So I think it's 11 o'clock, so we think we can start, right? So welcome, everybody. My name is Florian Ohtel, and I'm HP Cloud Services Technical Sales for Europe. And I would like to welcome you to this talk called OpenStack to Enterprise, Keep Calm and Boldly Go. Not sure how many of you here in the room were present at the last design summit. But during that summit, my friend and colleague, David Johnson gave a talk entitled Enterprise to OpenStack. Here's what you're missing. And during that talk, Pete went through all the features and functionality that we have been hearing from our enterprise customers that OpenStack is missing, and thus preventing larger adoption of OpenStack by those customers. The purpose of, in the meantime, again, six months ago, things moved very, very fast. And the technology has made tremendous effort in overcoming many of those objections. However, life is never perfect. And we will ever hear some sort of objections in some way, shape, or form of why things are not happening. So the purpose of this talk, like the cheesy title suggests, is an answer to that talk, and that presentation, and share some of the lesson that we have learned in how to position OpenStack to our enterprise customers, and how do we overcome those objections in practice. Before I even go into the presentation, a few kind words of warnings and biases, like the name of this track suggests, which is business value. This presentation is not about technology. Here at the summit, we're very fortunate to have very deep technical sessions out there. This is not one of them. This is about OpenStack making hardcore business sense. The second one is that I'm sorry to disappoint you, but this will not be a glitzy PR marketing exercise where I will have enterprise customers coming on the stage and telling us how wonderful life is with OpenStack and how they have seen the light. This is, unfortunately, real, neat, gritty, unglamorous, real-life examples that we have learned during the two years that we have been using OpenStack. And on that is a bias warning. Again, as I'm working for HP Cloud Services, which, as you may know, is one of the largest OpenStack-based public cloud service providers out there, my talk has a natural cloud service provided bias to it. While I will try to address other OpenStack usage and environments, again, that sort of bias will shine through, so again, you have been warned. Last but not the least, I'm a very big fan of few MacLeod cartoons and Gaping Boyd. And maybe we will see quite a few of them coming up. So before we delve a bit deeper, a quick level set. Does anybody in this room not recognize who this guy is? So anybody who doesn't know who this guy is, quick show of hands. Thank you. So for those of you who don't know, this is Geoffrey Moore, and he's a well-known venture capitalist from Silicon Valley. And Geoffrey Moore wrote this book called Crossing the Chats. In this book, Geoffrey Moore illustrated a process called Diffusion of Innovation, which is a process first researched and identified by a guy named Everett Rogers, which showed that the rate of technology, or quote unquote, innovation is adopted in a marketplace, follows very distinct patterns, namely that it is adopted in a bell-shaped curve. And the adoption goes through very distinctive phases of types of people who are adopting the technology. And what Geoffrey Moore showed in his book is that, and relevant to our subject in OpenStack, is that when we are marketing a particular technology, we need to be very mindful of the different types of customers that are in the market. In particular, the fact that between what we have there on the left are the early adopters and visionaries, and the mainstream market are fundamental qualitative differences that we need to be very mindful of, hence the term chas, and how do we cross it. Second quiz, and I'll try to make this easier. Anybody who doesn't know who this person is? Quick show of hands. OK, so Professor Christensen seems to be a bit more famous, and I even make it easier. Put his names in the back. This is Professor Clayton Christensen, and he wrote this book, which is actually a series of books, but arguably this is the first and arguably the best in the series. And what Professor Christensen showed was that he analyzed how different technologies, and quote, unquote, innovations are adopted. And he came out to the conclusion that there are fundamentally two types of innovation, one which is called a sustaining innovation, namely making an existing technology better, better, faster, cheaper, and a different type, which is, excuse me, called disruptive innovation, which is a new technology, or a technology which is used in novel environments or in new ways. And he analyzed the dynamics between the two. So if we delve a bit deeper into that, and we use Professor Christensen's innovation model, and we see that the technological progress due to sustaining innovation and technological progress due to disruptive innovation and the marketplace in a battle-shaped curve on the right side, and my venture, I guess, where exactly OpenStack would be on the horizontal axis. Any guesses? Thank you. I would argue that we are, based on our experience, somewhere between point A and point B. In other words, OpenStack as a technology that is today, it is an emerging technology that is a low-end disruption that appeals to some sort of customers, but not necessarily so to a large group of many others out there. So how do we position OpenStack to enterprise, which by definition, again, are very large customers? And like Jeffrey Moore showed, it's a very large majority out there. So one way of how not to do it is this. When we go into a large shop, or a very large shop, and we see that after some analysis and discussions, we realize that their technology, their process, the culture, the whole thing is dying, and they will die the horrible painful death they will deserve to die, we don't necessarily quite put it that way to them, because it doesn't help you and far more importantly, just annoys them. Because as the joke goes, in the long run, or in the very long run, we are all dead. It's all about times and timelines, and how do we position when and in which terms. So if this is not the way to do it, how do we do it? So let's take a bit more serious look and make the parallel between OpenStack and Linux. And again, it's a dreaded comparison. But what I mean by that, it's purely as a low-end disruption platform, right? And I'm not sure you have seen the keynote session this morning when they've done the same parallel between Linux and OpenStack, and how the adoption proceeded in the marketplace. If we are making that parallel, how Linux was adopted by the mainstream market, and we focus only on how Linux was adopted on the desktop. Anybody remember that this will be the year of Linux on the desktop menu? How many years we heard that? By the end, the answer was it will be the same year that Duke Nukem Forever will be released. And the year that it was released, it was so outdated by the sunset of the day that the only people who bought it were only for nostalgic reasons, right? So what I would argue that what had to happen for Linux to be adopted by the mainstream market was that Android had to happen. In other words, it took a vendor like Google, take the platform, bundle it with a hardware, but far more importantly, with a use case and the application, and offer it in the end-to-end value proposition that appealed to the marketplace. In other words, made the underlying platform irrelevant, make it and address all the concerns about security, manageability, affordability, and so on, and offer a value proposition based on that platform. And in other words, the platform was only the enabler. And to me, when I watch Jonathan Keynote yesterday, I absolutely loved the examples that we had with Best Buy and Comcast. Anybody noticed that during that blinky lights, was there any sign of open stack? To me, there wasn't, right? And that's exactly the whole point, right? The underlying platform was made irrelevant, right? As long as it fitted for purpose, it only enabled downstream value, agility, how they go to market, how they do things, and so on and so forth. So it was only the underlying platform was only as an enabler as a, depends on how you look at it, downstream or higher-level value based on that platform. And before you argue that Linux has very little to do with Android, I will say that's absolutely right. It has as much as OS X has to do with free BSD, right? The underlying platform is irrelevant as long it sustains a very clearly articulated use case and application and environment. So let's delve a bit deeper into that. If we turn to Jeffrey himself, he makes a very clear point in his book that applications have much easier time to cross the chance, in other words, be adopted by the industry market than platform, Ergo, OpenStack, and Linux, for the very simple reasons that applications can be articulated in terms of end user needs. He goes even further to say that to accelerate adoption of platforms, and that is a literally quote, if to accelerate adoption of platforms, vendors must clothe them in applications clothing. Or the way that I like to joke about it in the wise words of London Underground Train operators, please mind the gap between the application and the platform as you board this train. Right, so how do we do that? So even if we manage to take a platform like OpenStack, articulate in terms of applications and end user needs, and we try to position in an enterprise, we run into this problem. Namely that enterprises, by their very definition, are large, very large, or humongous organizations, and as such, very slow to change. Or putting it differently, due to sheer physics, change takes a very long time to propagate throughout the whole organization. So even if we have end user, and we empower end user, and these users have the authority and the capability to drive that change, by and large, or at the very least, to a good extent, they are prisoners of the system itself. Right, so if we position that, we are at risk going into this problem. Namely that if we take the platform, articulate in terms of end user needs, we're able to drive the adoption. In the organization at large, we have a very high risk into having technology for technology's sake. A pitfall, as I would like to call it. In other words, technology is accepted somehow grudgingly by the enterprise, by the organization, and it starts spinning and people are doing things, and they do stuff with it for personal career reasons, for just playing with technology or any other non-business reasons out there. And this is a point that Jeffrey Moore makes very clear in his book, that we have to be very mindful of that risk. And what we need to do is that when we articulate that value, we have to have a very clear roadmap with milestones, and at each milestone have the buying in terms of commercial commitment from the organization at large, and have closure beyond that so we can move on to the next phase. However, believe it or not, that's still not enough. Well, for this particular reason. Because if we take a platform, articulate in terms of applications and end user needs, that have the capability and authority to drive change with clear business value, we need to be very careful how we articulate that. Because what happens is that the ruling orthodoxy or what I like to call the corporate antibodies will realize at some level of consciousness the disruptive potential that this innovative low end disruption pose to the status quo, and they have a natural survival response. In other words, try to kill it before it even has a chance to prove itself. Or the more insidious version of it, namely co-adopted and diverted to their own needs and pervert the direction that the technology is driving. And what we need to do in that case is that we need to be very mindful of that, and we need to use terms and vocabulary that the ruling orthodoxy to put it that way accepts and understand. And then we need to be, we are very careful of seeing which narratives and which terms are used to be, those ideas to be played back to us. The reason for that is that when that narrative changes, that's a mental signal that the mentality has changed and the stoplight has switched to green and we can push further on. Of course, until the next stop, which then we have to do it again. So, enough with theoretical examples and let me go to a particular with concrete examples that we are using. So, here are just a straight out excerpt of the use cases that we are enabling on our platform and in particular case with the partners, with our ecosystem partners which are enabling particular use cases. So, we have an archiving and backup and collaborations with people like Panzer Riverbed, the database and archiving, data sacs, my par, Cassandra, Hadoop, all the stuff that you would expect to be there. Platform as a service from like Giga Spaces, Cloudify from our dear friends from Giga Spaces, Cloudbursting which was mentioned by Saad this morning which is fundamentally a way to instantiate workloads either on the existing technology that's on existing hardware that is on site and or in other capacity resources that are out there. Or for example, an example which is, to me is very telling is Enterprise Dropbox, right? So, for me, the reason that this example and again, the name of the innocence were removed from the slide is that we're seeing Enterprise realizing the viral adoption of technologies like Dropbox and because they have clear business reasons why they need to have some sort of manageability around this because they have governance risk and compliance reasons and if they don't do that they go to jail, right?  So they need to manage this delicate balance between staying out of the way of the end users and just not be a hinder while at the same time having some sort of governance, some sort of manageability in place, right? And that to me is a very nice example how people are trying and using technology to do that, right? And OpenStack with use cases to try to navigate that stormy waters. Now, a few words of warning. What we have seen is that with such or the technology like OpenStack that is changing such a rapid pace, the rate of mortality among all the use cases up in application is very, very high. So even if we enable two dozens of use cases in application over platform due to sheer physics and the way that the dynamics of the process, we will get traction. We will have the, we're having the 80-20 split, right? In popular vernacular or more potentially said the long tail distribution where any real traction is actually from a very small or a very small set of use cases and customers with a long trail of other stuff that's out there. So speaking about a great idea, let me tell you another great idea, how to get rich quick or how to pull an Android in seven easy steps, right? We take OpenStack, we add our secret sauce, we QA that on a set of reference architectures, from there on we deploy into production, whatever production means to you, from there on pushed out of large muscle overjoyed customers, the lesson that you learn, you contribute back to OpenStack, but please not forget to keep the secret sauce. And what this process we are joking about, what this process, this continuous integration, continuous process shows, is that we are having a tight coupling between end users of the technology and the technology itself. And this is a book, this is a point that Geoffrey Moore makes in his book very clearly in the fact that for such emerging technology for low end disruption, we have to have a very clear and conscious focus on a small subset of customers and use cases that we are following and enabling on our platform. The reason for that is that due to the dynamics of the mainstream market is, and everybody's looking for the big name, Marquina, before they jump into the pool themselves, right? Somebody else has to jump first. Having recommendations and having some sort of footprint that we can use to bootstrap the rest of that particular segment is very important. And this was dealt a bit more into an article from Harder Business Review from January 1993 by Trissie and Birzema, which turned into a book. And in the article in the book, what they showed, what Trissie and Birzema showed, was that there are fundamentally three different areas that an organization or a company can focus. The first one is Operation Excellence, which, as the name suggests, is improving our internal operations and efficiency to make sure that we are structurally in the best way possible to address a particular market. The second one is product leadership, which is, again, as the name obviously says, is having the best product for that particular market and that particular segment that we are pursuing and customer intimacy. In other words, having a very tight coupling between the technology and the customers. And based on our experience, I would argue that customer intimacy, we learned the hard way that customer intimacy was the most important to us. So while trying to do what the cartoon says and try to hug your customer every day, might not be so popular or even get to a restraining order for such a fast evolving technology, but in having a very clear focus on customer needs and expectations helped us tremendously in crystallizing which priorities, which feature are bringing to market, when we are bringing to market, and why and in which order. And if we look a bit deeper into that process, a fundamental aspect that we have learned of that process is that it has to be a true two-way dialogue, true collaboration, a partnership with the customer. Because again, as we said earlier, the technology is evolving at such a rapid pace. We need to be as, quote unquote, secret sauce in the middle. We need to help the customer navigate and absorb all that rapid change of things that they need to absorb and implement and how to do it, when to do it, why and so on and so forth. So we need to help them mediate and navigate all that rapid change and smooth that roughness that we're still seeing for such an emerging technology. And we learned again, it's called bleeding edge for a very, very good reason and not everybody has a reason or willingness to be there. And we have to understand why and focus on those that do and help those who don't. Another important point there, which is we learned it also the very hard way is that it has to be a two-way dialogue. And we have learned the hard way that some things were not exactly as we expected and some other things were absolutely that wrong about. And in that situation, it was an important lesson to not to stand in our own way, right? Realize, have the intellectual honesty that we were wrong and we need to press the reset button, start again and look things fresh from again having customer needs and expectations first and foremost. Now with that said, there is co-creation and there is co-creation because this cartoon says the different types of co-creations out there. So let me try to give you two examples, practical examples of customer dialogues, a bad one and a good one, right? Bad example, right? Custom represents it for customer calls and said, we want an exchange based back of an archiving solution with five lines reliability. And you call me because it's in the cloud and it's cheaper and I'm trying to gingerly explain how the technology works and there might be other solutions out there that might better suited for purpose. But then they interrupt me a half way and said, well, your competition can do that. Why cannot you? At which point I dropped my head and realized they had the rolling orthotics and they have the paycheck, arguing with that does not necessarily end up well. And I dropped my head and send, give them an ice-cazi gateway to my object storage with redundant hardware control. I swear on country and honor it has five lines reliability because I know they couldn't measure it if their life depended on it and send them on their merry way, right? And I cash the check and feel there to take a shower, right? And move on. Good example number two, right? Brilliant customer from Telecom from Central Europe called me up and have very clear understand. We have this mobile device application. We have very aggressive time to market ambition We need Tomcat, we need Java, we need MySQL, some NoSQL databases and a flexible platform to deploy it as a sandbox and then the same platform to use in production. We speak with our dear friends at Gigaspaces and said, check, check, check, check. We speak with a customer, we enable them on our public cloud, we give them a cloudify environment there. And it's one of my bright spots of each every day. What can I learn from this customer today, right? So what I'm trying to say here is that there are customers that we need to serve and carry on because the paycheck has to be there and otherwise the press will nail us to the wall that OpenStack hasn't any commercial adoption while at the same time enable this emerging, messy, innovating and fantastic new ideas that are out there and help them gingerly grow into something more meaningful. And with that, I would like to close you with this talk which I'm telling my customer and myself each day. Well, success with OpenStack is easy. The only thing that you need to do is use it like Jimi Hendrix uses his guitar. And that's all I had to say. Thank you very much. Any questions?


Good evening and welcome to episode 397 of the private property podcast on the host. It's a Friday edition of the private property podcast. Welcome to the family. You tune into the only daily public show in the country catering to your property needs. And all our regular viewers from Facebook, Instagram and YouTube are welcome to us. You know how we do every single weekday. You and I have an appointment at 7 p.m. We're always in conversation with a property expert who helps us make better property decisions. And talking about making better property decisions. You know, you can tune into a whole host of other great shows that we have across private properties social media pages. As it is a Friday, you can catch Chad on the home shopper's show. Well, he takes you through incredible properties that you can find on www.privateproperty.co.za. And you can catch him on the same show every Monday at the same time. And every Tuesdays and Thursdays. And by then I've got brings you the farming podcast, tackling all things agriculture. And every Wednesdays, it's the class that takes you through the first time home buyers show. Well, those are the great shows that you can find across our social media pages. Remember to follow us across those social media pages. And you can follow myself as I'm doing an underscore K on Instagram as well as on Twitter. Staying with social media. As you know, we're running an incredible competition on our Facebook page. We use that chance of walking away with 500 rands in cash every single evening. And all you have to do to stand the chance of winning that money is, of course, comment on the post on our Facebook page. We want to learn from you some of the expensive property advice that you've picked up from watching the show. And of course, even some insight and advice that you've gone on in use in your own property journey. And the more times you enter, the more times you share those insights with us, the higher your chances of walking away with the cash price. You also have to be watching us live, of course, in order to claim that price. That's all you have to do in order to stand the chance of walking away. And in David, where the person that would fall halfway through the show does not raise their hand and let us know that they are indeed watching. Then the money rolls over into the money bag. Yesterday Rosenthala was chewed in and watching. She claimed her price. This evening we're back at 500 rands and we're going to see who the lucky winner is going to be. Thoughts through thought about. And that is, of course, the things that you need to consider when purchasing a holiday home. I know that some people have certainly wanted to purchase a holiday home. More people sometimes have thought of at the very least having access to a holiday home. But I've been looking at whether some of the key features that people look out for in a holiday home. Some of the do's and don'ts when you want to go into that kind of asset class. I was actually saying to my guests that this is one of those few asset types in property that I'm not too familiar with. I don't have a holiday home in my own portfolio and in the businesses' portfolio as well. And Tom has got a good sense of what to look out for. Some of the do's and don'ts and don'ts this evening by Andrea Tagos, the director at Mortgage Me. Andrea, good evening and thank you so much for joining us on the show. Good evening. It's lovely to be here this evening. I think Andrea, before we even look at what to consider some of the do's and don'ts, let's have a look at if you could take us through what the stage of holiday home purchasing or even selling has been in the past year. Let's even make it 18 months. So since COVID, since the COVID period has effectively started relative to the pre-COVID era. So what we've experienced in South Africa over the last 18 to 24 months is an overwhelming push for a lot of South Africans to move to coastal towns. So historically, they've gone down during two or three holidays during the year. They've enjoyed a wonderful holiday anywhere near the coast, which is where a lot of South Africans gravitate towards probably as early as next week. And when the world changed, like we had never anticipated just going to in March last year, people weren't going to the office anymore. What we've seen in the last 18 months is a lot of people have, instead of looking at buying a holiday house property somewhere at the coast, for example, they've in fact just moved their entire lives down to coastal towns. So the terms of immigration we've all heard, people have moved down to zoom towns. And I think there's certainly been a shortage of properties to rent in those coastal towns because of you now find a whole lot more people living there permanently as opposed to going down for short term holidays. I think that's an important thing to take note of that for many people. The rise of the zoom towns was certainly a thing. And I've had a number of other guests who have commented about how different people are moving to coastal towns and setting up routes because of the remote working opportunities that they effectively had. Some of them even sold the properties that were living in. Some decided to keep their properties and rent them out while they of course then move to the coast. And I think when we then look at some of the things that we need to be looking out for. And I think first, just take us through some of the key things that we need to bear in mind in the event where you want to purchase a holiday home. And this is of course what people are looking to purchase it for purposes of it being an investment property as opposed to it being a property that they as a family are going to be using during the holiday period. It's always such a fun exercise to start doing. And this is the time of year. Well, I suppose the time of year was probably three months ago for you to decide where you want to go on holiday. And a lot of people either decide to go and enjoy the beach if they don't live anywhere near the coast like us in Joberg or they decide maybe a holiday somewhere north of Joberg towards the bush is a good idea.  And then book a holiday. It's just assume someone's going to look at a holiday home at the coast. Find yourself a decently passed holiday home that has got all of the features that you'd like in an area that you'd like to discover more about and go on holiday. And the process of looking for holiday destination accommodation is so much easier now than it was 10 or 15 years ago. There are estate agents that can help you find a holiday home to rent out for three or four weeks during the holidays. Or you can look at Airbnb or any other similar kind of website which is in effect a portal for any available accommodation anywhere in the world. So decide as a family unit or as an individual where you'd like to go on holiday and the whole premise behind a holiday home that you're looking to buy for investment purposes is that it would be great if you could use it every now and then. So finding a holiday destination and a decent holiday home in there is only going to be possible if you can go and experience what a holiday is like in that town. How easy is it to get there from where you are? How easy is it to get there for everyone else in the country? If the holiday destination is far more than Mozambique and it's really only possible to get there via flights then you need to factor that in. But if it's anywhere on the north of the south coast of Natal anyone in Drobo can basically get there within five to seven hours and it is very, very accessible for people who live in Natal as well. So you're looking at having a bigger market because if your prime purpose for this is to invest it you need to make sure that there is always going to be a market for this property. So first spend a week on the internet. Once you've decided what you are looking for in a holiday in a holiday home, in a holiday destination spend some time looking at what the options are in that particular area. And always search within a specific zone look in a specific town as well as looking just outside there because you might find that holiday homes in a town like Plittenburg Bay are very expensive but if you drive ten kilometres in either direction you might find something a little bit more remote but it might well be half the price because it's not in that specific town zone. So always look just outside of the area that you identify you want to go in because you might find some interesting opportunities or some interesting homes that you wouldn't have thought of looking for within that specific zone. And the next step once you've booked your holiday home is obviously to go down on holiday and that is always going to be a good opportunity for you to look around. You need to understand what traffic is like in this town. Does it take you an hour and a half to get from one side of town to the other during the busy December periods? Are there decent shops available that sell fresh produce? Where is the fresh produce coming from? Are you going to battle to stock up your fridge halfway through your holiday if there isn't a decent shopping network available there? What kind of people go on holiday in that holiday town? Are they the kind of people that you see in your hometown or that kids go to school with? Or is it a very different kind of person? Because you obviously want to have some commonalities with the people that you're going to see in and around on your holiday. And also then speak to people. Speak to shopkeepers. Find out if this is their busy period and how quiet things are out of season. Always get a sense when you're going to a holiday town what it's like in season and what it's like out of season. And it's always a very good idea before you make any big investment into a holiday home is to always, always go and visit that village or that town and that specific home during the off season. You want to understand what the weather's like during season and when a lot of people aren't there on holiday. You want to understand how busy and how quiet the town is at all times of the year. Because you need to get a sense of whether this is a complete ghost town for 10 months of the year and only comes to life for the other two months of the year. So just going down to an area and experiencing the specific area that you want to look in as well as in either direction or in every direction that you can go to in order to understand what else captivates people in that area and what gets people to go to that holiday town. And I think those are such key things. I know on one side you're just in a particular coastal town. I wasn't particularly familiar with it and I just couldn't find time to go down. The property prices seemed very reasonable. You'd be buying land and effectively building from the different pictures that you're seeing looking at different options and they seem reasonable but I'm very big. I'm never buying a property just based on pictures alone. You always have to go there and get a sense because as much as you can get a lot from pictures there's also quite a lot that you do not get from pictures. So it really is important to get a sense of that. Anything that was in a recent trip down the coast where I lived in an area, absolutely loved it saw the opportunity and already started tracking different properties in that area because I thought this would actually be a great place to buy into. So I like that tip of book and holiday in that space, drive around, get a sense of it. For me in that particular property I stayed there for probably the third or fourth time that I was now staying there. So I knew what it had to offer every time I always just want to make an offer but the owner is still very invested a little bit into that particular one but it's just a really, really good find. Now of course there's something looking at I'm going to bring it back just then just how we're looking at things to consider when purchasing a property and I can see some of our viewers are watching at home sending through some of those questions and comments wanna find out from the viewers at home whether or not you have a holiday home what were some of the things that we looked out for in purchasing that holiday home and in the event where you do want a holiday home what are some of the key features that you're looking for in the addition of that particular holiday home. Andrea you wanted to come in? It was definitely worth a whole separate discussion because we live in South Africa there's also so important to get a sense of when you're down there on holiday is what are, if there are any issues in that specific town and in the specific property that you're staying in around safety and security it's certainly not a uniquely South African problem but something that you do need to be constantly aware of and it reminds me of a holiday that I took on the South Coast of Natal a couple of years ago and I think it was an Airbnb booking that we made that mentioned a security alarm and when we checked in and met the owner we were given an alarm remote and told to make sure that whenever you are in and around the property you must make sure that the alarm is always set and it gave me a bit of a nervous feeling and of course kids run around and set up a beam and we actually spoke to the security company that came very quickly which was a certain comfort to have them come quickly once the alarm went off and we said how often does this happen and do we really need to be concerned and I said there is a lot of petty crime in the area not something that's going to be advertised on a property on Airbnb but looking and understanding those kind of subtle signs of a specific property or a specific area is just so important to do and it's something I always do whenever I go to holiday destination is either go for a walk or go for a run around the neighborhood understand what the properties look like and have a look and see how tall the walls are are they Joberg Scarha walls or are they small fences do they look like they have got a lot more security than you're anticipating but you get a lot from just a general wonder around the neighborhood just keeping your eye out for things that you should be aware of and I mean you definitely do and it's always a very big tip that I even give people who want to buy their own property to live in that you want to set up the area as much as possible I think one of the great pleasures that we now have especially with Airbnb is that you could even book a place in that same complex and live there for a couple of nights to just get a sense of how it's like before you effectively buy into it some of the love that we're getting on our social media pages getting lots of compliments thank you very much at home and all the everything say good evening, gorgeous, I love your hair Polina and Kosi watching, Sarah, Matetza watching, happiness Marulaga sings, we are your food looking good, thank you very much they're happiness a question coming from Unhati Wendu not a property related one those saying very well just wanted to know where we get Zama's lipstick so the lipstick is really rude and it's a MAC lipstick so that's the name of the lipstick I think it's one of those lipstick that every woman needs to have as part of her makeup but in the meantime we're going to take a quick break get a sense of who the lucky winner of the 500 Giants that is up for grabs this evening is and we're going to come back we're going to explore mistakes that we need to avoid when buying holiday home and we've already started touching on some of them but we really want to get a good sense of what mistakes to avoid and then also on the management side of things because one of the things about holiday homes is they're most likely of course it looks coastal towns you may be based in Joeberg so how should you be thinking about the management of the holiday home and even the viewing process we're only saying that I was reluctant to make an offer on a property that was by the coast because I hadn't viewed it and I just didn't have time at the time to go down to the coast and view that property but any time let's have a look at who the lucky winner is and we'll be back in just a moment and the lucky winner this evening is Vanessa now Vanessa now congratulations 500 Giants is up for grabs as we continue our conversation this evening taking things to consider when purchasing a holiday home and in the conversation with Andrea Tucker who is the director at Mortage Me and taking some of your questions and comments at home we've got a comment coming through from it's said by Mochiboudi saying it depends widely on the location as well I wouldn't want to have a holiday home in a busy city life because I don't want to have a holiday home in a busy city life because I don't want to have a holiday home in a busy city life because during that time you need that tranquility and anything close to nature maybe even a Gulf state and that's actually an important one because I think when we think holiday times we're probably not thinking Joburg for the most part or certain parts of Joburg they certainly are in the greater Johannesburg areas there may be instances where there might be properties that may land themselves to giving you a sense of being on holiday but not all the time Now Andrea, before the break I did say I want us to then explore mistakes to avoid you know whatever is having mistakes that people sometimes make when they push them to their home that our views at home absolutely need to avoid So you've already mentioned the first one and it is so important to not buy property without seeing it in person we've all used filters we've all taken pictures of ourselves and filtered some of the wrinkles away flattened the hair a little bit and photographers who are taking photos on behalf of an estate agent or on behalf of someone who's renting a property out on Airbnb is going to do the same you can almost guarantee that cracks on the wall are going to be filtered out and angles are so important it comes to photos of rooms and photos of the front of properties so don't assume that any property is exactly as it looks on all of its photographs online so make sure that if you are really serious about buying a property that you have to go and see it yourself you need to go there with a very critical eye have a sense of what you saw on the photos on a posting for example on a property portal but make sure that you can go there and just with a critical eye look at the size of the rooms look at what direction the property is facing look at how close it is to the ocean if you're at the coast look at the size of the walls around the property look at where it is specifically on the Gulf Estate look at the neighbouring properties go there with a critical eye and ask all the questions that you feel that can be to ask there's no such thing as a city question when you're engaging with an estate agent and don't stick to one estate agent you might well see a property avatar on the portal make contact with that estate agent but always talk to two or three others they're always going to give you a personal sense of where a neighbourhood is going they'll give you a sense of any issues that you might anticipate just through their normal business interactions selling properties or you might even find that you're lucky enough and that you've got a state agent living in that specific time they'll be able to give you very personal insight around the kinds of questions you should be asking and those likely to be honest answers from there and it's also important at the same time to get a property valuation much like you would if you're buying a property where you live at the coast or anywhere where you're looking at buying a holiday home make sure that you get a sense of how much that property is valued so that you don't overcapitalize and end up with a very expensive asset that you're now paying off over an extended period of time and you might not necessarily have the income or short or long term rentals in order to cover that large expense so make sure that you don't make an offer that is too much above evaluation but know that if it is a particularly attractive looking house you might well need to make a competitive bid but know what the property is valued at understand that in relation to your ceiling and make sure you don't go above that I think that's such an important one because so many people tend to overcapitalize which is very unfortunate and I mean you can see this with general investment properties outside of even holiday homes and honestly you need to be careful of that because the moment you want to offload that particular property you're going to have a lot of issues you're going to be hard pressed to find it you're going to be hard pressed finding buyers who will buy it at your particular price point because you're always going to have to end just how much money to spend putting on all those pretty additions that when you look at some of the comparable properties unfortunately your neighbors didn't put it on and yet when we then look at what are some of the key things that people who book a lot of holiday homes effectively look for one of the things that we're realizing is when you even go to apps like whether it's a bookings.com or Airbnb there's so much stock on the market even for trying to book accommodation for holidays what are some of the things that tend to stand out that will make more property especially in the sea of so many different offerings that we find out there so I've already spoken about photos those are critically important and the more honest the photo looks and the more realistic it is the more repeat the more holiday bookings you're going to get from the same people all the more referrals you're going to get you don't want any unpleasant surprises as someone who's now just driven or traveled all the way to holiday destination to find that the carpets are a bit dirty and the pool is green and no one's mowed the lawn for a little while so make sure that those photos you take are attractive looking but also as realistic as possible when it comes to a holiday home that you purchase for investment purposes you're obviously looking to rent it out spend some time in the property before you do any possible renovations on it and if you can spend some time there in winter spend some time there in summer and get a sense of for example whether ceiling fans are enough or whether this place gets cooking hot in summer and you might well need air cons in every single room for anyone who's going to rent it from you is looking for comfort they're looking for a home away from home they're looking for for all of those kind of homely features that they've come to expect and if you can use your adverts and your photos to push those kind of homely features they certainly do so and if you can't take photos of them list them all people if they're traveling for example with kids are looking for a dishwasher and a washing machine I want to make sure that I don't have to spend my whole holiday washing dishes and my kids are dirty they're going to need to wash their clothes every second day so those are two very key features in a kitchen just as much as someone is looking for a decent frying pan sharp knives and nice glassware so you don't want to ruin the aesthetics of a holiday home by putting in cheap things and it's all about comfort and it's all about making it feel as I said as homely as possible so good quality linen that is easy to wash and doesn't stain easily you're looking for cotton linen in that case you're looking for dark towels people make up off with towels and the darker the towels the more you can get away with when it comes to the age of those specific towels you want a comfortable bed and something that is always something I look for and ask looking have you got blackout curtains if you've ever gone on holiday on the north or the south coast in KZN in summer you realise that the sun rises at about three minutes past four in the morning and if you've got pretty impractical Gaul's curtains you're going to be waking up shortly after that and your day begins very early so blackout curtains, comfortable bed lovely cotton linen all of those bedroom comforts that extend into the bathroom and I'll take it even a step further if you don't have a comfy couch people aren't going to want to sit in a lounge and enjoy themselves as a family unit so it's all about the comforts and making sure that you've got good quality comforts that can outlast a number of guests over over a good length of time and that's such an important one to always bear in mind we've got O'Nati Wendy Boys saying yes, holiday home sounds like a good investment but location and the state of the home comes as well and that's such an important one and I think Andrew as we begin to close of how do people at home also then pick the right one suppose it is in the relatively same area the price point is relatively the same and this of course goes back to that sentiment around how do you make your property stand out in the sea of so many others that are available at least with deciding which one to go for and you've got quite a few that you can play around with in the same area and the price point is not really that far off how do you work out making the decision are there any factors that you should probably just take an extra thought of when you decide to make that decision so I'm presuming that everyone here who's looking for a holiday home is going to have done that all important affordability check and even started to look at any holiday homes for investment purposes so you want to make sure that you can afford this property if things go bad so take the worst case scenario you cannot rent your property out for 12 months, can you cover the bond as well as rates in taxes and water and lots on that specific property for a 12 month period you can always hope and assume that you never get to the worst case scenario but make sure that you've done an affordability check you've understood what your current financial situation is if you're buying with another family if you're buying with your spouse make sure that you've all had that open and honest conversation about what happens if we don't earn enough money to pay off the property expenses and assuming you've had those conversations and the answer is a positive one you would also then hopefully have a good sense of what you can afford and stick to only looking at those properties that you can afford otherwise you might be tempted to pay a little bit out of your of your affordability range but once you've picked that range you've looked at 10 properties how to decide on which one of those 10 is probably quite a personal decision you might well find that two of those 10 are places that you would really like to go to yourself and you're going to get a very good gut sense of those kinds of places that you'd like to go to and if you can narrow down your 10 property search down to because you would like to go to both of those specific properties then I suppose it's going back onto the internet and getting a sense of how much similar kind of properties are rented out for and then you can go back to that calculation to say we're going to make an offer of approximately this if that offer gets accepted this is what it's going to cost us on a monthly basis do we think that for at least half of the year we can cover bond payments maybe in some of the months you can cover those with a little bit of extra to cover some of the more lean months but it's often going to be down to which one of those properties if you can find a similar one is looking to give you the best return in terms of the rate that you could rent it out on a monthly or on a weekly basis and Andrea as we begin to wrap up any final subscribe years for people who are contemplating buying a holiday home in the new year a little bit too late to look for those holiday homes now if you haven't really booked your holiday but for those that are looking at going down to a coastal destination or going somewhere on holiday with the view to bar is talk to as many people as you can not just professionals in the industry talk to the locals talk to the people at the beach talk to God at the gate talk to people and get a sense of what this neighbourhood and what this property is all about and a final comment there from women today is saying design hygiene upkeep price and location those are my non-negotiables on property especially a holiday property and that's something that so many of us often look for when we're looking for a holiday property Andrea we're going to leave it there this evening thank you so much for joining us on the show just lovely to be here and that's Andrea Takose director at mortgage me wrapping up the Friday edition of the primary property podcast with myself because I don't want my law and I will bring up Vanessa now was indeed watching us live and she dropped us a text so she walks away with that 500 rounds in cash congratulations to you at home Vanessa and if you want to be just like Vanessa all you have to do is to drop us a comment on the pinpost of our Facebook page and of course the more times you comment on the great property advice and insight that you have learned while watching the show the higher your chances of potentially being a winner well for myself as I'm not doing well that's it from us to this week we're back on your screens tomorrow I'm not tomorrow on Monday rather at 7 p.m. you can look forward to the whole shoppers show with chat at 8 p.m. until then hope you stay home and stay safe


Hi, I'm Sandy Allnock, artist and paper crafter here on YouTube with my 24 tags of Christmas for 2019. Today's tag uses this giant Santa head, brand new from Colorado Craft Company. Really fun stamp, but I'm going to be using my super color watercolor pencils. And they have three trays in them if you're used to the Albrecht Durer. These are about the same quality, probably a little higher maybe. They might be a little more pigmented possibly. It's hard to judge apples to apples necessarily between watercolor pencils, but both brands are really good.  So there you go. And I wanted to make my Santas really strong in contrast, like there's a strong light coming from the right hand side. So I'm going to be just coloring the faces and making the color really strong using a darker color to add a really contrast color here. With the brush, I can move the color then, the brush and water of course, and blend it together. And what I want you to notice is for a lot of people seeing this is going to be like, oh my gosh, that's way too much color on here. When you're doing something that is going to have a strong shadow in it, you'll be surprised by how dark you can go with some of the earlier stages because the rest of it's going to get really dark too. It's only looking dark because it's against a lot of light.  So I just dropped it in using the tea strainer and then I could add darker color to it. And now I've got a real strong contrast between the light side and the dark side of Santa's face. Also notice he has very little color in his glasses. So they end up looking like they are glass. The colors up here using a regular red and then that purplish red is the same red that I dropped into Santa's face, that purpley color. And then blend those together. I love good quality watercolor pencils because they blend really quickly. And if I were trying to do this with inktense pencils, I would probably have a bit of trouble with it because I'd be constantly fighting trying to get the color to move. But with good pencils, it melts everything out beautifully. And I'm really excited that those who have taken the new watercolor pencil jump start class have been exclaiming the glories of, oh my gosh, I didn't know what the difference was between getting good watercolor pencils because they bought good pencils to take the class with and found out I was right. So not that I like being right. I mean, you know, well, okay, I do like being right. What I love hearing people say that they took my advice and it was good advice and they learned something from it and have good supplies. So I'm adding more color onto Santa's white beard. Yes, white beard has color in it and especially when it's going to have a bunch of shadow in it because I have that strong shadow coming from the right hand side. So lots and lots of dark color mixed in here. The colors that I'm using specifically are over on my blog. So I took a picture of my little swatches so that you'd know what colors I'm using and then I can move it with my brush. His cheek, I didn't mention when I was doing the hat and I had all that red pigment on my brush.  And there is some purple in here because I had the purple from the face. Remember when I had done the little shavings on his face? Apparently, there was some of that left on the purple beard.  I thought I'm trying to leave more of the white on the right hand side of him and then I just wanted to get darker on this left hand side so I started grading in more color. And there's the purple that's in the graded thing because I didn't clean out my tea strainer but there's also this black color now that I've added some of that into or it might have been a dark gray color. Trying to darken that up and increase the contrast because I'm looking at that face because I pushed the face to be darker right away so that I would make myself do everything else with higher contrast. So now I'm going to use more of a regular purple and at the top I'm going to mix in the same color so you can see a little more directly of what that color is that I dropped into his face and into the hat. It's the reddish purple and then I'll blend the two of them together with the water. So see how reddish, like pinkish reddish that is and then goes down into the purple. Now I had an art teacher once that told me something really genius that when you're trying to make something look like it's really white then put dark color next to it and look at how all of a sudden Santa's beard looks super white and that is why I put that nice dark color in there. I still wanted some more contrast in the beard though. I was not seeing enough now that I went crazy with everything else. I wanted to really add some super dark color so while it was still wet tapped in some of that using a little tea strainer and then whatever's left on my brush I'm adding a little bit more color to some of the other areas to brighten those up. So I made four of these to add to my 24 tags of Christmas collection. If you'd like to have a chance to win one of my tags this year leave a comment here and a comment over on my blog to double your chances and I will be picking winners and sending all of these out to wonderful people as a little treat during the holiday season. Thank you so much for watching click that like button and give it a good old thumbs up and I will see you again tomorrow. Thanks for watching.


Intro of this is IRS Tax News. IRS granting died diesel penalty relief as a result of Hurricane Ian. Honestly, gas tax relief sounds appropriate in this situation because the first natural response to seeing a hurricane of that size come in your way is the involuntary release of gas. It wouldn't seem right for the government to be making money from a gas tax when the gas was clearly released out of fear. It may give the government bad ideas. They're like, hey, the deficit's way up. How can we increase revenue?  Honestly, is this how the whole global warming thing works? A giant storm hits resulting in us releasing a ton of fear related gas causing even larger storms, which then cause even more fear related gas to be released. Like I feel like we're in that Monsters Inc. movie where the people are scared in order to generate energy like for the monsters. But first a joke, the poor actor could not decide if he was a man or a woman. I can't decide, I just can't decide. So he, she decided to split it in the middle. Oh, you want to split down the middle? There you go. Some have called his or her decision half cocked. You can't go around half cocked. But he, she proceeded wholeheartedly with his or her half cocked decision protest. And we know heartedly believe that with your help, we can conflate buying our products with genuine activism. Honestly, I remember the days when most dudes were obsessed with going the opposite direction of this kind of half cocked decision. You don't send them off half cocked. Not that that's healthy either. I'm just saying times they are a changing man. But whatever. I are 2022 dash 169 September 30 2022 Washington. The internal revenue service in response to disruptions resulting from Hurricane Ian will not impose a penalty when died diesel fuel with a sulfur content that does not exceed 15 parts per million is sold for use or used by emergency vehicles on the highway in the state of Florida. This relief begins on September 28 2022 and will remain in effect through October 19 2022. This penalty relief is available to any person that sells or uses died diesel fuel in an emergency vehicle for highway use. And the case of the operator of the emergency vehicle in which the died diesel fuel is used. The relief is available only if the operator or the person selling such fuel pays the tax of 24.4 cents per gallon that is normally applied to diesel fuel for highway use. The IRS will not impose penalties for failure to make semi monthly deposits of tax for died diesel fuel sold for use or used in an emergency vehicle on the highway in the state of Florida during the relief period. I R S publication 5 10 excise tax. There's a link to that here has information on the proper method for reporting and paying the tax. Ordinarily died diesel fuel is not taxed because it is sold for uses exempt from excise tax such as to farmers for farming purposes or home heating use and to local governments. The IRS is closely monitoring the situation and will provide additional relief as needed. So there's links to those options here as you get some more information on this and there'll be a link to this in the description.


It seems like this oversimplification, but is it just that they are too small? Yeah, they're going to be targeted. They have a size issue. They brought in Mascala to try to patch that up. They brought in Bianbo to patch that up, even Gordon Hayward. They're not big enough.  And this is a team that relies a lot on three-point shooting and execution. When they're not shooting threes, they're forced to play inside of the pain. And obviously, that's going to be something that they're going to have to work out in order for them to be successful coming down the stretch because they just don't have enough size on the inside, on defense or on offense. And last night was one of those games where it was glaring. It kind of got exposed and it showed. And that's something they're going to have to deal with. Like I said, this is a team that likes to play on a perimeter. Very good executing team I must add, but they don't have guys that's going to go in there and finish on an offensive end. That's going to give them what they need when it comes to point paints other than Shay and Chet. And then defensively, just too small on an interior.


Hi friends, welcome back to my channel and a very special welcome if you're new here. My name is Jen. I'm a certified weight loss and nutrition coach and I'm on WW, personal points. Happy Monday. It is Monday, so that means it is meal prep day. I have three really good recipes for you. We have one fall inspired recipe, a really good chicken burger and an amazing, amazing dessert. So if you are excited, give this video a big, huge thumbs up. Subscribe if you're not because I upload a new meal prep every Monday in five videos per week. Down in the description box, you will find nutrition coaching, where I offer personalized to you macros and calories. I highly, highly, highly recommend this. This is the only way for you to know exactly what you should be eating every day to lose weight. I have one-on-one coaching as well. Links, discounts to my favorite things, my recipe website where you'll find all of my recipes, including the three I'm sharing with you today.  We would love to have you. So we have lots of amazing recipes to do, so let's jump in. For breakfast this week, I am making pumpkin pie overnight oats. I told you, I am all about fall, I am ready. So let me show you what's in our recipe. First, you're going to need some low-fat milk. I always, always use Fairlife because it has so much protein in it. You could use almond milk, but I just recommend using something with protein. It's really going to help you reach your protein goals and get enough in. And this is a great way to start off your day with a lots of protein. You're going to need some rolled oats, sugar substitute of your choice. I am using Lakonto Monk Fruit.  I'm also using the Lakonto Sugarfree Syrup. This one is my favorite. It has the best ingredients when it comes to sugar-free syrup. And for me, it tastes the most like regular syrup. So both of these will be linked down below with 15% off. You'll need some chopped pecans. Now these are optional. I'm adding them.  Pumpkin pie spice, vanilla extract, and then pumpkin puree. This is the leftover from my Ninja Creamy video yesterday. If you haven't seen it, I'll link it down below for you. So let's make pumpkin pie overnight oats. So to get started on our overnight oats, I'm going to add half of a cup of Fairlife milk to a mason jar. I'm not sure the ounces of these mason jars. I'll see if I can find them on Amazon and link them down below for you. I'm pretty sure that's where I got them. Half of a cup of rolled oats. One tablespoon of chopped pecans. Two tablespoons of pumpkin puree. One tablespoon of Lakonto Sugarfree Maple Syrup. One tablespoon of Lakonto granulated. Some vanilla extract and some pumpkin pie spice. Here's what our pumpkin overnight oats look like. These look incredible. I cannot wait. So I'm going to pop the lid on. I like to give it a good shake just to make sure everything gets mixed really well. And then you can just pop these in the refrigerator and eat them the next day. You can eat them cold or warm.  So let me make up two more jars. I'm making three total for the week. So here are the overnight oats. These look so good. I'm telling you it's giving me all the fall feels.  Just so you kind of have a reference point. And then once you shake them up, they look kind of like pumpkin pie filling. I'll go ahead and put points, calories, macros, everything here on the screen for you. I'm going to pair these most likely with another protein source like some eggs and maybe some fruit. But I am excited to feel fall all week. For my lunches this week, I am making buffalo chicken burgers. I have been craving buffalo something and I love chicken burgers. So let me show you what's in the recipe. You're going to need a pound of lean, extra lean ground chicken, light sliced cheese of your choice. I'm using Yarlsburg Swiss. I love Swiss with anything buffalo or spicy. You'll need a zucchini, buffalo sauce of your choice. Of course, as you know, I'm going with mild. Seasoning wise, you'll need garlic, powder and cumin, minced onion or a fresh onion diced really, really, really small. And then some salt and pepper as always I'll link my gravity fed salt and pepper grinders down below. We love them. So let's get started on our chicken burgers. We're going to start by grating some zucchini. I have a plate down with a paper towel because we want to make sure we get all the moisture out of the zucchini once it's grated. And we want about a half of a cup total. And then with your paper towel, go ahead and soak up all of the moisture out of your zucchini. Now we're ready to assemble the burgers. I added my pound of ground chicken. I'm going to add my grated zucchini, two tablespoons of buffalo sauce. Now you can add more if you would like. I'm going to go ahead and stick with the two just because you know I don't like things super spicy and you can also add additional buffalo sauce to the burger when you go to eat it. Minced onion, I'm going to add a couple of tablespoons. If you're using fresh onion, do a quarter of a cup. Garlic powder and cumin and salt and pepper. Spray a skillet with some nonstick cooking spray. You can also grill these out on a barbecue or an indoor grill. Then we're going in with our hands and we're going to mix everything together and form four chicken burgers. I'm going to give them a quick flip. Once they are cooked through, we'll add on a slice of cheese as well. So we have a cheesy buffalo chicken burger. So here are the buffalo chicken burgers the slice of the Yarlsburg light Swiss cheese. The cheese is only one point per slice and it is so incredibly delicious. I am going to go ahead and package these up in a storage container. I'll be back to share points, calories, macros and I'll also share a couple of ways that you can put together your buffalo chicken burgers.  These are going to be such a great way to get in a ton of protein for lunch. Now of course you can add these to a bun with some lettuce and some red onion.  And lastly another really good thing would be a little bit of avocado. So my plan is actually some avocado sliced up on top of my burger. I am not going to have a bun but I probably will add a little bit more buffalo sauce as well just to add some extra flavor and then chop up some avocado. So that is going to be my lunch this week. I'll probably have it with some type of crunchy snack and maybe some fruit. For a sweet treat this week, we are making no bake chocolate peanut butter protein bars. These are those peanut butter bars with chocolate on top. You know the ones from the bakery. I'm super excited about these and they are packed with protein. So let me show you what's in the recipe. You're going to need some ground flax seed meal, powdered sugar alternative of your choice. I'm using Lakonto powdered. You guys know Lakonto is my favorite and as always it will be linked in the description box with 15% off. You're also going to need some light butter and then some vanilla protein powder of your choice. Again, my recommendation anytime you're baking, cooking or making sweet treats is to use devotion angel food cake. That's the best protein powder for baking but I'm going to use what I have on hand which is my integrated nutrition. Don't worry, I'll be buying some devotion as soon as this is gone but you just want some type of vanilla or even unflavored protein powder. I will link devotion down in the description box for you with a discount. Salt, your dark dark chocolate bar. This is a 70% organic dark chocolate and then you're going to need some peanut butter. I'm going to use American Dream Nut Butter because you guys know it's my favorite. It's what I have on hand and this one right here, the brand blend cookie butter, that's actually a peanut butter, 15 grams of protein and two tablespoons. So for American Dream Nut Butter this one has the most protein and it is incredible. It's a peanut butter with cookie mix-ins. Absolutely amazing. So I'm going to use this for the peanut butter bars. I will also link American Dream Nut Butter down below with 10% off. I get asked all the time what my favorites are, literally every single one of them. Everyone I've tried is incredible and I have about 10 jars in my pantry as we speak. And then lastly, some vanilla extract. So let's make our chocolate peanut butter protein bars. So I'm adding my three quarters cup of my American Dream Nut Butter. I did just weigh that out on my food scale. For me, that's the most accurate way to measure it. I'm going to add about a teaspoon of vanilla extract, one tablespoon of light melted butter and one quarter cup of Lakonto powdered sugar. And then we want to mix this together until it is thoroughly mixed. And we're adding in one third cup of ground flax seed and one serving of protein powder. So if you're using devotion, it's one scoop. This integrated nutrition is two scoops per serving. So I'll put in two and then again, give it another mix. So your batter should be really similar to cookie dough. So we could easily form this and roll this into a ball. But what we're going to do is actually add it to an eight by eight or an eight by nine or even an eight by four baking dish and press it into place, basically making a crust. For the chocolate layer, we're going to melt two and a half ounces of the dark chocolate either on the stove top in a saucepan or in my case, I am simply going to just melt it in the microwave. Just make sure that you're watching it and stirring it throughout the melting process so that it doesn't seize. We're going to pour the dark chocolate right on top and then spread it out nice and even. These look incredible. They're going into the refrigerator for 30 minutes to an hour. We just want that chocolate to harden on top and then we'll go ahead and slice it into bars and then I'll share points, calories and macros. I just pulled the chocolate peanut butter protein bars out of the refrigerator. I did try to cut them. They cut really, really easily. Don't forget that it is lined with parchment paper so you could pop all the bars out, cut them into servings. It makes 10 bars total. I'll put points, calories, macros here on the screen for you. This is going to be the perfect sweet treat this week. We made for this week's WW Meal Prep. I hope you are as excited about these three recipes as I am. Don't forget they are on my website which is linked down in the description box along with nutrition coaching. Links and discounts to my favorite things. My Facebook group, Instagram, everything you need to know is down in that description box. Give this video a thumbs up if you enjoyed it and subscribe if you're not. I'd love to have you here. Thank you for watching friends and I'll see you all in my next one. Bye.


Yeah, look, it's it's been um, it's been obviously pretty tough as as you'd expect of a preseason It's not always easy coming into New gaffer, obviously, but you know, he's made all all the boys feel, you know Right at home in terms of they know what they should do when they step onto the pitch They know what their role is They know already what he expects of them and that's massive It doesn't kind of leave you in the dark wondering Where I need to work on what I need to do and and it gives you a sense that you know You you take off these boxes and you do the right things and it will give you a real shot to play this year And that's all you can ask for really kind of that clarity and and knowing that you just got to put the work in and You know a few good performances this year Will lift my confidence and will give me a platform to kick on and have a good year of a lot of games and Success hopefully the team you see the fans and they're so proud and they deserve a lot because of the last couple years as well, but but it's not just our Our inability to to be success from the last few years, but more so just it's just how it is. It's what they deserve This is they pay their hard-earned money to come watch watch us play if they're able to do so this year Obviously and and to get memberships and to support the club So in return all they ask that we we give everything we give 110% and every time We step on the pitch and on the training ground as well to prepare for that This is our job. This is our life and this is what we love to do So we all need to put in together as a team the team has to have their own pride and and whatnot and put aside last Years performances in the Derby's because if you're talking about Derby's it's a new year in every games different There's new players as new coaches. There's a lot of there's a lot of change So yeah at the end of the day it means a lot to the fans But has to mean even more to the players because that's how we'll be that's how we'll be positive and get get good results


So we could start early, right? We don't have to actually wait for 2.15 on the dot, right? I could use the extra time. Hello, everyone. Thank you for coming to this talk. I am really excited to be giving this talk because this is material that I've been thinking about for a good five or six years. We're going to be talking about crucial conversations. These are the conversations that happen when stakes are high. Tempers flare, and perspectives clash. That's actually an animated GIF that I added. No. It was a joke. Now I explained the joke, so it's not funny. But the explanation's funny now. In a little less than a half an hour, we're going to be talking about how to navigate these difficult conversations and give you a few tools to help diagnose and debug them. Most of the content that we're going to be going over today comes from these books, specifically Crucial Conversations by these four authors. It's a great read. You can pick it up in a day, finish it in a day. And I just started reading the follow-up book, Crucial Confrontations, which covers over a lot of the same material but from a different perspective. My name is Chris Weber. I'm a Drupal enthusiast. I've been a developer for over a decade, mostly in web development, and mostly, during that time, highly enthusiastic about Drupal. I'd like to take part of the sprint mentoring, and I hope you are all here on Friday for the open sprints, the open contribution sprints. If you have some kind of computer computational device, if you could, could you open this link at the bottom here to the conference page and be ready to fill in all of your feedback about how well I'm doing here. I'm not a very good public speaker, and I need all the criticism that you give. So I guess come to this link later if you don't have a device right now.  And when I started a company with a buddy of mine, and we fought the good fight for a good two years, and it seemed like we were putting everything we could into creating a successful small consulting company of about two people, two, three people, but we weren't making it. And we didn't know why we weren't making it. We tried to fix the problem. We added more organization. We even hired a project manager at some point. But it got to the point that I started to realize that my best friend's family's well-being was absolutely hinged to my ability to produce. And I didn't want to hurt my friend, but I didn't want to seem disloyal to my friend because we had fully vested into this company together. We were partners. We were going to not have bosses anymore. We were going to be the best developers we could be. And we were going to have a great life together. But yeah, I got to the point where I felt really terrible about the fact that by my needing to sleep, by my needing to play video games every now and then, I was hurting my buddy's ability to support his family. And so I didn't want to hurt him, but I also knew that I had to become a better developer. And the solution that I came up with was I had to leave, which meant I had to have this very difficult conversation with him that I just had to go and we had to stop this. And that's how I found this book, because I didn't know how to have that conversation. And once I read through this book, I helped help me to have that conversation and get through that conversation with him. And my hope was that we could get through it and still be friends. More about that at the end. But this is where we're headed today. We're going to learn how to, in the next 20 minutes or so, first we're going to learn how to diagnose when we are in a crucial conversation. Which sounds like an easy thing, but crucial conversations are the kinds that tend to creep up on you. And you don't know if you're at this pivotal moment that could define the rest of your relationship. Then we're going to learn how to log and monitor your intentions during those conversations. And finally, we're going to learn how to debug and fix your conversations so that we can optimize our communication. I'm a developer. I'm going to use nerdy terms, OK? First of all, this is a question where perhaps we're not too focused on a lot. Have we evolved as human beings? When we're presented with a threat, we still react instinctually. We're not really presented with physical threats anymore. We don't have to fend for our lives in the streets. But we're still presented with a lot of psychological threats. And the reactions that we have to those threats are still the fight or flight instincts that helped us survive when we were cave people and needed to run away from prey. But it's actually more than that. It's more than an instinctual reaction. It's actually a biochemical reaction. Part of what makes those instincts so powerful is that when we're presented with a threat, adrenaline kicks in. And the parts of our brains that could help us reason through problems start to shut down and get overwhelmed by the parts of our brains that want to react and keep us safe from that physical threat. Because it still thinks that every threat is a physical threat. So it's no wonder why when we have very heated, emotional, difficult conversations, we are at our worst. Because even our own body is against us. The very moment we need our brains to be working through these difficult conversations is when it takes a nap. When we are presented with threats, this is the spectrum that we tend to react with. Our natural responses to threats fall upon the spectrum. Some people have a tendency to avoid conflict. I'm one of those. And some people tend to react with conflict with conflict.  Perhaps it was an argument with a family member. Perhaps it was with your boss. Perhaps it was with a coworker or someone on the internet. Emotions probably ran high on both sides. And you could feel your body working over time, getting stressed out, feeling angry or sad or fearful about where the conversation was leading, what the consequences of that conversation could be. Did you lash out? Did you stay quiet and try to ignore that the problem was happening and to try to change the subject to something else, more pleasant? That is your style and distress. Just know about it. The most important thing about today is to know that all of these reactions are very human. They're very eventual. We're going to be encountered with stress and you're going to be surprised by it. You're going to be blindsided. You're not going to know how to deal with it. So you just need to be able to diagnose that those things are happening and they're starting to shut down your brain and then work through the steps that are going to be following to work through them. So that's what I'm here to tell you. We can fall into a stress trap. One where we have a natural response to the stress that isn't very productive, whether it's through violence or silence and that itself becomes a source of stress that adds to the stress that you already had and then you're in a stress bomb. First step, the first aha moment that I had in this book was the realization that you really don't have any power to affect what's happening on the other side of the conversation.  But you can have ask yourself a series of questions to step you down from the stress bomb that you're creating and to work through it. And most of these questions start with the premise start with heart. And I don't mean start from a place of empathy or a number of great suggestions. What I mean is to start with introspection.  Are you starting to react in this instinctual kind of way? Step yourself down. But actually it works better if you ask this question. What do I really want? Get back to what you really want because when the adrenaline kicks in when the energy starts picking up you start losing sight of this and you start focusing on winning. How many people have young children? How many times do you get into an argument where they're not really arguing about what they were arguing and they're just arguing about who's gonna win the argument? That's exactly what I'm talking about. We are not so much more mature than our children in that fashion sometimes. We still love having arguments where we're the winner of the argument. So by asking ourselves rational questions like what do I really want? What do I really want for our relationship? This person and myself going forward. My partner and I. What do I really want for everyone else that's involved in this process? Like if you're working for trying to figure out a difficult conversation within a company. And by asking ourselves this question we're actually kick starting the rational part of our brain again. You're waking that part up so that that part can start reacting to the situation instead of the lizard brain. But also we need to learn to look. While we're logging ourselves and our intentions we need to look at what's happening at the other conversation to see if they're about ready to blow up their stress bomb. So you need to audit your slipping intentions and watch the other for exceptions. What are the kinds of warnings and exceptions that drive a conversation off track? Watch to see if they're starting to dominate the conversation.  Look for content and conditions. Because a lot of times we tend to take a little bit of a situation and we turn it into a much bigger thing. And if we could just focus on the content of what we were talking about we could handle the problem a little bit differently. There are a number of things and you probably know this inherently because again many of us have known children or have children and they tend to do all of these things. I'll just go through them really quickly. Masking where you use sarcasm or sugarcoating to hide what you really feel. Straight up avoidance, trying to steer the conversation changing the topic away from touching content. Withdrawing, pulling out of the conversation completely like physically avoiding the people who have the problem so that you don't have to be in the situation where you're dealing with it. Those are all symptoms of if you have a tendency to move to silence. If you tend to be the kind of person who avoids the problem.  So things like controlling where you use things like filibustering or dominating a conversation to or if you're starting to speak in absolutes. Labeling when you try to say well of course that they think that they're a pinball player from Portland. So all pinball player from Portland are terrible people. So of course they're gonna think that because they're a pinball player from Portland. Kind of things like that. Or just straight up attacking where you're not focusing on the conversation anymore. You're just talking about like what your silly brother-in-law is doing over in England now. So look for these things. These are the things you need to look for in a crucial conversation. I did not start my timer. This is gonna go well. So you are auditing yourself, you're logging yourself, you're auditing the conversation, you're looking at what's going on on the other side of the conversation.  The number one thing you do is you make it safe. What does that mean? We're talking about psychological safety. Let me unpack that. In 2012, Google did a study that would help them learn what makes teams successful. And what they found was that teams where everyone was allowed to speak at meetings achieved the best results. Why was that? This being Google, they looked at a ton of factors. The levels of expertise, years in the company, about every factor you can imagine. This is Google. Teams that were allowed to speak at pretty much equal amounts provided their members with the psychological safety that everyone on the team deserved to be listened to. Teams where they had like a project manager or a team lead that tend to absorb all the information and then repeat it back at them did not do it as well because it felt like well that's the only person that matters because that's the only person that's speaking. So when we say psychological safety, we mean feeling safe to fail, to make mistakes, to not like losing your job because you're doing something wrong. The kind of safety that you feel in a community that accepts you to feel included. When that condition is met, everyone feels safe to contribute their knowledge. How did we become unsafe? When safety is violated or you're starting a conversation that because of previous conditions already feels unsafe, it's usually because one of these two safety conditions have been violated. Mutual purpose, like if you know that you have conflicting goals and there's just no common ground to have a good conversation, you're just diametrically opposed. Or another question, do other people perceive that you're working toward a common outcome that they're invested in? Do you have their buy-in? So mutual purpose. Another condition, mutual respect. Respect is like air. As long as you have it, you don't think about it. But as soon as it's gone, it's the only thing you think about. So if you have a situation where respect has been violated, then that's pretty much the end of productive conversation. You have to address those things before you can move on. So what are the tips? What are the tactics? Where's the guts of this talk? That's covered up next. How do we feel safe again? Here's a couple of tips. Step one, step out and step back in. Sometimes you need a moment to adjust to a very stressful situation that's totally natural. Not exactly what I'm talking about right here, but yes, if you need a moment to collect yourself, step out and then step back in. But what I really mean is step out of the conversation that you're currently having, and if safety has been violated, address the safety concern. If the person you're talking about perceives that what you just said means that you are diametrically opposed to what they're trying to accomplish and then there's no common ground, step out and address that. Or if they feel that you have insulted them or respect has been lost or violated in some way, step out and address that. Only when you can step out and address that that you can get back to having a productive dialogue. Step two, oh wait, I should be pressing things. There, helpful, right? Okay, step two, apologize where appropriate. Where you make, when you have made a mistake, even if especially if it was unintentional, I guess if you intentionally intended to insult them and your intent is to burn this conversation to a ground, perhaps don't apologize there, just say we're done and then move on, I guess. But definitely, if you have harmed safety and it wasn't your intention, apologize where appropriate. And try to make it clear that though safety has been violated, you are committed to coming to a conclusion. That you're committed to the process of getting all the information out, not just your information, but to make sure that everyone has the ability to contribute. Use contrasting to fix any misunderstanding. Sometimes people can feel disrespected even if you didn't do something specific to violate their respect. That it's just something, people come to situations and they have already lived full lives. They have already been through so many things. We are so complex individuals. So there are lots of things that can violate safety, respect, purpose that you don't even know about. And to make it clear what your intentions are, use contrasting to say what you do mean and what you don't mean. Because if others believe you intend to put them down or otherwise play games, then the conversation is effectively over. So when others misinterpret your intent, step out of the argument, rebuild safety by making it clear what you don't and do mean. And lastly, whoops, no, thank you. No, nope, there we go. Discover or create a mutual purpose. Sometimes an argument has happened because you clearly have different purposes, but is there really no middle ground? Is there really nothing that you both want to achieve? Search, discover that mutual purpose. And if one doesn't exist, create one. We're both working at the same company. We should both be vested in our success. We perhaps disagree on the finer points, but let's all agree that we're going to work together as best as we can and we'll work through this for an example. So the purpose of all of this is to focus on this concept that I like to call the shared pool of knowledge. If the conversation is safe, if everyone can be contributing their knowledge, you can make the best decisions. I said that differently. History has shown us time and time again that the worst decisions happen when you prevent others from participating from providing their insights. Group think, shutting down dissenters, dominating arguments with all your points and none of theirs. If you are preventing others from participating by reacting with violence, you are preventing your access to that knowledge, which could help your decision-making process and help you make better decisions. And likewise, nope, stop that, don't do that.  So I said we would get into debugging and this is actually kind of like the part I like the best, so thank you for staying with me so far. So remember, we were gonna talk about debugging, so here is the advanced section right now. Master your stories. Sometimes a conversation is turned critical because we have some of the information and we can connect the dots.  We can see patterns with very little data, but seeing a pattern because you're telling yourself a story is not the same thing as a fact. Here is a bold claim, one that you might disagree with. Emotions don't just happen. They don't settle upon us like a fog. You create your emotions and it can work a little bit like a state machine.  This is how we tend to see our stories. We feel something and then we react. But we feel that thing because we have told ourself a story and we tell ourself a story because of some of the evidence that we see. And so we connect the dots, tell ourself a story, we react to the story and then we react. That's how we feel. So what I would like to propose is that we could put our breakpoint right there on tell a story. Are there any other stories that you could tell yourself that would satisfy the facts that perhaps you would react differently to? And this is kind of like a device that you can use when you want to stay in the conversation and you want to continue to be productive in the conversation. If you don't, don't worry about it, just react. But if it is important to you to continue to have a productive conversation and you need that lizard part of your brain to be quiet so that you can react productively to the conversation, try to tell yourself a different story that would also satisfy the facts so that you can get all the information out. These are the kinds of stories that we tend to tell ourselves that are clever but are unhelpful. It's not my fault. The theme is always the same. The other person is bad, they're wrong, they're dumb. We're good, we're right, we're brilliant. Other people, when they do bad or wrong things, we suffer as a result and then we tend to paint ourselves as a victim.   This is a conversation you're having with yourself. Another story, it's all your fault. This is where we like to make the person on the other side look like a villain. And it's an easy story to gravitate to because we tend to think that everything that we do wrong is an accident and everything that they do wrong is on purpose. And it's a nasty story because it gives ourselves license to do all sorts of nasty things in response. And again, this is the internal conversation you're having. And lastly, the helpless story, that there's nothing I can do, that the options that are presented to me are all equally so bad that I can't really pick anything and therefore I'm going to do nothing. And that's a particularly easy story when we vilify our opponents that way because it makes it look like all the options in front of us are futile. So the solution is to tell the rest of the story. Turn victims into actors. If you notice that you're telling yourself a story that you're the victim in the story, ask yourself, am I pretending not to notice my role in what is happening? This doesn't mean that you had malicious intent or maybe you think about the series of events that led you to that story and you can recall that that lizard part of your brain did not show you all the evidence that perhaps this person has a history of people who have done those things and they're just reacting to that. The thing that always got me is when I'm sitting in with someone and they tell me, oh, that other person is crazy. No, they're a human being. We're all human beings and we act at things weirdly sometimes but that does not mean that they're crazy but as soon as you start treating someone like they're crazy then you start treating them like a human being. Turn villains into humans. When you find yourself labeling someone as a villain, ask yourself, why would a reasonable, rational and decent person do this thing that this person is doing? Give yourself a reason to deal with the other side as a human being and perhaps there is a different answer other than that they're crazier, that the scum on the earth to explain what they did and finally if you find yourself with the helplessness story, remind yourself back to that first question, what do I really want for me, for others, for our relationship? Kill the fool's choice of this is bad and that is bad and there's nothing other, it's in between and find a more productive answer. Ask yourself, what would I do if I really wanted the things that I want? How would I behave? How, what would I do? You guys, you guys, sorry, I didn't, I didn't, sorry, these were the points. It'll be better next time, next, whatever. So, we're at the end. I promised you I would tell you the rest of my story. In the end, my crucial conversation was the first time that I had ever tried any of this and I was quite a novice and despite my best efforts, I was unable to convince my friends that leaving the company was something I had to do in order to ensure that I didn't harm his family and his financial prospects for the future and our friendship. I left the meeting pretty devastated that perhaps I had ruined one of the most important friendships of my life. But a while later, he called me out of the blue to ask me for drinks and it was at my new job of all places to tell me that he understood that it finally got through to him, why I did and it was the impetus for a lot of great success that he had forming a new company with some other friends of mine and they're doing really great now. And that, most importantly to me, that we were cool. So I guess what I'm trying to say is crucial conversations are unvoidable. You're going to run into someone who is very important to you and you're going to have that moment where everything can change.  Thank you. Oh yeah, the link, one sec. Carrie, sure. Well, okay, thank you. So if they're starting to hulk out, go through the steps, step out of the conversation that you're currently having and address the reason why they're hulking, right? And to, you know, if they're being guarded, if they're just like so wrapped up in that roller coaster of anger and you needed to take a couple of questions in order to get that rational part of their brain-backed active and find out why are they so upset, once you know that they're, why they're upset, then you can address that. Maybe you intentionally, maybe there's nothing avoidable, maybe you don't have a mutual purpose, you know, or maybe they just want to be mad or, but maybe you can address it. Use contrasting to make it clear what you don't mean and what you do mean, right? But if you had said something insensitive and got them mad because that apologized, we're necessary, right?