Today let me talk and tell you about how to enhance and improve your writing skills. Many people I have spoken to believe that it is a creative skill and not everybody can write well. I completely disagree with that notion and mindset. Writing is simply like, you know, talking and speaking. Everyone does that. What will happen if you start talking or speaking in the written form? It will be called writing as simple as that. You cannot compare writing to singing which definitely could be considered as a creative hobby but not writing. It just becomes a skill set writing once you start writing regularly. I feel this skill and art of writing are natural and every person would have this trait or attribute. Believe me, the only part which one has to focus on is how to enhance or improve the writing trait so that it becomes expertise or proficiency in a way. Simple writing is definitely not a creative quality. Yes, writing poetry or lyrics is creative writing. However, anybody can write views, opinions and thoughts. Anybody can pen them down. There are four corners to improving your writing skills and all are equally important. First and foremost, it is very important to realize that writing should be treated as an original, individual and natural process meaning thereby that nobody should assume or think or attempt to copy the writings or style of writing of any third person. Then you are messing it up. Once you start having belief, trust and confidence and faith in your natural given strength writing becomes a piece of cake. Secondly, the flow of thoughts is fundamental to the art of writing or the skill of writing. It will follow naturally the writing skill. Do not interrupt your thoughts and never get distracted when you are writing something because I feel writing is born out of chain of thoughts and that requires concentration and focus of mind. But definitely for writing you need to have a bouquet or a buffet of expressions and words and by this I do not mean to say that you need to have a fabulous vocabulary but what you need is again I am emphasizing flow of thought process and usage of expressions, choice of words and language which are easily understandable. So don't get lost in choice of words. In fact based on my interaction with several audiences at different conferences, workshops, seminars and talks I have realized that the people or the listeners want to listen to a speaker who has clarity in his thoughts and is using simple language to convey it. The same goes even with the readers. People like to read simple language with absolute clarity. If you tend to use tough words in your writings for which one may have to consult a dictionary will make no sense to people though one can make out the meaning of even tough words because they are not used in isolation based on the context of a particular phrase or sentence where this tough word is used by a writer or speaker. The words do become understandable but still there is an effort required on the part of the listener or the reader. So therefore two important things which I have told you are one have trust, faith, belief in your original individual writing skills and second have a focused thought process or flow of thoughts and try to use as much simple language as possible when you are writing any piece, blog, opinion, viewpoint. Thirdly in order to become a good writer first learn to become a good reader. You need to be a good reader so as to comprehend, accumulate knowledge and information. Knowledge begets knowledge, information begets information. This will also help you in building up that buffet or bouquet of words which I was talking about earlier. Fourthly and finally, it is important to rely on your experience while writing anything. I do not mean only personal experience like things which have happened to you but what I mean to say is that something based on your understanding and familiarity and knowledge around you it could be something which you have read somewhere or you have noticed somewhere or you have heard someone or you saw something. So that becomes important database for you. Thank you for today. See you next time in another video talk.


What about the rewards now that it's done, this complete project? I think it's one thing that is very important. When you build a house, it means that you already own the land. So I'm able to run my livestock farming on that same yard without interfering with other people's spaces. So those are some of the rewards, having enough space. Good afternoon. Welcome back to The First Time Homebuyer Show. I'm your host, Estie Klaassen. Thank you to those who are tuning in for The First Time. Welcome back to those who always tune in. That's every Wednesday at 8 p.m. The First Time Homebuyer Show. We have amazing guests to join the show. We talk about generational wealth, financial freedom, what it is to invest in property, and even just investments in general and how we can sustain growing and building our legacy. This evening is no different. Mrs. Spish is with us this evening. Mrs. Spish is a little nervous. No, you're not. No, she's not now. Okay, no, that's fine. Mrs. Spish is with us this evening and we're talking about Mrs. Spish is an author, an investor, even building her own property as we speak, which is amazing. Mrs. Spish, welcome to the show. Thank you, Estie. Thank you for having me. Thank you. I want to jump straight into it, Mrs. Spish. We want to talk about, you know, I just said we talk about generational wealth and financial freedom. And that means something different to everyone. That generational wealth, that thing, looks different to everyone. What does it look like for you? Okay, so generational wealth means that even when I die one day, I'll be able to pass whatever that I had worked for while I was still alive. So with me, I'm creating generational wealth through property, through investing in the stock market, through my livestock farm and a lot of other things. So it means that I'm able, even when I'm dead, I'm able to say that my children are still well taken care of. Exactly. So I wanted to find out because a lot of people, you know, a lot of people, especially in my circles also were choosing to buy land and then build. So what is that process? What has it been like for you? Okay, so for me, it was both exciting and challenging at the same time. Because when we were building, I was still in varsity. Oh, wow. Yeah. So I got married in my second year of varsity. So in my third year, then we started building. So it meant that only my husband was working at that time. So we didn't really have enough funds to fund the whole project. So those were the challenges. But the excitement was on another level, knowing that you're going to be owning a house at such a young age. And it meant a lot for us. And because you were lucky you had someone going through that process with you, right? And a lot of us are either doing it alone or we don't have much help. What is the importance of having that support throughout that process for you? I think it's very important for you to be able to have a support system because number one is your first time building. So you don't know all the processes. You don't know where you should go to get this and that. So with us, our parents were there for us. They were able to support us. I remember when we went to buy the land, my mother-in-law accompanied us to go and buy that land. We inspected the land. Then we bought the land. So it's very important for you to have a backup system or to have a support. Yes. You spoke about the challenges, right? That it was difficult, you know, with regards to funds and because, you know, that's inevitable with a lot of us. That happens. It comes in the way. What about the rewards now that it's done, this complete project? The rewards are rewarding, if I can put it that way. Because now we have our own land, number one. Because I think it's one thing that is very important. When you build a house, it means that you already own the land. So I'm able to run my livestock farming on that land without interfering with other people's spaces. So those are some of the rewards. Having enough space, having a cute garden and doing something that you want to do is. You know, that's also very nice. When you started your process, was there a main goal for you? The main goal was having land. We know that it's very difficult to find land. Now, the main goal was that if we can have this property, we're going to be able to own the land. If we want to venture into other businesses such as farming, we already own the land. So we won't have to pay other people to do things for us. We are able to do things in our own yard. Exactly. You spoke about financial difficulties that come across the way, right? And I think for a lot of first-time home buyers or even first-time investors, it could be a bit challenging when it comes to financial circumstances, especially in our current economy. What would you say is a very, what strategy did you and your partner use at the time to save up enough to have and to reach your main goal, which is having land? Okay, we didn't save. Okay. Yes, we didn't save at that time, which is when we took a loan. Then we decided that as soon as I start working, we're going to be able to pay up that loan. And it's the same thing that we did. So this year, I got a job, I got a substitute post. So we took that whole salary and we paid off the loan. So it means now our house is paid up. Okay, stick. Yeah. Hey, no, you know exactly what you're doing here. Yes, yes.  Like, did you and your partner sit down and say, this is what we're going to do? Was there a plan?  Doing it with someone else is another big thing. Yes, of course, you have the support. But what was that like? Like, was there a plan? Hey, there was no plan. You see, when we got married, now we had decided that we're going to go and rent. Okay. So the parents said, no, like, we shouldn't go and rent because renting will, we will be wasting money if we rent. So we sat down and decided that, okay, we might as well just go and buy land. So at least we had the money to buy the land, but the money for building was not paid. Hence we decided to take a loan and just pay the loan off. And I think also what's, you know, listening to your story and how you finally have this piece, because I can see when you talk about having land that you, it's an achievement. Yeah, it's an accomplishment to have this piece of land and you know, with everything that's going on, it's an Africa fighting for land, whatever the case may be, to finally have something that's yours is an amazing accomplishment. And you said you recently just finished. So well done and congratulations on that. On this note of, because you're an author, I'm sitting next to an author. Yes. Tell us about what inspired, before you even tell us what the book is about. I would like to find it from you. Why, why, why write a book? Why not just start a YouTube channel or make an Instagram reel about this thing? Why a book? Okay. So this is what happened. So the more I started helping other people when they were setting up their accounts and investing, it got tiring. So me as a teacher, I needed to come up with an innovative way. You see when you have like so many classes, you can't be writing notes in all these classes. So you need to compile. Maybe you must compile notes, make copies and give it to everyone. So it became tiring. So I decided to be innovative and just compile all the lessons that I've been giving individuals. Then I must just, so I printed the thing out. Then I just started to do it. Yeah. So that was an easy way for you to teach. It was an easy way for me. And what is the book about? The book is about investing in shares, buying shares on easy equity. And then how do you, how do you, I mean, so how do you dive deep into these topics and the different lessons? Can you break up the book first? Like the different lessons that are there? The different lessons, okay. So with investing, we cannot separate savings from investing. So number one, the book will teach you about saving, the different types of saving. Maybe for example, I think there's a part where I wrote that when it comes to investing, you need to sacrifice number one. So it means that if, let's say, let's say you every month, you used to use 350 to do your hay. But now you decided that let me just cut my hay. So you are able now to have an extra 350. So I advise you that you take that 350, then you start investing with it.  You can just start investing with whatever money that you have. Then besides savings, then it teaches you about easy equities, how it works, how you can make money from buying shares, you get dividends, you get capital gains and so on. And I think that, you know, a lot of the time we talk about certain lifestyle changes that we have to make in order to save. Like now you gave a perfect example, hair, you know, we don't always need to spend so much money on hair. What lifestyle changes did you make? Did you also cut your hair? I didn't cut my hair, but I bought a weave. You know, but I had to buy a weave. So that I won't, I want to do my every month. Yes. So, yo, there was a lot of estate. Like we have time buying clothes. I used to buy clothes like every month, every month I used to buy clothes, but now I no longer buy clothes. Right. Then we also had to sit down and decide that, okay, now me and my husband, each one of us must be able to save like 10% of our salary every month. Then we can be able to invest that money. Exactly. Then we sold our car. We had two cars. Then we decided to sell one of our cars. So with that, the installment money, we used that money to find our other businesses now. And keep investing. And this is how you will achieve what you mentioned in the beginning of the show, generational wealth. Yes. If you continue doing this. If you continue investing. Exactly.  You're an educator and you help people obtain and reach their goals when it comes to investing and creating general, ooh, general, and creating generational wealth and financial freedom for themselves. So my question to you is, Mrs. Fish, what is the importance of educating other people to do exactly what you're doing? Okay. So you see with, with rich people, I think we have that mentality of saying rich people, they don't share how they got where they are. So now I decided that now that I know of something that can help other people, let me go out there and start sharing this information. So I started sharing the information with my, with my family, and with my close friends. Yeah. Yeah. So it's important so that even other people, I think that the only way we can combat poverty is when we educate each other. So if maybe someone teaches you a skill, that person is planting a seed. You need to go out there and start teaching other people as well so that the world can become a better place.  You've done it all. You even now, you know, livestock, you've got the land to continue to start farming. And I think, yeah, my next question is how did taking your own advice and getting into the stream or the different streams of investment, how did that work for you? Okay. Like I can say that what helped me is that I started by educating myself first. So now I don't invest in something that I don't understand. If I don't understand it, no matter how enticing that particular investment is, I don't invest in things that I don't understand. So I started by finding people who are doing the same thing that I want to do. I find them, then maybe I follow them on YouTube. I subscribe on their channels. I follow them on social media just so that I can familiarize myself with all the challenges that come with it. Familiarize myself with all the terms that are used. So educating myself first is what helped me to start whatever that I started. And it's so important to, you know, knowledge is power, I would say this, and doing your own research before even, because especially with the investments because you could end up losing all that money. Yeah, you can lose money. Hey. Yes.  No, no, but I've seen people, I've seen people, I've seen people lose money because they don't take their time to learn about that skill. Yeah. They'd rather pay someone, thousands to do it for them. Then it ends in tears. Then they lose all their money. Yes, then it ends in tears.  How do we save, right? And I speak a lot about financial freedom and financial literacy. And I think it's important for us to, you know, being in the new year, starting off fresh. I want to know from you just before, yeah, before I even ask my question, what is your goal for 2022? 2022, I want to buy a house. Okay. Yes. I just want to buy a house. You just want to buy more property and a house. I need to buy a house in 2022. Like that's my main goal for 2022. Well, 2022 to buy a property. So I've started saving towards that goal. Okay, you see, that's a whole other conversation. Let's talk about that. So for me, right, you've already started saving and you educate people on saving. Let me get to my initial question. Financial literacy. A lot of us as South Africans were not taught this thing. Yeah, even at schools. Even at schools. We hope that our parents plant that seed into us. But in most cases, maybe they can't. Maybe that we don't have the privilege to be taught by parents. So from one woman to another, financial literacy, what is so important about it and the power of teaching it? How does that make you feel? Okay, let me start with the important. Sure. You see when we have money, you will have options. You don't just settle for anything. So money gives you that voice. Money gives you that thing of saying, no, I don't want this. I want that. So I'm sure like, it's a good feeling to know that, okay, I can always opt for option A, not option B, you see? So that is what investing and savings helps you with. You are able to choose whatever you want. If you decide today that it's raining outside, let me, maybe let me go to McDonald's and get a lot of it. You should be able to do that. You should be able to do that. So also it's options. It's about having options. Yeah, it's having different options. And my second part of the question was the importance of it, especially for young South Africans. It's very important because it teaches you to be responsible. It teaches you to be intentional about where your money is going. So don't just wake up and decide to do anything. You already have a plan.   You can always have no enjoyment here and there, but within your means. And I think it's so important to set up boundaries for yourself, you know, because we're so quick to wanting to live a life that we see other people live in. And at the end of the day, you're the one that has to deal with the struggles and the trials and tribulations that come with it. You said in your bio that, you know, financial literacy is what you do. It's what you preach. Who taught you financial literacy? Let's start there. Hey, where did that come from? So I have this other friend of mine. She's a doctor, Lisa. So with the ASA, this is what happened. She started working, I think in 2018. Then she didn't buy a car for like two years. So I was interested to find out to her, how is she doing it? So I approached ASA and asked her, what is happening? Why aren't you buying a car? Why aren't you buying a house already? So she referred me to a book that she read Back in Vacity, which is the richest man in Babylon. So that is where I learned most of the stuff, like saving 10% of your salary every month, buying land, buying appreciating assets. Yeah. So besides the book, I also learned from one of my mentors, he teaches a lot about savings and investing. Yeah. And obviously that's when you saw the importance of this thing. And you've seen that these strategies have worked for you. They've worked. Because you're literally, you know real lived experiences is literally what I preach on the daily and to learn from people who have gone through it. Yeah. You know. And so Percy Singo, a guest who has been on the show before. Thank you, Percy, for this moment. What is an important lesson that Percy's taught you? Leave below your means. You must be able to live below your means, no matter how much you have. You must be able to manage that money. You must be able to use that salary as your seed so that you can be able to find your other dreams. So if you are working and you are living from hand to mouth, like you will never have savings. You will never invest in anything. You will always be looking for people to sponsor you. Yeah. Like I think sponsorship is very rare in South Africa. So the only way you're going to be able to sponsor yourself is by using your salary to be able to sponsor your dreams. I feel like that might even be the answer to my next question I'm about to ask you, which is your biggest financial secret. What has like kept you going?  So your biggest financial secret. I don't invest in what I don't understand. I don't invest in what I don't understand. I take my time to educate myself about whatever I want to invest in. So I think that's my biggest financial secret. And I invest a lot like almost like 80 percent of my salary goes into savings and investment. Yeah. So yeah, I mean, that's how you could pay off the bond. So that's why we were able to pay off the loan. Exactly. And now that's done. That's behind you. So that's behind. So we are looking forward to vision 2022. There you go. Vision 2022. So and I like that you said that because I think a lot of us what we do is we tend to jump onto a lot of trains even though we don't know where it's going, you know. And that's how we make these mistakes. And so I just wanted to find out from you with regards to mistakes that you've made. I don't even want to know about the mistakes. I think the bigger question is the lessons that you've learned along the way. If there's something you could leave with with our viewers tonight of maybe three important lessons that you've learned with regards to investing. And on your journey to purchasing land investing. I think it goes back to the thing of saying they shouldn't invest in what they don't understand. Definitely. If they want to venture into a particular business, they must take their time. They must find people to mentor them. You don't have to pay a mentor for you to have a mentor. Yeah. You can buy books. Yeah. You can go on YouTube. You can go on Instagram, follow people who are doing what you aspire to be, to understand. Then they must be flexible. They must be flexible to say, okay, I'm only sacrificing for a little while because when you are saving, we won't be saving for the rest of our lives. 30 years from now, I'll be reaping whatever that I planted in 2021 up to 30 years from now. So it doesn't mean that when we are saving, it doesn't mean that we need to suffer. We need to sacrifice so much, but you just sacrifice where you can so that your money in the future, your money will be the one that is working for you. For you. Yeah. Or your assets or your investments are working for you.  That is the goal.  The fact that you started in university, I know there's a lot of students also who tune in to the show and you know, I think the biggest thing is they're asking themselves, how do they start with the resources that they have? How do they just start doing what you're doing? Oh, so I posted something on my WhatsApp last night saying that if you are receiving NSFAS money, you can start by saving like 200 trends every month. Let's say your, your degree is a four year degree. Yeah.  So you'll be able to use that 8000 trends to look for a job. If you are called for an interview, then you're going to be able to use that 8000 trends to go and attend that particular interview. So it's all about using the resources that you already have. We are not saying save money that you don't have. We are saying with the money that you already have, you must take out a portion of that money and save it so that you're going to be able to, to find your dreams or to start saving or to start investing. Exactly. On the show, we always talk about your five year or your 10 year goal, right? And I know that you said in the new year, you want to buy property. Is your plan to build a property portfolio with a whole lot of property investments? Is that where you see your investments going as well? Yes, I think the goal is having three properties before 30. Oh, wow. How long do we have? Like six years from now. Six years from now. So I think it's possible. In fact, it's possible. I know it's possible. So three properties before 30 is the goal. I love how you said I know it's possible because literally I feel like we've been filled with, especially from our guests, talking about manifestations and just manifesting vision board. Tell us about your vision board, Mrs. Fish. Is there a convertible on there? Is there a Mercedes? Is there? I also have it on my wallpaper. Oh, really? Yes. I have it. It's here. Oh, wow. Yes. So every time when I press my phone, I know that's what you see. Yes. That's what I see. Oh, wow. So my goals are just popping up every day when I wake up in the morning. Okay. Thank you, Jesus. When I open my phone. And farming is a big one for you because it's a new journey for you. So with regards to mentoring and getting into a whole new, that's a whole different property, not even property, investment strategy, livestock farming, right? And of course, yes, you've got the privilege and you've got the land. But what is what is that start of investing into livestock and farming? What has that been like for you? Okay. So my dad was a farmer named. So at home, like we have very huge land. So used to have like, in fact, we still have cattle. We have goats, chickens, and we used to have pigs. So I sat down and when I was reading the Bible, I learned that most of the gifts that a person will have is connected to who gave birth to that person. Right. So I drew something and I was like, okay, so my dad was a farmer. My grandfather left us with a very huge land and it means that there's something that can come out. Of course. So I was teaching grade 12s. So I had extra money for the Saturday classes. Then I started saving that money. I didn't want to save it myself. So I'd send that money to my mother every month and I told her, I want to start this thing and I know it's possible. So when I please keep that money for me. So that's how everything started. Exactly. That's it by saving.  You just had to follow in those. I think so. You know what I mean? It was there for you, which is amazing. And I think that a lot of people, if we do have these resources, whether it's our fathers or grandfathers that have left something for us, I think it's amazing that you're actually following through and taking those opportunities because a lot of people, we don't. You know, we get things left to us and we're just like, we don't want to do this. We don't see the power in this.  Now, a lot of us, we don't have, there are obviously many ways to save and you chose to do that method, right? And some of us have other methods like putting the money under the mattress or you know, under the, your underwear and the cupboard. You know, we all keep our stash in very weird places. I can't even, you know what? For me, right now the best place is the bank. That's what I used to keep it in my cupboard. But it was just so hard. Let me tell you the story about when I used to keep it in my cupboard. So, you know, this is back at home in Cape Town and I used to keep money under my cupboard and hope that I would always tell myself, forget about it. Like we all do that, like when you find a 200 grand in a pair of jeans and you're like, huh. You know, and that's what the feeling I wanted when I used to save my money in my cupboard but that wouldn't work for me. So, you know, as much as we all have our different methods why did you, what would you say is the best, the best method to save? Okay, for now, if you are, if you are a beginner I'd say you need to use your bank but you need to separate your money. Now use Kepitec.  So currently I have savings for my mom's kitchen. I have tides. I have e-book sales, the e-book that I sell. Then I forgot the last one. So every time when someone buys the book I just transfer the money straight to the e-book sales. Every time when I get paid I transfer the money to my mom's kitchen. So you can be able to just use your bank for now. Then the more you learn, the more you educate yourself you'll see that okay, maybe the interest is too little. Then you can just venture into the stock market. And I like that you said you break it up because we're all saving for different things. So my question is financially if there is someone who is alone but wants to go on the journey that you've been on how do they with no support how can they start making and going on that journey of investing? Okay, so I'm assuming that you are talking about financial support. Yes. Okay, so number one, now I'm a teacher. But for me it wasn't enough. The salary that I'm earning wasn't enough. So I had to find out the things that I'm good at. So the first thing that you need to do is to find out what are you good at? What are your gifts? What are your talents? Then you use those gifts and talents to be able to generate more money to create another income stream. So let's say you are a singer or something. Maybe you are a good MC. You can just maybe your friend is getting married. You can just offer your services there. Then more people are going to see you. Then who knows? Maybe you will start getting bookings. But my sisters, my friends don't want to pay me. I offer myself all the time. But it's the platform. People are seeing you there. And then they'll say, oh, where did you get that one? Then you start getting bookings. So you need to find out your talents, your gifts. Use those so that you can create more income streams. And now I use mine. I teach every day. So that is what I use now. I teach people. Then I'm able to make money out of it. And that's I think the best piece of advice that I want to take from the show is that, you know, if, yes, let's say, you know, a lot of students, we do our degree, we graduate. And then we stay in this nine to five. And I think it's so important that we look outside of that. Yes, please. Yes, please guys. And find different opportunities. So thank you, Mrs. Mesh, for joining us and for giving this amazing advice. And I just hope that everyone who's watching actually takes and learns from this because I think it's absolutely amazing that you came and shared your experience with us. Yes, thank you. Thank you so much to our viewers at home. Thank you so much for joining in. We are live every Wednesday night at 8 p.m. Take care and stay safe. Happy New Year.


This guy was mobbed just for accent anger Israelis after the Hamas uprising to look into the mirror as they seemed to condone the high hundredness of their government in Gaza where international humanitarian law has taken a back seat in the name of Israel's serve the fence. See guys, there is genuine anger in Israel right now. This anger has been there even before Hamas carried out its operation in the country. The anger was actually against the undemocratic policies of Benjamin Netanyahu but there is renewed anger with the attacks from Hamas which no Muslim in their right mind has endorsed. The Islam eye started a joint condemns the killing of anybody, in fact there is a tradition that maintain that making one person lose their life is tantamount to destroying the entire human race so the action of Hamas where innocent civilians unfortunately lost their lives are totally condemnable. However, some Israelis are totally getting things wrong at this emotional moment. They are allowing the sense of full superiority of a Palestine to override this sense of civility. Many people in the country now don't even care that the same innocent victims they are mourning also being subjected to untimely demise in Gaza. It buffers me that the people who pride themselves in the cloak of modesty would work up every day with their quams at the knees of over 7000 Palestinians being killed by errant airstrikes. Asalaamu alaikum please consider liking and sharing this amazing video with your loved ones. Hit the subscribe button to stay up to date with the latest in Palestine. I share the same sentiment with this guy. Every Muslim including Christians in Palestine has condemned the ugly incident of October 7. Yet the unanswered question has often been how did that state of affairs begin? Were there any sign of injustice anywhere? Yes, there were and are still active to this day. There is apparently a systematic dispossession of Palestinian lands through undue violence and racism. These are things we have seen in Gaza, the West Bank, the Golan High and other Palestinian occupied areas. This injustice often feels a sentiment for resistance by people who don't have any other hope for survival. But in the face of the war, people don't succeed in that, in order to advance the state of affairs that began, the apartheid, the tyranny, and the destruction of the Palestinians from the kingdom. The word Nakba-2 has already been said in Galu, images of Arab children with a lot of hate, a lot of hate against them, breaking into the social networks with the people of Gaza. This is something we have seen in the past. We have seen it in the past. We have seen it in the past. We have seen it in the past. We have seen it in the past. We have seen it in the past. We have seen it in the past. If because of the money and the truth, you do not have the opportunity to give an alternative to the immoral state of the government of the Bibi and Smotritch, you will not be able to return to her. Because she is not a democracy. At least understandable that some Israelis came after this guy for making this reality submission. The anger is too much, and the emotions are overflowing. The burden of civility now doesn't lie with a so-called mass which Israel has branded terrorists instead of freedom fighters, but on Israel itself which claims to be more civil and represent the moral actor in the drama. If so, then Israel must start from now to act rationally by allowing international law to prevail in the Gaza Strip. Civility means allowing aid to flow on handed to those who need it, stop the bombardment of hospitals and school shelters, agree to a cease-fire, a Palestinian state, a return of the occupied lands and peace in secular, secular. This guy has a final message. If you like the Da'a, consider liking and sharing the video with your family and friends. Hit the subscribe button to stay updated on the ongoing unjust military operations against Palestine until we meet in the future. As-salamu alaykum.


We've had a tremendous response to our announcement that from the 4th of May there will be a phased reintroduction of the Green Waste Service. We really appreciate the many positive messages we've received and it's clear that most people understand that in reintroducing a guaranteed monthly collection and doing more when we can we are balancing the needs of providing a service with the safety of our staff. The monthly service will work like this. You'll have one guaranteed green bins collection a month and you could find out what your guaranteed collection days are on the bin collection calendar on the Southcams website. However if you put out your green bins on the other normal green and blue collection days our crews will empty them if they can. So you have the one monthly guaranteed collection but if you present your green bin a fortnight later it may be emptied then too.  The National Guidance Outline for Waste Collection Services maintains social distancing measures. At this time each collection vehicle has a driver and one loader the loader being the crew member who loads the bins onto the lorry and this is rather than the usual driver plus two loaders. This ensures that there are enough space or there is enough space between staff in the lorry's cab when traveling to and from the collection points. It also means though that the more vehicles and crews are needed on any collection route. This is the reason why we can only offer a guaranteed monthly collection rather than a fortnightly one at this time. We really do appreciate your understanding on this and we hope we can get back to normal as soon as possible. Please stay safe and keep well.


A working group developed a new tool to assess the methodological quality of study's reporting prevalence data in systematic reviews, which was piloted among an experienced group of healthcare researchers and found to be valid and easy to use. The tool is now recommended for use by authors conducting prevalence systematic reviews. This article was authored by Zachary Munn, Sandeep Moola, Dadmura Ritano, and others.


The biotech company Grail made history earlier this month by developing the first commercially available blood test able to detect several types of cancer. In other news, restricting blood flow caused young mice to express certain genes as if they were older, and calico scientists developed safer cellular reprogramming. You'll find these stories in this episode of Lifespan News. Welcome to Lifespan News on X-10, your source for longevity science updates. I'm your host, Brent Nally. We encourage you to check the description below for links to these stories. Lifespan News now has a couple new extra stories every week on X-10's parent YouTube channel Lifespan.io, so make sure you're subscribed with the bell turned all notifications so you don't miss these videos. For our first story, biotech company Grail recently introduced an early detection multi-cancer blood test that is now commercially available. Early cancer detection is extremely important for the sake of a patient's survival chances. Cancers that are detected at the earliest stages have much better survival rates compared to cancer spotted only later on. Unfortunately, only a few types of cancers have approved early detection methods, which are often invasive or uncomfortable, discouraging people from undergoing screenings. The new test created by Grail called Galeri addresses both problems at once, as it is able to detect dozens of cancer types with a simple blood test. Galeri works by analyzing the methylation pattern of circulating cell-free DNA, or CFDNA. CFDNA consists of degraded DNA molecules that have escaped from cells into the bloodstream. Cancer cells also shed CFDNA, and their specific methylation pattern can be recognized thanks to machine learning techniques. Galeri's sensitivity across all cancer types range from 18 to 93%, depending on the stage of the cancer. Across a subset of highly prevalent cancers, sensitivity was even higher. The test was also able to predict the cancer's tissue of origin with an accuracy of 96%. According to Grail themselves, Galeri is a tool that complements existing single cancer screening methods rather than replacing them. Galeri is not yet perfect. For example, out of the 89% of prostate cancer cases detected by conventional methods, Galeri only detected 6%. But in many cases, Galeri can make a huge difference. While tests are more easily approved than treatments, this is still a rare occurrence and therefore an impressive feat for Grail. We look forward to future improvements upon this technology. We'll try to keep you informed of the most recent and popular healthy life extension podcasts. For this week, we recommend you check out Harvard professor of genetics David Sinclair returning to Joe Rubin's podcast on Spotify. For our next story, restricting blood flow caused young mice to express certain genes as if they were older. A study in mice has outlined the similarities between artificially restricted cerebral blood flow and the reduced blood flow associated with aging. The researchers used microcoils to reduce the amount of blood available to the brain, a procedure known as BCAS. This procedure reduced the cerebral blood flow at young mice nearly exactly to that of old mice, taking away roughly 30% of their cerebral blood flow and thus brain oxygen. This created substantial changes to their gene expression, particularly after 30 days. These genes included many critical functions of neurons along with fundamental metabolic processes as their brains struggled to perform their function in a low oxygen environment. The blood flow of older mice was also reduced by this procedure, but they changed their gene expression substantially less than young mice did and their blood flow returned closer to its normal level. The researchers noted that young mice subjected to BCAS and normal old mice had similar expression levels of genes related to mitochondrial oxidation, the production of NAD plus from NADH, and the basic synthesis of ATP. This begs the question of how much of aging is caused by macroscale physical processes that are caused by other aspects of aging. These results suggest this sort of causal chain. As some processes of aging cause ischemia, this limits critical oxygen flow to the brain, thus resulting in fewer neuroprotective proteins and increased mitochondrial dysfunction. For our final story, Calico scientists developed safer cellular reprogramming. Calico's discoveries about OSKM and pluripotency shed new light on an old problem. In a recent preprint, scientists from the secretive longevity research company Calico describe a possible way to make cellular reprogramming safer. Calico was founded in 2013 and is a subsidiary of Google's parent company Alphabet. This new study is one of the few that have been publicly featured since Calico's creation and is probably one of their most important. Cellular reprogramming is a technique that rejuvenates older cells back to a younger state of pluripotency. This means that reprogram cells lose their specialized identity and go back to a much earlier stage of development, where they can turn into essentially any type of cell. This is achieved by exposure to a cocktail of chemicals known as Yamanaka factors. Exposure to the four factors indicated by the acronym OSKM resets cellular identity and makes age cells effectively younger, but this comes with a very bad downside. Reprogram cells tend to acquire carcinogenic mutations. In other words, these cells can lead to cancer. To get around this problem, earlier efforts have focused on limiting the exposure to these four factors. Using this modified technique termed transient reprogramming, scientists managed to achieve the benefit of traditional cellular reprogramming, but without sending cells all the way back to a pluripotent state, or so it was thought. Calico scientists found out that transient reprogramming does seem to bring cells back to a pluripotent state, albeit only partly or temporarily. Transiently reprogram cells tend to reacquire their identity shortly after the procedure, but this means that the possibility of carcinogenic mutations can't be fully ruled out, which would make using the technique in vivo dangerous. It is known that some Yamanaka factors are more oncogenic than others, so Calico researchers wanted to see whether any could be left out. They found out that the answer was yes, and that even by leaving some factors out, it was possible to significantly rejuvenate cells without suppressing cellular identity as much as exposure to the full OSKM array does. The researchers did find out that some features of aging were apparently not affected by transient reprogramming, so as always, more research is needed. That's all the news for this episode. Is there a recent life extension story that you think we should have covered but haven't yet? And what was your favorite story from this episode? Let us know what you think in the comments below, and we'll see you in the next episode.


Hi everyone, my name is John Kennedy and I'm going to talk to you about working backwards from the customer. If you want to know more about the Amazon working backwards process, there's a great book by Colin Breyer and Bill Carr called Working Backwards. I put a link here on the slide, you can go and check it out if you like. Really good for understanding a little bit more context and history around the working backwards process. Today I'm going to talk about how you can do customer research in a structured way that will flow directly into a working backwards writing process. We're also going to talk about how to do that writing, how to create a pitch in the Amazon writing style. And then additionally, we're going to talk a little bit about how that doc that you write can help you pivot a product. When docs are written for a product launch or a feature launch, but they can also be written for a product pivot. So to kick it off, let's talk about customer research. Every product that Amazon launches starts with extensive customer research and in fact the minimum bar for a product at Amazon is 25 to 50 customer conversations even before a document has its first review. That's a high bar, that's a lot of conversations. So there's a structured process you can use to set up those conversations and get the data out that you need to start writing. Products that do follow this process also have an added advantage in that by building a relationship to those customers, you can have customers who are going to beta your product or even launch with your product and generate early revenue in your product life cycle. So a great way to get started contacting customers is to work with the team who contacts customers all the time, the sales team. It might be that your company has an enterprise sales team or a lean SaaS style sales team or it might be that you're a CEO or a product manager who also wears the sales hat. Regardless, when you want to set up customer meetings, it's great to get in the sales mindset. And what I do to help set up a pipeline is actually create a spreadsheet. Now you can use a CRM as well to create a pipeline of customer conversations, but a simple spreadsheet shared among people who would be doing those conversations is also a great way to start. It can be very simple, just a list of companies who you want to contact. If you're going to try and have 25 to 50 customer conversations, you might need 100 to 200 names on that list. You can build that over time and update them as you have meetings or set up meetings. Just a very simple pipeline is something that a lot of product managers miss. And the reason is that if you want to have that volume of conversations, you've got to get programmatic. So once you've got that list of customers to contact, the next thing you'll need is a good hook. So a hook is something that's going to get the customer interested in talking to you. And I have a structured way that I put together a hook for product conversations with customers and it looks like this. So you can start off by just expressing your respect for their time and expertise. You probably chosen the customer who you're contacting because they have the problem you're talking about or they are adjacent to the problem space that you're talking about. So a great way to start is to say something like we're investigating problem space and recognize that you're an expert in this area or you deal with this issue regularly. And then to go on, you can give them some context best to be direct. We are considering building a service to solve this problem or this type of problem. We would love your input. Then you can offer some value with your participation. We can ensure that the service we build will solve your problem specifically. You can also offer a different type of value you can offer them the opportunity to eventually be involved in the beta or even go as far as to offer a gift card or something like this. The direct approach works for plenty of people. So this kind of pitch can be used in an email or a LinkedIn message or even if you're reaching out through the sales team, if you give a salesperson a really punchy hook, they can actually put that into their own communication and that can help you get conversations. So for the first customer to contact, you want to be asking open questions that's going to enable the customer to tell their story. So a good example of an open question for a storage product that targets on-premise storage might be something like, how do you store your data on-premises today? And with that question, a customer is going to be able to tell their story and it may only be that you need only five questions to fill a half an hour to an hour phone call because what you want to do for each of these questions is really dive into that story and understand the pain points and get some technical detail as you're going through these questions. And what that should yield to you over a number of customer conversations is a set of problems. So the notes that you take for these conversations are really important. These conversations become a record that you can use later for various purposes and some of the things that I've found interesting to keep as a part of the notes are surprisingly simple. The email addresses, you might have one contact customer, if you get everyone's email address from the call, you can do a follow up and potentially make more contact to that customer and build relationships with those people. Problem statements, it's great to have free form notes or stream of consciousness notes but if you can also write out problem statements of the problems those customers had that's going to help you organize your custom notes later. And then quotes, if the customer has a really clear pain point they might give you a great quote around that pain point and that's going to help you later on. Once you've identified those big customer problems, you want to, the common problems across many customers, you then want to start asking quantitative questions to understand the value you might deliver by solving those problems. So great quantitative question along the same theme for data storage on-prem might be how much data do you store on-premises and in the cloud? And this is going to give you probably an answer in terabytes or something like this but it's allowing you to estimate the value of the problem. You can ask directly, you can ask a customer how much they pay for a particular solution, sometimes that's a little harder to get from them or you can ask indirectly if they can tell you the size of the team that manages a certain issue for them, that's a good proxy for how much they're spending on a problem right now. What you should end up with after asking a number of customers these quantitative questions and you shouldn't just ask three, you want to have at least 20 answers for these types of questions to get a good sample of customers but it should give you an understanding of the size of the problems that you could possibly address for customers. So once you've got all that research together, it's time to start writing. And I have a process that I use rather than going directly to a peer FAQ which is the standard Amazon format for product launches. I start out with a messaging framework so we're going to talk about that in a second but just start with to understand why Amazon writes. The reason is to lower the cognitive load for a decision maker who might be giving you headcount for the product you want to build and launch or the feature you want to build and launch. And so putting the writing in a standard format helps with that. Also being clear, concise and direct, explaining without technical jargon, using correct punctuation and grammar, very important and using consistent terms also very important when you're writing. So let's talk about that intermediate format that I use called a messaging framework. This is before we write the peer FAQ. We can start out by asking some simple questions. So you've just spoken to a lot of customers and you've found out their common problems. The problems won't be evenly distributed across all the customers. You'll have certain problems that certain types of customers have. For your biggest problems, you want to identify the types of organizations that have those biggest hardest problems that are worth solving and then you can identify the type of organization who you think is going to be your customer and that could be a couple of different types but you can write it out here in the messaging framework. And then you can write down the end user. So the customer probably has a role type who's going to actually use a potential solution to this problem. And then the problem statement. The example here, customers need access to petabytes of data storage on-premises is a very simple statement. It's the high-level big picture issue that customers are experiencing. And from there, we can break it down into the top customer issues. So as you've had those conversations with customers, you should have started to see the pattern that there are very specific issues within that larger issue, the example being data storage that they have. And I've got some examples here. So we can talk about the fact that on-premises storage is limited. Some data sets need to be accessible in both the cloud and on-premise. And the management of the infrastructure is time consuming, it's a management burden. So this is the breakdown of the three biggest issues. Once you really understand those high-value issues that you're going to be addressing with a product or a feature or a pivot, you can then talk to the engineering team about how you might address those issues. So you've worked backwards from the customer problem and now you're talking solutions. So there might be various technical approaches that you could use to address these problems. But in talking with the engineering team, you should be able to find a good theory about the set that you're going to use. And of course, you can review these with lots of people later, but you can take a stance on what the technology should be to address those issues to begin with. Once you've got those technical approaches or the what, you can think about how that actually addresses the customer issue, how you would state the technical value you're providing. In the case of feature one, which is the cache on-premises for cloud storage, it's cached access to cloud data that addresses the issue of limited storage on-premises. And it could be access to SMB and NFS endpoints on-premises and in the cloud that gives that symmetric access to data. So these are examples now of features rather than just the technology. So this is the how we address the issue. And from there, you can drive the customer benefit so that cached access is going to give you unlimited on-premises data storage. So you can see how we've worked from the customer problem to the solution and then backwards into the customer benefit. So you really understand the why now. The final thing for messaging framework is the getting started steps. And this is just a way to break down how a customer would use the product. And it's really useful to have this. Anyone technical reading a document is going to get a lot out of the getting started steps will help them understand the product. So then you've got overall the messaging hierarchy. And we haven't talked about the one sentence value proposition yet. But this is really the last thing you write. It could become your head or subhead or a first sentence. This is really once you understand the benefits, all of those three customer benefits that you're providing. You should be able to write a one sentence value proposition that really encapsulates the value you're providing with the product feature or pivot that you are proposing. So from that messaging hierarchy, we can then get started working on the actual document that we would use for review. We can keep the messaging hierarchy and appendices can be useful to have a structured template or a spreadsheet down there to explain certain parts. But the document that Amazon would use predominantly for product launches, etc., is a peer FAQ. And a peer FAQ is a narrative. It's a document that is very structured. And this is the structure that you can see here is the standard structure used by Amazon as you start with your heading and subheads. You've got the first paragraph is a summary paragraph. If a person was only going to read one paragraph, this should be able to give them all the information they need and then into the problems and solutions, lead a quote, getting started, etc. You can start to see how this maps back to the messaging framework that we just discussed. So digging in on the heading and subheads can be very simple. The heading can just be company announces product code name. Product code names are important during the research and pitching process because you don't want to bias the people who are reviewing your product with an actual name with a descriptive or a suggestive name. Having a product code name that could just be the name of a fictional spaceship or a plant is going to help people keep an open mind about what the product could be. The subhead, you can use the once in value prop or just to template like this, product description enables key customer benefit right at the top. And then if you're a subhead too, you can actually take the org type that you had in the messaging framework and think about some of the key customers of that org type you might want as customers. And this can help a reader understand the type of customers that you think are suitable for the product. So coming down to paragraph one for PRFAQ, you can see this structure here. This is a good example. You don't necessarily have to use this structure. But the first sentence should really encapsulate the value. Here's a template that I use. Today, company announced product code name and then the description of the product. That's really the watch that makes it simple for primary user role. And you can take that from your messaging framework to do the thing to get the value. You can then explain the product further. Customers can use the product to gain specific big claim value. You can make a big claim that you have to be able to support it. And then maybe with product code names, easy for customers too. And you can go into specific functionality. So you might take the three capabilities or features you've written and explained them in very briefly in the first sentence. Then great to finish off the sentence that just describes how you're going to get started with the product. So paragraph two is where you describe the problem you've identified. First, you describe the top level problem. You could do that by saying something like customers in these industries, listing out the industries, are experiencing this top level problem. You don't want to talk much about competitors. You don't want to get too negative. This is meant to be explaining the world as it is. So that you can then extrapolate on that by explaining each of the issues that you've discovered during customer research, taking them straight from the messaging framework. You can then, you need to then link those issues together in a narrative so they flow so it's easy to read. But you can take them directly from the messaging framework. Once you've explained the problems that customers are experiencing, you can then write the solution paragraph. And I've come up with a really formulaic way to write the solution paragraph. There are lots of ways to write this. And I think that it's more interesting if you go beyond the template and write in a way that's compelling and punchy. But this can be a great starting point. So you want to start out your first sentence describing what the product is. So product code name is the description and it provides this specific value. And then from your messaging framework, you can take the differentiated features and match them up with the customer benefits. And so your next three sentences, you can really just follow those columns and differentiated feature one provides customer benefit one and so forth. So after you've written up the solution paragraph, a great next step is to write a quote from one of your leaders. This really does two things. One, it gives you the opportunity to make a big claim in a conversational voice. And two, it also gives you a leader the opportunity to insert their own voice into this pitch. So as this pitch either goes further up the chain of command in your company or if you're going to use this publicly, they can have their voice in the press release. This should capture the why for the customer. So the last paragraph of the press release is the getting started paragraph. And this is really where someone technical will look to really understand what the product is. If you can describe how a user gets started with the product, that's often a really good way to understand the product technically. So you can take this once again straight from the messaging framework. You want to join each of these steps together. So they're easy to understand, easy to read, but really simple paragraph to help people understand the product. From there, having two to three compelling customer quotes can be really powerful way to finish off the PR. So these customer quotes should encapsulate one, for each customer quote should encapsulate one of those columns. So it describes the customer benefit in the voice of the customer and focusing on the impact to their business. So to follow the standard format, then you've got the frequently asked questions. And there are a set of standard questions you can ask that'll help expand the description of the product. So you can really dive to the next layer of detail with these questions, what are you launching, who should use it, et cetera. But you're still staying in the voice of speaking to the customer. So you're answering these as if you were answering them across the table to a customer. And internal FAQs we'll talk about in a second. These are the ones that you really couldn't answer to a customer, but as much as you can, you want to answer questions to a customer because that means that there's as low context as possible and that's going to make it easier to read for everyone in your company. So anyone reading this, if they can read the answer like a customer would read the answer, then they don't need any of the technical context necessary or any other context around the product. So beyond the standard questions, you should be taking questions that you've actually discovered during your customer research and then answer them in the PR. And this could be the research that you've done with customers. It could be the discussions you've had with technical staff internally or marketing or finance or sales. All of those groups can provide really good questions that you can answer in the FAQ and that helps everyone understand the product more thoroughly. And then finally, internal FAQs. So these are things you really couldn't answer to a customer, things like market size or competitive offerings, the P&L if you've got a theory around the P&L to start with. You could work with finance and come up with something really sophisticated, but often early in the process when you're finding approvals, a lot of it is going to be speculation and so best just to have a summary. Right. So that's the standard structure of a PR FAQ. End of the messaging framework can help you get there. And that structure is often used to get approvals for a product launch or a feature launch, but now we're going to talk a little bit about how you can use that process of customer research and the standard format of a PR FAQ to help or to pivot any given product. So you've gone through that process of research. You've built the artifact, which is the PR FAQ. And by the way, another way you can do this is you've done the customer research as I've said before and you can create some other type of artifact. It doesn't have to be a PR FAQ. It could be a document, it could be a presentation. In this case, we're going to talk about using a PR FAQ. And then when you go to pivot, you can use that artifact to communicate clearly and broadly to the organization. So once you've had approval for the pivot, you can take that artifact, the wider organization so they can understand the why and the how and the what.  And so really establishing the why with everyone is very important. And as much as you can tell people in meetings or you can announce through public announcements or emails having a living document that people internally in the organization can go back to to understand the why and the what is really powerful. So first step is building that artifact. Second step, reviewing widely and broadly so everyone understands this and making the link to this artifact available so people can go back to it if they need to. And then creating a closed loop process for the reprioritization of work. So in building your product, you've built a roadmap, people downstream of that have made plans, those could be engineering plans or marketing plans or sales plans. There's a whole range of activity that revolves around the product strategy and changing that product strategy, changing your product really requires everyone to think about that. A difficult problem. So it really is a program management problem of working out every plan that's affected by the pivot and then tracking those plans and helping people adjust their plans. And then finally, once you've executed the pivot gathering ongoing sprint data to understand if you've actually made the pivot if there are any leftover processes that need to be adjusted time and time again I've seen companies go through a pivot and then still have old processes running that were in service of the previous goal. It's hard to have people let go of specific goals they have they might have career goals attached to some of the tasks there. And it's important to take people through through the why, how and what so they understand why they're moving but also then ongoing and just have a set of checks and balances to make sure that everyone is on board with the new vision. So that's about it for the presentation today. Thank you for listening. I hope you got something out of it. If you'd like to know more feel free to reach out on email or LinkedIn really happy to answer questions about the presentation today. Thanks for coming along.


It is very possible that I am a curse, which makes me very nervous because over the past probably 10 or so days I have had Jacob DeGrom, Tyler Glass now, Max Scherzer, and then Jacob DeGrom again It's either my number one or number two pitcher of the night on days where they have left the game early due to injury Tonight my top guy is Shohei Otani and as someone who would do anything to protect Shohei Otani It makes me very nervous and also feel kind of guilty to put him number one on my list But I feel like when I look at this slate, I kind of got to do it So whatever manifestation vibes you can send send out the good vibes to show Hey, Otani keep him safe from the gym curse let's lock him in for DFS for tonight. Welcome on into the solo shop That's right here on the fan dual podcast network and number fire.com. My name is Jim Sonis I am a senior writer and analyst for number fire.com here to preview tonight's eight game at main slate What locks that for 707 this evening. There is nothing big to note from a weather perspective for today No super outlier ish temperatures. So we should be good to go for tonight's slate also make sure you tune back in today at 4 p.m. For our Q&A session final one of the week We do not have a Q&A session on Friday because Dr. Disrespect gonna swing by the Fandall YouTube page She'll be on Friday afternoon. So Final stream of this week is today that'll be at 4 p.m. Eastern Fandall YouTube Twitch Facebook and Twitter pages Make sure you tune in there get your questions in about tonight's MLB DFS slates Maybe said additional good vibes to Otani through the comment section there as well Also, make sure to check out the number fire daily fantasy podcast feed because of course We have our this podcast there every day But also tomorrow USC with Austin Swain and a NASCAR podcast for Nashville Those will be in your podcast feeds tomorrow So make sure you subscribe to the number fire daily fantasy podcast feed wherever you get your podcasts It is always exciting when a player scores a goal in the euros But this year it is twice as exciting because Fandall is playing or paying out double the winnings when you bet on a player To score during a Euro 2020 game Just sign up for Fandall Sportsbook and pick your goal scorer for a shot at two times the payout in a tournament Featuring some of the best goal scorers in the world You'll have plenty of options to choose from but no matter who you pick Fandall will double your payout up to $250 and you'll have your bonus in less than 72 hours There's no better place to bet Euro 2020 than Fandall Sportsbook must be 21 plus and present in Colorado, Iowa Indiana Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia or West Virginia new users only first real money wager only $10 first deposit required bonus issued as a non withdrawable set credit that expires in seven days max bonus $250 restrictions apply see full terms at sportsbook.fandall.com gambling problem call 1-800 gambler in Colorado call 1-800-522-4700 in Iowa 1-800 bets off in Indiana 1-800-9 with it for confidential help in Michigan 1-800-2707 1-1-7 in Tennessee call the red line 1-800-889-9789 or in West Virginia visit 1-800-gambler.net pitching preview for the Thursday main slate Shohei Otani is the highest salary pitron Fandall for today He checks in at $11,000 for followed by Brandon Woodruff at 10-8 Marcus Strowman is $9,900 Dylan Cease facing the Astra is $92 Hermon Marquez facing Brandon Woodruff at Coors Field is $9,000 then we have Kyle Hendricks Joe Musgrove Rich Hill and Charlie Morton as the others $8,000 are higher and with Otani I have been hesitant to use him at pitcher all year long. It's a combination of a lot of things It's been low pitch counts. He's been ineffective with a lot of walks at times So the injuries have been there too, and I've been I've been wary from as a pitcher But I think I'm finally gonna do it tonight. I like him a lot against Detroit Hopefully again the curse stays away the matchup is a part of it for sure the Tigers against righties have a 90 WRC plus with a 27% strikeout rate That is the second highest strikeout rates on the main slate and Otani himself is getting plenty of those I think it's most relevant to look at Otani in the games since his loss He did because it's a lot different average 94 miles per hour on the fastball the 97 in those four starts If you look at Otani in those four starts since the V low and down He still has a 31% strikeout rate his skill interactive era is 3.37 and his swinging strike rates have been at least 14% each of his past two starts the pitch count has been fine in that time as well. He's gone 93 76 and 86 76 is not ideal And that is that's rough But the 93 means they will let him go if he's pitching well enough and in the 76 pitch game He still went six innings and got 10 strikeouts He basically went to Grom and that one which is a scary parallel here But if they give Otani a full leash tonight by full, I mean 90 plus pitches I feel like he could have an upside game for sure There aren't a lot of pitchers on this slate in great situations And it makes me feel like this is the ideal time to unleash Otani from a pitching perspective in DFS he's fun to root for and DFS is supposed to be fun. So I think it'll be profitable too So tonight's the night where I finally lock in Otani as a pitcher and I am pumped to do so Hopefully the curse stays away because I really enjoy watching him and would not want that taken out of our lives Let's just send the good vibes out to show. Hey, Otani for tonight As far as the other pitching options for today it's a little bit muddy and There are a lot of issues like two of the best pitches in the Slater of course field I if I'm looking for a second pitcher, I feel pretty okay about this And I feel pretty firm and saying that Joe Musgrove is my number two guy That's despite the fact. He's been pretty wild recently He had a start against Milwaukee where he had a no hitter in the fifth inning and then Absolutely imploded and didn't even finish that inning He has not been going super deep into games, but he's still been effective the peripherals here are great And that's enough for me to be on Musgrove for tonight. He is facing the Reds. That is a very tough matchup They have a 112 WRC plus versus righties tons of power and they're not a big strikeout team either But if I'm gonna use a pitcher against Cincinnati, I Wanted to be in a pitcher's park to help rain that power in and San Diego is that Temperature is 72 degrees for tonight That's not gonna nullify their power But it does at least reduce the impact of it Musgrove isn't the same pitcher He was when he threw his no hitter earlier this year He's lowered his cutter usage since that time But even in the eight starts with fewer cutters Musgrove has still had awesome peripherals He has a 2.92 skill interactive ERA with a 32% strikeout rate and a 5% walk rate He has led ups and impactful contact But it's not bad his 38% of hard hit rates and 35% fly bar They're actually both slightly better than the league average when you pair that with the plate discipline numbers. That's a good pitcher Musgrove with 99 pitches to start to go. He should have the length that we need And I think it's enough to put him second behind Otani for tonight If I had alternatives like if if Woodruff were facing the Rockies in Milwaukee I wouldn't put Musgrove number two, but he's not so to me I think that Musgrove does deserve to be the number two pitcher on tonight's slate for the third pitcher I think you could consider both the guys at Coors Field Technically Musgrove counts as my value play for tonight 8,500 dollars. So that's Woodruff and Marquez I want to talk about them and I will talk about them and things to watch My preferred route though is actually another value play in Charlie Morton. He is 8,200 dollars He is at home against the Cardinals and it hasn't been a great year for Charlie He has a 4.50 ERA through 13 starts, but the underlying numbers here are better He has a 3.78 skill interactive ERA with a 26% strikeout rate It does seem like he's tinkering trying to make some strides out there over his past seven starts Morton has thrown fewer sinkers and more curveballs and Things have still been pretty similar in that split to his overall numbers 3.73 skill interactive ERA 26% strikeout rates, but in that time, he's also allowing just an 18% fly ball right So killing a lot of worms the hard hit rate against him is 32% and he's done that against some tougher offenses He did in that span face the blue jays the red socks and the Dodgers And he didn't let up more than three runs to any of those teams He had seven innings of one run ball with nine strikeouts against the red socks So basically when you look at the walk numbers you look at the batted ball numbers Morton is a good overall pitcher who can get some strikeouts That's a good recipe when the guy's at home in a decent matchup And I think that is enticing especially when his salary is 8,200 dollars. So I think that Morton is definitely behind Musgrove for me But if I were choosing between Morton and the guys at Coors Field, I'd give the edge to Morton. So to me it's going to be Otani one Musgrove two Morton three we'll talk about Woodruff and Marquez in things to watch Let's go to the stacks first though And two of my favorite stacks tonight are actually in the exact same game That isn't Buffalo for the blue jays and the Yankees the blue jays facing Michael King and he's had a rough schedule so far He had his first start against Detroit. That was his first full start and that's not a bad matchup But since then he faced Boston in Minnesota two pretty good offenses now It stays rough as he faces the blue jays So I think we should stack Toronto here and see if the struggles for king will continue He has had some rough numbers in those three starts a 4.96 skill interactive era with an 18 strikeout rate He has led up a lot of hard contact and enough fly balls for us to get by for stacking That's in line with what happened when king was a reliever earlier in the year And it's also line of what we saw last year Overall king doesn't look like someone who will be overpowering Which means that he needs to be a standout with his bad at ball data to get by as a a viable big leaker It doesn't like he will do that the game isn't Buffalo not super warm there for tonight But I still like the jays quite a bit here and i'm fine putting them at the top of my list for stacking We should be able to get to vladimir grero junior as well I know it's tough with otani at 11,000 But I was able to get to akunya and freeman with uh jacob digram last night So I think we can make vlad work and there's a lot of value in the middle part of this order Randall gritchick is 3300 dollars, but we have tailscar hernandez and rowdy talez Likely batting five and six gritchick is 2700 dollars. We have uh talez at 2300 dollars All three of those guys are fly ball hitters and none of them have a restrictive number of strikeouts So hopefully talez is in there because if we get him and gritchick in the mid 2000 range That's going to make it a lot easier to get to vlad. It does mean we'll need value elsewhere But I think we should be able to get that for tonight So the blue jays my top stack of the day and number two is in the opposing dugout That is the yankees facing tj zoek. Zoek is coming up for a spot start here And it looks like a matchup We will want to attack zoek was in the big leagues earlier this year He had a 6.35 skill interactive er a across 12 innings And the results are rough too not just the peripherals So zoek got sent down to the miners as a result of what happened there And things didn't get a ton better for him in triple a He had a 4.37 er a there his strike area was just 16 percent and he led up a ton of balls in play There are Just two things that pushed me to rank the jays higher between these two teams The first one is that zoek will get some ground balls It's not enough to push me off But it's at least a consideration here and second the blue jays are just a better offense right now than the yankees I just trust their offense more They have a better wrc plus against righties better power numbers. They're at home But that's truly picking nits like i'm just saying why i'm ranking the the blue jays higher and not saying you shouldn't use the yankees as a result of those things The yankees would be the top stack on a lot of slates They just happen to be in the same game as the jays and I prefer the jays for tonight So these would be my top two stacks of the night the blue jays versus the yankees And I think both are really solid standout slates Across or standout stacks across even larger slates One time on gary sanchez here for a second Seems like he's making some pretty big strides of the plate I used to use him just against lefties because the strikeout rate would go down a lot versus them And I might be willing to use him against righties now too finally his strikeout rate is still at 32 versus righties So it's high But I would say it's manageable it comes with a 41 fly ball rate He gets a boost against a low strikeout pitcher like zoic as well So I am warming up to sanchez. I haven't been super into him personally But it gives me a viable play in the mid range when stacking this team So I do think that they were that he works geo or shella weirdly has had better numbers versus righties is here from a peripheral perspective So I think that we should be able to get some value from the yankees and sanchez Not a value play But he is not high salaried either and someone I am warming to as we get further into the year For our third stack we talked about otani earlier and because he is a pitcher for today We can't use him as a hitter It's just a pitcher on fandal But I would like to use his teammates because they still benefit from otani being in the order even if he's not We can't use him for stacking every time he gets a base hit that means it extends the inning Gives more volume gives more run scoring and rbi chances for his teammates They still benefit from otani being there even we can't use him as a hitter on fan dual for today They're facing matt manning the angels are manning is a big prospect for detroit's and he's getting a call up here The promotion for manning wasn't due to what he was doing in triple a he was actually struggling quite a bit down there Across seven starts. He has an 8.07 er a with a 4.36 x-fip. His strikeout rate was 25% That's even with strikeout rates being Largely very high across the miners this year And we've also we also saw manning lose some of the batted ball skills He had back in 2019 in 2019 his ground ball rate was 47% that was in double a this year It's 36% in triple a so manning is getting a promotion But it's not like he forced their hand and made them promote him the tigers Honestly have nothing to lose like why not, you know, he's a he's a good pitcher probably long term Might as well see what he has and throw him out there But I think We should look to stack against him right away here, which means stacking the angels tonight even though we cannot use otani There's still plenty of guys we can use in this lineup. I love jared walsh. Nothing has changed there He's still tremendous Justin Upton Weirdly good against radies this year kind of similar to sanchez where 205 iso for just an upton a lot of fly balls And I think we can also use max stasi stasi is a guy You know, we think of mostly versus lefties, but he's putting up good numbers against righties, too So we can make it work even if it is a bummer. We'll have to skip over otani So I would say check out upton walsh stasi see what they've got so hopefully anthony randone's healthy enough to go But the angels pretty good stack for today If you're going with muskrove or morton, you can get to all those guys we discussed without straining yourself elsewhere Let's finish up with things to watch for this thursday slate I do think that both brandon woodruff and erma marquez are worth considering a course field The reason I didn't get to woodruff above morton is salary related woodruff is 10 8 and That's pretty outrageous for a picture a course field and a lot of times we think when there is a picture a course field We'll get them at a roster rate discount That didn't happen with u darvish when he was at course a couple nights ago I think he was like the third or fourth Most rostered player you can find the roster rates up on number fire dot com That's a pretty big bummer because that's one of the appeals of using a picture of course is decreased popularity Didn't get that with u darvish So woodruff in play but does get dinged because probably not going to get him at a roster rate discount and Definitely not at a salary discount marquez pitches really well at home and the brewers still strike out So i'm down for for both these guys, but that's why they're ranked fourth and fifth for me with woodruff being fourth marquez being fifth That's the reason they're not higher, but I still think they're both in play So if you're filling out a lot of lineups, you want to differentiate a picture You're worried about otani worried about muskrove totally fine I think both those guys would be viable options you could turn to after those other options There are a couple other stacks. I think are worth considering here. The first one is arrays I think the rays are actually like On most slates, they'd be a top three stack. They're just they wind up being fourth for today But that's because they're good stacks elsewhere the rays are facing just and done in seattle So it's not a good park factor but done Struggled last week in coming off the injured list He let up five earned runs in that game his spin rate was way down and it could be Due to the sticky stuff I feel like it's probably more likely it's due to the injury he was coming off of But either way it happened and it led to an effectiveness So I think stacking the rays is worthwhile here another good offense versus righties So that's comforting to have Some good offenses on our stacking list for today. The other one to consider is the braves. They're facing john gants who is potentially the most frustrating picture to stack stack against he gets a ton of ground balls And it's just it's it's miserable to stack against him But because of the plate discipline numbers against gants, you can still get big outings against him He let up five runs across one and two-thirds innings last time out He let up seven earned runs the time before so I would rank the braves fifth behind the blue jays yankies angels and rays But the rays are still firmly on my radar. So it's a really good night for stacking We've got these five options. I feel pretty good about four. I feel great about if you add the rays in there, too so overall good night for stacking and given the Viability of muskrove and morten you can stack pretty much whoever you want I think that's going to lead to some fun line-ups for today We can talk more about that which studs to prioritize today During the 4 p.m. Stream on youtube twitch facebook and twitter So make sure you tune in then get your questions in and let's have some fun for tonight in mlb dfs Do not forget to subscribe to the number fire daily fantasy podcast feed on apple podcasts spotify stitcher google podcasts tune in radio dot com no matter where you get your podcasts You can find us and while you're there leave us a rating and review as well If you have questions for me before 4 p.m. I am on twitter at jim sonnis j i m s a n n e s You can also follow the fan dual podcast network at fan dual podcast big Thank you to calvin theobald our video producer for running the video broadcast for today Thank you cal as always and thank you to everyone for tuning in good luck to you for tonight We'll talk to you once again tomorrow This has been the solo shot right here on the fan dual podcast network