where they're at, which is here at the library. And I call this model in-reach, which is a street outreach model but inside the library. And then lastly, the Hausa program is also a workforce development program. The program is served as a stepping stone or a hand up for a number of Hauses who are able to overcome homelessness and now have entered the workforce. A number of the Hauses have found employment in different sectors after receiving vocational training here as Hauses. Two of the former Hauses have been working full time for the Department of Public Health now for close to 10 years as public health workers. Another one, a young adult that I outreach here and became a Hausa is now a manager of one of the hotels here in San Francisco. And another one is actually a supervisor for our social service program in another state. And lastly, as of July of this year, the Hausa program has been expanded to a capacity of nine part-time positions from where the positions have been converted from contract with a nonprofit. So now there are temporary civil service employees. So with this, I really believe that this really says, this is a testament to the invaluable contributions of the Hauses here at the San Francisco Public Library. Thank you very much. All right, good afternoon.  And then we're going to get into kind of a, kind of a general overview of security here at San Francisco Public Library. So let me just start off by saying, I feel incredibly fortunate to be here today and I hope you do as well. This has been a fantastic place to work. I've only been here about 15 months, but I'm very grateful for my job and it is new and exciting every day. As the facilities director, I oversee several units of which security is just one. One thing that I'm, I don't know if I'm proud of it. Yeah, I'm a little proud of it. As I come from an untraditional background, I actually come from a construction background and a project management background. And one of the things that I really enjoy about that and what I tell new hires that come to work for facilities is that fresh eyes are very strong eyes, right? So that's one of the things that I like to think that I bring to specifically to the security team is because I am not a traditional security specialist, I tend to step back and look at things from a more holistic view and try to problem solve in maybe some untraditional ways. Okay, it works. Okay, how does security fit in with our mission of the San Francisco Public Library? Our security team works to ensure the safety and security of all patriots and staff at each of our locations. And our professionalism supports the core values of our department by creating welcoming environments for our diverse communities to enjoy free and equal access to our library services and programs. Right, pretty straightforward. So one of the things that I talked to about our buildings and grounds patrol officers is looking at things like I mentioned earlier from a high level. So we're just gonna look at a quick scenario here. Imagine a loud disruptive person or patron is knocking over books and causing a scene. The patron continues to shout as security drags them out by force. So the question here is who is most affected by this scenario, right? Obviously the security staff is affected, the library staff is affected, and obviously the patron is affected, but intentionally misleading question. The patrons who are around and exposed to this scenario now no longer feel safe in the library and they may not return. And I don't know if you noticed on my first slide there, one of my main missions here as a facilities director is about welcoming and keeping people in the library, not keeping them out. So with our 8207s and our 8211s, so those are our buildings and grounds patrol officers and their supervisors. That's a message I continue to reinforce with them is our job is to get people in the library and make them feel welcome in the library, not keep them out. So in the event that you feel like somebody needs to be removed from the library, let's have that conversation before we move to that step. Now, as I mentioned, I'm relatively new to the library family. So you may hear a lot of material that I've stolen from other people in the last year and a half and I'm okay with that. But one of the profound thing I heard in Columbus last year that I share excessively with our security team is if you take that event, the incident, as a point in time, there's all kinds of stuff that happens after that, right? The person might be removed, they might be kept out of the library, there's going to be appeals hearing, there's a lot that goes on. But what we tend to overlook, and we're shifting our focus on this, is all that time that occurred before the incident, right? So that's where we're really shifting our focus. Like how do you establish that relationship in a five-second conversation or in a one-minute conversation? And just acknowledging people when they walk into the library, hi, how are you today? It helps to remove the anonymity and it creates that relationship, right? So all of that is part of how we provide customer service. I come from a very customer service-centered background, right? In facilities, I oftentimes, we talk about this with my staff, who's our customer in facilities? You guessed it, everybody, right? We don't really have anybody that's not our customer. Library staff, definitely our customers, right? Patrons, absolutely our customers. My boss, my customer, obviously, right? And for me personally, this is just my own mission. The taxpayer of San Francisco is my customer. So it's important for me to deliver the best product at the safest product, the most used product I can to them, all right? How do we incorporate mindfulness? Again, a lot of talking is how we incorporate mindfulness. We have a security briefing every Friday. I attend 90% of them, 85% of them. One of the things I try to impress upon the security team, but also all of facilities, anyone who reports up to me. But in this case, let's talk about security. I tell my security, or buildings and ground patrol officers that they are not being paid to be security guards. They're not being paid to remove people from the building. They're not being paid to enforce even the patron code of conduct. Ultimately, what they are being paid to do is to be critical thinkers. Like, that is their number one goal. And to apply that to every situation. If it's a potential situation which may escalate, that they're thinking about that ahead of time, right? If it's something they can resolve without it escalating. If it's a matter of maybe asking a library staff to step away and let me have this conversation. But to be able to make that critical thinking so that as much as we rely on and as important as policy and procedure is, we are all critical thinkers and we need to be able to make decisions in the moment. That's very important to me. So again, security is obviously one of our main points of interaction with patrons from facilities. So I make sure that we invest as much as my boss will let me invest in our security staff, right? We have lots of expanded training and security from supportive crisis response to managing boundaries to de-escalation. Team development is, it's not the most important thing to me, but it's really high on my list. And it is when I coach my security supervisors for in dealing with their reports and in working on their annual work plans. One of the things I really impress upon them is work with your reports to find any training course they're interested as long as it can be tied to what they do for work. And it doesn't even have to be a strong correlation, but I find it's really important that every employee, but in this case, we're talking security, every employee within facilities knows that this department is investing in them. Wants them to be the best version of themselves at work and at home and that they can develop here within our department. Team morale, that's turned into a wonderful thing in the last eight, nine months. I have a one-person party committee that has knocked the socks off of several parties for security and they've expanded now. We don't have security parties now, we have security parties where everybody's invited. We've gone bowling, we've had barbecues, we've done karaoke. And I think right now, at this time in history, that is probably more important than ever, coming out of the pandemic, coming out of a lot of social isolationism, easy to say. So it's been very enjoyable watching security grow and bond as a family and as a team. Lost track of where I was there, hold on. Okay, so Leah mentioned her presentation, right? It takes a village, right? So the one thing where I would challenge you, dear colleague, is I think we're all part of security and I think that's a really, really important little detail that we all understand, like, hey, it's what can the librarian do? What can the library tech do? What can the HOSTA do? What can we all do to help elevate the safety and the attitude of safety within our facilities, within our buildings, right? So in addition, sorry, to our security team, we have, as Leah mentioned, the HOSTAs. We also have Sheriff's Office support here. We usually have two deputies on staff during our open hours. We also have a relationship with a community group called Urban Alchemy, and to be honest with you, I'm not sure how big they are, so I don't know how familiar any of you are with them. But they provide additional support in the form of greeters or ambassadors throughout our building. They're in our neighborhood a lot. It's a work development program and one thing I really love about this slide is the gentleman with the finger up there, number one, he is now a full-time employee of San Francisco Public Library and he is, I mean, I'm not supposed to have favorites but he's one of my favorites. So his name's Larry, he's outstanding, 8207, he's a lot of fun, very sincere, very lovable gentleman, and really exactly what I'd like to see in 8207. So I'm very proud of him, and I'm very happy that he's now part of the SFPL team. So yeah, Urban Alchemy helps out a lot. That's the biggest help is actually providing Larry, but they also, they allow us for extra services, like we have a bike check-in for patrons, Urban Alchemy, man's that, they station our hide street door and then they're helped to monitor the restrooms and as well as our Larkin Street entrance. As I said, I think security, I think of security as more of an attitude situation than a team. I think it's important for library staff that they always stay aware and alert of surroundings, and that they take ownership in that. It's not a matter of what can security do for me, but what can I do for myself to ensure my own safety? Practice de-escalation, I know we have de-escalation training here at SFPL, which moving forward, I'm working with the public services side to make sure that the security team as well as the public services team are taking the same training so we make sure we're on the same page with each other. And then the documentation of incidents clearly and accurately is really obviously important in dealing with patrons in a fair and equitable manner. So obviously things do happen, so we have incident reports here. One of the things, like I mentioned, we request is that anyone who's gonna file an incident report make sure that it's objective and it's documented as soon as possible after the incident. Of course, all of our records are public, so we do a lot of training on incident report writing to make sure that we're all on the same page again. Now those incident reports help out a lot because we collect data on a monthly basis, we take a look at those, and this data really helps us to identify is there a hotspot, is there a problem where maybe we need a little more support, maybe another buildings and grounds patrol officer, or maybe our mobile unit goes there a little more frequently. And it informs staffing about those scheduling adjustments. So here's just a quick image of some of our Tableau data that we're looking at on a monthly basis. And again, it shows the heat map to where there are more or less incidents, it shows trends and then actual numbers. And what's obviously really important about that is that it allows us to make decisions that maybe aren't couched in just an emotional reaction or something where we're just trying to settle down somebody else's emotional reaction, if you will. So we try to make data-driven decisions anytime we can. So after incidents, we also have an access appeals hearing program where if the patron feels that their suspension was unwarranted, they can appeal that. The hearing officers are assigned so that they're not directly affiliated with the incident in any way. So hopefully they will have a very objective point of view. And you can see here just some of the basic fiscal year 23 data. So there were only a couple reversed, but really a lot of people didn't show up for them. So it would have been interesting to see how many of those we could have reversed had they shown up. So ultimately, again, you've heard me say it a million times already and I've only been here a few minutes. But safety is an attitude, it's a collective and collaborative effort. Everybody contributes, everybody can be aware. Some of the things we do within our security team to try to heighten that sense of community and that sense of involvement is I really try to let the security team come up with ideas and proposals that will keep them engaged. Like I like to make anybody a project manager that's willing to take it on. So some of the things that we've done recently is it was important to some of our patrol officers that the amber lights be added to our mobile vehicles. So I handed that over to an 8207, he saw that, I don't know about you all, but procurement in the city of San Francisco can be a little challenging. And he saw this all the way through from specking out the light to taking it to central shops, to getting the quote, to walking through the procurement. And I didn't even notice that till just now, but the final one there was that same individuals, a different idea from the same individual. And I'd like to think that's because he had success on his first proposal. So that's, we'll get to that in a second, but then additionally we have alarms, local alarms on doors that are for staff only and security response to those as quickly as we hear them. Again, the stickers, I love the stickers. Again, it was a security idea that they have custom made stickers made that represent, for now it's security, but we're gonna expand that in the future. We just started this a few months ago, but we've had two rounds of custom made stickers that security patrol officers can hand out to patrons that come in. Obviously children love them and they're a lot of fun. So, and it's as much as it might be for patrons and their children, I love the level of engagement it creates within security. So that's important. So that's pretty much it. That's kind of a summary of security from my point of view here at San Francisco Public Library and thank you for listening. If anyone's got questions for this panel. I'm curious about the HASA people, how were they recruited and interviewed or chosen? Sure, so when we first started in 2009, they started out as interns. And they are actually part-time staff. It's if you're familiar with trauma informed approach. Even before knowing about trauma informed, I use the trauma informed approach in hiring and developing the HASA program. So it means three, they work three hours a day, five days a week. The reason being is that many of them are coming out of recovering from homelessness and some of them have not worked in a very long time. They still have appointments that they need to attend to. So after about, I guess, maybe two years and it was time limited because it's internship, it's six months in one year. And then, but the HASAs kept on wanting to continue working. And then we found out that it's actually not legal to keep on keeping people as interns. So we partner up with a nonprofit to hire them as contract positions. Part of what really helped is that I work with a Department of Public Health vocational counselor, which is a community mental health clinic where they have a workforce development program. So they were able to refer really great applicants and candidates for the HASA program. And the great thing about it is that while they're working and learning this new way of, I guess, life, you know, living, working, is that they have extra support not just from the library, not just from me, but also from their counselor as well. So, sorry, I just wanna add. So from non-contract nonprofit, they are now, as I mentioned, with the San Francisco Public Library as 9920s, which is public service aid, 15 to 20 hours a week for two years. Thank you. A quick question is, how do you manage people who are sleeping in the library? That's something that at my library, we used to kind of enforce it in a way where if they're not snoring, we would just kind of leave them be, but then that was challenged by another patron who was snoring and he kind of pointed out that we were being a bit hypocritical in our enforcement. So I'm just curious, how do you do that at your library? Yeah, not to be, yeah, we wake them up. Yeah, we have a no sleeping policy. And so the buildings and grounds officers are asked to gently and politely wake them up, check in on them. If it is just a matter of dozing off, that is usually where it ends. If it's a person that's really having a hard time staying aware and awake, then we, there's a decision point there, right? Like, is this a place where we call in Leah's team and call in Ahasa? Or is it someone that we potentially have to have removed? But again, that's that critical thinking point right there where they have to make that decision. But yeah, we do have a no sleeping policy. So from, you know, our work as social services team, we just, even me, if I see someone who's sleeping, I'll just say, hi, you know, waking up and say, I just wanna make sure you're okay, you're not having any medical emergencies. And a lot of times they really appreciate that. And I know the Haasas would might, and you know, that's also an opportunity to start, get to know the person, give resources. Some of, one of the resources that I've actually mentioned is that there's a church here where they actually allow people to sleep during mass. So they'll say, you know, we're welcome to be here at the library, you just need to be awake because of the policy. But if you want, you can actually go to St. Boniface and you can sleep there. Yeah, that kind of stuff. And you know, a lot of times that opens up into other conversations as well. All right, thank you, Leah. Thank you, John. And thank you. I would also just love to get a round of applause for all of our speakers today. I think that we had some really good topics discussed. And I want to do one more round of applause for Mike Hector, the tech team. They did an amazing job keeping us on track. And they have also generously recorded this conference. So those segments will be available online. So you can re-watch or share with staff members that you think might benefit from the topics discussed today. So again, thank you so much. And we do have an evaluation form. We do ask that you fill it out. We have a QR code. We also have a print version for those who prefer that. We really do value your feedback and we do apply it to the planning process for next year's conference to make it even better. And we also have these fun little plastic name badges. You can keep the insert, but we do like to reuse these. Way to be user-friendly. So please do return these. We have a table in the back. And we appreciate you. We hope to see you next year at Futures 2024. Thank you everyone. Drive safe. Thank you.


Hey Aljopa and welcome to my big Swedish adventure. I'm riding the length of Sweden from north to south. In the previous episode, I met a really cool Dutch guy, took cover from the rain in an old RV, ended up getting demolished by the rain later on and was taken in by a wonderful couple at the end of the day. And today my goal is not to get wet, but I doubt that's going to happen. I don't know what it is with sleeping on the ground. I think I'm allergic to sleeping bags, because my face always gets so puffy. But I am so thankful for this nice, dry, warm patio. Look at this super healthy Swedish breakfast. Yogurt, muesli, bread, cheese, and an egg. We've got Kalle's caviar in here. In here, this is called knäckebröd. Good morning, good morning. Have you slept well? Yes, we slept really well. That's good. Me too. But it was hard to sleep last night, because there was so much pressure on me. I was thinking about whether you were right. I know it seems crazy to put jelly on cheese. In the first day, I was an exchange student and Sweden and my brother was doing this and I was like, what? But it is so good. I love it. And this right here is called a dala häst. We are in the land of Dala, not right now, the county. And this is where the horse is from. And if you ever buy a Swedish souvenir, you're probably going to see one of these. And they're handmade and hand-painted. And this one is from 1967. And it is a big one. This is how big the dala häst is. They are usually not this big. But it's a nice hefty solid wood dala häst. And before I leave, I'm going to look at the weather. Oh, maybe I shouldn't look at the weather. Rain, rain, rain, rain, rain. Thank you, warm, cozy patio. Oh, it's always hard to leave a comfy situation knowing you're going out into the cold. But I got to get to Malmö. Thank you. Now I have friends in the dala. And we'll see each other again. You have to greet me in Colorado sometime. That's going to be nice. Yes, it's going to be really nice. Have a good summer. It's not really a summer day today. But that's life. I hope you get a sun. Let me get some rain at least. Bye, bye. Have a good day, have a good Sunday. Okay. My heart is full after an encounter like that. I was getting desperate yesterday evening and just saw him picking up his mail. And I was like, hey man, need a little help here. And before I knew it, I was in their house. We were up pretty late just chatting. Kind hearted people like that make the world go round. And they're everywhere. They're in Sweden, United States, Mexico. I've met them everywhere. And it always just makes me happy. Fills my heart with warmth knowing that there's people out there who just want to help, you know. So no matter what happens today, no matter how wet I get or cold I get, I'm just feeling charged up, you know. That was a good night for the soul. And as always, no crashies, flaties, or whanies. And just like yesterday morning, I am very thankful that I'm not starting out the day in the rain. I like to work up to these things, you know. Start off warm and comfortable. Even though it's not that warm, that's why I'm wearing my jacket. I don't know, but Dalana, where I am right now, this state or county, whatever they call it, they might win for the cutest little red houses in all of Sweden so far. And here's the ski resort, Rume Alpin. If you ever want to come this way for a winter ski vacation. There it is. So I want to talk a little bit about trail magic. Last night was definitely amazing trail magic. Sometimes it just happens. You don't have to put any effort into it. And people are there just waiting to receive you. And then sometimes you do have to put effort into it. Last night I knew that I was going to have to be a little bit bold and just ask people for help. And that's what I did. And when you ask humans for help, 9.9 times out of 10, they're going to find a way to help you. And Lasse stood there when I was talking to him. He's like, you need a roof?  We got you. And it led to a wonderful encounter. Sometimes on these adventures, you just have to put yourself out there in more ways than one. Physically and mentally. But you also have to have the courage to talk to people and ask them because it goes a long way. And most times they are more than happy to help. It makes them feel good. They're going to be talking about this random encounter all day. They're going to call their kids and tell them that they hosted some crazy American. And we're going to be connected now for a long, long time. I've got their email. I've got the phone number. I know where they live. I hope I see them someday down the road. I'm still in contact with a lot of the people that I've met on my adventures because they mean a lot to me. Even though the encounters are usually very short, they're meaningful. It is time for lunch. I got a little cheese sandwich. A blueberry muffin. A couple of bananas. Of course, my favorite barbells, protein bar. And chocolate balls. I'm not going to eat all of this, but I'm pretty excited. Skull. Alright. Here we go. Off. Into the darkness. Clouds are getting darker. No doubt. Well, I didn't beat the rain. But at least I got a blueberry muffin and a chocolate ball. You know, the worst part about today is that my solar-powered Garmin is not going to gain any power today. Nope! I want to see the sun in the sky. Look at the cows. Hi cows. I always wonder if cows and horses hate rain and snow.  We just have to stand out in here all day and deal with this. They don't have fancy rain jackets. It's like us humans. But I guess they're animals, but nope, we're a bunch of wimps, us humans. We need fancy jackets. Where's your rain jacket? You know what I saw crawling across the road? This little toad. I'm going to save him. I've seen a lot of these guys smushed on the roads. And I don't want you to get hurt. Okay, I'm going to move you across. I'm going to move you.  Yeah, buddy. You need to go to the forest to get a good road pancake like all your buddies. Okay.  That way is bad. This way is good, okay? Okay. Have a good day, buddy. All right. I've done my good deed for the day. I've saved a toad, a Swedish toad. Just eating a snack in the rain. Can't beat him. Join him. And by that I mean just embrace the wetness. It's 50 miles. It's 1pm. And I don't really know how far I'm going to go today. You know, there might be a shelter out here. But then again, I don't know if I want to just sit in my tent all afternoon. Again, I might as well just keep riding and stay warm. I don't know. When the opportunity presents itself, I will make a decision. Stop raining almost. I mean, it's raining, but not as much. And I just want to let my bike take a little break. I'm going to go for a walk. Shake out my legs. Yep. Oh, man. There's my bike. Just taking a little bike nap. We've done a great job, buddy. Just a few hundred more miles. This is a nice moment. You know, and one of the good things about a rainy day is, it just feels so quiet. There's like not a whole lot of sounds. All the animals are taking cover. Not as many people are on the roads.  It's tranquility. It's so fun to hear the birds sing. You never hear a bird complaining. All their songs are beautiful, right? They're not complaining about the rain. It's official. This is a magical forest. I bet there's trolls that live out here. Trolls and ferries. Yeah. Oh, what a gift to be here right here, right now. Let's get back on our bike. There you are. How you doing, bud? Look at that lovely road we get to ride on. Sweet. This ten-mile stretch of road might be my favorite road on the entire trip. It's just beautiful and quiet and it's not too rainy. Oh, God! What happened? It started raining like crazy. It was so nice five minutes ago. Oh, boy! This is the hardest rain of the day and as you can see, I have a roof over my head and not just any roof. Check this out. I just scored myself a cabin. Look how cozy this place is. And I can sit here and watch the rain happening. And again, I just stopped and asked somebody for help. I hate, are there any little stuga for rent around here? And this lady's like, yeah, go talk to Mimi. So I went and talked to Mimi. Here I am. Boom, 500 crowns, 50 bucks. I'm so excited to be here. I'm so excited. I mean, it's been kind of fun to ride around in the rain today. But now I'm cold and super wet. So it is time to be done. Yup.  But I am so thankful to be out of that now. I mean, I can deal with a little bit of this rain but this is getting to the point where I was just soaked all the way through my rain jacket where it has, it's done its thing and it's like, okay, I can't block any more rain. It's coming in. So I'm a little wet and a little chilly and this was perfect time to be done. Done, done, done. I just took a hot shower. I probably stood in there longer than I should have but man, it felt good. And the sweet lady who rents out this cabin just brought me a plate of pasta. Yum. Sometimes things just work out. I needed a cabin when I needed it and it presented itself. I just asked somebody, they pulled me this way. Boom. And I'm so thankful. I'm so happy to be here because I don't want to be out there anymore. And for desserts another chocolate ball when I buy these things I don't just buy one, I buy multiple. So the clothes I was wearing are soaking wet but have no fear. You see, in Swedish bathrooms they have heated towel racks. You just turn it on and you can heat up your clothes a lot faster. It's not meant for clothes it's meant for towels but today we're warming up my dirty wet clothes. I just found their guest book and of course I had to leave a little entry. It says it was raining all day and I found my way here when I was wet and cold. I'm riding all of Sweden right now and I love it. I was an exchange student in 97, 98 in Malmö and I'm riding from Kiruna to my other home in Svedala. Thanks for saving me from the rain. I love reading guest books. I love reading everybody's posts. Everybody talks about how tranquil it is and how they saw beavers and moose out there. There's moose out there. They're probably hiding from the rain too. Well the rain stopped and I'm just sitting here enjoying listening to these seagulls have the time of their lives. Oh, so peaceful.  I really scored. This is a little piece of heaven on Earth. Even the hard days are good days and today was not so physically hard but the rain just makes everything more difficult and more uncomfortable and I knew that going into the day.  I caught a toad rode some beautiful gravel So as cold and as wet as I got towards the end of the day it all worked out and again I'm just grateful to be here and I'm seeing a part of Sweden that I've never experienced. Where I lived was flat as a board and it didn't look like anything here and every day I meet kind people and they help me out and it just fills my heart. For so long Malmo has seemed impossibly far when I was way up north in Kiruna but I've made a good distance. I'm about in line with Stockholm and I can do it I know I can do it but I still have those nerves I ride my bike to chill out and slow down and enjoy the world and that's what I'm doing but I'm also feeling a little rushed because of the weather because it's rainy I wake up I'm like okay gotta go gotta go gotta go gotta beat the weather but you can't beat it that's just how it works you can't beat weather you just have to deal and make changes if need be and here I am I didn't know I was gonna be sitting here today and this is a pretty awesome place I didn't go as far as I had hoped but I'm happy now and I will get there I will get there just like at the end of every day I get to where I need to be I will get to Malmo and hug my family and I can't wait and until I get there I'm gonna enjoy every day when I get soaking wet and now that it's not raining anymore I can show you the outside of my cute little stuga my cottage isn't that nice hello there and thank you for making it to the very end of this video you get a high five I am here to say hey thank you for watching my videos but also if my videos bring value to your life if you love them if you love your heart and soul or even just a little bit of your heart and soul please consider joining my Patreon you will help keep this channel alive but you will also get stuff you will get early release videos with no ads which is very cool and I sometimes do zoom calls with my patrons you will have direct access to me through Patreon to ask me any question you want and like I said also hey I wrote a book it's called the long way home it's about my very first adventure from Honduras to Colorado and it talks a lot about how it inspired me to live an interesting life to say the least my mom loves it so maybe you'll love it too I will link all this down below but more than anything thank you so much for watching my videos you are awesome now it's time for you to get off that couch and get out there