Beyond the Present Podcast

When confronted with the inevitable disruption awaiting the future market places by Artificial Intelligence many compare the AI revolution with that of the industrial revolution, however, analyzing the scale at which the new technology has already affected our lives and the pace at which both AI and robotics are being developed proves that the level of disruption will not be comparable with anything we have seen before! 

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SUMMARY KEYWORDS

ai, people, obsolete, field, human, business, mastering, job, means, world, degree, vacuum cleaner, skills, problem, life, subject, talk, difficult, pretty, historically

SPEAKERS

Pouya LJ, Dan

Pouya LJ  00:09

Hello, ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to yet another let's talk addition. It's been a while we had one of these, but now here we are. And we're talking about the future. First of all, Hey there, Dan.

Dan  00:22

And man, buddy, how's it going? How are you? It's been a while, I'm glad to actually talk to you right now, for a while we've been super busy and the COVID has changed all of our plans, that has certainly changed a lot of my plans, in terms of my travels that have been canceled and the exhibitions that have been canceled and so on. But ultimately, it's been a great, you know, couple of months, because despite the fact that we've had dealt with a lot of issues that are Unfortunately, most of them, of course, were unforeseen. Fortunately, we've managed to get over a lot of these challenges. And I feel like even though in the first four or five months of the pandemic, we are not making good practices, we're just adapting and into the new situation. Now that we've all fully adapted the situation, I guess, we're learning to actually make more progress. Basically, in our work in our businesses, and life is great. And I'm very glad things are fine, haven't you? vuzix? How's life in Canada, where you have to these days? What How do you keep yourself busy? And how are things in Canada?

Pouya LJ  01:17

things are going good. I mean, as you mentioned, life has changed a lot. There are a lot of things that we were used to doing that are either done differently or not done at all. You know, socializing is different. And work is different studies, different

Dan  01:31

studies are super nice, even socially, they let you literally take it to heart this whole social listening, probably I think now, half the population in probably Canada are suicidal, the other half are depressed, I'm guessing.

Pouya LJ  01:42

Well, I mean, I don't know specifically. But obviously, it should have a mental toll on people, you know, how things are going, but I guess everybody is doing their best to cope. One way or another to the witness situation?

Dan  01:58

Is jealousy? And so yourself? How do you spend your time basically these days? And cuz I know you're engaged with your studies. And of course, you have your work in business. So because I don't know about that place, because unfortunately, it's probably no. Now, in the US things are very, very divided. So there's on the one hand, those who don't don't ever wear masks, they don't take any of these things seriously. And they just had a you know, life as if nothing has happened. On the other hand, we have those who are very cautious than you know, all over the world. Now we're seeing very different lifestyle. So I have friends in Europe, who are now in complete state of disarray, because especially with some of my friends right now in Italy, and France are just suffering so much. Whereas I have friends in Russia, where they're just quite relaxed, like no man, there's no guarantee here life is great. So it really depends on where you are right now. China is based if you're in China, right, and you're probably the happiest in the world, because there's pretty much nothing they've already beaten the virus A long time ago. So I think this pandemic has made me think a lot more about, you know, how different countries are handling it, basically. So for Canada, because you guys are somewhere in between Europe and America. I mean, you're neither fully all American crazy and nor fully European. So like, I was wondering, like, how are things now there? And people just keep to themselves all the time? Do you have any social events and gatherings or to clubs and bars and restaurants open? Or that kind of stuff?

Pouya LJ  03:17

Yeah, so obviously, it's very, it's a big country in terms of, you know, surface area.

Dan  03:24

Yeah, but he has one advantage, you're very big. But in terms of like, the population, it's not basically higher again. So that's probably a good thing for the COVID case, broadly speaking,

Pouya LJ  03:35

is actually very good. So most of the country in terms of in terms of population, but in terms of area, geographically, it's very loose, because everything is calmed down and chill down to a good degree, the regulations and whatnot, obviously, they're, they're like masks and whatnot. But when you go to places like Toronto, Ontario, and around Toronto in specific, then you have a different situation, we like two weeks ago, we had to go to a what what's called by the officials a modified stage two is actually means that indoor gatherings are limited to 10 people again, it was

Dan  04:10

Wow, much more, monitors these things because I the exact same problem in Russia, where I actually had to, you know, deal with a lot of problems. In the US things are a lot easier, fortunately. And again, not necessarily fortunately, but at least as of now, there are no strict regulations. Of course, the election will determine, you know, how will this continue? And in some countries like European nations, I mean, they're just I feel sorry for those who are now in Europe right now. So if you're listening to us, you know, from the European Union, literally, I'm just sorry for all of you guys. It's just I feel your pain, and I know how difficult it is for you. But ultimately, I guess it depends. So for Canada, like, do they like have any means of enforcing these rules? Or they just say it and the reason that they are they just follow without asking any questions?

Pouya LJ  04:54

Well, I mean, I think it's a degree of both meaning that essentially, it's You know, guidelines are put in put in place on people, for the most part to follow. These things are maybe not to the letter depends on there are some gray areas, obviously but generally speaking people do follow There are obviously always people who don't follow those rules and regulations. And I've seen sometimes people are getting fun, not individuals, usually it's on the side of businesses for example, if a restaurant is not allowed to host people inside like they can do outdoors at this point, no problem. patios, whatnot.

Dan  05:35

Really, is it possible now with a temperature I don't know how the game is right now is there but I'm just harder for outdoor hosting. Now

Pouya LJ  05:41

it's getting, it's getting more difficult. But for now, it's not still above zero. And they have these like heated patios. So they make it a little bit Wow, more doable. I mean, they have to survive the restaurant business specific, obviously, obviously, when it gets really cold, it gets much more difficult. But it's not there yet. So point being, if businesses are not complying, it's going to be very difficult for them to hide, because much more public, but individuals are a different story. I mean, there are cases that there's some enforcement, but for the most part, they're relying on people following the regulations, etc.

Dan  06:17

I think this whole thing taught me the importance of leadership and how almost the way you live your life, it pretty much is dictated by how the leaders make decisions. And I just realized that a lot more than I used to, and it's just a, you know, very interesting fact overall, but overall, good things are fine. And I hope that all of the world we gradually as we get closer to that, that, you know, vaccine vaccination day, hopefully things gets better and occasional just announced that they are ready to hopefully, work very hard to ship the these vaccines worldwide. Let's see what they do. And let's just stay optimistic.

Pouya LJ  06:51

Yeah, absolutely. That's what we'll see what happens. I mean, typically, I mean, historically, I've heard it somewhere. I'm not. I haven't fact checked this. So people who are listening to this are welcome to do it. themselves. Don't take it from me. But I've heard that historically, the duration of pandemics are somewhere around 18 months. With without an accent vaccine, like even if you go further back. So that is sad in a way that it's going to be 678 more months, months, maybe but on the other hand, are

Dan  07:25

officially so far. So you said 18 months, that's pretty much like almost a year and a half. Yeah, I guess it seems fun that we got still almost half a year to go right. Yeah, roughly. I see pretty good, but still is happier just means that most of the you know, the the distance already been crossed? That's a good thing. If you're an optimist, guys, we're to third through man, come on. Let's push it through.

Pouya LJ  07:47

Well, yeah, but but so the historic data, I think, like even if it's close, it's correct. Let's say it's correct, let's say three months stance historically, roughly, obviously, there's no line. But it doesn't take two things into account. One is vaccine, we're not historically popular, like if you go beyond 8090 hundred years ago, then that's another thing. So you that's one thing, whether we have acting or not, on the other hand, like these kind of quarantines, like, what I'm trying to say, virus would burn through population before people would go isolate themselves, if needed, and whatnot. So this timeline might not really work in that sense. But who knows?

Dan  08:33

I see. Of course, now we have more people around. But then again, we have better technologies. And of course, sure, better means reaching people. So I hope that this is going to be around the same as you mentioned, hopefully, hopefully, and and I really look forward to like going back to normal, hopefully, I guess some around March will be a lot better. That's what I personally have planned for my major travels. And we'll see how it goes. We'll see how it goes.

Pouya LJ  08:57

Yeah, absolutely, though, so they were actually that was not part of our agenda. I mean, obviously, talk about it a little bit. But what we're talking about today, very briefly, there's going to be further episodes on this subject, obviously, because it's a big subject. It's another kind of disruption. And that is the the AI disruption or the computer, what we had many technological disruptions before. And one of them is we're going to talk about is artificial intelligence, and its powers and how it affects us and our life. And so we know that all of us have heard, we talked about it on this podcast, that division of intelligence, there's a lot of tasks are going to be automated and done by computers, essentially, you know, from grocery stores now that you do self checkout, for instance, or other means. Now, things are changing very rapidly, very quickly. And one of the natural questions for people especially younger individuals who are trying to get into the workforce and trying to see what they want to follow. The natural question is, what area? Or areas? Can I aim at and go to have a sustainable job or occupation in the future? Now, that is another good question. And that's what we're going to address today. So what are your thoughts generally about automation and artificial intelligence as a powerhouse for for this? phenomenal? I see,

Dan  10:31

you see, one of the problems that I get with people oftentimes tend to compare this AI revolution with that of the Industrial Revolution and saying, you know, what, man, we had the same issue back then. So we used to have horses, and then we got into cars and all that. So the jobs changed and became more industrial. So there are some optimists in this regard, who are saying that, yes, this AI, and this revolution will ultimately create new types of jobs, which I believe that to some point is actually true. But the problem is that that world, the industrial revolution happened in an era where we had far, you know, far fewer people than we have today. And based upon the all the basically estimations, the world population is definitely going to increase, there's no doubt about it. So this is we're going to see more people. So you can compare, I don't know, 1900, and 1800, with 2030 2035, because we're going to have a lot more people. That's number one. And even if you take a look into the history, even though we had, as we got into this revolution, we did face with fewer people who are required to work is now all the factors when working with machines, they were, you know, a lot less need for manual labor. So that's the one issue, people who think like this, just, you know, we're gonna have all this AI stuff, and then people are gonna change their jobs, they're gonna actually move on to doing AI things, if you will. But the fact of the matter is that AI is hap occurring, this revolution is occurring at a time where we have far more people, basically, than we have jobs for them. And number two, it is the issue of how AI disrupts work. By its very nature. You see, when it comes to, for example, Ai, we are talking about a type of technology that is capable of learning and growing and developing itself. So when you are, let's say, designing a machine, or an instrument for a factory, let's say in an early 1900s, obviously, you still need operators to work on this, those who build it and so on. But AI, it is not a technology or an instrument that you can just simply use. Rather, it's a source, it's a basically means of creating other types of technologies. Because AI is capable of generating basically its own decisions and its own basically data. The other issue, of course, is robotics, and how AI, once combined with robotics, can do a lot of things that we are doing right now, almost, you know, effortlessly. I mean, right now, what people think of like AI robots, which is not the movie, but like the actual vacuum cleaner. That's a very simple example of when AI meets robots. And a lot of houses around the world are now using this AI robots, vacuum cleaner, which just moves around the house on a regular basis and cleans things. So just imagine that thing, not just apply to a vacuum cleaner, but to almost everything else, whether it being I don't know those who let's say, clean the trash, basically, around the world, let's let's just say those who are, I mean, think of like very menial tasks that we think of like humans to be done. Obviously think about, you know, most almost all the drivers and pilots going out of job. And once you look at the scale at which this AI technology will affect us, you realize that the you know, the damage, if you will, will be a lot more substantial, you know, the employment and the job market than it was back in the industrial age. And other than that, of course, we have the issue of businesses who want to cut costs. So labor used to be cheap, obviously, in the beginning of the Industrial Age. But now, obviously, as you probably know, around the world, there's this trend towards increasing the minimum wage. And if you work in business, you understand that your number one job is to keep the cost as low as possible while maximizing the profit. So any entrepreneur in the future world would very much prefer to get their robotic versions of those, let's say staffs, just kind of like the iRobot vacuum cleaner, then to actually pay for a real human, because that probably will cost a lot less than we will know a lot more reliable because robots don't need sick leaves that don't get pregnant. And often that they don't complain so much, basically, right? I don't know, maybe someday robots will get pregnant. But until then after for now, be relaxed, but it's not going to occur. But the fact of the matter is, this is occurring right now. And for that very reason, we have to be prepared. Now while I do want to raise the awareness of our listeners and to make them a little bit cautious. I also want to say that there's a good side. And the good side is that while AI can replace a lot of our jobs, there are ways that we you know, are listeners can actually prepare themselves for that world to make sure that they are not going to be the first who will lose their jobs, they will actually more time to think of other ways to take their lives to a whole new level. And in one of my latest posts, I typed out the importance of mastering a specific subject a very high level, because that will then prepare you to deal with the future marketplaces where, you know, average skill and average levels of basically accountabilities can be easily replaced by AI, whereas more basically, advanced and masterful times performance will not be as easily replaceable, let's say compared to the average person.

Pouya LJ  15:36

Right? Well, that's true for the most part. I mean, I think it really depends on what is the area you're mastering, like if it's chess? Not really, right. Well, I do chess as a leisure.

Dan  15:48

My any Some even right now, I guess, this is not like about AI. I think like, all the top chess master players right now, they have all lost, I guess, probably say, like, IBM or something, I'm guessing.

Pouya LJ  15:59

Exactly. But yeah, that's specifically my point. And so it makes it very dependent on the field as well, I think I completely agree with you. So the degree of mastery definitely matters. But also the field can matter. And it's very difficult to predict what fields are going to be impact, I mean, some are easier to predict, some are not based on the technological advancements we have so far. But generally speaking, things that are more nuanced, are much harder to you know, teach in machine to deal with, like, chess is certainly a, you know, a tasking, job. But the strategy in chess is basically because of limitation, our limitations of imagining free moves, for what few moves ahead, right? Like, the whole thing is that you anticipate, there are different things I can do. And each of them will have, you will have, be able to see a few steps ahead, if I do this, the opponent will do that, then I'll do this. Right. So there's a degree of anticipation that a machine clearly because of the memory of has a can, and the fast, how fast it moves, everything it can actually do all of those steps ahead of actually playing get in its memory, and decide which is the best move to, to success. So that is certainly the the nuance is very limited. However, if you're dealing with other humans, like it's a management position, perhaps I mean, you can say that decision making can be automated very easily. But no.

Dan  17:53

See, that's the issue. Because we don't when we think of AI, we think about like, I don't know, things moving around, and just, you know, making certain codes to do this and do that. Because AI isn't just about, you know, those type of tasks that we habitually associated with, like, you know, robotics and computer science. I mean, Ai, have you ever heard about, like, there's there right now pages on social media, featuring poetry and quotes made by AI. Now, I don't know if you've ever read one of these. But at first you think like, there's this, you know, crazy philosophers making some random stuff. But ironically, at its current level, which is almost its infancy right now, we're seeing that AI can now come up with arts and philosophy and quotations. So obviously making decisions probably, and that's my problem, because we think that is all about, you know, just the the drivers and the pilots. No, man, what if the AI becomes this CEO of a company? What if you hire top managers, without hiring any real person, what if you literally subscribe to a management, for example, or managerial AI by the future IBM's. And they literally you subscribe at a, you know, literally fraction of the cost of hiring a, an experienced, let's say, top manager, which, which could cost the company, you know, millions of dollars per year in salary, you with a fraction of the cost, you can actually get the AI to use big data and make and who's always online to make literally the kind of decisions that almost no, basically a top manager could make. We're talking about that type of shift, not just, you know, we use AI, will it but just imagine that a company has shareholders and all the managers who are making the decisions are not real people. They're AI and algorithms that are making those decisions for the company.

Pouya LJ  19:38

Yeah, that's exactly correct. And that makes it very difficult to, you know, actually anticipate what field to go to. So that's what I subscribe to one of the best best advices ever heard on this subject. And that is, you know what, nobody knows truly. What fields are going to be more effective, probably most are going to be very much effective. Maybe some more, some less. At the end of the day, the the the advice that I heard is that see what you are interested in are like to do, don't think too much about these things. I mean, think about it to a degree, if you can anticipate it, of course, you want to submit it. But at the end of the day, there is a huge amount of ambiguity and what is going to be happening to any of these fields in 10 years, 20 years, 50 years, whatever have you time. And the advice is to the point, yes, find the field of your interest, have fields of your interest, follow your passion, as you mentioned, to the mastery, and try to keep up with the technology and how it's improving, transforming. And make sure you're not obsolete, as best as you can. So at the end of the day, we will need to be students of this, you know, field not to be researchers, but at least follow them and see what is happening and what are the shifts you can give to yourself and your own field. So you're more compatible with this new era and less obsolete?

Dan  21:18

I agree completely, definitely. Because I mean, it's really a matter of time before the way we do things right now will go completely Absolutely. I mean, just take a look at how we did banking, in the 1950s and 60s. And but today, almost all the skills and abilities that have banker in the 1960s. Let's go back to New York in 1960 and 1970. At that time, a typical New York banker would have had to have a lot of skills, including how to know the right clients, how to know to whom they should be you, for example, cash, the cheque and to whom you will not cash the check. I mean, how will you interact with the customers? What skills do you how to type properly using your typewriter to do those things took all those things. So almost all those skills right now are pretty much made obsolete, basically. And now, thanks to online banking, I don't know about the last time you went to a bank projects. But the last time I went to a bank was just because I had to physically be present to basically change my master and Visa card because they got expired after three years. And beyond that, there's pretty much no need for me to go to any bank at all. And just that's just one example, obviously. But once you take that trend, you realize that of course, this is going to go up to a very, you know, at a level where perhaps a lot of things we are now doing today might be completely obsolete. But then again, while I say that still, technology needs time to grow and expand, and that is why I mean, while we cannot perhaps avoid the inevitable, we could perhaps at least prolong it. And let's just at least those of us who are in our, let's say, mid 20s and early 30s, a chance to last probably as the last maybe generation who will go unscathed with all of this. And by the time that AI really takes over, probably we're already retired. But still, we need to teach the younger generation some skills to prepare themselves. And that's why we believe that being able to, first of all, making sure that our focus is as much about humans as it is about a skill because I really believe that almost all skills that are fully logical in nature and that don't involve humans. certain skills that could easily be automated are the first to go, obviously. And but the more human touch we add to any career path, whether it's me as a lawyer, you can no longer rely on just your knowledge of the law. Because once we have legal advisors AI as a eyes, there's no need for I mean, all your nose means nothing because they have direct access millisecond, right. But what if you focus on mastering law? As somebody who knows how to deal with people and clients? Well, what if you focus on the human aspect of legal practice, that will give you a huge edge? In case I don't know, 15 years from now, you've had to see major lawyers leaving basically a law firm, because there's no job for them available. Right. So whether it is I don't know, as a teacher educator, if you focus on the human element, whether it is in business and finance, whether it is in running early, you know, for example, properties around the world, if you try to focus more on how will you satisfy your guests and hyper generate, you know, more positive reviews. So ultimately, what I'm saying is by trying to focus on mastering, especially the human elements of what you do, probably you can actually prolong the inevitable and remain unplayable for the majority of your adult life. That's, of course, assuming that AI remains at its current growth, and we've not seen a major exponential change, I don't know 10 years from now.

Pouya LJ  24:40

Right? No, that that's absolutely good advice, I think. And, you know, at the end of the day, there's a huge amount of ambiguity and less, but that's just part of it. We have to learn how to cope with it best, of course, and these are all good advice. Sure,

Dan  24:54

sure. But I don't know what's going to happen. So let's, I mean, let's talk about our own field. So I don't know what's what's going to happen? Do you think? So let's have a few fields that we know very well. The fields of education, the fields, for example, science, because I know you're a scientist, entrepreneurship, running a business, real estate, and basically, investments. What do you think people in these fields should do to somehow prepare themselves for that inevitable?

Pouya LJ  25:22

Yeah, I think so. So first, let me narrow it down to science, first and foremost, because that is the area that it's actually been very helpful this these tools that currently exists at least, and enhance the ability of the scientist or researchers or engineers to create things or, for example, this simple example is how much AI has been used in the medical industry, while industry I don't know in medicine in general, trying to find different pathogens and whatnot. So it is all very important to consider. There's also a degree of research going into a eyes generating science, meaning coming up with your own trying them and approving them. Now, that is, that seems to be to the degree that I'm not closely following that research. But to the degree that I understand it, it seems to be proving tasking and difficult, but it doesn't mean it's impossible. So my guess is that it's just a guess. So who knows, but my guess is that you will be a very, very valuable tool to human scientists. At the first stage, it becomes extremely important and maybe a part of their, their lives, but nothing is, you know, certain we don't we just simply don't know and, and make any hope is, the hope is that these tools can help us solve the greater and more difficult questions of our times, we were talking about COVID, how much uncertainty there is about this simple disease that we think we got a grasp on these things. But we simply that it one thing it showed us is that we just don't, we just don't know. So well, about so many of these things. So. So yeah, that's, that's how I see that science. I don't know, if you want to talk about fields related to finance and management?

Dan  27:14

Well, first of all, I should finance I think that's the one thing that I'm very concerned about. Because the field of finance has, it's pretty much about having information. And obviously, there is going to always be an advantage to a an AI that is capable of running all sorts of diagnostics and prognostics, and all those things imagining the possible yields of different investments. So because I know that there is a firm near city right now that has invested more than one and a half billion dollars, just to increase the optic speed of their internet connection, so that by like almost a one or two seconds, and that has given this, you know, hedge fund a huge advantage. If, if two extra seconds and you know, faster processing is going to give you that advantage. Imagine what will AI do to finance and investments just really, somehow makes me sometimes even disturbed about this matter. The other issue, of course, is the issue of business. What if AI, which is a level where we can actually hire AI as those who make decisions for deciding what items to sell. I mean, right now, one of the common ways that a lot of unpresentable are making money is through what we call arbitrage. So buy low in one place, or market or in one situation sell high somewhere else. But one of the biggest challenges of making this work is to know which products to sell, and to how to somehow direct them. What if an AI is capable of finding the right targeted advertising for the clients using Facebook, again, all real time by analyzing and getting all the feedback from the big data, and then decide to sell this, you know, for example, you know, this ad to this type of demographics and to boost you know, the profit of one company. So, when you think about what AI can do to business and finance, it's just it almost pretty much can render any human business person almost out of this business. So that is why I think try to focus so much on learning how to do these things well yourself now, and keep up pace with the changes and trends probably can help us a little bit in this regard. And as you mentioned, education we go through this philosophy pretty well, was definitely those were a lot of changes. Because as information is already right now we're seeing you know, you can just find any information just with Google. So almost all knowledge workers will be facing with dramatic problems because now their knowledge that they have and acquired yesterday could be obsolete today. And AI knows about this, but you don't. And this could actually make a lot of educators also almost somehow rendered obsolete because now we can use AI as its own means of tutoring and teaching and educating. Even as you mentioned generating research, you know, at a university level or conducting, for example, other types of scientific work. So these Things were talking like a major disruptions. But then again, as you mentioned yourself, as of now, they still have faced with a lot of difficulties. And most of this backlog we have right now is still a subject to, you know, science fiction. But also, this is just like most things that were science fiction, but are now true today, things like your your cell phone, and all those things may be here talking to you in Canada. So this, all these it's just a matter of time, which is why we can still prepare ourselves for, you know, a very fulfilling career if we commit to complete excellence, and to really do our best to stay up to date and to basically try our best to remain focused on what we're doing.

Pouya LJ  30:40

Yeah, that's absolutely correct. And great points, great points. Now we're coming to the end of the show, and both of us have a hard stop in a couple of minutes. So is there anything I mean, obviously, we're going to talk about this subject more and more in the future. without a shadow of a doubt, it's a very important subject for the future of humanity, of course. But for the for this lesson, for the sake of this episode, what we talked about, is there anything you want to add on at the end of our show?

Dan  31:04

Well, first of all, it's great to see you and talk to you put yourself in a while. And it was a great discussion so far. And as we discussed, AI is here. And while as of now, it is still at a stage where we can easily beat it. Just wait, I don't know, based on what I've heard so far, and what my own estimations just wait about 15 or so years, until you see how the AI technology will be somehow going to disrupt almost all industries, including those we used to think they belong and are fully downloaded by humans. And for that reason, I believe that as we discussed earlier, it's best to remain optimistic. I mean, all oh my gosh, what's the point, Dan? Listen, Dad, I just I just listened to Pouyjix and Dan on this podcast, and they say there's no Why should I go to college? Why should I get a job man is gonna do everything. I just want to stay home smoke pot and play fortnight. So that is not the answer. Obviously, you want to actually take this seriously and somehow redouble your efforts to try to obtain as much mastery in any field that you really wish to do in order to prepare yourself for that future and marketplace.

Pouya LJ  32:15

Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense. And I agree the optimism point is very important. You don't want to give into that. Those like there's obviously all of these talking has talked about this the subjects, yes, it's important to pay attention. Yes, it's important to, you know, discuss these things. But it doesn't mean that we have to be panicked by them and lose faith in the I remember that last episode, you were talking about surviving and thriving and the, you know, economy, same thing. You want to remain optimistic at the heart of all of this. That makes a lot of times she will. Absolutely and everyone. Appreciate it. And thank you, Dan, for joining us once more.

Dan  32:53

My pleasure, buddy. I really enjoyed it.

Pouya LJ  32:55

Awesome. Thank you very much. It was a it was a good episode. I hope you enjoyed it as well. You're URLs, please let us know if there's anything specific, specifically that you want us to talk about. You can reach out to me then on social media, you know how to do that it's in the show notes as well. or leaving comments definitely would like reviews and help us grow until later episode.

When was the last time you knew what you had to do but could not get yourself to do it? You probably felt bad about continuing to postpone the task not knowing how on earth you could ever get it done! In this short program you will learn how to put an end to that feeling once and for all using the five minute rule! 

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

minutes, task, feel, inertia, push, momentum, flashcards, rule, truck, stop, harder, started, heavy, physical, car, moving, goddamn, podcast, prepare, simply

SPEAKERS

Dan

Dan  00:10

Hi, guys, this is Margaret, and welcome to yet another episode of beyond the present podcast. As always, with you, Daniel Morgan here, and I would like to ask you to discuss a very important subject in a few minutes, one of those short podcasts that we have, and that is what I call the five minute rule. We see guys, a lot of the times in life, we know what we should be doing. But we just don't feel like it. Like I know I should right now be going to the gym and doing some, you know, perhaps yoga or do this or do that. We kind of feel like we know what we want to do. But we just can't get ourselves to do it. There's no motivation, there's no desire, like, come on, man. How, how in the world? Am I supposed to right now start? I don't know, doing my German flashcards, for example, or how in the world should I just right now prepare that contract with a client or I just don't feel like getting off the couch, man, I just want to sit here and watch TV, not to go for a jog. So for those situations, when you kind of don't feel like you want to do something, and you have no motivation at all, I use the five minute rule. And that, of course, can help you to do those things very easily. So what is the five minute rule, whether it is a very arduous, difficult task that takes hours to complete or just something you know, takes basically a short while, the five minute rule says whenever you don't feel like doing something important, just tell yourself, I will do it for only five minutes, that's it, I'll just get started. Do it for five minutes. And then I will stop if I want it to stop. And I will simply not continue that, you know, kind of makes you feel pretty good. Because you are doing something number one, and number two, you can just have the freedom to simply stop doing it after five minutes. So let's say I'm gonna do my I don't know term paper or my taxes, or do the emails or prepare tomorrow's presentations, or, as I mentioned, just grab, you know, some Mandarin Chinese flashcards to go for their studies, whatever it is, you feel like, you know what, I'm not gonna get started right now, but five minutes not going to kill anybody, right? It's not gonna be that difficult. So let's get started right now with five minutes, because the truth of matter is doing anything for five minutes as possible, whether it is to wait, you know, in a line or whether it is to, I don't know, clean the place, whatever it is, doing something for five minutes for the absolute majority of the world population is not a very big investment of time. And it's not basically that difficult to do. Even if you hate, you could do anything that you hate for five minutes. Just think of all the things you hate the most, whatever they are, you can do them for five minutes, no matter how much you hate something, you can still do it for five minutes. So next time, whenever you do something, you say, all right, right now, I'm just going to do this for five minutes. Because you can literally do what I do, which is using a timer. I am not kidding, you literally use a timer. And you say, I'm going to be doing this task for only five minutes. And if after five minutes, I felt like I don't want to continue, I will stop it. And I will try it again tomorrow. Very simple. Let's say you have a very important task it right. Based on your deadline, you say I'm going to right now do this for only five minutes. And then I can stop after five minutes if I felt like I can't do it any longer. And here's the truth. Once you start doing a task for only five minutes, in the absolute majority of cases, you can easily continue doing it. You know why? Because you have already conquered the biggest challenge on the way to doing things that are hard to do. And that's the initial gain and momentum. Because when you don't feel like something, it's so much harder to do it because it's kind of like you know, trying to move a very heavy car, or like, for example a train. So if you wanted to move for example, a very heavy object, let's say a very, you know, heavy car. The initial push that takes you to push that car is oftentimes the hardest challenge I've ever like, watched you know, these Ironman competitions where these extremely powerful muscular guys grab these, I don't know trucks and like question literally and pull them or something. Well, if you've noticed, as I have, when these guys are trying to push that truck, the biggest amount of effort that I have to make is to get that goddamn huge truck just moving. So at the very beginning like the truck is not moving and these guys are like pushing all mine. They're pushing They're pushing, they do their very best until boom, that truck gradually starts moving. And once it gradually starts moving, then you see that you know, this, basically, cars speeding up and gaining acceleration basically, right? So simple physical, basically formula, right? We, probably all of us, we have actually said this in physics. So there are no real physical reasons why this happens. Now, what do we know into details of physics here, but this is a real, you know, inertia problem of inertia, right. So, the same thing can happen in anything you do. And yes, we have this thing called psychological or emotional inertia or momentum. For example, if you want to get yourself to do something, whether it is to do your, you know, goddamn, I don't know, term papers, or to do something that you really don't like, the biggest challenge is just like, you know, those heavy guys and the strong guys were pushing this thing, the biggest challenge is right at the very beginning, to push that thing. Now, if I told those strong men, that you should better be pulling or pushing this heavy car or truck, for I don't know, the next 20 minutes, they probably wanted to get started like, dude, I don't want to die, it's going to be impossible. But if I told him, just push this car, from here to there, alright. And I don't know, perhaps what that let's say, three 400 feet, right? Just push them from here to there, they will do it. Because in that situation, they don't see a major challenge ahead. So they have a lot more motivation to get that get started and get it done. When you tell yourself, I'm going to do this thing that I really hate for only five minutes, here's the interesting fact. You then realize after five minutes, then the absolute majority of cases, you do not need to stop, you can simply continue going forward. And from then on, it's so much easier to see, you know, simply continue and finish the tasks that you started, because now you have what is right momentum, once you have momentum, it becomes a lot easier to finish the task, and it takes a lot less energy to as a matter of fact, when you get started doing that task, after about five minutes, it is harder to stop than it is to continue by the same physical law of inertia, it becomes easier to simply continue the task and see it to its fruition than it is to stop it. And that is what I use all the time to use, you know, and to do the things that I know I should be doing that I might not feel like it. Because if you live like me, you probably have a lot of tasks and responsibilities. And a lot of routine, basically tasks, particularly about you know, finances, or let's say language learning, as you probably know, learning languages is somehow not always fun. And it involves a lot of repetition, a lot of reviews. And you don't always feel like doing your I don't know, Italian, for example, exercise on Duolingo. or doing for example, your Swedish practice on Mon Li You just don't feel like it, man. But with the same five minute rule, you can actually get yourself to do it. And all you got to tell yourself is I'm just going to get started, I'm going to do it for only five minutes. And then if I didn't feel like it anymore, I'm gonna stop. And guess what, in most cases, you will not. So now, you know, don't get me wrong, sometimes you really hate something so much that you are going to stop. But that's going to be a very, very small portion of the cases that you will have to face with. So in the absolute majority of cases, it becomes actually easier to continue than it is to stop. And of course, you end up doing all the things you had to do. Even though initially you had no desire to do them. So from now on, guys, anytime you felt like you want to do something, you don't feel like it. It's the time to do it. The deadline is approaching, just use the five minute rule. Tell yourself, I'm going to get started. And I'm going to do it for just five minutes. And after that, I'll stop. And then you'll realize that by the time you've already finished the five minutes, you simply want to keep going. Alright guys, that was it. This was our short program today. And I hope that you guys not only enjoy the program, but we'll use the five minute rule from now on in all of your pursuits and all of your tasks because you know, it is important, of course to use this principle to get more things done to become more consistent and to achieve your goals in a timely fashion. So time we have for this was Daniel Morgan and this was beyond the present podcast how to go on and take care

Remote work is here to stay long after the masks are gone along with the pandemic associated with it. In this episode Daniel and Pouya discuss the pros and cons of remote work as a permanent option for both employees and employers and offer their thoughts on how the process could be streamlined and made more productive.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

remote, home, industry, environment, employers, work, employees, literally, upper body, pandemic, online, office, hear, lead, certain industries, necessarily, mentioned, throughput, point, programmer

SPEAKERS

Pouya LJ, Dan

Pouya LJ  00:08

Hello, ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to yet another episode of BTP podcast joined as always with Daniel Mulligan, how's it going, buddy? And my buddy

Dan  00:15

has one, how are you guess what it is the last day of the holiday for everyone, including those living in basically predominantly orthodox regions like Eastern Europe, Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan, and so many other countries, although I'm not sure if those those guys are Christians to ultimately, it's the end of all holidays. So if right now, you are not planning for some you know, going to work, chances are you're unemployed, because the pandemic, and therefore I'm really, really sorry to hear that.

Pouya LJ  00:43

That's true. That is a sad, sad reality of their current situation. And speaking of work, that's actually what we're going to talk about, but not just work, the future of work, which is, is the remote the future of work? Is that that's the main question. We were trying to ask him broadly, like, do you want to give your broad opinion? And then we delve into details after that?

Dan  01:03

Awesome very well, well, first of all, I do believe that the future of work is indeed remote. And the answer is very simple, because now we are already doing it at much lower costs. And then you have the governments who are going to incentivize this whole thing to protect the environment. So if you're an employer, you say, Well, I don't have to pay for the office buildings, or I can pay less, I can, I can hire fewer people. So I can actually pay for a smaller office hire fewer on site, and at the same time, the government is going to incentivize me to pay less in taxes. So why the heck not, let's try to do that actually, unless go for remote work. For that reason, I do believe that, ultimately, remote work is the future of the work, because it will be financially, basically practical. And at the same time, it is also going to lead to a better, you know, in revenue protection, which is definitely going to be important for most governments. So if the government's are going to lead people towards that direction, obviously, that will be the direction because nowadays, it's quite acceptable. I mean, if you remember, 510 20 years ago, this whole thing didn't even make sense, right? You you prove you did work, when you read the office, or you're the client, or if you wanted to set up a meeting on Skype or call, it oftentimes was a preparatory kind of meeting. So they actually set the real meeting later on meet the client in person, because it was kind of like, like a low value kind of behavior, if you did not want to show up like what there's something wrong with you want to steal my money or something or use like something cheating. So for that reason, the fact that this is now a complete norm, we are going to see a major increase in remote work, because now almost all companies around the world have tried it, they have gotten results out of it. And it's now officially a part of the culture, I guess. And for that reason, I believe it is going to be indeed the future of basically work for most of us.

Pouya LJ  02:53

No, it doesn't make a lot of sense. And I think there was a taboo prior to the pandemic about this remote work from all sides, not just employers with employees to thinking that you know what, it's not it's, I'm going to lose productivity. And that might have been true without prior proper preparation. And maybe in the beginning, people were thinking, yeah, this is not working, I'm working from a bit bed, and this is not. And then after they saw that, okay, they have to figure something out, set up the proper, you know, proper environment for themselves to work, maybe, I don't know, if a person who has kids now, that's annoying, because maybe that, you know, schools are closed, and you have to keep the kids to yourself, but if the environment is viable, I think personally, I experienced in many fields, it actually works out pretty great. Now I do teaching too. Now, that is not the best environment for online teaching. There's a there's, there's some degree to some barriers coming on, because of the lack of, you know, being in the same room physically together, perhaps, but generally speaking, in many of the cases, it does work, and perhaps there can be, you know, a hybrid of these two, okay.

Dan  03:59

That's the best I mean, because I really still believe if you make everyone work remotely, because I know a fair share of like programmers among my contacts. And I mean, their lifestyle is not necessarily going to be even acceptable by a lot of people who are more on the extroverted side, because it can be almost depressing. So I think a hybrid approach is probably a far better approach. Because in that situation, you kind of like spend, I don't know, two or three days at the office, and four days at home, and that way, of course, including the weekends, and that probably is going to be far more effective. Because you mentioned you know, working basically, and you're on your bed, well, there are a lot of things I want to do on my bed working is not one of them. Because I think I don't know, first of all, it's going to be very hygiene because you should probably see my bed. And secondly, it's going to lead to you know, from my point of view now, lack of focus because for me, the bad is a place where I do only one of two things and there's no other I mean like mentally that is there's an association basically with sleeping And the other type of sleeping, but so if you're, let's say, I don't know, bring your laptop and you're talking in a place that you bang your wife or girlfriend, I don't know, for me personally, that's not going to work out pretty well. Because it's going to create a lot of problems in terms of, you know, your mental Association. However, I do like the idea of working basically at home, if you create and designate a home office area, and if your home is small, it can, you know, allocate one entire room to your work, you can still assign a specific location in your home to, you know, basically work office, because there really is a psychological factor here. Because when you go to the office, you know, your brain has linked that environment to work. So your body is different, you know, acting differently, your mind and your focus is focused on different things and if you are in your bedroom, so even for those who work at home, they're definitely going to actually learn to come up with new ways to get ready to work at home efficiently. And I think that will then lead to creating a whole new industry that basically caters to you know, work at home and remote work, plus a lot of the training required for the staff to know how to make the most of their time at home, how to avoid distractions, and now is for someone reading a book called and distractible. And it talks about how, you know all the little steps required to make, you know, homework efficient. It's not that easy projects to work at home efficient, because it's so much easier to get distracted at home. And more apparently, there's less degree of basically control by the employers. Because you could say like, yeah, I'm online, I'm working. But you're not. I mean, as I've talked to a lot of my friends who have kids, and now almost all of them are sitting online. And I mean, you got to see what the mess that thing is man, like literally just keep things online. They pretend they're online, but they're not. Or they're looking at a screen with the camera and playing fortnight in the background. True story. By the way, I'm not just one of my, you know, friends, son just does this. But of course, if you are the teacher of that person, don't don't hate him. He's not the only one who's playing fortnight while looking at the webcam pretty like, Oh, yeah, great lesson. So for that reason, I believe there's going to be the need for a reform in the way we approach work, and extensive training and education for those who would like to work at home, both for the employers and the employees.

Pouya LJ  07:19

Really, what you're saying makes a lot of sense. Because yes, there are, you know, workarounds that you can start slacking and still not get penalized, perhaps, but then you can, you know, change how you're looking at. So for example, in a current situation, you're just, if, as a manager, office manager, whatever your method of you know, finding out if your employee is actually working or not, is just by looking at them. Maybe that's not the best approach anyways, because a lot of people don't respond to that. So maybe you want to look at their throughput, are they actually providing like doing the things that they're supposed to do? Maybe Miss metrically? Or, or just generally speaking? That's why perhaps in you know, software environment, like software development, it is much easier to actually assess these things. Because at the end of the day, you either push your code or you don't, you have to complete your project or you don't so it's so much easier to, you know, monitor those performances, wherever you are, you can be in Bahamas, I don't give a crap. As long as you do your work. Right. You know, so So yeah, you're absolutely right. And I think it's very industry dependent, perhaps hospitalities is not the best to be remote. That's the by nature, right? So

Dan  08:25

well, believe it or not, nowadays, we have seen almost all sorts of businesses going online. Sure, right. Having a much stronger online presence, even license. Nowadays, I've heard of like restaurants that are fully conducting things online, like you literally see the shift, so they send you the food, and then you'll log in with zoom, and you'll watch the chef cook things in front of you explaining things. So I mean, this is definitely going to affect even the kind of industry thought is almost impossible for it to be remote. But obviously, you're right, there are certain industries where that cannot necessarily work out well. But having, you know, experienced almost every business, pretty much move online or at least enhanced their online presence. I guess there's going to be a far more potential for remote work in almost all industries. To a certain degree, of course.

Pouya LJ  09:14

Yeah. And I couldn't agree more. And yes, my my point is that yes, some some, some industries are more acceptance and actually encouraging of remote work some less so. But it doesn't mean that they cannot look to industries that are less inclined to do remote work are not even possible for them. It doesn't mean that they cannot enhance their abilities. So for example, when even you went to the restaurant individually, like in person, you wouldn't get to see the chef necessarily some of them have open concept kitchens, but generally speaking, you wouldn't, right. So. So maybe that could be even for in person like that zoom or, you know, video stream can be on your table as well so you can anticipate your freaking food and get more hungry and hungrier.

Dan  09:57

That's possible to sell things I guess. Right, so

Pouya LJ  10:01

so I think it sparked a big, big, the whole, you know, pandemic and because circumstance sparked a big push for creativity in all of this, and which is a good thing, that's, that's the positive that can come out of all of this negative, I suppose. I don't know what your thoughts are on that.

Dan  10:17

I agree completely. Although let's be honest, personally, as an extrovert, who really loves going out, I really prefer, you know, a hybrid approach as you put it out yourself, because you cannot necessarily, from my point of view, go go on the either extremes, because if all work move fully online and fully remote, then yeah, this might literally change the way we approach work. And this could lead to its own problems. I mean, for example, now, social media is, you know, pretty much commonplace, everybody's on some sort of, you know, social media platform. And it is now the norm. So if you don't have a social media account, now you're a weirdo, like, 10 years ago, if you didn't have I don't know, Facebook, or Twitter, I don't know, let's say Instagram, or I don't know, something like that, you would have been quite okay. I mean, that was not like a necessity. So 10 years ago, many of my friends did not have I, myself was not basically on any Facebook platform 10 years ago. But nowadays, if someone is not on social media, you're like, dude, either you are weird, or you're cheating on somebody, and you don't want them to know about it. Like, it's just so like now a part of life. But at the same time, it's now proven that the more time we spend social media to higher our chances of you know, suffering from depression. So with every change comes a certain downturns and drawbacks that we have to deal with remote work has its own set of problems, it's going to challenge their problems to the employers, how are they going to be able to, you know, observe their employees in action? And how are they going to be able to judge and assess their performance to be able to, you know, handle this is just a result of deliver? How about in terms of safety and security, if you're working remotely, could this not easily be hacked, and then be used by others. There are many other, you know, facets when it comes to business and work in this situation that has to be literally addressed, which as I mentioned earlier, will lead to a whole new industry that offers services that, you know, somehow makes this whole process easier. And above all, as I mentioned earlier, it's really about us, are we the kind of basically workers who can actually work with discipline and regularity at home, or as you put it out, you're on your bed, and you're a programmer, and you start programming, and then the bag, you know, this whole bed reminds you of your last night and you start thinking like, that was very nice, and you look around and your wife lets her eyes and boom, before you know it, you're not you know, you're not making any basically coats, you're making babies. And that's not a good idea, because you're wanting to be working at that time, and not doing something weird. So for that reason, although not not not that we do not have cases of making babies at the office environment, as unfortunately, you've probably heard a lot, especially among the Wall Street staff members. But the point is you want basically to create the right education available for those who can actually work efficiently because my biggest issue with remote work is does it really deliver the same time? Yes, it saves on costs. Yes, it's a you know, protects our environment. But does it really deliver the same type of experience for both the clients and those who do the work? Or does it reduce the quality? And that for me is a big challenge.

Pouya LJ  13:21

That's a fair point. I think I think you're right on obviously, you want to have the same throughput you want their employer employees to you know, work as well. Maybe even better, perhaps if you can, but yes, you're absolutely right, that comes with a degree of education on both parts from the employers to employees all parties included even clients perhaps so that education doesn't have to be classroom setting necessarily, although it can be but culturally you know, as time passes, we learn how for example, if you're, if you don't have a good microphone and get a good headset for it, for instance, I mean, that could be one simple thing so we don't have to hear the sirens in the background whatever so I mean obviously there are you know, improvements that are going to be made in time and we can accelerate that by you know, organized education of some sorts from I'm right

Dan  14:06

now thinking about like changing fashion industry of those upper body only suits where you can literally wear your hands for anything and have like a suit like you're going to see like major changes like just imagine like the upper body only section like if you want to buy the clothes we haven't offered by the only for remote workers like literally and like they create this pajamas that are very comfy down below and like you will see a major shift in terms of how it affects every facet of and you know, every industry

Pouya LJ  14:34

I haven't been in by the way a pursuit only.

Dan  14:38

I mean, by the way, that's that's the patent idea. So if you want to steal the idea from us, you're gonna have to pay copyright. This is now any any any basically seller who would like to sell upper body only clothing must get a patent and recommendation basically from sorry guys just the way it is.

Pouya LJ  14:54

That's just the way this you know, intellectual property. It's not

Dan  14:58

It's not an upper body. Only suits and clothing, basically, work is for work is definitely a beyond the present podcast patent from now on.

Pouya LJ  15:08

No doubt, no doubt. No. But joking aside, I think I think you're absolutely right. It does make it does affect every single industry in the, in various different ways. Obviously some industries more so than others. But generally so for example, as you were mentioning, perhaps security could be more challenging because now you're, although we were always working on computers and networks, and they were all connected to the internet, but now you're transmitting everything through the internet. So maybe it's a little bit more challenging in that sense, maybe a lot more challenging, actually. So yes, of course, it's gonna affect everything. And perhaps in many cases, for the better, like, we have to improve our ways of living. And usually, it is hard to leave the status quo until you're really pushed out of it. We were, unfortunately by satins. And And typically, they are by sad incidences, so I don't I don't disagree with you. Now we discuss the pros and cons. However, now I want, we're coming to the end of the show, obviously, feel free to add anything that we didn't talk about, to, you know, gather everything together?

Dan  16:11

Well, first of all, it was a great topic about remote work, because ultimately, we've mentioned to our listeners, that remote work is the future of work, we should not look at this as a passing trend, I will that remote work is here to stay as is already demonstrated by many companies in Silicon Valley, who have already put this as a permanent part of their, basically human resource management. So they are definitely gonna implement this already as their permanent solutions. And of course, we're gonna see this happening all across the board. However, as you mentioned, yourself, certain industries are less compatible, certain types of careers, jobs services, basically are less compatible with remote work than the you know, certain ones that are a lot more basically compatible. But that doesn't mean that no industry is going to be spared from this trend, it is going to happen all across the board, basically. And we pointed out that the fact that this is going to happen, we are going to need basically a whole new industry, that is going to cater to remote work, offering certain types of, for example, home, basically work environments, how to create like a desk, that is not going to distract you at work. So maybe creating new ways of locking the sound for coming to the you know, the home office, or a lot of training to make sure that you know, the those who are working at home are doing so basically not on their bed, but hopefully in a place that is a lot more productive, basically, and to create that, you know, a culture of productivity at home, which probably needs additional training. But then again, in terms of the benefits of this, obviously, we're going to have, we're going to see a tremendous decline in traffic worldwide, which is then going to of course, reduce the carbon emission because the less commute we do, the less carbon emission we uncovered in our carbon footprint we will leave behind. So that's going to definitely improve the overall quality of basically our environment. And obviously, there's, there's definitely gonna be a lot of financial incentives to for both employers and employees. So whether we like it or not, I'm someone who's in the middle when it comes to remote work. I don't hate it. I don't love it in particular, either. But then again, even if you're like me, and you tend to be more on the social extroverted side, and you'd like to see a lot of people around, obviously, you still have to get used to this, you know, new way a new approach to work, because in the end, remote work is here to stay whether you like it or not.

Pouya LJ  18:37

Well said and I couldn't agree more, I think, one way or another, we're gonna see this more and more in the future, and perhaps sort of better. Again, I really do believe that. And thank you again, Dan, for joining us today. discuss this topic. And thank you. Yeah, it was amazing. And thank you everybody for listening in tuning in. And leave your comments. Leave your suggestions if you have any, and until later episode. Have a good one.

As we enter the year  2021 we do so with many lessons learned during the pandemic. In this episode Daniel and Pouya discuss what they learned from the year that went so that we could set the right tone for the year ahead.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

pandemic, people, life, year, personally, importantly, realize, situation, day, terms, pretty, eye opener, social, attention, panic, travel, colonoscopy, bit, pay, world

SPEAKERS

Pouya LJ, Dan

Pouya LJ  00:09

Hello, and welcome back ladies and gentlemen to yet another edition of PTV podcast in the year 2021. Join as always with Daniel Mulligan, how's it going, buddy?

Dan  00:19

And man, buddy, how's it going? Happy New Year, it's great to talk to you. Now, of course, we just celebrated the new year, a couple of days ago. And it was super wonderful because personally for me, the new year is a big deal, because it's the probably the most important year when it comes to goal setting. As you probably know, I'm crazy about goal setting. So it's been a great year, despite all the limitations, the pandemic, which has made traveling or Party, which both of which I love a lot, a lot harder, unfortunately, still, we have to go through this. And fortunately, I managed to enjoy the you know, the New Year celebration, although on a much smaller scale, basically, to somehow make sure that I follow the health guidelines and do not end up you know, perhaps spreading the virus or something like this. But generally speaking, despite all the challenges, pretty happy to be here with you for the you know, our first less competition of the year 2021. So couldn't be more excited. Life is great, man. How about you? How is how's life basically, on your end?

Pouya LJ  01:18

Yeah, things are concerning everything things are going well, I think we have turned a new leaf by turning the page turning the chapter on to a new year, obviously, we still are having the struggles of COVID, whether directly or indirectly, ahead of us. I mean, not just me, everybody, really, but I think I think at least mentally, in terms of mindset, at least we're turning into a new year. So why not change our mindsets to? Would you? Would you agree with that?

Dan  01:49

Pretty good, pretty good?

01:50

Yeah, of course,

Dan  01:51

it's pretty good. And I don't know about the atmosphere, of course. But generally, in this situation, we gotta somehow change ourselves a little bit, although I'm not a fan of like, complete, like reprogramming our entire brain because it's not going to last forever, man. But we could change our way of thinking the way that we can take advantage the situation and not panic and wait it out until the storm passes.

Pouya LJ  02:13

know precisely that. And that is basically what I was trying to get at. Because the past year, I mean, in 2020, basically, everybody suffered a lot. And we experienced a lot of uncertainties on top of other, you know, stuff that were really annoying, and perhaps often for many people, outright upsetting, losing loved ones or whatever. So. So in that sense, I feel like coming to a new year, personally, I want to take a little bit of a more of a positive approach. Of course, it's not done with but as you mentioned, it will be at some point. And maybe for the better part of this year, we'll still deal with it, to some extent, all of us, but, you know, in terms of our mindset, I personally want to take a more, you know, assertive, proactive and positive approach to this year versus reactive, as the circumstances required, perhaps in 2020, which I was much reacting to the news or situation or the new guidelines and whatnot. So this time, this time around I this is this is at least my perspective, personally, I don't know about you, how are you dealing with the new year?

Dan  03:25

Well, first of all, I generally, as you mentioned yourself, being reactive is never a good thing, whether it is a bad situation or a good one. So as you pointed out, the best approach is to get ourselves out of that reactive mode. I mean, I personally don't think that panicking, or being concerned about all the latest things that are especially portrayed in the media is a good thing. Because the media thrives on these things, they would love to make things look so dangerous. And the worst thing is going to happen, because that's going to you know, make your eyes fixated on what they're, you know, showing that to people. So for that reason, generally speaking, I'm not a fan of even following you so much, except perhaps from very reliable sources. For example, Dr. Fauci is one of those. But in terms of the media and what they said, I was not necessarily paying so much tension anyway, in that regard, and of course, other than that, it is the fact that we've kind of gotten used to it. And as you put it out yourself, even though we're going to be spending, at least based upon the European estimation, at least, until summertime, in the same quarantine mode, if you will, or social distancing. Still, that leaves at least a couple of months, and I'm pretty darn sure that we're going to celebrate our next new year in a very, very different atmosphere and mood than then we did basically this year. So for that reason, I remain hopeful and optimistic. And obviously, I mean, some people were just reacting to the crisis. What what I was doing your in 2020 was how can I make the most of this time? That was the question that I asked myself every single day because I do believe that when one door gets closed, Other gets open. And one man's misery is one man's portion. And the other most important one, of course, is when life gives you, when all life gives you as lemons, try to make lemonade. And you should, we should believe that my vitamin C, basically, nutrition this year was pretty high, because all we got was, you know, basically were lemons. So I'm right now done with vitamin C. But quite frankly, that's exactly what I did. So I really believe that this pandemic was a great chance, at least for me personally, because it gave me a chance to really look deep into myself in basically social life, and what we can do with or without these things. But more importantly, because I'm very much interested in the concept of leadership, it actually allowed me to take a closer look at how some of the best leaders around the world tackle this issue and how they basically go about doing this as the primary crisis continues. Because for me, that was like the ultimate learning school the the ultimate School of leadership, if you will, both personally, I mean, how do you manage being in this crisis? Do you panic? Do you lose hope? What would you do if you realize that I don't know your restaurant, your gym, some other place going to be close? And if you are working there, you're gonna lose your job? Are you gonna panic? Or are you going to perhaps find out of the way, and more importantly, it made me think a lot about the future of humanity, which will heavily rely on technologies to reduce carbon emissions or reduce commuting around as somebody who is, you know, a, you know, constantly, basically, on the movement, you know, somebody who likes to travel lives, it actually makes me question a lot of those things I used to do, like, isn't really necessary to travel, for example, it is the number of times per year or because you like reduce it a little bit. And it was a very educational experience. Overall, of course, I'm not gonna deny the fact that it was hard as most tough love and tough educational situations generally are. But in this situation, I realized what it really means to deal with all the situations that somehow push your life out of control. And not only not panic, but to make the most of it. So, and a couple of my businesses, actually the, you know, our revenue went up during the pandemic, because we took advantage of the online technology and online communication, and it simultaneously actually cut back our costs, in terms of traveling flights, going to exhibitions, cost of hotels, and so on, because nowadays, basically, almost everything is done via zoom or online. So generally speaking, for me, it was a combination of difficulty, as well as achievement. But more importantly, it was perhaps one of the most educational experiences of my life. Because for me, because, you know, our generation, we haven't seen, you know, a very dramatic shift in the way people live their lives. I mean, my basically, grandparents had experienced World War Two. So for them, they saw what it feels like to be in a world that is normal, and then suddenly everything changes, right. But our generation of millennials, we never had this, you know, this experience, we never experienced a major, you know, war, whenever experienced, perhaps major famine or other issues. So this COVID-19 pandemic was kind of like the world war two of the millennials, and they saw what it feels like when the entire world order collapses, and everything changes. And so if you look at that, as a once in a lifetime experience, as you know, over to basically was for our grandparents, it's kind of on the same scale, and that it has tremendous potential for learning and self development.

Pouya LJ  08:32

Absolutely, it makes a lot of sense. And I think, I do agree with you in terms of Okay, so, there were a range of reactions from a variety of people, of course, to this whole year, if you will, in 2020. Excuse me, and yes, lots and lots of people have made so many good decisions and made actually the most of the situation maybe, maybe more than their regular here is if you will, so so of course that and that, that that is where the attitude comes into play, right? How are your attitude allows you to deal with a certain situation that is out of the ordinary, sometimes outright devastating. And, you know, learn from those devastations rather than just leave the score and nothing else. Right. So so i think i think you're right on, I think it makes a lot of sense. And I have questions a lot, a lot of things about myself personally, and the way we leave as a, you know, society as a world. Even so, so yeah, there has been definitely definitely many, many levels of, you know, education going on for me and I'm sure for a lot of other people. Although not not, not everybody saw it that way. Perhaps some just saw it as a misery but it's still like, you know, and the future retrospectively, they probably will come to see some you know, lights of education, those people who were mostly focusing Under disasters of today as well, so

Dan  10:03

and you put in a point out something about, you know, our societies, because in my life, as you probably know, I work with multiple nations and different cultures and languages, and I'm in touch pretty much with all five continents right now. And this pandemic, for me personally, as someone who is a basically a, you know, a proponent of globalism, seeing the entire world basically gets locked. And the entire international travel being basically severely hindered, not fully stopped, but severely hindered, was pretty a shocker at first, quite frankly, and more importantly, allowed me to be in touch with my contacts from around the world and see how different nations and different governments were tackling the issue. As I know, on the one hand, we had Sweden who had the most liberal approach possible, and I was in the entire time in touch with my contacts in Sweden. So how are people reacting? are they wearing masks? Are they happy? What about the death ways that I was in touch, of course, my contacts in China, the source of basically this pandemic, and how people are just, you know, going about their lives, having have already defeated basically, the pandemic, then we moved on to Europe. And unfortunately, I was very disheartened when I realized Germany, which was one of the best countries in terms of the way they handled, the pandemic went under full lockdown. Basically, in November and December, you can imagine the damage, of course, the German government offered tremendous, basically cash support for all of its citizens, and basically, business owners. But still, you would see how these developments are changing the International, basically, community. And for me, that was another level of basically education because I literally saw that leadership, culture, and the sense of unity in a nation can really help or hurt basically one's nation's quest on defeating the virus and the pandemic. So it was another layer, basically, I'm I'm pretty sure that in Canada, things probably were a lot, basically better handled than it was in the US, given the fact that we just got rid of Donald Trump. And now, hopefully, things will change. But in Canada, I'm guessing things were a lot better as people perhaps had higher trust in their government, and follow the health guidelines. But ultimately, what really matters, is just to realize that this challenge has been a source of education for almost all of us. And we could learn from that and use those lessons to make 2021, which we're in right now. A much better year.

Pouya LJ  12:34

Exactly. And that's where I wanted to get to looking back learning, you know, I mean, day to day we learn the 2020 on every day, I think I can talk about myself personally made better decisions, I'll have to deal with the new New World Order, if you will. So. So of course, it's an ongoing process, but now having this excuse of a new year to look back for over 2024 for a few minutes, and then look into the future and carry the lessons and put away the hardships perhaps as much as possible. To the interior. Now, what were your I mean, you mentioned some of them, what what were you if you if you want a bullet point that what were the top? I don't know, a few that you're taking to 2020 as our new lessons and new things you want to do in 2020 differently than you did in the past?

Dan  13:25

Well, I mean, you mean 2020 1am I right?

Pouya LJ  13:28

Oh, I'm so sorry. Yes, anyone? That's right, we're used to the ones I

Dan  13:32

got from Korea points to take 2021 basically, because I'm done with 2020. And I don't want to go back,

Pouya LJ  13:38

just don't make

Dan  13:41

one year too much. Even if there was a time machine, I'm not gonna go back 2020. Even though I love using time machines to go back to the past, not 20, I can go to 2019 or 22, but not 2020. But ultimately, from my point of view, 2020, for me, personally, was the year of looking at our values, and looking at our basically leaders for guidance, and to see how they can handle these problems in these situations that are oftentimes very tough and risky. And it also made me think about the impact that global commerce as well as basically, global community has on our very lives. So things like closing, for example, the borders isn't just going to affect the lives of those who work at the airport, or even like the airline companies. But this could have tremendous impact on a variety of industries. And as a whole, the entire economy actually come down because of this pandemic. More importantly, hischier really made me appreciate a lot of the things that I used to take for granted, mainly face to face, human contact, physical touch, and other things that we were deprived of during basically the year 2020 and we probably will still be for a couple of months if not six, seven more months and That really made me to change my priorities. And I literally made some promises, I would say that from the moment this pandemic is over, I am really going to take my social life more seriously. And I will make it less high tech and more high tech. Because that I think, for me is what a lot of us are missing. Now, being an extra that I am always looking to, you know, he around be social and to see basically people in action. For us, extroverts this crisis pose a much greater challenge than the introverts. I mean, I had a lot of friends who are introverts, it's like, man, I don't see any difference, really, I mean, except for some economic problems. And the fact that I can't travel, I see not much of a difference. I mean, I'm always social distancing in my home with my laptop, I say, Well, good for you. But that's not going to happen to all of us. So I'm guessing as somebody who is based upon my last personality test was basically set to be 99%, extroverted and 1%. introverted, which, unfortunately, is a little bit extreme. I know. And I wish it was a bit more balanced. For people like us, it was a little bit harder to, you know, deal with this aspect of social distancing, because extroverts are social by nature. So social distancing means simply stop letting do or stop being who you are. And that took a lot of getting used to, I mean, personally, for me, it took me no less than almost six, seven months just to get used to this the way things are. And even then, still, I haven't, like made basically peace with a situation, it's just that I have to go through with it, kind of like, you know, think of like going to a doctor or taking a pill or the dreaded colonoscopy. So it's kind of like that. But in this particular case, it's a rather two long colonoscopy. I mean, just imagine a colonoscopy that lasts for, I don't know, one and a half, two years, that'll be a very, very painful colonoscopy ambition, but it is really like that, in that, for me, personally, I am definitely going to take my social life a lot more seriously. I did spend a lot of time in the past years at work. And I would, because you know, to be productive, so I would tend to postpone a lot of, for example, social events, for the weekend times, or other places where I could, you know, be more productive at work. So I'm definitely gonna take my, you know, social life a lot more seriously, at this pandemic, probably a little bit too aggressively at first, and it is quite normal. But other than that, I also learned a very great lesson about what we as a species really need. I mean, we talked with this URL in one of our you know, very first programs you want in order, you know, first podcast is that like, all we need the things that we need right now like water, basically shelter and internet connection, something like this. I remember you said that. So it made me realize that not only internet and online technologies are an absolute necessities these days. But more importantly, a lot of the things we thought we needed, were not really needs, but preferences. I mean, you don't necessarily have to burn a lot of gas to go to the you know, movie theater, you really can enjoy chilling with Netflix at home, you don't really have to perhaps go to you know, spend hours in traffic every day to go to workplace, it is possible to conduct a lot of meetings online on zoom, or Skype or other online basically platforms without a lot of time wasted and commuting, basically. And of course, as somebody who's a frequent flyer, I also thought a lot about my, you know, priorities as somebody who flies in different countries, frequently on how important really it is, and how is it possible to reduce the frequency of basically flights in order to, you know, perhaps contribute a little bit to our basically planet in terms of carbon emissions, and so on. So those aspects of it actually taught me a lot about the fact that, really, a lot of the things we thought we needed, we don't need and the only thing that I realized that I really needed during this time. And a lot of the times capitalism does not want us to know, was human touch and human contact. And I think that's the one that we are not taught, we've taught, we've been taught a lot about spending money on a lot of brands, and we thinking or spending a lot of money, you know, for things we don't really need. While it you know, perhaps ignoring the most important thing that's human touch in contact. So for me, that really made me realize that the things that we really need are oftentimes the cheapest things that are always available. And the things that we think we need, and oftentimes, basically, carrying a heavy price tag are rarely the things that we truly need. So that for me was like a, you know, an eye opener basically to realize what really needs to have needs and have the Met and not confusing once with needs basically. And for me personally, that was a very big deal, because it allows me to then go ahead and somehow change my priorities in life in terms of how I should spend my money, how it should work, and how it should connect with who Around the risk level, of course, was a very great lesson. And the final one was about the difference that, you know, wealth and money can really make, I think, during this pandemic, the rich, the middle class, the lower middle class and the poor, they all pretty much had a similar lifestyle, and that a lot of the things that were not available to basically the poor people, were also not available now, for anybody else because of the limitations. So yes, you could no longer enjoy, I don't know, easily going to a golf club, or going to a, you know, a very cool place or a venue to chill. And those things made me think a lot about wealth gap in our society, and how this has increased so much, and how it's possible to create a more just fair society for everybody, where the 99% do not feel that their lives are any worse than that, you know, top 1%. So this was a humbling experience for a lot of the wealthy and the ultra rich, who used to think that they could just do whatever they wanted. And then they realized doesn't matter how much cash you got on the line, or how much credit you got, if literally, a simple virus can make all of those millions and billions seem like nothing. And it would not make any difference, which maybe you know, a lot about this concept. But what it really means to have value, is money going to solve all your problems and this penalty solve that the answer is a clear No, basically. So as someone who's an entrepreneur, it was also another great eye opening moment, basically, how about you projects? What are the things that you realized in 2020? That you basically want to take with you to 2021? Yeah, I

Pouya LJ  21:39

think leaving the specifics that you mentioned, which are some of them I didn't pay attention to, but then some I did. But generally speaking, I think the whole pause in the status quo, quote, and moving to something slightly off book, if you will, because of the circumstance was definitely an eye opener, in a sense that because when you when you're going with the status quo, it's sometimes when you're just moving with it, you're not noticing, you know, the goods and Bad's appreciating the things that are, for example, you were mentioning, you know, the socializing, I never understood how much I enjoy socializing with people in person, until this hit like you're much more extroverted than I am, of course, I think that's no secret. And you already noticed that before. Now, you appreciated it more, perhaps now. But I never even noticed that I knew I like hanging out with people, but I just didn't know, in how much depth that meant for me that the lack of it is, you know, in bolding, if you will. So in that sense, I think this whole pause, as you're mentioning, was an eye opener in many, many, many aspects. And of course, people with their own perspectives are grabbing different aspects of it and paying attention to them. And it's good to hear your perspectives. And I would love to, you know, bring our audience into it, if possible, if they would like to share it in a comment form one or two sentences to you know, what was the aha moment for you? Wow, we're doing this, maybe we should do that. Or maybe we should appreciate this. Oh, likes, like the things that Dan mentioned to us. But if you had something different that you it could be it could be good for us to hear. Because I was listening to you. And I was like, Yes, I paid attention to this amazing. But also I, I listened to you. And I was like, I never paid attention to, for example, this particular thing. And I was, that's interesting. I never, for example, international traveling like airplanes and whatnot. So that was not really on my radar, because maybe perhaps I wasn't doing it as much, obviously, as much as you I didn't. So so that was a that was a very interesting epiphany that I never had, and hearing it from you was, you know, very, very interesting to hear. So yeah, if the audience are willing to do that, leave a comment with your own epiphany during 2020. But yeah, going forward, but bottom line is, yes, I want I want to pay attention to these things. And I want to be more conscious of, you know, the things that we're doing on a day to day basis, either being more appreciative of the things we have, or paying attention that there are gaps in our current way of living, that we can improve on, and not just, you know, walk by them and not pay attention to them. Because you know, if you if you're, if you're moving past the garbage bin that is filthy, every single day, it becomes easy to just start ignoring it, right. But if you're forced to look at it, then you're like, you know what we got? We got to fix this. So he's, I

Dan  24:40

think they should force you know, you're forced to look at it. We kind of lost a lot of the distraction to see, I think, yeah, one of the biggest challenges of this pandemic was that a lot of us, we were so easily engaged with the things we used to do, that we somehow could put up with a lot more because we're not so much paying a lot of attention. But this pandemic really removed all the noise. And this somehow made us pay closer attention to things we used to ignore. I mean, a lot of basically couples, unfortunately, they lost relationships during this pandemic. And that was not because of any inherent problem with a pandemic, but the fact that a lot of people just were in relationship ever, not at the very beginning quite suitable for them. But since they had a lot of things to keep themselves busy, they could easily, you know, turn a blind eye to certain things. But in a pandemic like this, almost there's no noise distributed strategy by which means the truth somehow comes out. And the truth about everybody comes out. And it brings out the truth of our leaders as well. And if you saw what it means for someone like Trump to fully lose it, because that pandemic really took out all the noise and brought out the truth and a lot of basically people in various aspects of life, basically. And I think, for us, that was a great eye opener. But at the same time, if we learn those lessons, we can apply them and make far better decisions in the future, because pandemics like this don't happen every day, which is why we should take this as a, you know, a life lesson, if you will, in order to make us better at making future decisions.

Pouya LJ  26:15

Absolutely, it makes a lot of sense. And I'm sure, again, everybody's having their own perspective, and they overlap at times. But also there are unique mindsets that are out there. And I, I would love to hear about them. Is there any final thought that before we close it? Do you want to share with our audience? Well, first

Dan  26:33

of all, once again, I would like to wish all of our listeners a happy new year. And I hope that despite all the challenges we're currently facing in the world, we are going to be getting out of this pandemic soon. Now, the earliest estimates point out to summer, but that's only in Europe. As for the US, according to the prediction, by Dr. Fauci, we are going to be living in one way or another like this, until basically next holiday season, so probably life will only get back to normal around 2021 q4. So that leaves us with three months of normalcy, probably. And until then still, life continues on its current pace, basically. And that is both reassuring and a little bit, basically disheartening. But the fact of the matter is that we could make the most of this situation. So today, we talk about what it really needs to learn from the 2020 the past, and what lessons we can learn from the year itself, as well as the pandemic that caused tremendous trouble for all of us. And more importantly, we wanted to give our listeners the hope that yes, the pandemic was here. And we went through it one year, guys, if the pandemic took almost a year, out of our lives, but a lot of us during the same period, actually managed to take our lives to a you know, far better level. But even for those who managed to benefit financially, at least from this pandemic, nobody benefited from this pandemic emotional necessarily, because we're social creatures. However, it was good enough for us to learn from it. And please do know that the way we went through 2020, we can go through the rest of the 2021 during those periods where the pandemic still has to be brought under control, because unfortunately, the pace of vaccinations are rather slower than basically intended, thanks to the I don't know, extremely difficult means of logistics for the vaccine distribution. Thank you Pfizer for having finally a great way to make it easy. That was a joke, by the way. But overall, it all depends on you know, your perspective. And hopefully, if you have the right perspective, you can go through the rest of 2021 with the same level of zest and energy and enthusiasm as as you could have gone through 2020. And hopefully, more importantly, we have to stay hopeful that this shall pass. And we will get out of this hopefully, and we will move on to a life where we can truly appreciate and just imagine the feeling that you will have, let's say, according to what Fauci said, let's say it's q4, it's 2021. It's fall season, you're getting close to your new year, holidays, next New Year holidays, and boom, just imagine you can just go wherever you want no masks on, you can talk to anybody can shake hands, or use your hands in a variety of other ways, both appropriate or inappropriate in public. And all of these things are going to simply make it more enjoyable. Just imagine this man, just imagine the joy, the world will experience one's life goes back to normal. So a lot of the things that we used to take for granted now will become like blessings, and we can actually enjoy them. So for that reason, I'm tired. First of all, I cannot wait to be in a situation where I can experience all that, basically. And secondly, I want our listeners to imagine that that day will come the day where you your social life goes back to normal. We can go wherever you want no social distancing, and we can just truly appreciate the little things. We We thought we valued but didn't really pay a lot of attention to but now we can actually really enjoy them. So for me personally, it means another year of hustle, but with hope and basically just

Pouya LJ  30:12

perfect 21 for the win and pun intended, blackjack, forget it. All right. All right. Okay, thank you then, as always for joining us.

Dan  30:24

My pleasure, buddy.

Pouya LJ  30:26

And thank you everybody for listening to this episode. Again. If you want to share your own epiphanies or any comments, please feel free to do so. until later episode. Have a good one.

We begin the year 2021 with hopes for a better future and BTP podcast is here to accompany you throughout this year. If you have not subscribed to Beyond the Present podcast then head to iTunes, Podbean, or Stitcher and press the subscribe so that you will be among the first to get instant access to all upcoming programs.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

pandemic, year, life, stay, work, building, simply, social, podcast, great, understand, friends, social distancing, taught, zest, conquered, wonderful, energy, bright, whole new level

SPEAKERS

Dan

Dan  00:00

The 2020 election was simultaneously historic, controversial, unconventional, and consequential. In this episode of Beyond the Present podcast Daniel and Pouya discuss the events of the election, shed light on some of the biggest myths and rumors surrounding the election and discuss its consequences for the next 8 years not only in the United States but also all over the world. 

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

trump, election, world, people, biden, america, president, joe biden, fact, vote, cycle, nations, pandemic, fortunately, years, donald trump, states, history, benefiting, terms

SPEAKERS

Pouya LJ, Dan

Pouya LJ  00:09

Hello, and welcome back to yet another let's talk edition of the BTP podcast here with Daniel Mulligan. How's it going, Dan?

Dan  00:16

What a man, buddy? How are you how's it going live could not have been any better. I mean, we're just post the election and Biden officially won the election today. As of now all the basically almost all the votes have been counted. So life is amazing and more important, I'm so glad to be here with you, after a while because we were super busy involved with the election and a few other things. And now we're back for another let's talk edition at this, you know, amazing moment right now. So I'm pretty happy and couldn't be, you know, happy to be here with you talking about all the cool things when I share hopefully with our listeners.

Pouya LJ  00:49

Absolutely. I've been eagerly waiting to start recording this episode. And hopefully a couple of days after the recording, the audience will hear it. Maybe even sooner. But we we sit on this for a few few days, I think 11 days since the day of the election to to talk about it mainly because so first of all the few five for four or five few days, obviously nothing was clear. And there was a mayhem after that. So we're gonna talk about all of that, obviously. But now we got a chance. So yes, officially, Biden seems to be the president elect, although Donald Trump really doesn't like that and keeps coming up with excuses. So today, we're basically what the intention is to talk about one of the impacts of all of this around the world, and what are the impacts of Trump being Trump for, for democracy and the US political system as a whole? And who, who better than to talk about this with, then you? Okay, so what is your general take on all of this very broadly?

Dan  01:51

First of all, I think this was one of the best elections the US ever experienced, probably the most historic election that we can think of, because there was a lot at stake at stake during this election, not only for America, but for the entire world, including what it really means to, you know, live in a democratic society. So I think that this election also was, in a way, very unique in that it took place during a pandemic. Now, of course, there are states that has experienced other tough elections during even civil wars. But this one really happened at a time where America was the most divided, and the kind of was the most hurt. And the pandemic had damaged, basically, the economy far, basically too much for it to actually be ignored by the voters. But then again, America was also facing with a lot of other issues, including a racial, basically a crisis, where we felt that despite all of our advancements in the modern technologies, and in other areas of life, culturally, and educationally, we're still seeing this racism running rampant. And that's where the Black Lives Matters movement actually got started this year, along with a focus on bringing into awareness what it really means to be a black man in America, and what it means for other minorities, including, let's say, for example, the Muslims, let's say, middle easterns, let's say those who come from minority backgrounds, people of color. So this was a, I think, a turning point during this election, where Americans decided that once and for all, they're not going to stand for a lot of the values that they escaped from, they or their parents or their grandparents, when they moved to the United States, after all the US was this nation made by immigrants, and people who went there. Basically, generations ago, they all wanted one thing to live in a free society, where they are not judged by the color of their skin. But ultimately, having seen what has happened so far in this election, and all the ups and downs really was probably one of those dramatic elections, even more so than what we had earlier with george bush and Al Gore, and the year 2000, basically, and how it changed almost everything for the world. But fortunately, we did not engage with so much election fraud, because this time, fortunately, as was announced by almost all experts, this was indeed the most secure election because there were so many threats. I mean, Trump right now is accusing fraud for the election, not knowing that, basically, the US officials were quite prepared for this, given the fact that in 2018, or 2016, it was Trump who benefited from a lot of these, basically, voter fraud, if you will, in that many nations, allegedly, Russia especially got involved with trying to involve and influence basically, the election and the results in favor of Donald Trump, obviously. So now, of course, somebody who is accused of that background, obviously would then assume that yeah, this is like what however he does it, so probably there's got to be some sort of, you know, fraud going on. But the fact of the matter is that Trump like all the other basically Republicans and the right wing extremists will have to come to, you know, an agreement on this and to have to somehow acknowledge the fact that they were defeated by a large majority. As of today, as of right now, almost 78 million Americans have voted for Joe Biden, this is a historical number, this is unbelievable, unheard of, and just quite frankly, a clear sign of victory, not just by the left or by the liberals. But you know, I think by almost all modern population who are rather sensible, educated, and they understand that we need a change, and that by going back through time, and trying to legalize, I don't know, things like coal mining, getting out of, you know, very important. Basically, PACs such as the Paris Paris Agreement and other things, we cannot have a good future. And which is why I personally, think of this election be one of the best ever, because it really happened at a time where change was needed. And fortunately, the Americans will actually have decided, and they made their voice heard, despite the fact that this was a pandemic, despite the fact that Trump wanted to create so many limitations for those who wanted to vote by mail, given the fact that he could not leave their houses. Now, we've seen the results. And fortunately, we're happy to announce that as of now, Mr. Biden is no longer basically a former Vice President, but the president elect, unfortunately, by January 20, we're going to actually see a lot of changes that are currently being done gradually, basically, go out of the way as Joe Biden will hopefully on that day be inaugurated. And we'll we'll hopefully, we'll see a great future for not only America, but the rest of the world.

Pouya LJ  06:35

Wow, that's great. Yeah, I mean, there has been a lot of problems. But before we go further, we go into everything. But do you think you will, by Hammond, Trump, do you think he will ever officially concede?

Dan  06:47

Well, legally speaking, Trump is not legally obliged to concede, nor is he really obliged to attend the inauguration of basically, Joe Biden. So he's not legally obliged, and given the fact that he's not they live lives, and he's a businessman, which means he probably will not do anything that he's not legally obliged. Especially if it's not gonna, you know, serve him or serve his image, he probably will not. But the fact of the matter is that he cannot simply just barricade himself in the White House, say, Oh, I don't care, you guys, you all have the fraud. It's all not true. He can't do that anymore. Because I really believe that Donald Trump was a reality TV president. And we have seen in the past four years, what he's done was nothing more than just a traumatic experience that was in no way presidential. And he took his, you know, reality TV mindset from the, you know, the TV show, apprentice, you're fired, I'm gonna fire everybody here now. And he actually recently even fired Esper, which was just incredibly, you know, just preposterous to even you know, think about that. But ultimately, we have seen him as a man who was in deep need for attention to create this, you know, these series of dramas. And he literally, I think he even saw his presidency as a TV show. In many cases, he didn't, he didn't actually produce certain, basically posters and certain photos of him, showing things that were very cinematic and not so much political in nature. I mean, if you just take a look at the back of the past four years, who would have made to take all these photos that are so cinematic, like, Oh, yeah, the sanctions are coming baby, to be followed on the next episode. So like, he perhaps, you know, thought of that, basically, I don't know how he did it. I know that he's definitely, you know, was a probably a bug in the system. Because there was an I personally was so much involved in this because I really wanted some answers. Because if Donald Trump would have won another term, that would have meant that he's the kind of person that is fit, and ready to lead, you know, versus America. And that is simply from my point of view, quite frankly, unacceptable, because that's not the kind of man that represents anything American basically, especially in the, you know, global community that I am a part of. So for that reason, now that he's a one term president, this clearly shows to the whole world, that Donald Trump was not the system. He was a bug in the system that fortunately, was quickly removed, because if he would have won another term, he was no longer a bug in the system, but the system itself. But now the whole world knows that no one can lead, like Trump and get a second term. It's just not possible. Although given his background and what he thinks he could do with his power, he perhaps had his own delusions of what he could do as a dictator, as probably the first stickler in the US, you know, history. But fortunately, the Constitution is much stronger than that. And it's, you know, written in a way that makes sure that a president cannot be a king or a dictator. And fortunately, that's what we're going to see so far. And despite all of his allegations and allegations regarding what has happened, almost always legal experts have mentioned that the election was fully monitor. And for the two reasons, because number one, the US officials were on edge the entire time, because of the threat of hacking, that, you know, was basically, you know, always in the corner, as you probably know, the 2016 election was very, very, basically, you know, controversial and that we thought there were so many nations were involved with this, mainly Russia to try to hack the election and try to change the results. So for that reason, this time around, he was officials were quite aware, on edge ready to, you know, tackle the problems of any possible intrusion, which is why this was dubbed the most secure election in the US history, given the fact that we knew there were a lot of threats. We wanted to make sure that, you know, this is not going to be a, you know, major issue and that many nations do not influence the election, basically, which is why this was done. And obviously, even like, if you look at like social media, many of Trump's tweets were actually being censored for the first time in the US history. And I believe that where we're seeing a president's tweets are being actually censored by, you know, let's be Twitter. And the reason was because he was propagating certain, basically false information, and allegations that are simply not true, nor based on facts. So because of this, not only I would, this was one of the most secure elections in the US history. I think it's one of the best, I after few election, basically, I got a text from one of my followers, like, then I heard there were some dead people voting. Well, first of all, were you there yourself? Did you examine the votes? Did you check the names and the signatures, I mean, there were so many mail those actually got discredited because of their, you know, signature. I mean, let's be honest, voting by mail is not an ideal way to vote, because you actually have a much higher chance of not being able to vote than being able to vote. Because even if your signature does not match what you've already submitted, you are not going to be able to, you know, make your voice heard. So you're always going to be counted, it's going to be discredited. So in such a system where even a slight tweak in your signature can make your vote basically, dismissed, you think that's a dead person can vote, I mean, just really makes no sense, in my opinion. So all of these allegations are false. This was the most secure election, the US history, as proven by all the experts, and not by those who have won or lost, but by those who are in the middle, those whose job it is to control and, you know, watch over the election, basically. So there are a lot of rumors that that people voting, I don't know, people voting five 5000 times, as was mentioned by one of Trumps, basically lawyers, but as of now, almost under the legal cases have actually gone through. And I'm not even sure if Trump really wants to go with recounts, because if he does, yes, of course, spend a lot of don't, you know, donation money, although when my friend said like, Dan just wants to get the money and just, you know, keep it for himself. He's not gonna actually go for the recount. We'll see. We'll see how it goes. But as of now, everything is quite clear. And the whole world knows that Joe Biden is the 46th President knighted states, most statesman around the world have already congratulated Joe Biden. Though, of course, there are always exceptions, putting being one of them, for the obvious reasons. And even like many such leaders, who were vehemently against a democratic approach, and who were, you know, strong supporters of, basically, Donald Trump, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and the King of Saudi Arabia, they both have already congratulated Joe Biden. This means that even those nations who are benefiting from those very few nations, because Trump has already lost a lot of allies, because very few nations who are benefiting supposedly benefiting from Trump's preposterous policies themselves have already congratulated basically Joe Biden, and have realized that Donald Trump is now going to be in the White House longer. So that is why it was that this election is pretty much, you know, a pretty much over and we know who the President is, we know who the next President will be. And obviously, we couldn't be any happier than this.

Pouya LJ  14:06

Yeah, well, make sense. Now, I you mentioned Yes. I mean, obviously 78 million people voted for Biden. But we also cannot really discount the fact that 72 million people voted for Trump, and maybe for good, you're right, that they had. And I think it's really Paramount that. I mean, you're obviously lots of speculation as why that is, I mean, some are his base, but I don't think like he has 70 million base. I think there's definitely some sort of other, you know, reasoning behind it. And a lot of people were attributing that to lack of appeal of the opposition, candidate, Biden to those specific people for various reasons from his political agenda, his age, etc. So I think first of all, it's Paramount that we, as you know, but I mean, liberals and democrats on their own, but as a you know, as a society, we need to understand that appeal that Trump had a lack of appeal, rather than the opposition had. What are your thoughts personally on that?

Dan  15:10

Well, first of all, please, you know, bear in mind that this election was one of the most, you know, perhaps one of the, if not the largest collection of the US history, and that we had the most number of participants, if you compare this to other elections, so once you have almost everybody voting in, especially, given the fact that there were, you know, mailing voting allowed on almost all states, there are, of course, exceptions, and there are different terms and conditions, but generally was allowed. So that's one of the reasons why Trump actually got more votes this time around, then, you know, there during the last election, but the fact of the matter is that America is divided. And I'm really happy that in this situation, Biden is going to be our next person, because he was actually not so much. So left, as opposed to many other candidates who are running the primaries, because Joe Biden stands for, from my point of view, middle slightly tilted towards the left, which is why we need him right now. to somehow people, you know, bridge the gap between the two sides. And he says America, because let's be honest, America is now very divided. It's a clear fact. But the reason that it is happening right now, it is not because of the government itself, or the system, but rather, because the fact that we are going through a transitional cycle, you see, the US has already gone through two major transitional cycles in his history. And because we are now entering a new phase in the American life, and of course, in the global community as a whole, because we are now at a moment where we have a major clash between those who have been left behind, and those who are making it, which is why states like New York, and California have generally mainly been blue states, you know, for the most part, because they are well off there, you know, they are quite rich and highly educated. But states basically where, of course, I was very, you know, surprised when I heard Florida actually went back to Trump again, but certain states, we are seeing, basically the quality of life degradation. So for that reason, this class is quite normal. And by the way, I don't believe that this division is going to go anytime, go away anytime soon, even after you know, Biden's the president, because this is a cycle that America has to go through. And I believe that this cycle probably is going to get a little bit worse. And I think that the worst America will not be even now in the next few years or after pandemic, but the US will be at its worst position, I believe in the year 2028. So the real challenge that we will be facing is going to be the next eight years actually. And only after 2028 as the US enters the next cycle, only then we will hopefully see more stability. Why? Because now we're living in a world especially like let's look into us right now, where we have so much basically, disparity, and there is a lot of problems with in terms of how we could you know, people could make a living. So the world has become more modern. But not everybody is necessarily suitable for a lifestyle that is designed to adapt itself with its technologies, but education. So now we are seeing a major fights among those who have been left behind, and those who are not financially as well off, versus those who are making it. And that's how, by the way Trump won the last election because he tried to appeal to those people who felt they're left behind. Let's say the guy says, I'm a truck driver, or I used to be a miner and I cannot learn how to use the computer, well, I don't want to go back to school, I don't care about America's commitment to global warming, I just want to make some you know, make some money and make ends meet. So for such people with a, you know, short sighted perspective, they are going to demonize those who are perhaps have, you know, got a little bit better. And they're simply not going to care about many of the US commitments to the international community, all they care about is to get their job back and to get back on track, which is why we are seeing this struggle. But if you look at history, not only of America, but the world, you realize that whenever we have this division among those who have been left behind, and those who are making it, history tends to favor those who are forward oriented, much more so than those who are backward oriented. Because in throughout the history, all civilizations, once one group took the sign of the future, and one too excited the past, it was always the one that sets out a future that was actually in the end victorious and managed to change society, whether we go back to the Roman Empire, whether we go back to, for example, Renaissance era in Europe, it's always been a force in the EU in the US, this has happened already twice, basically, as we've gone through this. So in the third, transitional secondary states, we inevitably have to face with that struggle. And that friction caused by the right mainly those who are supporting the right wing, for keeping America in its current position, as the rest of America tried to take America forward and the struggle as we've seen so far has been manifested in a variety of ways. And it will continue if you think that this election means it's over, you are mistaken, because this is just the beginning of a lot and a series of fights and struggles that us has to face as it has already faced twice in the past, to go through the third cycle. And once hopefully, through good leadership, we go through this third cycle, and the US is made more equal more fair, and people are ready to take part in you know, most of our rights to take part in a new economy and a new world, then hopefully, we will enter the prosperous United States, which hopefully will be around the year 2032 2032. And by then we'll see a very, very different world, both in terms of you know, what happens the US and geopolitically with our rivals, including China, including Russia, and Europe, of course, and many other things. So for me, personally, I don't see this victory as the end, I see this as the beginning of the end. And that end is the third cycle. And this is going to take about eight years. So if you think that things are gonna get easier, just wait a little bit, just a couple of years, and you're gonna see what tension really means. However, given the fact that this has been done twice already, I'm very confident this is going to be also eventually passed. And as we entered the 2030s, hopefully, the US will then be a far more unified nation. And that'll Of course, benefiting the entire world, I believe.

Pouya LJ  21:20

All right, so what I hear you say is buckle up. I'm just kidding.

Dan  21:24

That's exactly what we should do. Guys, if you think this is over. just just just grab some stuff. I don't know, get get ready, because this is just the beginning of the action. Actually.

Pouya LJ  21:33

That's a, that's encouraging. Yeah, especially

Dan  21:36

Well, certainly for those who are living outside the US. So for example, actually curious, because I'm clearly clearly sure about this matter that basically, Justin Trudeau was so much anti Trump, I mean, I love to analyze, like his body language and the meetings with Trump during the NAFTA agreements, and like the way he would like, yeah, thank you, Trump. So like, I would like I found there was just so much distrust, and so much, you know, even hatred towards each other. But right now, what is the perspective of let's say, I don't know, the Canadians regarding the American, you know, election? What are what are you guys saying? Actually?

Pouya LJ  22:16

Um, I don't know. That's a very good question. I'm, obviously I didn't survey people, but based on my personal experience, and things that I hear around, I think Canada, actually, obviously, very culturally, like the rest of the West, and even the world is very impacted by the US. But I think they're the divide, not to the extreme that the US is experiencing. But I think that divide along the cultural lines and thought process exists also in Canada. I mean, there were obviously people who were like individuals, not politicians, per se, but individuals who were in favor and define of Trump, maybe maybe less in terms of proportionality than in the US, but that clearly that divide existed here. But you're right, like, obviously, Trudeau is a different character. And he definitely didn't like Trump, especially because of his policies. I mean, I mean, I

Dan  23:12

named one international leader who actually like Trump, I cannot think of like maybe like one or two. And that's just probably because of luck. Because he almost literally dissed everyone, all the, you know, global leaders. So I'm very glad that he will be soon gone, because, as you probably know, I work in international community, I work in multiple countries. And what I've seen is the image of America being tarnished and damaged in the past four years. And, I mean, I was like, incredible. You see, you know, things like we go to Germany, you see, for example, are using Donald Trump's basically photo in their bathroom. And it's basically like, you pretty much have to, you know, do the deeds while looking at his face. And as you know, basically, you know, look around, so you're seeing that, and like in Europe, Europe was extremely against Trump, because of all the things they did against Europe. The same thing, of course, applies to the Middle East, although there were some exceptions. But mostly it was negative, basically, Canada was severely hurt, so was Mexico. And I cannot think of so many nations who actually benefit from Trump or even light him, which is why I'm so glad because of In fact, my major area of activity is International Business and Commerce. So seeing the fact that we're going to see a lot less tension internationally, although, of course, the episode with China, thanks to Trump will still stay there and probably will be here for the next eight years, until the US can first leave that, you know, third cycle. But still, I'm very happy to know that the international basically community will now be a lot more stable in the fact that the power that comes with the White House generally has basically white effects and it could reach basically almost all over the world and if you have an idiot as the commander in chief Things to get a little bit dangerous. And if you have an idiot as an international policymaker, that could lead to a lot of problems. So fortunately, I'm very glad that at least an international community, we're going to now see a shift in the way America is perceived. And of course, as the policies get enhanced over time, we're going to see hopefully, more improvement, although, as I've already mentioned, and I'm, I've already predicted the election correctly, almost everybody around me said that Trump is the winner. I've been repeatedly saying since July 3, and Vine is the winner, and he was my next prediction. Basically, first, number one, keep an eye out for who's going to be our next president. Basically, it's gonna be any transition between vice president or president at some point, perhaps, because I think that the United States, it's time for the US to actually have its first female president. And the second thing I would like to predict right now is about what will things what things will lead to because, as I already mentioned, we are in the phase, we have to go through this cycle. And that, you know, transition is going to be the most difficult that at this very moment, given the fact that now the division is quite clear. And because of this, we're going to see a lot of tension. So the US is going to be affected tremendously by a major inner conflicts for the next eight years, most of which will be caused by this division. However, for those of you who are perhaps going to listen to us for three years, five years from now, as the US will face with that crisis, like oh, my gosh, the world is coming to an end, just like the last election, you probably panic a little bit, I'm telling you, right now, if you perhaps got the chance to let us back in a couple of years from now. And you were in the middle of that crisis, please do enter, the batch shall pass as well, because this cycle is predictable, economically, politically, and socially. So we will go through that phase as well. And hopefully things will get better. Much better. Of course, by the time we reach 2028, and we're going to have basically the next election. So for now, just this is my prediction for the next eight years. Obviously, it's still gonna be much better. But there's a lot of work to be done. And of course, we will have to face with a lot of challenges ahead. But I'm pretty sure that America is fit to deal with that challenge. And hopefully, it'll be better for all of us.

Pouya LJ  27:11

All right. I know that that sounds interesting. And I mean, obviously, there's a lot to be said about all of this. And I'm sure we're going to discuss that maybe not not as my main topic, but as an intro to other conversations that we have a catch up on the world events. And we're going to talk more about this. But before we leave, is there anything that you want to talk about that we left behind, didn't talk about?

Dan  27:36

Well, first of all, Pouyjix is good, you know, talk to you, basically. And generally, today was a great topic. And I'm very happy that Joe Biden is now the president elect, because we could not have possibly imagined what damage he would have caused. If we had to go through that third cycle with Trump as the president, it would have led to disastrous consequences, because in that situation where the two sides are going at each other, we need a leader who can actually calm both sides down. And of course, Biden will be the best leader. Some people are talking about his age. There's a reason why he is the President is not just the fact that he's the Vice President of Barack Obama, that age will itself play a role in our next election in 2024. And hopefully, it'll lead to some further development in knighted States of America, in terms especially with respect to you know, female rights and what women can do in politics. But ultimately, we discussed mainly, the issue of whether or not this election was fair. And as we've said many times, that when the session was fair, it was the most secure and most reliable election, probably in the US history. So to Donald Trump's dismay, this election was fair, it is over it is done. Biden is the 46 presidents and Trump's right now, teams are trying their best are trying to fight tooth and nail to get this thing through. But that's pretty much from my point of view, it's nothing more than trying to say face, and I have no problem with that. I think everybody has the right to try to save their face. And I think that's precisely what Trump has in mind. It doesn't have to concede he doesn't have to attend the, you know, integration of Joe Biden, but for the American people, and for the, you know, international community around the world, for all of our listeners all over the world, they should know that this election was fair, it was secure, it was reliable. And it was a concrete message sent to the White House and to the world, that America will not tolerate dictatorial leaders or will not tolerate anything that is not American democratic, or that could somehow go against, you know, the well being of the entire global community because America has a has a role here. America has a responsibility. There are kids right now listen to us. We're living in countries that are ruled and governed by dictators. There are people in this, you know, in this world who are living in countries where they had their president for 25 years. There are now people in the streets of Belarus, who are still fighting for the rights to for their for their right to actually have their own president elected. There are people you know, in Eastern Europe, they're people that middle east there are people all over the world who look at America as an example. And it's America's job to show the world that democracy works. And that well as much as never, ever the best basically. And never a perfect system of governance is probably the worst except for all the others. And that is why it's best for us to adopt true democracy and allow the people at basically to make their voice heard and, you know, show and send the message of democracy to all over the world so that hopefully someday, we will not have to see things like what we've seen in Belarus or other countries where people are have no they can't, cannot rely on the results of their elections. And hopefully, this is going to be a good message for all of us all over the world.

Pouya LJ  30:53

And on that note, we come to the end of our today's talk. I hope everybody enjoyed and thank you, Dan, for joining us again, my pleasure, buddy. And thank you all for listening. I hope you enjoyed it and I hope you got informed. Please let us know if you have any thoughts or comments in the comment section. And until a later episode.

Going through an economic recession can be a daunting experience for all of us but relying on instinct during tough times can only sabotage your financial well-being. In this episode and as part of the entrepreneurial edition of Beyond the Present podcast Daniel will share with you the essential survival techniques to bring your finances under control and also offers some ways you can even profit from recessions!

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SUMMARY KEYWORDS

recession, cash, economic recession, tough, property, tough situations, money, business, online, panic, pandemic, economic crisis, buy, situation, currency, investors, opportunist, call, lose, bad

SPEAKERS

Dan

Dan  00:11

Hello, welcome to yet another episode of beyond the present podcast, the entrepreneurial edition. My name is Daniel Morgan. And today we're going to talk about how to go through a financial crisis without getting a lot of damages on your bills, as well as your bank accounts, as well as in your life. And above all, on your emotions. See, guys, once you are going through an economic recession, the entire rules of the game of financial change. And today, I want to actually prepare you with certain basically, techniques and somehow abilities and skills and knowledge that will allow you to resist going down in tough situations. So for today, we're right now obviously, if you're in the US, we are officially in a recession, obviously. And this same story applies in almost every country I'm currently working in or I have a company in so think about the European Union, it's official in a very bad stage of recession, think about, basically China is already going down heavily. The Middle East is not doing far better, although things are still quite good in places like Dubai, Emirates, but still Middle East as a whole is actually experiencing a lot of shrinkage in terms of their economic development. The same story, you know, applies to Eastern Europe, Russia is not doing any better. So pretty much anywhere I know things are really, really tough economically. And because of this, we have to prepare ourselves for what is about to occur, hopefully after the pandemic is over, and the recession will then gradually disappear. So whenever you find yourself in an economic recession, the biggest problem is what cash that's exactly what it is, however, not in the way you think you see, many of us will still keep our jobs, they will still go to work, many of us will actually even be able to generate more income and certain businesses, let's say if you're especially in e commerce, or if you're working online, you probably will do much better during a recession like this. But in the end, we all face with economic uncertainties. If we are an investor, you see things are going down in the stock market. You see the Dow Jones Industrial Average, s&p 500, all coming down. If you're an import and export, you see that oh my goodness, this thing really is increasing the cost of delivery and shipping because of all the logistics of becoming a lot more expensive, because of a pandemic. And of course, if you have already lost your job, if you're working as a waiter, if you're working as I don't know, perhaps a trainer at the gym, you might say that, oh my goodness, actually, I'm not going to work at all. So in these tough moments, the first reaction of most of us is to panic. It's all over. I'm gonna go broke, I got no money, man. I'm so poor now. And this panic, and this, you know, fear will actually turn into a vicious cycle where you feel worse and worse. And guess what, end up spending more money on your credit card. That's actually you know, pretty amazing. When you're making good money, you actually spend less, because you have less time to go out and start doing shopping. But ironically, the moment a lot of us we lose jobs, guess what's the first thing we most of us, we actually tend to do? Yeah, let's go shopping, I got some free time. Let's enjoy this right, you would do the exact opposite. The very first thing you want to do when you face with a major economic recession be the loss of the value of your currency. Right now one of my friends actually just called me from Moscow. And as of now ruble is suffering heavily. And one of my friends, basically in Turkey right now said the exact same thing as happened with lira the Turkish currency. And other one of my friends in Brazil said, our currency right now is one of the worst in the world. So if you are right now one of these countries where the currency is dropping, you might start panicking, like oh my gosh, I'm going to lose it all. But please do understand that most currency trends are temporary, and that most governments actually will find a way to reverse that trend. So making very bad decisions about your money could lead to certain problems. So you're saying Well, okay, okay, I got some cash right now ruble is coming, I don't know ripples losing value. I don't know Leroy is coming down. What should I do? in these moments, understand that in tough economic situations, your assets become a lot less liquid. Now, what is liquidity? It's your ability to transfer and to basically exchange an asset for cash. So for example, let's say things are very fine and you are emits an economic boom. And you have a lot of cool assets, real estate, stocks, and so on and so forth. So now, you need the money. You want to paid for your, you know, kids college tuition, you want to actually travel. So if you're in a good economic moment, it's so easy, then go ahead and sell that property. And get the cash for it, or to sell for example your car and get the cash for it right. But the problem is, whenever you're facing with an economic recession, the first thing that happens to all of us is that we lose liquidity. So your property might actually go up in value, but you can't find a new buyer, because the property right now has no interested buyer for it, because people don't have the cash for it, they would actually use mortgage options, but because of the uncertainty, a lot of investors and not all, but a lot of investors lashley stay away from it all. And they find a more safe approach a safer approach towards their, you know, investments. So oftentimes, in these situations, investors tend to move towards what we call safety measurements, things like buying gold, things like buying certain types of currencies, and that reduces the liquidity of your basically properties, your assets, and so on. So in those situations, what you want to do is to make sure that you have as much cash set aside as possible, I repeat, guys, cash will save the day, a lot of us we say, well, but then I don't want to keep my money in bank of america, because I'm gonna just get what, oh, point 5% return on my annual investment, I understand this money in the bank is not meant to be an investment, money in the bank or in a let's say, CD, sort of go deposit, or and basically, other types of bank basically accounts. They're not meant to be thought of as investments. They're meant to be your security. And because of his he in these tough situations, the first thing you want to do is to increase your level of financial security. And that means having access to liquid assets or simply cash in your bank account, and saying, well, well, are you saying there should just keep I don't know, $5,000? In my bank account, yes, that's exactly what I'm telling you right now, the first thing you want to do in a crisis is to have cash ready to be spent, basically, on your MasterCard on your music, or whatever it is, right. So if usually, on average, you let's just say, you know, typically you keep about few hundred dollars on your debit card. And then the rest, you basically make expenses by let's say, your credit card. in a tough situation, I recommend increasing the amount of money on your debit card by at least five to six times. So if on average, you keep about $300 on your debit card, I want you to actually increase that number by somewhere up to 1500 or $1,800. inside of your debit card, you're saying well, why should I do that? The answer is the psychological impact that it will have on you. You see, I know so many investors, who made ridiculous mistakes, just because they needed the cash. I know a lot of property owners who sold their property at the worst possible time with major losses, because they needed the cash and they could not get it anywhere else. And some opportunist came along and said, Oh man, listen, this isn't a recession, I'm gonna buy your property, but 20% of the price of the market. And she's like, well, Oh, my gosh, what can I do? And guess what? That guy's not gonna see any other buyer anytime soon. It's a recession. So guess what he's sold the property below the market price. The appanoose got the property, waited for a few months or a years until you know, the recession was over and boom sold at a profit 20% above the market average. So that guy made 40% from that investment, while the other person lost all of that. In this case, the other person is lost was the opportunists when you don't want to make the same mistake, whether it is your stocks, just like dead men, I just bought all these stocks man and and they're coming down. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is coming down, man, s&p 500 is down, I'm looking my stocks are all red man. Well, in this situation, if you already have the cash in your bank account, you're not going to panic so much. And you can wait for the perfect moment. You see, most of the worst decisions we make during a recession come from us being extremely needy of some sort of cash basically help. And because of that, we end up making very bad decisions. We end up selling things we should simply hold on to we end up accepting projects, which are not actually accepting the business, because we somehow are not fit for this and was actually an end and the end ends up causing us a lot more losses than profits in the end, right. So because of is I want you from now to say okay, whenever I'm in a recession, the first thing I will do is to build financial defense. Now, what is financial defense simple, cash saved, not for investment. Not for some big purchase, not for some luxury purchase, not for a cool watch or a cool car. It's cash. Just to ensure that you will have enough money, if you happen to run out of cash, and guess what, you're very likely to run out of cash during a recession or a major crisis. And because of this, keeping cash on you is one of the most important thing you can do to prepare yourself mentally and emotionally for a recession. Other than that, after you've already put aside some cash, and now you have financial defense, the other steps are cutting back expenses, which is very, very important. Now, in a tough recession, generally, we have more free time. In the past, when we had to actually go to stores and starting to shop basically, in the stores, it was not as easy to actually spend a lot of money. But nowadays, you can just stay at home all the time, you got a lot of free time, because we're unemployed, and you're not working and the clients are not calling and there's none of this any sales being made. So you got the chance to guess what, look for some very good deals lucrative deals online, and start shopping it away. So you wonder the exact opposite. When things are looking tough, you need to remove as much of your consumers habits as possible, it might be a little bit difficult, because you know, you have a lot of free time. But one of the best ways you can cut back on your expenses, is to dedicate that time to some other productive pursuit, learning a new skill, or exercising, spend time with your family, do not spend a lot of free time randomly browsing the internet, because guess what's gonna pop up, you're browsing through the internet, and boom, another suggested post comes up on Instagram, recommending you to buy this and buy that. And if you have nothing to do, well, it seems like it's 30% off, why not? Let's try it. And you start wasting that money basically, without having anything to replace it with to the second part is cutting back on your personal expenses. And the same thing applies to your business. So if you are running a business, if you have some staff, it's Stop wasting money. I know a lot of my friends, when they're not making money, their business, they spent a lot of darn money trying to redecorate their offices or create new charts and put it there like they're actually spending more money even though they have no clients to serve. So you want to step on the brake pedal here and stop that, you know destructive behavior. When things are tough, the costs must be minimized as much as possible. The third element is actually becoming an opportunist understand, all recessions will bring the worst in people financially, this caused them that somehow panic, it causes them to somehow worry. And because of this, they're, they're very much likely going to make a lot of bad decisions. Remember that example I gave you earlier about that, you know, desperate gentlemen who wanted to sell his house because he needs the cash right now? Well, you could be the other guy in this situation, understanding in a very bad recession, most people are not willing to, you know, simply make purchases, or buy, especially assets, like real estate, and so on, like stocks, when the market is red, and everything is coming down. Most people are selling, that's why it's coming down. They're not buying, well, if you have enough cash to support you, and you feel emotionally and psychologically secure. Well guess what, now is the time to buy the stocks. If you have your mortgage setup, if you have a good credit history, and you see that you know that this guy is very desperate, he's putting an offer for real estate that is slightly below the marketplace. Why not go to his house, whatever offer he's got, reduce the amount by 10%. Make him an offer and say, You know what, buddy, I understand this. And I you just by the way, all the time, I'm going to give you a great recommendation to get good deals in real estate, far below the market. First of all, wait for a tough economic situation like this, or wait for any moment where the number of transactions come down. In this situation, people are not buying properties, you then look at all the offerings, and all the possible cases. And then you select whichever property you wants to, you know, basically purchase below the marketplace. So you kind of know the market price. And you said like this guy or this person is selling it at or below the market price. This itself shows that the seller is rather desperate is the kind of seller who failed to do his or her homework, who did not save enough cash for the tough moments. And now he's in need of money. And guess what? He's got nothing. He's got to sell the house. so in this situation, you think that gentleman or lady a call and say, Well, I'm pretty interested in your property, and I'd like to, you know, give you guys a visit. You go to the place, let's say the property, it's like, you know, let's say middle, basically a class type of, you know, property, three bedrooms, for example, and in a very good location and price approximately, let's say about $800,000 right. So, you know, the market value of this property is $800,000. However, you also know This is a very tough moment, and there aren't a lot of buyers. So here's what I recommend you guys to do. You go and say, Okay, I like your property. It's very nice. But I would like to buy it for $700,000. So you actually make an offer $100,000 below the, you know, the price they actually put on the website. And of course, we're going to say, Oh, yeah, for sure. Of course, I say No, man, I'm sorry, that's the lowest price possible, we can go below 800,000. It's a recession, there are a lot of buyers. So here's what you do. Grab your business card, write the amount that you want to buy it. So I grab my business card and write down $700,000 ready in cash right now call me hand that business cards to the gentleman. And then they might say like, well, man, let's negotiate. You say, Matt, no time for negotiation, man, I got to get going. You leave the place and you shut up. You don't call to say what's going on, you don't send a text message. Oh, by the way, you guys nothing. You hand out the card has got your number and the offers fixed 700,000 hundred k below the market price, give them the card, get out of the place and shut up. And wait. Ironically, in two out of three cases, you are going to be hearing a call back after a few weeks. Maximum one month, it's a recession. And you're gonna hear the call. So Mr. Molgan? Ah, well, you want to make the deal. And you say, Are you sure Sir, I give the price 700,000. I cannot offer anything more. Oh, sure. No problem, come over, boom, in the same period, that everybody is panicking, wasting their money, you will do the exact opposite. Because you're not panic, you got your you know, savings aside. So you can, you know, go through the, you know, currently this whole crisis without much difficulty. But not only you can survive through this crisis, why not thrive and get better. So guess what, congratulations, you just made a great purchase, in a recession, below the market price this way, a couple of years, four or five, six years. And you can sell it right back from my point of view with no less than 25% ROI. And that's pretty good on a property, you know, priced $800,000. So if you want to, you know, look at this perspective, you should become an opportunist in these tough economic situations. The same thing applies to businesses that are run online, e commerce, online sales, online consultancies and tutoring, various forms of online interactions, legal services, and as well as you know, anything that perhaps if you are into creating online games for your customers, if you're like a gaming company, anything that is online, will definitely go up in tough economic situations for a variety of reasons. And it's not just a pandemic. But if it's a tough situation, the chances are that illogical unemployment, and what do you think the unemployed do, sitting at home all the time, they're checking their phones, they're using the internet's So focusing your business and trying to make it as online as possible is another great way to not only survive through a pandemic or a major kind of crisis, but to thrive it. And the way to do so is very simple. You take your business as much online as possible, you're saying, Well, I'm selling chocolates, they got to come and smell it, no is not required to be smelled, just create that nice category on Instagram, perhaps start to promote that page, and then get the people to join in your websites to make a purchase online for you know, online delivery. Now it is pretty easy to deliver almost anything using a simple app to our customers, right. And if you are a consultant, if you are a let's say, you're a business consultant, so why not say From now on, we focus exclusively on doing sales via zoom, and then we deliver the you know, the goods on Skype or some other you know, online service, trying to take your business online will save a tremendous amount of time in transportation costs in traveling costs in case you have to fly to different cities or countries. And it allows you to make the same amount of money because nowadays, people are at home all the time, right? So the last stage, of course, was this one. And finally, I really believe that the biggest challenge of facing with an economic crisis is internal, it's psychological. It's that feeling that things will remain like this forever. So the biggest lesson for you today is to understand that in tough economic recessions, this too shall pass life, business and economies are all cyclical. So when one cycle ends, another begins and an economic recession will always see at the end, a turning point where things begin to get better. So please, no matter how how much your emotions are letting you down or saying Oh, things are gonna get worse. I know it's gonna get terrible. I know that all economic crises in the past were cycles, and no economic crisis lasted forever. It's just impossible by the very nature of Economics as well as you know, customer behavior, it's just impossible for any recession to last forever. It's just impossible. It's like it has to be somehow managed to be turnover, right? It has to somehow you know, for it to become a new trend. And then from then on, things get better, right. So, from now on, you heard a lot of great techniques about all these things. And you can use all of these, you know, techniques to get yourself to act differently in these tough situations and to hopefully not only manage to get through these difficult times, but actually profit and benefit from them in the long run as well. Alright guys, that's all the time we have for I hope you enjoyed the second basically entrepreneurial edition that we have offer for you here. And of course, if any other questions, you can actually contact me on social media on my website, or simply by sending me an email. That's all the time we have for I wish guys the very best. Let's go through this economic crisis. Not only safe and secure, but happy, probably a bit more profitable. Have a good one, and take care

Kanwar Gill graduated with a Master of Teaching from the University of Teaching and is an OCT certified teacher. He has been teaching for 10+ years, including being a Computer Science Teaching Assistant at the University of Toronto and tutoring students one-on-one. He has several years of experience as a software developer before transitioning to teaching.

In this episode, Pouya sits down with Kanwar to talk about the impact of Covid on education and the path forward to a better future for education.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

students, parents, platform, teachers, learning, happen, education, school, kid, feel, online, big, home, uncertainty, impacted, situation, class, place, people, technology

SPEAKERS

Pouya LJ, Kanwar

Pouya LJ  00:17

How's it going? Guys? How are you? Oh, pretty good. It's been a while we haven't had a podcast in I think a little over a year or about a year. I don't recall when it would leave.

Kanwar  00:28

So yeah, I think I should call it has changed a lot.

Pouya LJ  00:31

Yeah. And it feels long. Actually, I was thinking it's probably even less than a year. But you know, it feels much longer.

Kanwar  00:38

Yeah. Yeah, a lot has happened a lot for sure.

Pouya LJ  00:43

And, and a lot is going to happen, I reckon with the remainder of COVID with the US political, you know, weather election or whatnot. And who knows what else is 2020? Preparing for us?

Kanwar  00:58

Yeah, no, no, it's, it's, it's a pickle. It's kind of like not knowing what's going to happen, but just people still need to, you know, like, economy still has to go up. And it's, it's, I think it at this point, it kind of hinges on the vaccine, which we know a lot of companies are getting close to, hopefully, something will be done. And I think the vaccine would bring in some sense of peace and security for people as I go about, you know, their day to day tasks. True.

Pouya LJ  01:35

No, that's true, I think. I mean, until then, I don't I think that sense of uncertainty, as you put it is going to be, you know, having a lot of influence on on how people think and feel, and live decisions made politically by the officials. I mean, all of that are impacted by that sense of uncertainty. You're absolutely right. And with that, actually, that brings us to one of the fields that obviously, like everything was impacted by this phenomenon of COVID. But we're going to talk about today about education and how that's been impacted, because that's your wheelhouse. You've you work in that space, you read in that space, study, research, etc. So what I mean, obviously, a lot has changed. But if you were to, if you were to give us an intro to how education has changed, from your perspective, how would you describe it?

Kanwar  02:34

Um, good question. In terms of education, I mean, the instant need off, this is learning, online learning has skyrocketed, which has led to big changes in the industry. So you would have teachers, for example, in the public school, who probably don't, you know, they don't go towards online learning. But now they have no other option. And they have to, they have to get on it. And so that's one thing. Let's give me a second. Sure. So that's one thing for sure. That has changed. So you'd have these teachers who have to now understand how the online platform works. Zoom, for instance, you know, the US we're using zoom right now, for this podcast. We know how much the need for zoom instantly increased throughout the world. Right? Yeah. And not just in education, industry, but also in other from you name, small businesses, big businesses. Everyone has been using it. And that's a, that's a feel quite the nature of having something like COVID, which is an immediate, you know, like danger in a sense. We know that the death toll has now increased more than a million. So a lot has happened. And people you know, the second wave, as was announced by the Premier of Ontario, which has started officially. So, again, a lot of insecurity has led to online learning. That has been the biggest shift, in my opinion. And that's what I've seen as well. If you look at any sort of any sort of job postings, any sort of in the education field, any sort of hiring happening, there's some aspect of what you're learning attached to it now.

Pouya LJ  04:55

Oh, that's true. And I think a year ago, more than Have two people who are using the platform, let's say zoom currently haven't even heard of it. Yeah. And that shows you how much reliance it has. Because a lot of people who could work from home, they were working in offices perhaps and in different industries. Now, the the we're basically encouraged and forced to work from home. And while they are having to interact with each other holding meetings, perhaps, and how do you do that with tools such as Microsoft Teams, or, or Skype or zoom? zoom is one of the platforms is doing pretty great because of its quality and reliability, I suppose. And I believe that education, education, field also has came to embrace it, whether it's teachers from like holding their school classrooms at the end of the day. So at the end of last school year, which was the beginning of COVID, and lock downs, I suppose, in around March and April, I think everything had to move into online platforms, at least in Canada. Yeah. And I think, probably most of the world, I suppose, and, or halted, at least, depending on where you happen to reside. So did you did you have a first hand experience of how that affected students and teachers alike?

Kanwar  06:20

Um, definitely. So at the time, I was finishing my master's. Back in March, I mean, March, April, timeframe. And so I was working in a school at the time, as part of my program, doing some teaching, and also, you know, learning in that environment. And this was right, I got really lucky, actually. Because,

06:49

right,

Kanwar  06:50

before the March Break, is when I finished working in the school, and right, at the March Break, is when the premier made the announcement that the schools are not going to be opening again. So I didn't impact me, from that classroom experience point of view, I was able to have all of that done. But what happened is, schools did not go back after my trip. So they had it in, in theory, data, really extended mushrik now, and in this time, the, the province was figuring out what to do. Which means a lot of things were changing, right? So the parents, for instance, they couldn't, depending on where you work, employers were telling you to just work from home, parents were had to figure out how to do homeschooling. So there was no structure in place that Okay, these other resources, you can use, periods have to figure out, Okay, now I have to work my kid at home. And I was I also need to do my own work. So it's kind of like a pickle, right? That was a biggest change that happened. And I'm sure the students reacted a lot differently. Because now they're just home. Before there's something to look forward to, right in terms of going to school, they have this social circle, they interact, something to do outside of home, right. And that changed drastically for for everyone. And that was the immediate change that happened at the time. And that continued for a few weeks, before they decided they're not going to open the schools and online learning is the way to go. And at that point, teachers had to where they had to figure out in the current systems, a lot of teachers would be using Google Classroom. And there's another platform called Brightspace that is used, especially in the GTA area. And they have to basically figure out, Okay, now, you have to put everything on the platform so students can learn. And then some teachers decided to do online office offers where students could come in, ask questions, obviously, teachers would have started getting a lot of emails from the students now. Before that wouldn't be the case as much. So responding to that, I heard a lot of teachers in my own circle, who were definitely been bombarded with a lot going on. And it led to a lot of, you know, stress in terms of time management, okay. Like, there's the nine to five was blurry. It's not like you're working starting in the morning. It could be replying to emails in the in the evening. And you have to make sure you're supporting the students. So it was what it was. And that's how the school year continued. And now we have that's pretty much what happened during this summer. While the province was figuring out what to do with the entire city.

Pouya LJ  10:01

Right. Yeah. And so yes, that and that was probably the speed of onset uncertainty, that was the time of absolute uncertainty because we didn't even know what we're dealing with. Yeah, in terms of the virus in terms of how to and you were right, we, we didn't have resources in place, right. Like right now, there is a degree of preparation, even if the classes are in person, depending again, depending on where you are, maybe the classes are still online. But like, as of now, I believe nothing has changed. Because things changing very quickly, in Ontario, people are going in person with some consideration to schools, but there is a degree of preparation that schools, students and teachers, everybody has in their mind that they might even go back to fully online again, or right now, maybe part partially is online, like, for example, two things are happening online, most of it at least, at least as much as possible. So yeah, so there are the the speaking of uncertainty, that was the absolute of it, I suppose the or the maximum of it, as we experienced during these times. Now, we talked a lot about prospective teachers and parents and, and a little bit students. But did you did you hear any immediate feedback of how students were taking this? This this whole thing?

Kanwar  11:20

Yeah, it's, uh, you know, it's it's students for them, you could imagine that I'm just learning online, especially for somebody who was not engaging with technology or learning through technology. In the past, it was a big, big shift, right. And those students absolutely hated online learning, because part of it was doing something that was given to them through the online platform with their parents, and they absolutely hated working with the parents. Because they just want to get out of that kind of environment. And that was definitely a struggle, even at the time. I remember, Google Classroom, which is one of the big platforms, they even have a an app right on, depending on iOS, or Android. And at the time, back in March, April, and this was through North America, as far as I know. Lot of students started giving really poor feedback to that app on the App Store. So the actual star rating went down for Google Classroom. And students absolutely hated it. And that was, you know, quite evident of, Okay, what the students are feeling or they're feeling that this is something that is not a substitute for their experience, or the platform is just missing a lot, right? Like, I'm checking right now on on App Store, and Google Classroom has 160,000 ratings. And the rating that I see right now is 1.6, out of five. Oh, wow. So that's, yeah. And then this app is rated number one in education. So definitely, there's, I'm sure Google took a lot of that feedback, and started to make changes, because they're like, well, if students are really hating, they don't like how it feels. All that, but not to be honest, not much has changed the platform. So they just made minor changes. And students still feel the same. In terms of online learning. Currently, the students that are going to school, and parents realize that it's important for the students, you know, the kids to go to school, because even in the midst of COVID, as long as the safety protocols in place, right. And that's, you know, that's a good expectation to have. You can't rely on that expectation to be followed through entirely, right. So that's something it's it's you don't know what's going to happen. But you have good faith, and you're going to send your kid to the school. And that's what's happening. That's what happened when the schools open again in September, with safety protocols in place, but again, like I said, before, looks like and it's a little, again, create creates a bit of an E an ease, because what's happening again, is like, we feel the structure is missing. show their students in school, you know, the safety protocols, they say, but what's happening is if the students Feels a certain way, the teacher would typically just tell them that, okay, I can't I don't know what's going on. But you can be in the classroom. I see, though, what, what, what's happening now, speaking of today, what's happening now is, okay, we have a lot of influx of the students going to these COVID assessment centers and getting tested. Right, so the the, there's a influx, the load has increased, which means the testing before it was like, within one or two days has now moved to like five to six days. So, you know, and that is even upended by the second wave. But if ever, and added an experience recently, to check out a, you know, one of the COVID assessment centers, and in the line that I saw there, I would say more than 80% were parents with their kids. Wow. And that's just speaks to it. And I feel like that's, you know, it's, here's what's happening. So kids want to go to school. But if they get turned away for something, now, the kid is going to have a totally different experience, right? They're not in school, they're going to go through this COVID assessment center. And, you know, that's a whole different world, right? It's like something you wouldn't expect, that we kind of never went through that when we were their age. And for them to go through that. It's just I feel changes their whole entire perspective of their life and what, what, what is to come when they become an adult? Right. So that's, I think, one of the big changes that are happening for the students. This understanding the world we're living in, especially at the developmental age, right, where they don't really understand developmentally, what COVID means, how it affects everyone, they're, they're just kids they want to play, they want to have fun, right? We all went through that. And to to, to an extent, it's kind of unfair to see, okay, you know, what, they're missing on some things. But in the bigger picture, are we doing what we can to protect everyone around us?

Pouya LJ  17:16

Right? Yeah, no, that's, that's fair. And, yes, it is a bit unfair in that they have to, you know, deal with this through no fault of their own. And, you know, I, as you mentioned, especially as a younger age, where, when they're a little bit really not aware, or even care about what COVID is, they just want to do what they want to do and learn and grow and move forward. That's a fair point. Now, moving forward, do you? Do you see, so how do you see education, let's say a vaccine comes along, let's say the best case scenario, everything moves away? Do you see the education going back to what it was? And if not, what have we learned? What have you learned in this from from all of this? And how can we make education even better than the quote unquote, normal? How can we make it improved upon?

Kanwar  18:12

Right? So in terms of the education, a lot has changed, we've seen that in terms of, you know, the teaching platform, the experiences, what you're learning, one thing that I feel has been a, you know, big benefit of whatever is going on, is the fact that there, the need for collaboration has increased, which means you can collaborate easily on a global scale. Because everyone has a shared problem. So everyone wants to help each other out. So there are platforms, especially in the education field, you know, use certain platforms for say, you want to do an online quiz, you want to you want to have students create posters, there are platforms like canva.com or pictou chart that, you know, before COVID, they, if you had to use certain features, you have to pay for it. But what they did was they understood the need for helping everyone. And they read that entire fee on their platform. So as a teacher, you could just go there now.

Pouya LJ  19:22

And this again, is it can Canva canvas.com or, yeah,

Kanwar  19:26

cannot chart. There's another website called knowledge hook. Specific, specifically good for math in Ontario. And a lot of these platforms, you know, had some sort of features that a lot of features you get access to after you pay the premium, right. But they've waived that in the need off, helping each other out. And Nearpod was another platform that did that. And that was I felt a really good intention. Because you are adapting to this change. You're being flexible, and you are helping each other out. So these platforms, we're not really thinking from a monetary point of view, but really, from a point of view where they want to help the teachers out there. And that's what they did. And a lot of teachers made use of that. And I know for myself, I made use of it. Because I know for a fact that these premium features really give me a lot of flexibility of how I can create my content, how I can assess do assessments in the class. And that was a big, big shift. And so going back to your question, with education going forward, being flexible, or adapting to the change, even if you're not a person who likes change, and that was something that was, you know, in a sense, thrown at you, and you have to now change. So as a teacher, ensuring you know, you are flexible with whatever platform you're given. Now, obviously, look, we don't we can't have the experience you do in class, on an online platform. Okay. So that's something that would be different for sure. You can imagine from a, from a first day point of view, where you build class community where you build these relationships in the class, through the online platform, that would be way different. Okay, the student will still get to know you. But that relatability might not be to that personal level, as it would be in the class. Right, if you show care for a student in the class, they can see it, right? If you show care for a student and online platform, that means creating a safe environment, you know, not having any bullying or any foul language, and you can, there's tools that you can really control in the platform itself, to enable that, but like I said, you could have even face to face, like what we're doing with our video chats, and that would bring in some sort of relatability. But still, it's it's, as long as you don't see the person in actual life, you know, it's it's a whole different experience. And that's something that, you know, it's going forward, that's something that would be again, mixed together in like a hybrid model, to some extent, a lot of schools that have the resources they are doing in person, okay, we have private schools, independent schools, they have the resources, they have the funding. And they can, you know, create that six feet apart distance in the class, and also support students online at the same time, for the students who don't want to come to the class. For for other scenarios, such as public school system, that's a little different. Because what's happening now is more students, instead of coming to class, they want to just go online, because cases are rising again. So the need for online teachers of the game increased. And at the same time, we have teachers in class who are providing support. But again, like I said, the structure I feel is still not there completely, where the teachers are, you know, completely confident of being in the class and supporting the students in the class. Okay, so they still have that kind of uncertainty. And I feel going forward, that uncertainty will go down. Being that environment, it's natural for you to feel, you know, have that sense of being uncomfortable, because we don't have measures in place to protect against this, you know, novel coronavirus, and that will change going forward, there'll be more comfort in the class, eventually, there will be some sort of a hybrid model that will be put in place, obviously, online platforms will have changed drastically. Teachers will now not they will have if if ever they have to teach online, they wouldn't have. They will be there would be less resistance to that now. So that's another benefit. Technology definitely has. We, it's it's it's a perspective where a lot of, for example, teachers who would always say our technology has done this and this and this, you know, maybe having a negative point of view of what technology is doing. And now they see the benefits of technology that, you know, really makes a huge, huge difference. Right? If there was no technology learning would have stopped altogether. Right. And that's a that's a big, big benefit of living in this 21st century, even in the midst of a deadly virus. But you know, we have to tools in place that still make sure that we are connected and we don't lose contact and learning is still going on.

Pouya LJ  25:07

Yeah, it didn't. It. It helped to, you know, keep the momentum to a degree going, obviously, it, a lot of it got stopped and a lot of things got interrupted, for sure. But with a little bit of extra preparation and extra time. Yes, you're absolutely right. We got some of that momentum going. Online, he definitely online through technology. Yeah, absolutely. That's correct. And so speaking of So, I mean, obviously, the negatives are abundant and fairly obvious to degree, there were some that were not far off perhaps from somebody who doesn't have the perspective that you do. But nobody doubted that there is going to be a lot of negatives for students, teachers, the whole education system in the whole society, from every angle from this, but I honestly, I really like silver linings, I like to see things in a positive light and see what what positives actually came out of it. And part of it is what you said, We learned a lot, how we can mitigate technical use technology to mitigate the situation, whether this, and let's face it, who knows when the next pandemic hits, it could be 100 years, 200 years, it could be the next decade, it could be tomorrow, who hasn't seen after this. So point being we are living in a relatively new normal, even post vaccine, let's say there's going to be always that sense, at least for this generation that has experienced it. The sense that the immediacy of any kind of disaster, and how that can affect lives of people all around the world and education. So is there any positive we can take out of this? And and, you know, and improve upon it, make it better?

Kanwar  26:53

Yeah, definitely. Look. So with, we know, technology has been a benefit, we know that there are ways we can stay connected in terms of learning in terms of reaching out in terms of not losing contact, and that's a big, big benefit of in any industry for for that. And I feel going forward, one lesson that we have definitely learned is, you know, technology can really IID a lot of learning. In this case, it can actually even rip, to some extent it can replace, in class learning, and to a lot of extending can extend learning, right. So that replacement and extension is one thing. And again, everyone felt different with that. But the truth is, that is what technology helped us with. And we all feel really happy about that, because students are not like, they didn't feel that they're learning just stopped altogether. And that's one of the big lessons with, you know, this whole situation, how it has unfolded, we can still stay connected. Another big lesson, I would say is our reactions are adaptability to change. And that is something that you know, everyone has a different change threshold. Everyone can somebody can change. Within a day somebody can cheat it takes, you know, a year or two years to to make a big change. And with something like Coronavirus and with this whole situation. Now you don't have that flexibility to wait one or two years, you have to do it today. So it helped people push themselves. And you know, it's for some it would have been easy for some he would have been really challenging, but really walking through that. And really understanding Okay, this is for the betterment of the students, because in the education field, you always put the students first. They're at the center of everything that you do, and their needs come first. And that's really what it comes down to. Right. If you think about it from that lens. You know, I don't care about learning something new because I'm happy that and the students in my class are going to be not left behind. Right. And another big lesson with something like this, students now see, okay, the world is not full of bells and whistles its world is a nasty place to. And that's that is something that is you learn about in history, but now you're living it. And that's something that the students are experiencing for sure. And you know, there's a silver, big silver lining there because the students, the young generation, they have the capability to work in this industry where they can form solutions. There's a big, big research happening right now with the universal Right. And that's something that, you know, I'm I don't know how, what timeline we're looking at where this universal vaccine will exist for anything that would ever happen. You can imagine now, what was that ideology, we have these younger generation, who will, what, what's gonna happen is they will become more and more ambitious on, on taking on these challenges, and tackling these challenges because there's a immediate need, there's an actual need, it's not about making the world a better place. It's about protecting your world, it's about protecting and caring for the future generation, because the reality is, the virus impacts has impacted people across a whole different age group, right? It's initially was the older group, but now we have, we have seen trend where it's affecting everyone. And that's the bottom line. So everyone, if you think of it, from a humanity point of view, I feel like that's a big shift that will happen for the younger generation, because they would see the need, okay, you know, what, there is something out there and I can be part of the solution. Right, and not part of the problem. And that's, I feel it's a huge, huge silver lining in this whole situation. And I feel the students will really, and this is what we see all the time in the you know, we want to create citizens who are engaged, who are responsible, who are, you know, they want to make changes in their community, they want to make changes wherever they live, right, because change starts from your community, and then moves upward. But now, with the technology in place, you can really make a change through technology, and you can help each other out. So many possibilities has opened up. And that whole message of helping each other out and looking for each other looking out for each other. That's a big silver lining from this entire situation.

Pouya LJ  31:58

Yeah, that's very, very, very fair. And very positive. I liked the message. And I also want to for the last final point, I want to put the parents in focus, I suppose because I think from a very early on, especially, especially early on, and even now, you mentioned some of it, that they they're very engaged, very concerned, obviously about their children's education, their health and their family's health, etc. But on top of that, again, especially early on, and a lot of them still now have to enhance to, you know, handle the kids well, where previously they would send them to school, they would go to work themselves, now they have to work and at the same time, they have a kid at home and they're working at home or even if they're going outside to work if you're there, for example, first responders or what have you. Then what do you do with your with your child at home? Right, so that there has been a lot of challenges for parents. Obviously, the kids are not happy, they're acting up at times, they're, they're upset about the situation, you have to help them out. So there's there's, I think there were a lot of challenges coming our ways of parents more than ever before. Obviously, parenting is never easy. And number. Nobody ever said that. It's easy, but I think it was at a level up in the past few months. And I'm sure you had some experiences with the parents through their children that you're, you know, educating online or other ways. And did you have any? Do you have any words of I don't want to call it advice, but of consolation or anything that you want to talk to parents directly about or, you know, give them a message or give their message to us to the rest of us. Yeah.

Kanwar  33:49

One thing from I've just as a recent experience, where one of the parents, you know, that their child was sent back home, because their child was not feeling well. And, and the child shows up at home. And he says, mom, my stomach doesn't feel good, right? And my mother's like, What? Why doesn't few babies I got her. No, it doesn't feel good. And the mom said, Okay, did you go Did you poop this morning? And he said, No, I did not. And she like, do you have to poop? And he said, Yeah, I have to fuke and he goes to the washroom when it comes out and he's feeling finding starts playing outside. So the concern is in the air, okay. The concern is in the air. Now imagine from a kid's point of view, right kid, the kid is just being a kid. At their age, you know, they might have so many things going on, but we can't. We don't know for sure what we can pinpoint it on. Right. So there's that uncertainty from that point of view. And that applies to teachers. teachers could be concerned because they have kids at home. So the teachers who are parents, they are concerned, there's no simple answer to this, right? I can't, I can't say that no, if any, if somebody's feeling wonky, just let them be in the classroom. Because that I feel is, you know, we don't really know what it can be. And that would come down from the school, how the school is reacting to it, if the school says, okay, you know, this happens, it's okay, we can discount it. If not, then these are the policies we will have in place. Okay, and you follow that. And that's really what it comes down to is you'll have a consensus, everyone in the school agrees to what they're doing. And they have the parents on board. That's important, because the parents are not on board. Or, you know, it's not about putting parents on board, because you could have disagreements, but having ensuring the parents are communicated properly, so they know what's going to happen. And that will help parents really, you know, make arrangements to have to, because you don't The last thing you want is your kid showing up home and you have to go to work. Now. What are you going to do that? Right? It's a lot of uncertainty. You can imagine the pain on the parents behalf, like, what do I do now? And their frustration, right? their frustration with the school? Because they're like, okay, the schools open, and now you send my kid home, like, why would I send my kid to school, when something comes up, and you're gonna send it back to me. So if that was the case, I would have just kept mice tried at home. And that's really the unpredictability that we're seeing right now. Parents have to understand that if you're sending your kid to school, the intentions are, you know, the kid will get the opportunity to be in school in that environment. But there are a bunch of things that comes with it. And that's something that the whole family must be okay with. Because what happens if tomorrow, they say, the kid is having symptoms, and now you have to isolate? Right? The isolation 14 days, that means lost money, that could mean lost connection, it's so many things. And every situation is different, right? I can't I can't generalize it. Everyone have their own situation? And as a parent, if that's what you're deciding to do, you must have those things in place. Okay, what is my backup plan? What is plan? a? What is Plan B? If in the case that my child was to come home? Okay, can one parent be at home work remotely? Can we have those? some sort of a system in place? Or can have extended family? Can I give my kids to someone else? Who can take care? Or can I go, if I have a cottage, can we go to the cottage and isolated the cottage, a lot of those. Those are the important things that have to be thought before you make the decision of sending your child to school because I've have seen parents where they just get frustrated with the whole situation, because they had not expected the child to be sent home. Right. So you have to be prepared for that. And for parents, who are first responders, parents who are in the line of work where they protect people, you know, it's it comes down to what you decide as a parent. But the bottom line is this, we know the virus is deadly, we know the virus, you know, it's still out there, it's not completely gone off the face of the planet. So you have to keep in mind that we are living in a new world, which means that the kids still have to go to the school, they still have to do some sort of learning. But Add to that the fact that we are living in a different world now. Okay, so that's something because it could happen. And I've seen even for myself, where, you know, you can start to get more and more complacent in terms of Okay, you know, what, I don't see much going on around me. So I think I'm okay. You know, and but that's looking at your local lens. But if you really look at the global what's going on. Again, that is not the case. Right? And we have to always keep in mind that okay, we are living in a new reality. And this is what I want. These are my goals. I want my kid to get some learning, can I can I send my kid to school, knowing that they can be asked to be tested? And that means going to code center and you know, that's another four to five hours you have to wait in line. Am I ready to do that? Or am I rather me rather okay with not sending my child to school, having them stay at home and learn? And do I have something in place where someone else is at home? With the child right? So those Are the those are the two situations that all the parents are really dealing with right now, in addition to their own full time, whatever they do. So it's not easy. It's not it's definitely made parenting, I would say 1000 times more challenging.

40:17

And

Kanwar  40:18

especially when you have both parents as working, imagine both parents as first responders, it just changes a whole whole scenario what to do now. And that's really, I feel the pickle. But really, having those goals sorted out would make it much, much easy, manageable, in a sense to tackle with, okay, if this can happen, okay, that's, that's okay. Because we have something in place to manage that. Because that would bring a sense of comfort, less frustration. And at the same time, you know, the learning will go on. And that's really should be the goal, right, the learning will go on, and the learning should never stop.

Pouya LJ  41:02

Yeah, and let's hope that and let's hope everything improves, not regress, I suppose that's, that's all we can do. We can basically, this is a situation we have to deal with, at the end of the day, whether we like it or not, and that's a nobody likes it. And some have it worse than others, of course, yeah. And some have it better and, but at the end of the day, all of us have to deal with something new that mostly we don't want to exactly our ideal, but that's life. And then things happen. Obviously, we want to be proactive about these things and make sure they don't happen in the first place. But we also want to be prepared for the possibility of them happening. And that's the lesson we should carry on, I think, moving forward. But at the same time, we're not done with this. And we have to think about all aspects. And and I think one of the things that helps me a lot to deal when I'm dealing with other people especially is that I put myself in their shoes and understand their pain. And that helps me generate some empathy that otherwise I would not be able to where I would judge them harshly. Definitely unnecessarily. So yeah, let's let's hope for the better. And thank you, camera for joining us for this illuminant illuminating conversation.

Kanwar  42:12

Thank you for having me. It's great to have this really important discussion and the world we live in right now.

How many times have you set a goal for yourself just to see nothing happened after a few months? The truth is that you cannot achieve your goals, you can only come up with a series of habits that once repeated often and long enough would lead to the achievement of your goals. 

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

habits, goal, system, achieve, mandarin chinese, spend, pandemic, routines, social media, life, chinese, practice, income, morning, repeat, app, instagram, replacing, single, olympics

SPEAKERS

Dan

Dan  00:13

Hello, and welcome to yet another episode of beyond the present podcast, this solo edition. My name is Daniel Molgan. And welcome to this program where today we're going to talk about the issue of goal setting by means of creating a system. As opposed to just having our goals in our heads. You see, guys, traditional goal setting tells us that if you want to achieve a goal, just set a goal, I want to do this, for example, I want to lose weight, I want to run my own business, I want to run for the office, I want to get married, so on and so forth, you can you know, set all these goals for yourself. And that's, of course, all great. We have taught this to all of our basically graduates of our programs again and again. But the fact of the matter is that Unfortunately, most cases, having a goal alone does not allow you to actually achieve it if you just have that goal in your head and are not creating the systems required to make them happen. So we're actually going to talk about the issue of what it really means to put places basically, in your schedule, where you have certain activities where you are doing them again and again and again, to achieve your goals. So what is the difference between a goal and a system? A goal is what you want to achieve in your life. For example, I want to lose weight, I want to learn to speak Mandarin Chinese, I want to find the love of my life. These are sending them simple examples of having a goal for yourself. Now, what is a system? A system is what you should be doing regularly and repeatedly to achieve those goals. So think of for example, those three goals I gave you earlier, for example, you want to learn Mandarin Chinese, that's a goal. Now how can you actually create a system to make that happen, you may say, I will download this specific app with a reminder every morning, that will tell me to practice some Mandarin Chinese for about 15 minutes every morning, pray go to work. That's exactly one of my routines that I've done for him for many years now. And this is now a system. A system is a habit, and a process that you engage in regularly to achieve your goals. Unfortunately, most of us were not so good at creating those systems, we think about the goals like listen, I want to do this, for example, I wants to find the love of my life, right? That's a simple goal that a lot of people have. But people rarely think about what kind of system do I need to put in place, or I will engage in certain types of behavior on a regular basis in order to achieve that goal. So for this goal, for example, you can say, I will start talking to an attractive member of the opposite gender, once every day for the next 30 days, until I find someone that actually matches basically my desire as well as my criteria for a good partner. And this now is a system. So anytime you leave the house, the brain says, alright, I have a task today, I must talk to one attractive lady today. And hopefully, one of them will be the kind of woman that I want as my wife as a mother of my children, and so on and so forth. Right. So now you have a system. So you don't even think about the goal. And that's the beauty of having a system. You see, if instead of thinking about just your goals, you create systems that will lead to the achievement of that goal, you don't even have to think about your goals. So the man who says I will practice Chinese 50 minutes, basically every day using this particular app before going to work, he doesn't have to think about his goal of becoming fluent Mandarin Chinese in 234, or five years. If he just repeats that system regularly, he will get there. The same thing applies to the man who wants to find a good wife, the guy who goes and talks an attractive lady once per day every day for I don't know, 30 days or two months or three months, he or she will eventually find the right partner, even if he forgets about the original goal of getting married, and having a family because in the process of going through the system of meeting, for example, one attractive lady every day talking to her to see if she's a good match. And then perhaps inviting her asking her out on a date to actually see if she's going to be a good fit. He will eventually find you know the right woman for him. And it's just going to be part of the system, regardless of what the goal was originally, right. So perhaps, maybe the original goal was to become fluent and let's say Mandarin Chinese, and instead of actually studying Mandarin, he says I'm going to play this Chinese for example game every morning. And after a while, instead of focusing on the you know, learning the Chinese he gets hooked up on the game elements of that Chinese game. So the original goal is not forgotten. Completely. And now he's This system is focused now on getting good at this game, instead of learning the Mandarin Chinese. so in this situation since the system is, you know, inclined to focus on the game, rather than the language, in the long term, of course, he will fail to at the target of achieving that, you know, fluency, which means we never fail in goal setting. We all do it all the time. Now, some of us, we don't set them as often as we should. But you rarely if ever fail in achieving your goals, because you did not set the goal. That's just not going to happen. And unfortunately, in most cases, we fail to achieve our goals, because we fail to set the right systems in place that if we're good enough, would allow us to achieve those goals. So today, I would like you guys to think more about this issue. Think about goal setting a new way, as opposed to just goals and deadlines, which we use traditionally, ask yourself, instead of being obsessed with whether or not is the right goal, what kind of system can I set in place for me to actually work on those things on a regular basis? That's what you have to focus on most of the time. So when it comes to setting systems to achieve those goals, obviously the question is, what types of activities, if done regularly, will get me closer to achieving that goal, I've already given two examples, learning language, raising a family, but this could really apply to anything. Let's move on to business, you say, I want to increase my income by 25%. In the middle of a recession fueled by pandemic, that's right. During the same time, where a lot of businesses are shutting down, there are a few entrepreneurs who are actually increasing their income. Why? Because they have the goal to you know, make more money? I don't think so. You see, all businesses would like to increase their income. I mean, that's by default, no one business do you know, anyone business was like, No, I don't want to make money, I want to make less money. So it's kind of like you know, the Olympics, when it goes to the Olympics, and you look at all the athletes, one of them is going to be, you know, the gold medal winner, right. So one of them will be the number one top winner of that competition. So the person or the people who do not achieve that goal, and settle for the, let's say, silver medal or the bronze medal or simply cannot win any metal, do you think that those guys do not have the goal of becoming an Olympic champion. Of course, not. Every single person who takes part in the Olympics wants to be the champion, every business owner would like to increase their income. Every time you talk to basically an attractive member of the opposite gender, your goal is to hopefully have the best possible relationship with a suitable mate to raise a family with. Anytime you want to learn a subject you really want to get. I mean, you really want to get good. For example, at speaking Chinese you have the goal, you have the desire. So the problem here is not the goal. Because goal is there and everybody has them. The question is, do you have the right system. So the winner of the Olympic is going to be the person who has in basically in place, a system that allowed him or her to practice in the right way repeatedly, until having that body and that ability that allowed him or her to win the Olympics, the same thing goes with businesses who succeed in the middle of a pandemic, or those who are had with their relationships or achieve their educational goals. So from today, I'm trying to encourage you guys to look at goals a little bit differently, away from what is my goal, and focus more on what system do I need to put in place to achieve them? Now, systems generally, are links to habits, that means that almost everything we do these days, it's because of the habits that we have generated before. Most of us actually are running on autopilot most of the time. And because of this, you need to ask yourself, what kind of habits do I want to generate for myself, in order to achieve the kind of life that I have? So right now, every single one of you guys listening right now, you have certain habits, probably many of them that you repeat on a daily basis. Some of you wake up in the morning, and the first thing you do is to grab that phone and jump on social media. That's a very common habit. Some of you have a habit of wicked one morning and immediately, the moment you you know, you're afoot for example, such as the, you know, the, let's say floor, you start doing meditation. Some of you have a habit of wicked, I'm saying, oh, gosh, not another Tuesday. I'm so tired. You see, that's just one single habit. Maybe then you move on. Maybe some of you have a habit of waking up and just lighting up a cigarette. So these are all habits. And then we go throughout the day, repeating these habits, and thinking that this is just a habit. It's just too Aim. But ironically, changing your destiny and achieving the kind of goal that you really want for yourself is only possible if you start to look at the habits that you have every single day, and then try to, you know, change that. What essential aspects again, How the hell did you learn all these languages? Like, how do you do that? I say very simple. What do you do when you have your phone with you? They say, Well, I checked social media all the time. So I spell it, it's like, How much time do you spend on Instagram, for example, or on Facebook, and they say, well, three, four hours per day, I say, three to four hours. And there's a lot of good material in there, I just try to look at them, there's pretty fun. I say, Well, I spent about two and a half hours every day on practicing different languages. So you see, during the same time that you are browsing through useless posts, of celebrities, and like, you know, brainless entertainment on social media, which is a habit by the way for you every single day, checking people's stories, and all those things I am doing my flashcards I am practicing, you know, let's say my language is using my favorite apps such as Duolingo, memorize, and so on. So this is a habit. So when I work in the morning, the first thing I do is, as you already guessed, to do my Mandarin Chinese practice, because that's the hardest thing that I'm currently studying. And of course, I have to practice a lot, of course, then I move on to the other tasks. So I tell myself, if I have not done my Mandarin Chinese practice, which is, by the way, not that long, it takes no more than 15 minutes of my time, every morning, I'm not going to move on to the next task unless I have a very serious emergency. And then you ask yourself, alright, so I should probably cut back on Instagram, then I can do whatever I want. Not so much. So because if you want to get rid of a bad habit, you have to have the right again system in place to get you to towards what you want. So ultimately, it doesn't matter what your goals are, if you don't have the right habits, and the right routines, you can never possibly achieve them. You're saying well, then I want to be financially wealthy. I asked you one simple question. What are your financial systems in place? They're saying What are you talking about my financial system, a financial system is the way you approach your money. So right now, think about, you know, your income during the last month. Okay. Think of you know, last month, which for most of you guys, of course, if you're listening to us, you know, recently would be September. So think of your income in the month of September? How much did you earn? And then go back to your let's say, for example, of financial app, and then perhaps, or your bank app? And then look at your expenses? So how much did you basically spat using your master Visa card during the last month? And then compare these two? Did you make the same amount of money that you actually spent all of it? Did you perhaps managed to spend less than you earned? Or did you actually spend more than you earn, and added some credit on the side? So that's a simple habit, a very simple habit of not spending more than you earn. But guess what happens? Think of someone who has one simple system in place. And his entire financial system can be summed up by one thing. I look at my income during last month, that's a month of September. And let's say the amount was $6,000, for example, and I tell myself, that I must spend less than $6,000 during the month of October. So what do you think the future of this person looks like financially? do you predict him to go broke all of a sudden? Is that likely? Probably not? And what about the opposite? What if somebody actually is making $4,000 a month, and is just going to spend all of it? So what type of future will he have probably always dependent on the next paycheck, like most Americans, or think of somebody else who has probably made two or $3,000. And things are tough in the economy, and actually spent 5000 we're gonna future Do you see for him or her financially? You see, ultimately, your life is shaped by the habits and the systems you have in place that you repeat on a regular basis, because anything applies to your fitness. So how often do you go to the gym? How often do you care about what you're eating? How often do you, you know, take care of your basically amount of hours that you put into, you know, your sleep, having a good night, good nicely. You see, ultimately, once you try to look at your life and yourself as a series of habits that you have, then all of a sudden realize, oh boy, all I got to do is change a few of my habits, and whammo, my entire life will change. So today I'm actually asking right now, think about your life right now, at this moment. From the moment you wake up until you go to bed. What habits are you repeating good or bad? Think of some good habits that you can actually add to your life right now what could they be? Perhaps going for a jog every morning? Instead of letting a cigarette or having, you know, very heavy coffee? How about replacing the habit of social media as I have done, you probably have noticed this. After finishing the book together, I actually substantially I reduced my social media, basically usage to a very minimum, of course, in terms of usage, I'm probably close to zero. Now, I almost do not consume any material on social media. But of course, I've also reduced my postings as well, because I wanted to have that time available to do other things. Right. So how about replacing excessive usage of social media? with some other beneficial educational activity? How about replacing Instagram? Not completely, of course. But let's say you spend one or two hours per day on Instagram, how about spending only 10 minutes on Instagram, and then dedicate the rest of that time to studying a foreign language to learning a new trade, getting an online education, where there's I don't know, MBA, or whatever it is, what about, you know, putting that time for your health? How about using that time to exercise you see, by nearly changing these little things you do every single day, and then repeating those again, and again, and again, you will then change your destiny in ways you cannot even think of as possible today, because those changes are going to somehow accumulate, and they will exponentially change your life in the long term. So today, as you're currently listening, I want you right now, to go through your entire routines every single day. Maybe you spend a little bit too much time playing Dota. Maybe you spend a lot of time watching Netflix, even though you don't even like it so much. Perhaps you're not physically active enough? How could you change some of these things? How would you find ways for you to create and installed new habits in your life that will allow you to repeat good behaviors and avoid bad ones. Because ultimately, once you have the right systems in place, for example, for going to gym, you can create a system. And the system is anytime I leave work, I immediately go home, grab basically my, let's say, yours and run to the gym. That's one system. Or you can simply have a system that come You know, you come home, and you grab that beer, and you start you know, drinking beer watching TV, both our systems, but they will have dramatically different results in the long term. So having discussed all of these things today, I would like to now encourage you guys to take this very seriously and start looking at your life as a series of habits fueled by their own systems that you repeat again and again and again, throughout the day, day after day, week, after week, month after month, year after year, you are your habits, you are your routines. There are moments in the middle that you break all that routine, and you start traveling and you go to a party. But those are not what you do regularly unless that's your job or something. So for most of us, we have to look at the things we do on a routine basis. And now of course, thanks to the pandemic, a lot of us we have, you know, more time available to spend indoors. And this gives us a great chance to reflect again, you can go home during a pandemic and say, Well, I got nothing to do, let me just waste another two hours on the darn social media. Or you can take that time to start reflecting itself a system that allows you to make your life better and better by thinking about what you're doing right now and how you can take it to the next level. So ultimately, today, I wanted to encourage you to relook at your life differently, to see yourself as nothing more than a series of routines that you repeat again and again and again. And understanding that if you want to change your destiny, if you want to change your life, you don't just need to create new goals. I mean, that's just very obvious. But more importantly, than having new goals is to creating new systems and habits that will allow you to achieve those goals and get the best results possible. So overall, that's all the time we have for today. I really would like to thank all of you for your attention. The podcast, fortunately, is becoming more and more popular among our listeners. And we would like to thank all of you for tuning in for every single episode to check all of our programs. As you realize now we have a lot of new additions to our podcast and we're trying to offer you as much as possible. And obviously if you have any questions you can always contact us directly or simply wishes on the social media. That's all the time we have for my name is Daniel Morgan and this was beyond the present podcast.