Hey and good afternoon. I'm Angela Brown and I'm here today with Michael a clerk from Skyrun properties And we are gonna learn some really interesting things about how to clean For Airbnb's now I get this question asked a lot. How do we get into Airbnb business? How do we clean vacation rentals short-term rentals? It's a it's a really interesting topic for a lot of cleaning companies And so today we've got Michael who is the owner of Skyrun properties in Park City, Utah And he's the Property management company that works with the cleaners So he's gonna give us some insights and he's gonna answer a lot of our questions So I do encourage you to jump into the comments ask your questions today And we're gonna get as many of them answered as possible. Please help me welcome Michael a clerk. How are you today? I'm doing very well. Thank you Thank you so much for joining us. It's a it's cold where you are today. It is we're in the middle of Like a three-day winter storm. I think the Couple the resorts are closed with a hundred mile an hour winds on the resort today And but all in all it's been a good it was a slow start to the season with regards to our snow Total so it's very welcome to have I Think we got 36 inches or so in the last two or three days My goodness welcome the skiers are happy we we get much less Guests are much happier when there's a lot of snow and skiing when when the snow isn't as good. We seem to get more Questions and complaint not complaints, but in cruise about why doesn't the microwave work like I work at mine works at home But when there's a good good storm comes through everybody skis all day They're exhausted. They eat pizza at night and they go to sleep and it's great for everyone So I got a question about the snow Do you have problems ever with cleaning companies calling out saying we got snowed in and we can't show up? Yeah, that would be catastrophic We don't have that we do have some delays sometimes, but we've never had a problem A clean not happen. We've been doing this for 10 years and I got to say my cleaning companies We've had some times we've had to help them get the clean ready for The guests, but we've never had a time when a cleaner just completely did not show It's just as you can imagine that's that would be catastrophic, right? You have a guest expecting to arrive at four o'clock and And the house isn't clean you realize that they can't make it and then what do you do, right? It's just It's unimaginable. So we really count on our cleaners are the Even though they're not our employees. They're they're separate businesses. They are crucial part of our business Probably the most important part of our business Well, I'm so glad we're having this conversation today and I'm really intrigued by the sky run Connection between cleaning and the Airbnb's so if you will tell us a little bit about sky run and how you came to the business And how you work with cleaners So I've been doing Vacation rentals on a smaller scale of my own properties for several years and then I was a chef by trade for a long time. So I transitioned into vacation rentals full-time as The chef business is a kind of a young person's business in some respect So this allowed me to transition to still something in the hospitality industry But something that I might be able to do for a longer longer period Sky run is a company that we have about 40 locations around the country Over a thousand properties under management and I have about a thousand about a hundred properties under management here in Park City And so when you say under management, what does that mean? That means homes that we manage that someone else owns But we are the vacation rental manager for those properties So we have contracts with those owners to manage their property to list their property on Airbnb Take the bookings Handle the revenue handle the cleaning handle the maintenance Make sure the guests are good when they're in town when they're here and Take care of the you know when they check out make sure the house looks good There's no damage and then schedule the cleaners for the next the next guest the next arrival So it sounds like the owner of the property is very hands-off when it comes to this particular Type of scenario when they work with you That's the goal. The goal is to give them a very limited need of their Attention or their time when they're in regards to managing the property Some owners are more hands-on and they want to be more involved But usually that's just in the very beginning of when we take on a property And it's all new and they're trying to figure out all the different details but once we prove our ourselves as a Good operator and a professional operator.  I mean, I like the hospitality side of the business.  You have a hundred owners. You have many different personalities it does get challenging in that respect but the You know the North Star for us and my company is that We make happy happen is what we talk about like that's we want guests to come in It's a very big deal for someone to come on a ski vacation. It's very expensive We got to make sure that that guest at the end of their stay Is so happy with their experience that they want to come back again. They want to give us a good review I know that's what something we're gonna talk about on this is about, you know, five-star reviews because there's nothing more valuable in Vacation rentals than five-star reviews. It just It's um worth all the effort that you put into getting those reviews because it takes effort to manifest really good reviews takes effort from the From the reservation teams from the teams who were both making the listings taking the photos making the arrival instructions Handling the guests when they're in the house Cleaners making sure the all those all those parts of the stay Happen seamlessly to get that review, but it's it's something that you know without that I Don't know what you're doing You're just you know, it's more of a commodity than a real passion if you're not really interested in making sure guests Have a great experience Well sky run has a great reputation And so I'm curious how did you come up on this where when I hear you talk you're talking about the guest with respect They spent a lot of money. This is their family vacation This is something they've been looking forward to and then you say from the the owner's perspective Our goal is to make it hands off for them so that it's easy and effortless for them So with respect to the homeowner and respect to the guest and it sounds like you've got a really great company culture And your reputation speaks for itself. How did you guys get that way? You know, it's just it takes effort, right? This is a not an easy business but you do have to just put the effort into and have your You know sounds corny, but have your core values have your your company ethics or ethos reflect what you want to how you want your business to Be in two or three years like when you first start all you're doing is just trying to figure out what what you really should be doing But pretty soon you have to figure out where do you want to be in two years and five years or in ten years? and the only sustainable Model I would think it would be to really lean heavily into guest satisfaction because with guest satisfaction you get Good like we went back on good reviews So which leads to more bookings which leads to more revenue for the owners which means leads to more owner satisfaction So we definitely have two different people. We have to please we have to please the guests and we have to please our owners our property owners But it all happens from the guest experience in my opinion So I'm guessing starting out as a chef and then moving into the hospitality industry from the Airbnb side I'm guessing that those are skills that have stacked on top of each other Because even as a chef, it's what we're still talking about customer satisfaction Customers come because they're having a joyous experience. They enjoy food They're having you know celebrations with family and friends and again They're paying out of pocket maybe more than they're spending for the regular grocery bill at home And so the the dining experience is also one of those moments of joy that really requires customer satisfaction So have you just always been involved in you know paying attention to the the customer as this Is this something that you've just perfected over the years? Yeah, I think so. I think it's something that's always been, you know, it's in it's Inherent in running a quality Hospitality business and restaurants are hospitality businesses also just a different segment of that of that market But I used to you know, tell my team, you know every plate that you're putting out That's going in front of someone. It's not just some Random, you know roasted chicken with this or that on it It's an actual dish that someone decided to purchase and are have and has expectations for so Don't forget that every dish you make is Going in front of someone and it's and it's their experience in the same with The vacay and it transfers into the vacation rental industry like every say I forget If it's trip advisor or someone has a great line I wish I thought of it is like every trip is a big deal Because every trip for these guests is a really big deal and whether it's a two-night stay in a Off-season where it's not that valuable or if it's a stay where it's a super valuable peak ski season week It's a big deal for that guest and we have to You know meet their expectations and and try to exceed their expectations as best we can So we live in a world of social media Where people and I'm guilty of this myself I get to an Airbnb and the first thing I do before I load all my luggage in and I clutter up the place is I start taking pictures of it because I know I want to leave a picture on Trip advisor because I'm going to leave a rating and review and I want to take a look and see how it was left now I'm a little bit specific because Cleaning is my background and so I want to highlight all of the things that the cleaning company did right And so I'm looking for all the things that they did right that I can highlight in my rating and review And so what is the element of I don't want to say surprise But maybe oh wow when a guest comes in to your Airbnb's and they have this feeling of wow Check it out because you know, they're going to take pictures. You know, they're going to post it on social media Check out my vacation look where I'm getting to stay that kind of thing right right well, I think Same as in a restaurant first impressions are super important Right like as soon as they walk in the door. Well, first of all, they have to have an easy access to the entry, right? The door code has to work Instructions have to work we do an arrival video so that if they follow the video, they're Put it on their phone. They push play and they drive in and take this road take this left go to this door Access it with your code so all those things have to work well for their experience for their beginning of their experience to be Enjoyable and there's a fear right if especially if you're the person who booked the property for 10 people, right? You're the one who made that decision on that property When you open that door, you're just hoping it looks Like the photos yes things that it like there's a real fear So we try to make that initial impression when we have a lights on yet the heat on we have You know in certain places we have music playing when you try to have it smell nice clean Like so that first moment you walk in the door. They're just like I'm We're gonna be okay. The place is what I expected it to be so I think those first moments I mean, there's a whole series of things that have to happen right that has to be the booking has to happen seamlessly the Finance you know the revenue has to get charged on their accounts correctly and all those things have to happen But when the guests first arrives It's so important that they just have that moment of relief that they walk in and the place looks like They expect it to be and it's clean and and people do people will walk around the house for the first 10 minutes opening every door Checking every little thing out right you think like why would everyone anyone go into that drawer? We could just leave something there that no one would bother and Opens that door or a little kid opens that door because they're inquisitive, too So I think the first impressions are very very important in that in the success of the property and such success of the Well, and and Airbnb cleaning is a little different from a bi-weekly cleaning in a regular home Because in a regular home We don't open every drawer and we don't open all the closets and the cupboards and underneath the bathroom sink and all those things Yet we are required to for Airbnb cleaning to make sure people didn't leave smartphone chargers and clothes inside the drawers and things like that tell us a little bit about some of the Expectations from a property management from the cleaning company when the cleaning company works on one of your properties well, we have you know very distinct and Detailed list of how we want our properties to be cleaned and how we want them to be presented Couple things that really matter are Doing semi-annual deep cleans you really can't do a deep clean on a three-hour turn between the guests checks out at 11 and your new guests coming in at four, but they want to get an early you really have to do your deep cleans Periodically too because the housekeeping just can't do that so With that said the detail that has to happen is you know, they they have to come in They have to strip all the beds. They have you know, everyone knows the process But the eyeballs on it and someone on each team so we work with I think five different housekeeping companies some have 30 of our properties 40 of our properties some have two or three So each of them have to be integrated with our software So when we get a booking they get a notification of the clean for the arrival in the checkout Date so they have they can implement it however. They all have different software. So it is a little bit of a Jumble board trying to make sure everyone has all the information they need but basically, you know, they receive the notification we have a Little QR codes underneath the sink so that we know when the cleaner has started their clean There's they scan that code so that we know okay boom To 255 Park Avenue's cleaners are there. We know about how long it takes to clean so we know okay Two hours from now that house will be ready for our inspectors to go in Because we do an inspection after the housekeeping comes through so we do a second level of Eyeballs on the property that we know our inspectors are even more detailed than the housekeeping companies We don't Husky our housekeeping companies do a great job But we still like to have that extra eyeballs on it in case they were rushed or in case they miss something that we don't Have anything missed in in the guest for the guest But you know, we definitely have very high expectations if something is missed we communicate with them they have to get back out if if there's a Floors weren't done well or the countertop wasn't done Well, you know, we have our inspectors take photos if it's something small like that We'll just do it ourselves and still send them a photo and say hey this needs to be done better next time But if it's like a bed they got missed or a bathroom they got mixed and missed then we will have them come back out and That serves a couple purposes like they call backs like in any business if you have to call somebody back out It's you know really terrible for your productivity and terrible for your profit margin so housekeepers are very hesitant to have to send their teams back out so they will After a couple times if someone's saying okay, the floors have been dirty in this they'll look at which team that is and If the team is consistently doing this one issue then of course they should bring it up with them because Then they don't have to send another Inspector out or another cleaner out to clean up after the first team. So there's a lot of communication I mean air B&B business. I mean, it's all about communication with the guests with the in-house Housekeepers with our team inspectors.  I mean nobody it's not like they're stealing it But it's just in the volume of the day things can get just get lost So communication is really really important and having somewhat sophisticated software to work with your property manager so when you have another Inspector that comes out to inspect the cleaning team is that their only job is that all they do? They just do quality control on the properties. Yeah, and that's from our that's our team That's one of our team members who does that and do they also do that after let's say a plumber or an electrician Or somebody else that comes in to fix a different piece of the property. Sure. Yeah, we go and inspect afterwards. Yes So you say the communication is key. Are you communicating with the cleaner themselves or with the cleaning owner of the company? More the more the software Is communicating so when the cleaner comes in and they scan their QR code that the clean has started That's the communication that okay either the door lock We know when the cleaner got in through the door lock because we they have their own specific code So I say okay Boom they're in there or if the house has a QR code and we know that clean started and then there's another QR code There's two QR codes under the sink and one is for a completed clean so that they scan that It's a completed clean that pings our inspectors our inspectors say okay, I can go inspect this property Specters go and do and do the inspection and then they send a notification that the property is guest ready And that goes to the guests that they can check in to their property Wow, that's really detailed It it is but a lot of it's happening in the background, right? a lot of it's happening with really good software a sky run has an amazing software platform that allows us to Configure in each location kind of do things different, but it allows you to configure your business exactly how You think it should be configured and I'm all about as much as they automation as we can But not without that personal touch. You still need to be at a contact someone you still need to be able to Communicate with a live person if necessary Well, it sounds like you've got a really well oil machine and I mean it sounds like it's running really well and We know because of the ratings and reviews that drive repeat business The cleaning is crucial to the property. We know that that is that is a given in any in any property Tell us how a cleaning company would become part of your team if you will for some of the properties that you manage Um, there's a you know, there would be a vetting process They many times they come to us, you know, maybe a new company who's just moving into our market and We you know, we interview them we talk to the owner We see what kind of software they have we see what kind of what their ethos is how they run their business And if we feel like they would be a good fit we might give them a property to do a test test on and Run run with that for a couple weeks. I mean a couple bookings or three or four bookings knowing that the first booking or two Of course, they're going to be doing their Maybe best job that they will be doing so you have to see if that is a is the is the consistency You know something that we can count on and if they if they work out Then they would we would continue to give them more properties because it's scary as a Property management vacation rental company. It's scary to have a lot of your eggs in one basket without housekeeping company So we do like to diversify in case Who knows what happens right owners get sick Systems fall apart. I mean it doesn't happen all the time, but it's just Having a clean not happen is just would be so catastrophic that You have to be at a cover yourself and we we can do a clean if we have to we have all our own linens all our Towels and sheets and everything in our storeroom That if we had to do it we could but that's obviously just In case of emergency break glass kind of kind of situation There you go. I want to stop for just a second I want to say hi to all of you guys that have jumped in and joined us today She says hi awesome welcome up at 929 lots of smiles there. Hi guys. So glad that you're here with us today We've got got violet XO XO XO. This is high Angela. So happy to catch alive. It's been a while for me It's been a while and we're glad to see you back. Hello, Amy Simms is high Angela. I'm your new biggest fan. Hi I'm so glad that you're here today. We've got Rachel Rose said I just made it Rachel Rose is from England checking in with us today She says cleanliness is just as important as house setting. It seems yes. That is so true We have Roshanna King who says can you speak more about the QR code system and what it is? That is a great question Roshanna. Thanks for that So the QR code is just you know a typical QR code your software would have to support that as a Communication between the QR code when a housekeeper scans the code into your software to show that the Cleaning has started. So, you know, how that actually happens with the In the technology sector is not really my forte, but there is it's not that sophisticated, right? It's a It's a QR code. They're all over the place everywhere now And you just have to your software would I imagine most PMS softwares would have us a way to communicate with QR codes So the QR code is connected to a website or it's also connected to the login to an app For example, and if you have an app and in the cleaning business We have lots of different apps and it could be something like service autopilot or jobber or Zen made house called pro there are a whole bunch of them on the market and some of them specifically have Logins for Airbnb's so that it allows you then to take before and after pictures For example, if you have to do a damage report or something like that But with the QR code then it logs you in to let them know Which would be the same as using like a GPS tracking code that many of the softwares use That let the owner of the company know that the cleaner has actually landed at the property and that they've clocked in They've opened up the alarm code and they're inside the property and the job has started And so that's really important from any cleaning company because time is money And so if we don't know where our cleaners are Or is our cleaner out to lunch? Are they on the job? If they started a job and in the Airbnb industry There's a really small window where people check out and the next people check in and if it's a fast turn Which means somebody's checking out that morning and somebody's checking in that afternoon the cleaner better be at the job When these guys check out and before these guys check in that way The new guys are not showing up and the cleaners there and halfway through the job. That would be also catastrophic Does that ever happen to you Not as much like more like people coming in early and the cleaners aren't finished yet because Their code wouldn't work on their door Their code only activates when the inspector pushes the you know, they're inspected button That's when the code their code should activate. But if the cleaners are still there The guests sometimes just walk right in because the door is open So cleaners a lot of times now lock the door once they start to clean so that they don't get that doesn't happen But you know, there's been times where people stay late and they claim that they don't they didn't hear about the checkout time And housekeeping shows up. They've got their stuff all over the house There's we do send a lot of notifications to the guest to about that, but there is it's human nature, right? There's things that happen So what do you do in that scenario when the cleaner shows up and they're they're they're ready to do their job and The guest is just kind of like waking up like oh, we didn't know about the checkout time Yeah, we we jump right on it with the guest because it's really not the housekeepers Well, you know responsibility to take care of you know to do that. So we will jump right on the guest sometimes we'll go over there to Make sure they know the gravity of the situation and Often housekeeping has to leave to go to a new property. They have to skip this one go to the next one and come back Which messes up there, you know, they have a sequence of Cleans that they have for the day based on geography based on You know arrival times departure times how long it's going to take to clean a property. So it really throws them I feel terrible when it happens and we we try to Preempt that as much as possible. We send a notification the night before saying reminder check out times 10 a.m You will be charged for additional, you know, if we have to change cleaning and usually they the idea of paying a couple hundred dollar change fee for housekeeping gets their attention and You have to you have to because there's too much going on in a busy day to play that to have to deal with that You just have to be very Early check, you know late checkouts. You just really can't do them because it's too hard to communicate With housekeeping. What time are you coming? Oh 10 o'clock or 10 30? Okay, we can give them a half hour late check out But then maybe housekeeping comes a little bit early because they finished their other job earlier And then they get there and the guests are still there and they hear 10 30 But they're really thinking well, I'll be here till 11 kind of thing So we really pretty much hold firm to our arrival and departure times So if you are a guest and you are listening or watching this on a replay Can I please ask you To check out at checkout time for the sake of the property managers for the sake of the cleaners And in due respect for the guests that are coming in later that afternoon When you check into a property you want it to be nice and clean and ready for you And if the guest before you does not check out on time It does throw a monkey wrench in the cleaning process And then your stay is not going to be as welcoming as it should be So in order for that domino effects to go smoothly Visit after visit after visit. Please if you are a guest, please respect the checkout times I think that's only fair in the hospitality game So that everybody gets that oh wow feeling when they arrive and they get the stay that they're paying for right? exactly it's It really makes a big difference if we have somebody who doesn't abide by the checkout time They throw it can throw the whole day into chaos basically And with all due respect I come from the cleaning side And so when I'm running a team and we have sent people out to a job and the the guests are still there What happens is this we're paying for their time And so if they're out sitting in their car and they're waiting twiddling their thumbs waiting for a guest to leave We're still paying their salary And we're not earning any extra money for the time that they're not working And so where it's come it's money coming out of our pockets as well And so that eats into our profits and then like michael said sometimes the cleaning company has to leave and go on to another job Because the time has passed where they're not going to be able to do the job in the time allotted And they have another job they have to go do Okay, so now you've paid them for sitting in their car Which is the time you were going to pay them to clean the house and then now they've got to go do another job So you've got to pay them to go do that other job Now you're still on the hook because you're the cleaning company You're still required to somehow figure out can I get somebody else in On last minute notice to go in and clean that property now that the guest has finally left And so it does it throws this enormous amount of stress in the cleaning company because as a cleaning company we don't want to lose that account We don't want to lose that job And so we're going to try to jump through all kinds of hoops to make sure that that the property is cleaned before the next Guest comes if at all possible. We don't want to just be the the company that's like, sorry, we were there your fault I got to say my like the companies that work with me are fantastic like that they they really Understand and in their running businesses and their businesses are probably at a tighter margin And then mine is and I understand like if that So we don't take them for granted at all, you know, we really Talk to them communicate with the owners all the time about how much we value their their Their efforts because they housekeeping is the basis of The whole business is based on housekeeping. I mean they just Without them, I don't know You don't you don't have a business if housekeeping isn't done professionally and on time And to a high degree of high quality then There's no the whole thing will just fall apart very very quickly So we we all we recognize the value of the housekeepers do not Take them for granted at all Do you work with any solo cleaning companies just like one person that has their own cleaning company and they don't have a team It's just one person I do and she's got a couple of our properties. She's been with me very for a very long time She's not a software driven. She's a notepad and text kind of based Business, but she does impeccable work and she's limited by How that she is by herself that she cannot take a ton of properties, but the properties she does Are always she really does excellent excellent work. So yes, we do that, but I wouldn't take anyone else on in that Situation now. She's just been with me for a long time I've known, you know, she so if they're If there is a solo company that wanted to work with air bmbs And and a company like yourself a property management company Would you recommend that they hire people first before they expand their business? So that they can do the properties that you need done. How would you recommend they go about doing that? I think you're nice.  I mean there's things that happen in life And if you're the only person who could clean that house and the only person who has The all the sheets and the linens and all the cleaning supplies for that house What happens if if something does happen you get in an accident you Car breaks down you get sick. There's too many risk factors for us to Take on someone with just one Employee, you know just the owner operator. So I would say you would have to to make an air bmb proper Vacation rental manager Comfortable. I think you would have to have a little bit of an infrastructure in place When you say a little bit, what are you looking for you're looking for somebody with three employees five employees 20? I would say at least no, I would say three would would give me comfort that someone else could step in if if the lead person wasn't able to To do the job okay And when you when you take a company on you said you give them a trial run Like maybe they do a property or two for a couple of bookings to see if they did a really great job And can they be consistent? Is there something specific that you're looking for when a company comes to you and they say hey, I want to audition for this job um Just I think we mentioned earlier about the ethos of a company So just you know, they come into our office. We talk to them. We try to figure their story You know if they're just moving to town if they're just setting up shop. That's you know a little bit of a something we're Keep a keep in the back of our mind because you know companies it's a hard business right somebody who's just starting a housekeeping company might not know what they're getting themselves into and Very quickly they can learn that it's really difficult. It's very logistically challenging and You have to be On it to to run a housekeeping company that is profitable So we would you know, we would try to just get a feel for who they are as a person and then nothing really Shows you as well as how they work and how they how they communicate and how their cleans are at the end of the day So I I don't think there's anything like anything in specific that we look for just the overall Package of you know communication Personality you know they do sometimes deal with guests so they have to have people who can You know sometimes there's a guest like they do a mid-state clean or something like that where there's guests in house So we have to be comfortable that there can you know speak to a guest politely and With the hospitality mindset One thing that michael is not telling you but from the cleaning side of it I want to throw this out at you if you are a cleaning company And he just brought up mid-state cleans So what this is is if a guest is there for a long period of time Let's say 10 days or two weeks It might be that halfway through the vacation or maybe two times during that vacation We drop by and we change the linens out give them new towels and things like that Tidy up sweet mop the floors empty the trash that kind of thing But one of the things that he's not saying is the level of professionalism and how you look And so if you are servicing the customers This is one where you it's it's great if you're wearing a uniform if you are Hygienically clean that means your hair is done you took a shower that morning I hate to say this but we're going to say it because it's important that when you're interacting with the guests that you Look professional that means you did take a shower your hair is combed your teeth is brushed I mean you've got you know, you're you're you're a package That you're selling the service right if you sell a cleaning service you must look clean And so it's it's easy if you are a small company to just roll out of bed and say I'm going to be cleaning all day I'm going to be hot and sweaty and I'm just going to throw my hair up in a bun and wear my sweats and go Please don't do that. Okay. This this is a very specific industry Where you are expected to look professional if your guests and your your your people see you right Because this is something again. They could screenshot this this goes on social media This goes back to the company Please please please the highest level of professionalism that you can pull off while you're cleaning And so I really want to highlight that because if you are face-to-face with a customer and chances are you will be Okay, you will be people will see you cleaning. They will see you leaving a property. They will see you coming There are neighbors, especially if there's an airbnb. They're all watching you on security cameras People are watching you And so if you are in the hospitality industry, please be professional under all circumstances and that includes Your car If and I don't know about the park city area if there's a lot of snow Maybe there's a lot of stuff on the side of your car muds leak whatever But if at all possible and they know we're in north carolina where we don't have the snow like they do in Utah If at all possible drive your car through the car wash So that your car looks nice and clean when you get out of the car to go work on that property Because if you're a cleaning service everything about you from your cleaning supplies to your car to your person Should reflect that as part of your ethos and part of what you do and part of your company culture All right, I just had to say that thanks for saying that that's great All right, so I'm curious have you ever fired a cleaning company and if so why? Yes, we have and um mostly inconsistent cleans inconsistency is It's the death knell right you need to know that things are going to happen when they're supposed to happen At the quality you're expecting them to happen and everyone has days And that's why we send an inspector out to every property because we understand that life is Life happens right, but when it happens too often and we can't count on it it It just has to happen, but we've only fired two companies I think And it was you know, no there's no fun It's a business for them right if they had 20 of our properties and we pull those properties It's a very big impact on their business, but we would never do it Just on a whim, you know, it's all after many conversations and many Attempts to rectify whatever the situation is it's causing the Confront not confrontation, but the situation to happen And you know listen, we're not perfect either we Things happen right sometimes a booking doesn't get communicated Even though it's in the software. I mean it So we understand, you know, it's we're not a perfect company that we try our best and I guess that's what we expect People who work with us to to also try their best Well, and I I do love the fact that you're willing to give them a try and that you're willing to communicate with them And you're willing to give them a second chance and say hey something malfunctioned here And let's not you know, let's make sure this never happens again I think it's really important for house cleaners to understand That the air b&b or vacation rental industry is a really specific level of stress And I say stress It's it's it's kind if I say this but it's important to know it's not just It's willy-nilly and I'll get there whenever I can there's going to be a range of you know 9 to 12 and I'm just going to show up whenever I feel good and ready or whenever I'm available It's not like that There's a very specific window where you have to show up and if guests are coming in you have to be done before a certain time And so there's a very specific level of Excellence that is required on every single job Can you speak to us about the level of excellence and how that ties into the five star ratings and reviews? Yeah, I mean it's it it all builds upon Um All the fun all the reviews all the good guest comments we get build on You know the housekeeping because if the housekeeping isn't done well and It just it's like If you go back to the restaurant reference right you go into a restaurant and the first person at the front desk is a Is the hostess or the host and they're kind of snarky. They're not very nice. They don't have that your Immediately you kind of start looking for other things that maybe are wrong The food was a little bit slow and coming or the server didn't get my drinks quick enough the same thing happens with house with a guest with guest reviews right if they come in and There's a hair on the pillow or there's a tissue underneath the sofa that didn't get noticed And they see it then they start thinking. Oh my gosh. What else is not clean? What else? And then they start really looking more deeply and If they find something else then it just kind of cascades into a Situation where sometimes we you know, we have had to send housekeeping back out to do a full clean when a guest has already arrived because of something like A hair on a pillow. I mean it seems so silly a hair on a pillow, but it's It's just not something that can be acceptable right so we send all of our house All our inspectors have little lint rollers and they're instructed to go through all the pillows and make sure they roll They look at them all and just pick up any any because it's not even that someone Didn't clean the pillowcase right they're cleaning. They're working And they're leave the room and one of their hairs is just floating around in the air and it just comes down and lands on the pillow I mean it it's not like Something intentional, but it's something And that that's why I think it's really important to do for the management company to take some responsibility And not just count on housekeeping to be the final view before the guest before the guest arrives And I'm so I'm so glad you brought that up though and I want to talk about the hair It is the reason why in the cleaning business we insist that we we take a shower We wet our hair we pull it back we gel it back We tie it in a tight knot man bun if you're a guy and you have long hair For this very reason it is proven that we lose 150 to 200 hairs a day And you cannot control that you're only going to lose them at your house You're going to lose them at any house and it happens randomly throughout the day But you cannot risk losing a hair at a job You cannot because you will get a callback and that is the number one reason we get callbacks There was a hair behind the bathroom door. There was a hair on a pillow There was a hair in the kitchen on the white tile in the in the kitchen I mean people feel like it's unsanitary, right? And just like michael said you could be cleaning and you did an amazing job And on the way out the door one of your hairs flew off Floor or something okay, you cannot you cannot that's where we use hair spray We use gel we whatever you got to do make it stick this hair that you see right now This is the look this is what it looks like and you you cannot lose any hair while you're on a job Like I say it will cost you a job It will make you go back for a reekling and that's 20 minutes in commute time And it's lost revenue in in the time that you got to go stop and then you don't know if it was just one hair Now you got to check behind all the bathroom doors and you got to check in the kitchen and all the other places It's it's a colossal waste of time. Don't do it Exactly I couldn't agree more and one thing I wanted to add on to that the other reason why we do our own inspections is I don't think it's fair when property management companies count on housekeeping to do their inspections because there's things like Handles on the door is loose Um, the blind won't go up and down I don't expect housekeeping to report that to me I expect them if the bed is broken or something like that. Hey, that's But you know, there's they're busy cleaning and I don't expect them to do The inspector's job. So I think property management companies need to participate in that and not to say well Housekeeping was there I mean, I know companies that just don't do inspections and they just Give their guests a discount on their cleaning or pay their don't charge them for cleaning Rather than pay a housekeeper an inspector to go in and do the To do the job But you're not going to get five-star reviews with that kind of it might be more cost efficient but I don't think you should count on housekeeping to do your Final inspection before the house is guest ready. So and I love that you feel that way as a cleaning company I feel that way about the cleaning company We use a checklist that we create with an Airbnb host or a property manager And together we decide what that property must look like when it is passed when this is when this passes inspection What does this look like so that we both know what that level of excellence is And then we have a checklist and we do inspect our own work before we leave the property for this reason If I know that I've got somebody coming in to double check my work And they're going to find things that I have slided or ignored or left behind Now, maybe there is a loose handle and if I can tell you that your guy can come right to the loose handle You guys can fix it. Boom. We're done. Right. That's us working together But I don't ever want to cleaner and I want to make this very clear because I love what Michael said Michael said from a property management side. He said our guys are going to do the inspection From the cleaner side our guys are going to do the inspection.  It was awesome. That's what I want them to say Okay, so this is me and Michael looking at you guys straight in the eye saying listen You guys check your bases and do your do your inspections and check your work because the level of excellence is so high in this game And I got to tell you this There are so many properties that are out there and they're the competition is fierce This is a really fierce game and it's not just air b&b's competing with each other But they're also competing with the hotel industry. Okay, so every time anyone anywhere can get a room somewhere for the night That's the competition and it's not just air b&b's So if you don't work for a hotel and you do work for a cleaning company Your job is on the line. It is so important that when you leave that job No stones are unturned. Okay. Everything has been checked. Everything has been done. Everything has been marked off when you leave You're like, oh, yeah, I got this We also send uh, we share the five star reviews with our housekeeping teams too So if we get a stellar review that mentions cleaning in there, we'll send that to the Housekeeping team too with big thank you Oh, I love that Um, what advice would you give to a guest? That is leaving a property. How can they best? Turn the property or get their stuff ready Do they pull the linens off the beds? Do they what do they do to make it easier for the cleaning team from your perspective? Yeah, we don't You know, there's we don't have our guests do Really anything we ask them to take out the trash and start and load and start the dishwasher Okay, we ask them to do um Stripping linens. I think that was a thing 10 years ago 15 years ago Everyone may guest strip all the beds But as you've seen on you know air bnb forums and all that's a big It's a big pain point now that many hosts make people do many chores before they check out and Not people are not liking it. So I think What we do is what you what you should do is just Keep it simple for the guests They're checking they're trying to check out. They're trying to catch a plane Pack in there's kids forgot this. I mean the last thing they need to do is have a checklist before they check out So keep it simple Don't make them do too much you know, we Don't make the beds don't you know, like we've had situations where you know someone made their bed And then housekeeping didn't clean it because they thought no one had ever used it and but it was used and then we find Oh my gosh, that's a used bed. So right now. It's just just leave it as is We'll take care of it Just start the dishwasher because that's the one thing that can hold people back Is running the dishes if it's especially if it's a smaller property that only takes an hour Or so to clean the dishwasher could take that whole time um And we also don't do linens in our In our properties our housekeeping companies come with new linens in a bin or a bag every day They may have to do one or two things in a dish in a in the owner's laundry just for whatever reason, but You don't want to do laundry in someone's house because the laundry will take longer than the clean in most cases Excellent idea So tell me what about food stuffs when a guest has food that they've eaten half of it and it's not quite finished What do they do with the other half the food? They leave it in the fridge and housekeeping we have housekeeping throw away Unfortunately, and they're welcome to take something if they if they want but anything that's We call wet which is anything in the fridge Except for like vinaigrette mustard those kind of things Condiments we do allow condiments to be left. No one has to touch them if you don't if if a next guest is kind of You know sketched out by something that's in the fridge. That's fine. They don't have to use it But a lot of times guests don't mind having a couple little things olive oil Spices but for the most part we empty the fridge out and housekeeping is welcome to If there's an unopened block of cheese or something like that. They are welcome to take that nice All right, and how about how about towels? What are your recommendations for guests that maybe take their makeup off with the white towels? No, you try to leave the black towels there and you hope that they use the makeup towels So every how every bathroom has a black makeup towel there and you just hope that they Use it but I mean so It happens right but that you try to make it as easy as possible for guests to do the right thing There you go All right, so if you are a guest and you're watching this these are some tips and hints that you can take a hold of And it'll help you be a better guest Okay, so if you see a black or a dark towel inside the bathroom that is used for your makeup so that your makeup does not get on the white linens and um Can you speak to people who use hair dye? While they're on vacation at the airbnb's Um That can be a problem. Yeah Again, I mean you try to mitigate for every situation as you can But some things just still still happen. So just try to be I mean It is someone's home. It is someone's property. So try to remember that when you're staying at someone's house and you know airbnb Hosts review the guests just as much as guests review the host so It isn't a just a one-way street that The guest gets to review the host the host does get to review the guests So if we do have a guest that you know, some guests are destructive some guests are do have Whether it's intentional or just Disregard for someone's property there, you know, there is some things that happen sometimes and Just remember that the host does get to review the guest and You know, if you have a bad Review as a guest like oh, they damaged this property. They were inconsiderate. They were noisy The next host might not want to you might not want to book with you. But have you booked their property? So it it needs to be a mutual Respect basically we respect the guests. They need to respect us and the property Um, tell me about uh guests that come and have a great big large parties I know a lot of the uh, the ski rental areas You're getting families of eight or ten people that come and it's a great big family affair And you're staying at the property for a week and is there anything that a group can do that? That's helpful that will be more respectful to the property And mostly it would be about noise right noise is You're a lot of these homes are in neighborhoods The neighbors on both sides might be permanent residents It's a touchy subject in the industry, right the impact of air b&b's on neighborhoods So, you know, we send out a a good neighbor notification. So telling them remember reminding them that You know, you're in a neighborhood people are living next door. Please respect them Quiet times we also do We also put noise monitoring devices and some properties that are more prone like the larger properties that are Excuse me more prone to parties That that give us indications if someone is above a certain decibel level or a smoking or these kind of things so The best thing you could do is just try to Remember you're in you're in somebody else's neighborhood in somebody else's town Try to be live like a local and you wouldn't do that in your Neighborhood or your neck to to your next door neighbor And I love that I love that we are we are talking about for guests Tips that you can use in order to be a better guest so that you are invited back I know that there was a wedding that I attended in Salt Lake City, Utah Earlier this year and when I went there now, I'm the guest I'm the guest at the air b&b and my family was there So there were a lot of us at this air b&b and we were trying to be respectful But while I was there I was washing the coffee pot and I didn't Break it on anything. I didn't hit it on anything It was just that it had been sitting on the coffee for so long on the on the coffee burner That I think it weakened to the bottom of it and when I was washing the coffee pot in the bottom just fell out And my first thought was oh no, I just broke their coffee pot like literally washing it with a damp cloth And my first thought was this is not my fault But what do I know? I'm at someone else's property and the next guest that comes because we're checking out later that day The next guest that comes is going to want to make coffee tomorrow morning And so for me I sent a runner out one of the family members I said hey if you're at the store, can you pick me up a coffee pot here is this model? And I took a picture of the coffee pot I need a coffee pot replacement before we check out today Because what I do know is this the next person that comes in is not going to be happy If the coffee pot is missing Right and so we replaced it before we checked out and then we didn't report it and say hey We broke your coffee pot because we'd already replaced it now. There's a new coffee pot for the next person that comes in So I want to ask you as a guest if you are a guest Please be respectful and if you do break something that cannot be replaced Please contact the owner or the property management company immediately So they can replace that before the next guest comes in and if it is something you can do yourself Please do just like the coffee pot. It's not an expensive thing And it wasn't impossible to to find the target or walmart or whatever it was had one And it was the exact brand it looked exactly like the one that was there We were able to do it without getting anyone else involved if you can do that Please do that so that it's the next guest experience that you're you're helping so that you don't get the bad ratings and reviews Nice Stuff like that happens all the time all the time And really from our that you went above and beyond honestly, I mean from our point of view just let us know You know, let us know that blender broke or let us know that whatever happened because We do want to get it fixed for the next guest Well, sometimes stuff will happen And it's unfortunate when it does but if you can take care of it, please do It just it reduces the the stress level for everybody involved For a management company and I love the fact that you're willing to deal with it for a management company If you had to go replace six coffee pots today In your hundred properties, that's extra amount of time and energy that you could be doing something else, right? Oh, absolutely. If you can if a guest can do that, that's fantastic, but at least report it. Yeah Alrighty our time is up for today. Oh my goodness. I can't believe how fast our time has flown and this has been absolutely Joyous. Thank you so much Michael a clerk for joining us today for all of your insights and wisdom Please tell our listeners where they can go to find you Yeah, we're easy to find we're in sky run park city Park City, Utah. We've managed properties in deer valley park city and the canyon. So we're We're uh, we're living a beautiful place and come visit us sometime. Love to have you Alrighty and are you at skyrun.com? Yeah, that's our that's our main website and I'm actually at parkcity.skyrun.com Okay All right, I will leave links in the show notes so that you guys can check out the park city version of Skyrun and if you are a cleaning company also We would like to thank you for for your insights and your wisdom for joining us today. Thank you so much Thanks, Angela All right, we'll see you guys same time same place next week.


Dear colleagues, welcome to this sixth international conference on depression, anxiety and stress management, held in April 2019 in London. Apropos London, Three quarters of all British adults, adults in the United Kingdom, report being overwhelmed by stress and anxiety. One third of all British adults considered suicide the year before. A whopping one third of adults have suicidal ideation. 18% of all adults in the United States suffer from a diagnosable mental health illness. We could trace the sources of this mental health pandemic which centers around anxiety and stress. We could trace the sources, the etiology, to two reasons. One, it is difficult to be seen, it is difficult to be noticed because of the sheer numbers of the population and because of the fierce competition for attention. Being seen, being observed, being noticed is crucial for the regulation of one's emotions and cognitions. In the absence of the gaze of the other, we dysregulate and if dysregulation lasts a protracted period of time, it becomes a mental illness. In the past, we had social institutions dedicated to being seen, dedicated to observing the individual and thus regulating emotions, cognitions and behaviors. We had the family, we had communities, we had villages, we had neighbors. Today, all these institutions are defunded and have disintegrated. Today, in an atomized economic society, individuals have to fend for themselves and in order to attract attention, to attract the gaze of the other, this defining regulating feature of daily life, they have to resort to radical and extreme measures, exhibitionistic measures. This in itself creates a sense of unease, a dissonance which leads to anxiety and later on to depression. It's also very stressful. The second reason is social ranking or relative positioning. Everything from social media to the workplace encourage a competitive, ambitious environment. It accords with the efforts of Anglo-Saxon capitalism, the jungle mentality. The American dream turned an American nightmare is today a global nightmare. It's ubiquitous in every culture, in every society and it's a rat race. It encourages one to measure one's self-worth and to form an identity, to coalesce an identity around one's relative accomplishments. People keep comparing themselves to other people in order to establish the sense of identity and regulate the sense of self-worth which is comprised of self-esteem and self-confidence. This constant comparison, constant measuring against, fosters and engenders only negative emotions such as pathological envy. No wonder we have this pandemic of anxiety, stress and depression. Today I would like to discuss this phenomena, how they are diagnosed, sometimes misdiagnosed and how they are treated in therapeutic settings. But I think it would behoove us to start by defining anxiety. We tend to ignore the fact that anxiety is compulsive, it's uncontrollable. It is a form of excessive apprehension, a kind of unpleasant dysphoric mild fear but with no apparent external reason. Anxiety is drained in anticipation of a future menace, or in imminent but diffuse and unspecified danger. Usually this danger is imaginary, imagined or excessive, exaggerated. The mental state of anxiety and the concomitant hypervigilance, these have physiological complements. Anxiety is accompanied by shorter dysphoria and physical symptoms of stress and tension such as sweating, palpitations, tachycardia, hyperventilation, angina, tense muscle tone and elevated blood pressure. Together we can immediately identify this condition as arousal. It is common for anxiety disorders to include obsessive thoughts, compulsive and ritualistic acts, restlessness, fatigue, irritability and difficulty concentrating. Shift our gaze and let's look at another class of mental health disorders, personality disorders. Patients with personality disorders are often anxious. Narcissists for instance are preoccupied with the need to secure social affirmation, approval and attention, what is called collectively narcissistic supply. The narcissist needs narcissistic supply. He cannot control this need and the attendant anxiety because he requires external feedback to regulate his labile sense of self-worth. This dependence makes most narcissists irritable. They fly into rages and they have a very low threshold of boredom and frustration. So, subjects suffering from certain personality disorders, for example histrionic, borderline, narcissistic, avoidant or schizotypical personality disorders, these patients resemble very much patients who suffer from panic attacks and from social phobia, social phobia being of course another type of anxiety disorder. These patients are terrified of being embarrassed or criticized in public. Consequently, they fail to function well in various settings, social, occupational or interpersonal. So, anxiety disorders and especially generalized anxiety disorders, GAD, are often misdiagnosed as personality disorders. For example, narcissistic personality disorder. Let's consider this specific disorder as an example. Anxiety is uncontrollable and excessive appreciation. We also said that narcissists are anxious for social approval, etc. This conflation means that narcissists resemble very much patients who suffer from panic attacks and social phobia. Equally, narcissists are terrified of being embarrassed or being criticized in public. And most narcissists fail to function well in social settings, in various settings, like social, interpersonal. So, this is very common to narcissists and people with social phobia. The personality disorder patients often develop obsessions and compulsions. Exactly like sufferers of anxiety disorders, narcissists and people with obsessions and compulsions, both of these types are perfectionists. They are preoccupied with the quality of their performance and the level of their competence as judged by others. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual describes generalized anxiety disorder patients, especially children, as typically overzealous in seeking approval and require excessive reassurance about their performance and their other worries. They sound suspiciously like narcissists. Narcissists could easily be described as typically overzealous in seeking approval and require excessive reassurance about performance. So, both narcissists and people with social phobia and narcissists and people with obsessive-compulsive personality disorder, both these sets of patients display a preoccupation with social feedback, with social approval, with affirming attention. Both classes of patients, those suffering from anxiety disorders and those tormented by personality disorders, are paralyzed by the fear of being judged as imperfect or lacking or inadequate or failures. Narcissists, as well as patients with anxiety disorders, constantly fail to measure up to an inner, harsh and sadistic critic and a grandiose, inflated ego-ideal or self-image. In my book Malignant Self-Love Narcissism Revisited, I have written the following in 1995. The narcissistic solution is to avoid comparison and competition altogether and to demand special treatment. The narcissist's sense of entitlement is incommensurate with the narcissist's true accomplishments, as we know. The narcissist withdraws from the rat race because he does not deem his opponents, colleagues or peers worthy of his efforts. As opposed to narcissists, patients with anxiety disorders are invested in their work and their profession. To be exact, they are over-invested. Their preoccupation with perfection is counterproductive and ironically renders them under achievers, considered for example procrastination. So this is the difference between narcissists and people with anxiety disorders. It is easy to mistake the presenting symptoms of certain anxiety disorders with pathological narcissism. Both types of patients are worried about social approbation and seek it actively. Both present a haughty or impervious facade to the world. Both are dysfunctional and weighed down by a history of personal failure on the job and in the family. But the narcissist is ecosyntonic, he is proud and happy of who he is. The anxious patient is distressed and is looking for help and away out of his or her predicament, hence the differential diagnosis. And now let's consider yet a third group of patients or clients. Abuse victims. Repeated abuse has long lasting pernicious and traumatic effects such as panic attacks, hypervigilance, sleep disturbances, flashbacks, intrusive memories, suicidal ideation and psychosomatic symptoms, conversion symptoms. The victims of abuse experience shame, depression, anxiety, embarrassment, guilt, humiliation, abandonment and an enhanced sense of vulnerability. Complex post-traumatic stress disorder, CPTSD, has been proposed as a new mental health diagnosis by Dr. Judith Herman of Harvard University to account for the impact of extended periods of trauma in abuse. In the articles talking and overview of the problem in the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry in 1998, authors Karen Abrams and Gail Ehrlich Robinson wrote the following. Initially there is often much denial by the victim. Over time, however, the stress begins to erode the victim's life and psychological brutalization ensues. Sometimes the victim develops an almost fatal resolve that inevitably one day she will be murdered. Victims unable to live a normal life, describe feeling stripped of self-worth and dignity, personal control and resources, psychosocial development, social support, pre-morbid personality traits and the severity of the stress may all influence how the victim experiences and responds to it. Victims stalked by ex-lovers may experience additional guilt and lowered self-esteem for perceived poor judgment in their relationship choices. Many victims become isolated and deprived of support when employers or friends withdraw, often also being subjected to harassment or are cut off by the victim in order to protect them. Other tangible consequences include financial losses from quitting jobs, moving and buying expensive security equipment in an attempt to gain privacy. Changing homes and jobs results in both material losses and loss of self-respect. I think it's very important to re-emphasize one of these points. Many victims become isolated and deprived of support when employers and friends withdraw, after also being subjected to harassment or when they are cut off by the victim in order to protect them. Surprisingly verbal, psychological and emotional abuse have the same effects exactly as the physical variety. See for example, Psychology Today, the September-October 2000 issue. Abuse of all kinds also interferes with the victim's ability to work. Abrams and Robinson describe this in the article Occupational Effects of Stoking in the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry in 2002. They wrote, Being stalked by a former partner may affect a victim's ability to work in three ways. First, the stalking behaviors often interfere directly with the ability to get to work, for example, flattening tires or other methods of preventing leaving the home. Second, the workplace may become an unsafe location if the offender decides to appear there. Third, the mental health effects of such trauma may result in forgetfulness, fatigue, lowered concentration and disorganization. These factors may lead to the loss of employment, with accompanying loss of income, security and status. Still, it is hard to generalize. Victims are not a uniform lot. In some cultures, abuse is commonplace and accepted as a legitimate mode of communication, sign of love and caring, actually, and a boost to the abuser's self-image. In such circumstances, the victim is likely to adopt the norms of society and avoid serious trauma. Deliberate, cord-blooded and premeditated torture has worse and longer lasting effects than abuse mated out by the abuser in rage and loss of self-control. The existence of a loving and accepting social support network is another mitigating factor. Finally, the ability to express negative emotions safely and to cope with them constructively is crucial to gilling. Typically, by the time the abuser reaches critical and overvasive proportions, the abuser had already, spider-like, isolated his victim from family, friends and colleagues. She is catapulted into a neverland, a cult-like setting where reality itself dissolves into a continuing nightmare.  In an effort to regain perspective and avoid embarrassment, the victim denies the abuse or minimizes it. No wonder that survivors of abuse tend to be clinically depressed, neglect their health and personal appearance and succumb to boredom, rage and impatience. Many end up abusing prescription drugs or drinking or otherwise behaving recklessly. Subvictims even develop post-traumatic stress disorder, as we mentioned. Contrary to popular misconceptions, post-traumatic stress disorder, PTSD and acute stress disorder or reaction are not typical responses to prolonged abuse. They are the outcomes of sudden exposure to severe or extremely stressful events. Yet some victims whose life or body have been directly and unequivocally threatened by an abuser react by developing these symptoms. Post-traumatic stress disorder is therefore typically associated with the aftermath of physical and sexual abuse in both children and adults. And this is why another mental health diagnosis, CPTSD, has been proposed, as I said, by Dr. Hermann of Harvard University. Once looming death, violation, personal injury or powerful pain are sufficient to provoke the behaviors, cognitions and emotions that together are known as CPTSD. Even learning about such mishaps may be enough to trigger massive anxiety responses. The first phase of PTSD involves incapacitating and overwhelming fear. The victim feels like she has been thrust into a nightmare or horror movie. She is rendered helpless by her own turf. She keeps relieving the experience through recurrent and intrusive visual and auditory hallucinations known as flashbacks or even dreams. In some flashbacks, the victim completely lapses into dissociative state and physically reenacts the event while being thoroughly oblivious to her whereabouts. In an attempt to suppress this constant playback, with the attendant exaggerated startled response, jumpiness, the victim tries to avoid or stimuli associated, however indirectly, with a traumatic event. Many victims develop full-scale phobias, agoraphobia, claustrophobia, fear of heights, aversion to specific animals, objects, modes of transportation, neighborhoods, buildings, occupations, weather events and so on. Most PTSD victims are especially vulnerable on the anniversaries of their abuse. They try to avoid thoughts, feelings, conversations, activities, situations, or people who remind them of the traumatic occurrence, triggers.  Artically fatigued, most patients manifest protracted period of numbness, automatism, and in radical cases, near-catatonic posture. Response times to verbal cues increases dramatically. Awareness of the environment decreases, sometimes dangerously so. The victims are described by their nearest and dearest as zombies, machines, robots or automata. The victims appear to be sleepwalking, depressed, disforing, unhedoning, not interested in anything, find pleasure in nothing. The victims report feeling detached, emotionally absent, estranged, and alienated. Many victims say that their life is over, and expect to have no career, family, or otherwise meaningful future. The victims' family and friends complain that she is no longer capable of showing intimacy, tenderness, compassion, empathy, and of having sex due to her post-traumatic so-called fragility, hyposexuality. Many victims become paranoid, impulsive, reckless and self-destructive. Other victims somatize or convert their mental problems and complain of numerous physical ailments. They all feel guilty, shameful, humiliated, desperate, hopeless, and hostile. CPTSD does not need to appear immediately after the harrowing experience. It can, and often is, delayed by days or even months. It lasts more than one month, usually much longer. Sufferers of PTSD report subjective distress. The manifestations of PTSD are ecodistonic. They're functioning in various settings, job performance, grades at school, sociability, deteriorates, marketing. The diagnostic and statistical manual criteria for diagnosing PTSD are far too restrictive. PTSD seems to also develop in the wake of verbal and emotional abuse, and in the aftermath of drawn-out, traumatic situations such as a nasty divorce. Hopefully the text will be adopted to reflect this sad reality. But what about therapy? What's the role of therapy? Victims of abuse in all its forms, verbal, emotional, financial, physical, legal, sexual, are often disoriented. They require not only therapy to heal their emotional wounds, but also practical guidance and topical education. At first, the victim is naturally distrustful, even hostile. The therapist or caseworker must establish a rapport, confidence, painstakingly, patiently. The Therapeutic Alliance requires constant reassurance that the environment and treatment modalities chosen are safe and supporting. This is not easy to do, partly because of the objective factors such as the fact that the records and notes of the therapist are not confidential, and partly because the offender can force their disclosure in a court of law simply by filing a civil lawsuit against a survivor. The first task, therefore, is to legitimize and validate the victim's fears. This is done by making clear to her that she is not responsible for her abuse or guilty for what has happened. Victimization is the abuser's fault. It is not the victim's choice. Victims do not seek abuse, although admittedly some of them keep finding abusive partners and keep forming relationships of co-dependence within comfort zones. Facing, reconstructing and reframing the traumatic experiences is a crucial and indispensable first phase. The therapist should present the victim with her own ambivalence and the ambiguity of her message. But this ought to be done gently, non-judgmentally and without condemnation. The more willing and able the abused survivor is to conform to reality of her mistreatment and the offender, the stronger she would feel and the less guilty. Typically, the patient's helplessness decreases together with her self-denial, her self-esteem as well as her sense of self-worth, stabilized. The therapist should emphasize the survivor's strength and demonstrate how they can save her from a recurrence of the abuse or help her cope with it and with her abuser. Education is an important, crucial tool in this process of recovery. The patient should be made aware of the prevalence and nature of violence against women and of stalking. Of the emotional and physical effects of the warning signs, red flags, legal redress, coping strategies, safety precautions, everything she needs to walk, she needs to be taught. The therapist or social worker should provide the victim with lists of contacts, health organizations, law enforcement agencies, other women in her condition, domestic violence shelters and victim support groups both online and in her neighborhood or city. Knowledge empowers and reduces the victim's sense of isolation and homelessness. Helping the survivor regain control of her life is the overriding goal of the entire therapeutic process. With this aim in mind, she should be encouraged to re-establish contact with family, friends, colleagues and the community at large. The importance of a tightly niche social support network cannot be exaggerated. She needs to weave herself back into the social fabric. Ideally, after a period of combined tutoring, talk therapy and anti-exiety or anti-depressant medications were needed, the survivor will self-mobilize. She will emerge from the experience more resilient and assertive and less gullible and self-deprecating. And so, this is the idea, but therapy is not always a smooth ride. Victims of abuse are saddled with emotional baggage, which often provokes, even in the most experienced therapists, reactions of helplessness, rage, fear and guilt. Counter-transference is common. Therapists of both genders identify with the victim and resent her for making them feel impotent and inadequate, for instance, in their role as social protectors. Reportedly, to fend off anxiety and a sense of vulnerability, the therapist tells himself it could have been me sitting here. So, to fend off this anxiety and a sense of vulnerability, female therapists, usually involuntarily blame the spineless victim and her poor judgment for causing the abuse they tend to re-victimize or pathologize the victim. Some female therapists concentrate on the victim's childhood rather than her harrowing present and accuse her of overreacting or provoking the abuse via, for example, projective identification. Male therapists, on the other hand, may assume the mantle of the chivalrous rescuer, the knight in the shining armor, thus inadvertently upholding the victim's view of herself as a mature, childlike, helpless in need of protection, vulnerable, weak and ignorant. The male therapist may be driven to prove to the victim that not all men are animals and that they are good men like himself. If he is conscious or unconscious, overtures are rejected, the therapist may identify with the abuser and re-victimize or pathologize his patients. Many therapists tend to over-identify with the victim and rage at the abuser, at the police, at the system. They expect the victim to be equally aggressive, even as they broadcast to her how powerless, unjustly treated and discriminated against, she is. So, this is a mixed signal, a mixed message. If she fails to externalize aggression and show assertiveness, they feel betrayed and disappointed, they feel that they had failed. Most therapists reacting patiently to the victim's perceived co-dependence, clingy, unclear messages and on-off relationship with her tormentor. Such rejection by the therapist may lead to a premature termination of the therapy, well before the victim has learned how to process anger and cope with her low self-esteem and learned helplessness. And finally, there is the issue of personal security. Some ex-lovers and ex-pousers are paranoid stalkers, you know, erotomaniacs for example, and therefore dangerous. The therapist may even be required to testify against the offender in a court of law. Therapists are human, well, most of them, and they fear for their own safety and the security of their loved ones. This affects their ability to help the victim. This is not to say that therapy invariably fails. On the contrary, most therapeutic alliances succeed to teach the victim to accept and to transform her negative emotions into positive energy, and to competently draw and implement realistic plans of action while avoiding the pitfalls of the past. Good therapy is empowering, restores the victim's sense of control over her life. At this stage, the only tools we have against this tsunami of anxiety and depression are talk therapy, the human connection, even if it is a both human connection, and some medications who are, in the best of cases, controversial. We are not equipped to deal with this emerging, dangerous, life-threatening type of disorders, partly because we tend to conflate and confuse, and partly because our therapeutic tools are so limited. It's time to wake up to this crisis of unprecedented proportions. Thank you for listening.


and this is Guillermo Sabatier, your host for today, and I'm the Director of International Services for HSI and welcome to Perspectives on Energy. Today I'm going to discuss the, after this midterm election, you know, what are we going to expect, right, given what's happened, right? Now, there's been a slight shift in the House. Most of the Democrats may retain control of the Senate, but there's definitely Republican control of the House. So what does that what does that all mean with regards to energy policy, right? Well, today I just so happened great timing. I went to one of the webinars for the U.S. Energy Administration, usca.org, and they pretty much had like a good hour discussion on kind of pretty much what I suspected and I got a few more insights. But let's go through a few of these.  But overall, I think I got a pretty good feel for a lot of bipartisan cooperation. It looks like a lot of the Republicans that were elected and I'm going to say it seems to be a victory for moderates. It looks like the days of extremism one way or the other are kind of like tapering down. And we're seeing, I guess what we call Cougar has prevailing in a sense, right? That being said, I mean, former President Trump declared a the announced that he's going to run for election. Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida, where I live, hasn't really specifically said he's not going to run for president. So we'll see what happens even though he just got reelected for governor with a wide margin. So chances are we may see some more than in the future. But let's dive right into it. I had a few notes from today's webinar. And it is quite interesting some of the things that we talked about. Well, one thing that we might expect, of course, to see is they are they have made already announcements that they will get go into some kind of oversight hearings, whether that is the Hunter Biden situation or that is anything having to do with the with the Ukraine and the Bidens before the selection happened. So that made the track from a lot of the policies that we're looking at when it comes to energy or even the inflation recovery act, right, the IRA, they call it. So probably along that line, there may be challenges to the Biden administration's IRA. And but for the most part, one of the things that I saw the recurring theme was especially from the right Republicans was a lot of discussion regarding innovation. They are fully on board of the fact that that we climate change is real and the fact that they need to make more of a move towards a carbon reduction. But we may be putting back from this whole all or nothing approach towards let's get there at all costs, but rather they'll have a more diversified, reliable march towards that the final climate going. And one of the things that they talk about quite a bit, of course, was nuclear energy. It seems like that that is definitely making quite the comeback. There are a few projects already in the works. And one of the things they're going to see quite what I said before in previous shows was small modular reactors, micro reactors, those things are definitely going to be at the forefront of this revolution. So it seems to me like you have a presentation there from the Nuclear Energy Institute. And what they were discussing was that they already have a number of projects already underway. There's a new scale nuclear at Idaho. There's another one in the Tennessee Valley Authority, they have another project that's gone there with a GE Hitachi, and many more, at least five others that they sounded off. So that is going to be quite a change. The interesting thing, of course, is going to be the fact that the NRC is or the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is already has a pretty big backlog on approving a lot of these projects that have been submitted. So really, as quickly as they can approve them, usually they are, and of course, those projects will be carried out in areas that welcome that type of technology, right? You may see that in certain areas specifically, when you have a transition from coal in a lot of places, you see a lot of these facilities that are being retired, namely coal-fired plants. And it becomes quite severe for the community, the economy in that area, especially in local ice matter. And for the most part, these are mostly cooperatives, rural cooperatives, rural municipalities. And they are the ones that hit the hardest, since they're not getting a lot of access to gas pipelines. So sure, replacing a coal-fired plant with some wind farms and renewable sounds great, but that is not a steady base load generation that is highly viable and generation that's not easily dispatched. We saw what happened in some of the states where they have a lot of renewable resources and the variability and the impact that had on reliability. So we'll see what comes from this particular change. But one of the things that they did discuss, of course, is that there's going to be possible political advantages, but rather economic advantages to areas that request and embrace and welcome this type of energy resource. Certain states, of course, are going to benefit a great deal, especially when they have a lot of industrial loads. And this may be a pivotal point, especially if we plan on bringing manufacturing back to the US, which it seems like we're looking at as well. The other challenge, of course, is they're still looking at widespread EV adoption, and that will be linked with distributed energy resources. So as more and more solar gets up on rooftops, you may be seeing quite the acceleration of electric vehicle adoption. Now, that is two parts of a multi-part plan. Eventually, once you have the batteries and the solar, which usually is your vehicle, or you build, for example, a power wall, like a Tesla power wall, then the next step will be, of course, for the utilities to be able to dispatch that as a generation resource, or better yet, be able to aggregate that and treat that as a virtual power plant. And that's something that we may be seeing a lot more of in the next few years. Now, one of the things that they discussed regarding innovation was, of course, in great part is the advancing of nuclear technology. Right now, we're using technology that dates back to the 80s, and a lot of countries that are competitors are definitely, they may some leaps and bounds ahead of us. So we don't have that far to catch up, but we definitely have some catching up to do in the regards that there have been more investments in that field overseas than we've done here. So, but pretty sure that we're going to, within this decade, we're going to definitely meet, if not surpass the rest of the world in nuclear. And of course, that will be nuclear that's going to be dispatchable, much like you see in France. So interesting times. And of course, that'll be probably the way to be able to meet these zero carbon emission goals as we go towards 2035, 2040 and 2050. So that is one of the things that discussed. The other interesting thing that we're looking at is definitely a great opportunity for a bipartisan approach to solving these energy issues. And the other thing, of course, is that they're going to be treating energy as a national security, they're looking at a national security perspective. No longer will this be just, let's get to zero carbon emissions at any cost. It'll be, well, how is this being weaponized against us and how do we better position ourselves to be able to leverage both this zero carbon emission renewable resources, but at the same time make sure we have energy security and energy reliability. Of course, that also has an impact on whether we attract the industrial projects to these areas because the cost of energy is too high. These projects will simply go elsewhere. And that could be another country, but that can also happen internally to the US, right? So you may have a region where energy costs are really, really low compared to others. For example, that is Florida for now has a rather low cost of energy compared to the rest of the country. So that in turn is attracting a lot of industry, not just from states like California and the Northeast, but even they're attracting industrial and commercial customers even from Texas. So we're seeing that happen already. So I see a lot more of that movement taking place and industrial opportunities will probably pop up right where there is a low cost of energy, right? So pretty exciting things coming up as well. So not that record. Now, one of the things that also was interesting and the fact that there has been a lot of concern given the fact that the economy played a major role in this change in the election. But at the same time, it just seems like it wasn't going to be the red tide that everybody feared or expected. For some folks, it was the welcome news for others. They were disappointed. They wanted to see a bigger tide for others. They were rather relieved. There wasn't that that's severe. So all depends on where you stand on the political fence. But the point is that the change was moderate. And speaking of moderate from a different perspective, it's hopefully less extreme. How am I to run, right? And as they were saying, right, with these political changes, right? And nobody wanted to see if there's a moderate right candidate. The last thing they want to see is somebody get around them to the further right. Same thing with a moderate left candidate. They don't want to see a candidate go get ahead of them that's from, you know, further left. So ideally, everybody wants to work around a center. And that seems probably the best way to kind of see in that regard, at least an energy policy, right? We can probably maybe, maybe agree and move forward and actually get some things done. Another concern they had, of course, was just simple. There probably will be more natural gas pipelines, natural gas exports, natural gas extraction. And, and the, and our likelihood we're going to see a lot more pipeline and drilling taking place. We have an abundant resource in that regard. And we'll probably be able to sell that to our allies in Europe and make really good use of that resource. Now, that being said, I mean, Europe right now is, is, is on the verge of experiencing some some kind of energy shortfalls, especially since when it was already begun. So in most cases, will help a lot of our allies and our friends avoid buying natural gas and energy from Russia. But, you know, there are countries that are still buying it from them. It was India, Turkey, and in some part Poland as well. So that, that'll be an interesting turn of events, especially what's been happening recently over there in the Ukraine. And given that, it's, it's a, there's also a concern, right? When it comes to energy, what would happen with how we support the Ukraine, how we support their struggle against Russia. So part of that, of course, is, is Ukraine for the most part is very so sufficient with energy, but they will be needing more help with the actual equipment and infrastructures given the fact that those are suffering constant attacks during this conflict. So we'll be seeing what happens there. Right now, there's seems to be some likelihood that they will continue with that support, even though there's opposition to supporting that that effort in support of Ukraine. So that is a concern for some, for some. So a couple of other things that we saw, there was discussion of our, of course, everything else that that we've learned is there's there's been a great deal of emphasis on reliability. What happened with the renewable resources in the last year, whether it was California or a couple of other states, that variable resource does not does not really function well when reliability is as a must. So some of those solutions, of course, are more battery, more storage. Others are these hydrogen, but usually the overwhelming solution to that is, is, is uses transitional fuel, which is natural gas when it's available. But it just seems for the near term, and within within this decade, nuclear is making a resurgence. And that's something that we will see going forward in the shape of small nuclear reactors. It more than likely will not be those large nuclear facilities. It'll be something rather small and lots of them everywhere. Now, now, one thing that I really don't, of course, that all depends. And I said earlier that all depends whether the area that that particular area is is is accepting of that type of resource, right? Or rather, they welcome that Hawaii may not be as welcoming as opposed to say, Texas, or the Midwest, or the Northeast, or even a floor. Florida has two separate nuclear facilities. And California has not decided to delay the shutdown of their last nuclear reactor. So, so, of course, that is those are very large facilities. I suspect you're going to see a lot more of those deployed throughout the country. And, for example, these large facilities are about 2000 megawatts. These SMRs are about 30 to 50 megawatts a piece. So you may be seeing hundreds and thousands of those deployed throughout the country. And of course, that that may be more common commonly seen in rural areas or cooperatives generating cooperatives, especially. There was quite a bit of discussion regarding hydrogen and generating either the blue, the green hydrogen that would be another form of storage. So there's a few entities that are out there out there to develop that. Of course, that fell into the realm of innovation along with batteries. So that technology, of course, something that they're looking into granted the fact that lithium batteries are really mostly slated for automotive purposes. The utility scale battery more likely will be the heavier, less expensive iron salt type of the technology that can that can be cycled hundreds of times, if not thousands of times. So we'll probably be seeing some more of that as well. And one of the other things that we noticed as well during that discussion was the fact that definitely quite a lot more drilling permits will be issued. And so that will that we will see maybe not as much as oil, but definitely there'll be permits for natural gas. As far as the price of transportation fuel, the gasoline petroleum diesel, that that is definitely something that may be addressed at some point regarding we're looking at here. Diesel is definitely a shortage of the part of the addressing that first and followed by regular automotive gasoline. So now what kind of impact will that have on the economy more likely it'll it'll probably motivate the economy, but that of course will have some minor impact on carbon emissions at this point. So that's that was pretty much it. I mean, a lot of discussion involving involving some of the some of the concerns regarding the political climate. Fortunately, it wasn't the for for some folks, you know, they're they're really concerned about our red wave. But for the most part, it was a it was a slight moderate correction in that regard. And now there's kind of like a balance between Senate and House. And so we'll see what happens then. Mind you that there's no runoff election happening for the Senate coming up soon. So we'll see what Senator is elected out of out of Georgia. So that'll be an interesting race to watch that may determine how things work. I mean, in our likelihood of my state the same as we have it now. But definitely definitely some changes coming coming down the pike, as we answer this, what they call it late introduction. And then we start January with a whole new whole new political makeup in the house. So now going back to the inflation reduction act of the IRA, there may be some pushback on that. There was a lot of opposition initially when when when they were first trying to get that approved. Now they're that they may go back and maybe maybe not abolish some items on there, but perhaps make some amendments to the changes regarding that particular that particular act. So we will see at that point what that might be. But again, it's usually done with the spirit of innovation. And that is what you're hearing a lot from the Republicans, right? Usually it's a lot of innovation that they're looking forward to. And even, for example, states like Texas, right? Texas is as red as it can get. Yet 20, sorry about that noise, yet 25% of their generation mix for their peak was either wind or solar. So there is definitely a move and acceptance for renewable resources, even in the red as the states. So the only challenge there is that they want it to be more reliable and have a better mix and of course have it deployable. So we look forward to that. And again, that'll hopefully be a change that we look forward to in our regard. So that I think is all we have in a nutshell regarding these political changes and what we saw happen after the election. Not a lot of change in that regard, but definitely we're going to be seeing a move towards nuclear, maybe some challenges to the IRA, a little bit of oversight hearings, and then a lot of bipartisan work and a lot of focus on innovation and a lot of that innovation will probably be in the form of new forms of nuclear energy and small modular reactors. So that's all I have for today. Thank you for joining me. And if you have any questions or have any comments, please feel free to write those below and we'll try and respond to us. Thank you again.