The Debbie Nigro Show

Pinky Cole aka Slutty Vegan is WOW. There are a thousand reasons why. She's a very innovative gal, entrepreneur, and really good human.

Pinky Cole owns and operates the celebrity backed restaurant chain 'Slutty Vegan' with 11 locations and counting including Atlanta, Birmingham, Baltimore, Dallas, and NY. She's opening a new location in NYC this weekend on Bleecker Street making that 3 spots now in NY with the others in Harlem and Brooklyn.

"When you walk into Slutty Vegan, you will see yourself ", said Pinky. "It doesn't matter if you are white, black, blue, yellow, gay, straight, you belong here, and this is a safe space for you and I want my business to continue to speak for that. So Bleeker will speak to all those things and I'm excited about it and I'm excited about our expansion. "

"You know, and this is my first time announcing this, Bleeker Street is an ode to the LGBTQ community and the movement, right, and LGBTQ rights. So, a lot of the decor and the aesthetics will speak to that. And I'm very intentional on my approach and how I decorate my stores because I want everybody to see themselves, right?"

Last year Time Magazine named Pink Cole to their '100 Next List"

Pinky Cole has also won the 'Compassionate Chef Award', has her own foundation to empower generations of color to break the cycle of poverty, and a new book "I Hope You Fail" to show by example how failures and setbacks are steppingstones in disguise.

Famed restauranteur Danny Meyer, wrote that her fans adore her sassy, sexy attitude and that she not only reinvented the way people think about a vegan restaurant, but she's also turned classic roadside burger fair into a rollicking party.

It's worth mentioning that according to the latest statistics only like 5% of Americans identify as vegan or vegetarian, but most people want to eat healthier these days and so many who don't call themselves vegans or vegetarians are drawn to the food Pinky makes and creates because Pinky makes it fun.

Pinky Cole's Mission is Powerful

Pinky Cole does everything with intention. She wanted to create food that was accessible to people who are in underserved communities and residents of food deserts that was healthy and comforting and fun, and boy did she nail it.

Aisha Pinky Cole, American restaurateur, operator, and owner of Slutty Vegan, was born and raised in Baltimore. Her parents were Jamaican immigrants and Rastafarians, and her mother was a musician in a reggae group, I probably would have partied with. I love reggae music.

Pinky grew up following a traditional Rastafarian vegetarian diet, eating rice and peas and legumes and beans which is how it all began.

The SLUTTY VEGAN Name

After reading all about her I thought I love this girl. But am I really gonna promote a slutty vegan on my show? LOL. Well, everybody else did so sure!

Nobody knows better than me that in order to get attention in this world, the words you choose matter. But Pinky knew that.

"That name helped me to build a $100 million brand. All righty, all righty, all righty. OK, so I'll start there. Was it easy? Yes and no. The yes part of it being easy was the fact that I'm trained as a television producer, so I know what's going to make people pay attention. I know what's going to make them say, oh, damn, I've got to pay attention to this, right? But then on the flip side, there are a lot of people, conservative people who live in our country, right, who haven't adapted to the idea that you can re-engineer words, right? You can put your own meaning to words. And that's exactly what I did. When I came up with slutty vegan, I knew that I had to be in your face, racy and raunchy in order for you to think about vegan food, because if I would have named it Pinky's Vegan, you wouldn't come to get it. You wouldn't want to eat it. "

The Pinky Cole Foundation is like Urgent Care

Pinky started a foundation to formalize a way to give her money to people who need help because she just loves helping people.

"I found that there's a generational wealth gap, a big one", she said. "And I wanted to help bridge that generational wealth gap by providing opportunities for entrepreneurs and creatives. "

"So my foundation is not like the average foundation. You know how some foundations have all these thrusts and all of these programmatic things? This ain't that."

"What this is, we are like urgent care. If there is an immediate need, we solve an immediate problem. So we paid the rents for local businesses. We provided fruits and vegetables for people in the community. I've given out 800 LLCs to a graduating class of seniors so that they could be able to jumpstart their pathway to entrepreneurship. We've partnered with the Department of Juvenile Justice to provide second chance opportunities to ex-offenders. We've paid for lights. We provide life insurance in partnership with Prudential to black men who make $30,000 or less in Atlanta."

"So, when you talk about doing the work, I've been doing the work for a long time, and yes, business is good. Like burgers, pies, and fries, and helping people to reimagine food is the name of the game. But what we do with the resources and that platform is help people and build a sense of community and collaboration and showing people that we can be a resource to you to be able to follow all your wildest dreams. I believe that that truly is my life's mission."

Pretty Amazing Stuff eh? I told you she was a WOW!

Then There's Her Book: "I Hope You Fail"

Pinky shows by example I her book how failures and setbacks are stepping stones in disguise.

"You know, it's funny, she said. "I did a commencement speech at my alma mater. I was the youngest commencement speaker. The theme was, I hope you fail, and that was the inspiration for the book. I talked about how when I was in college, I was everything. I had every title. I was the head of the sorority. I was all tof he things. I was the queen of the school. Then when I graduated, I couldn't find a job. Nobody would hire me.

As I maneuvered through life, I realized that life is going to life. Things are going to happen whether we'd like to believe it or not but it's about how you re-engineer when bad things happen. For me losing my restaurant in Harlem and having a grease fire and my car getting repoed and me losing my apartment, to my wages getting garnished, to getting sued and slutty vegan, a lot of things have happened to me but all of those things that happened did one thing and you know, just the education of it all allowed me to be better when it happened all over again."

So this book is for the person who's trying to figure it out that has had things happen to them and don't know how to get out of that crunch.

Like, we've all been at the bottom at some point. But if you re-engineer your mind to think optimistically about when bad things happen, you will be alright. And that's exactly what this book does.

You're talking to the choir here. Amen.

Her Message To MOMPRENEURS

"And I just want to say this, I don't know if you know this, I had a baby in 21, I had another baby in 22 and I had another baby in 23. So not only am I building an empire, I'm a mompreneur. So for all of the women that are listening to this program, I want to encourage you that like nothing is impossible and don't let anything stop you. You can literally achieve your dreams. I'm doing it in real time. Is it hard? Absolutely, but I make it work and I make it great, and I get to do what I love and be a mom which is what I love as well and do it with a smile. Sometimes a headache but I can do it with a smile."

You'll really enjoy meeting Pinky Cole aka Slutty Vegan in this podcast of our live conversation on the Debbie Nigro Show.

I've had some very interesting experiences with psychics and psychic mediums throughout my life.

I'm always open-minded and do believe that some on this planet can see farther than the eye can see.

On more than one occasion, I've had a psychic contact me out of the blue for one reason or another. (vs me asking them to contact someone. LOL)

I probably haven't seen Francine Tesler in over 20 years.

She's a psychic medium and medical intuitive, best known as the psychic, for people who don't usually go to psychics. She's been making psychic predictions since she was 6 years old. She would see those that had passed on and shock everyone with her accuracy.

Something recently came into her head to call ME. So naturally she got in touch.

I was happy to hear from her as I remember having great affection for her. I Invited her to stop by the radio show to speak to a story I just read on Medium.com (which is not a site for Mediums rather a medium for writers to share their work with 100 million readers).

The story "Predictions for 2024 By Celebrity Psychics" said…" The year 2024 will be a time of awakening and alignment as more people will tune into their intuition and follow their soul's purpose. This will create a positive ripple effect in the world, as people will be more authentic, compassionate, and creative."

I'm all for anything positive on this planet and I have in fact noticed more people lately trying to find their true purpose.

So Francine came to the studio and I asked her one of my signature questions I often ask guests on my show.

"How Does Your Head Work Inside?".

Francine said, "I'm originally an artist by trade and I get images that like a slideshow and fragments and I hear things in my head. Yeah, but this week, my hair stands up on my arms. And it was like, you have to call Debbie. And I'm like, you know, reach out to her and I didn't have your number. And that's why I sent you the email and blah, blah, blah."

"Why do you think you thought of me?", I asked her.

"I think we're meant to be connected again".

I myself have been noticing a trend picking up since Covid, where people are now wanting to reconnect more. Are you seeing a trend in that I asked her?

"Yes. More happening with each month that passes this year".

"More spirituality. People are starting to listen. I'm teaching. When I do my readings or when I do my message circles or my open galleries, I do teach and explain to people that they have to listen to their voice because everyone is psychic to some point."

Being a psychic ain't easy...

"You know I actually didn't know I was a medium until I had already been doing this probably for at least 10 years because I didn't know the word for it all those years ago. I've been doing this now full-time 40 years. When I first started, it wasn't acceptable and people used to call me Madame Zaza or Grandma Strega, you know, Grandma Witch, and it was a really difficult time."

"But you know what? I'm an artist. I found my own thing and I knew that I was getting these images and hearing things and seeing things and there was a reason. So I always gave people the messages. Now as I'm older, I deliver them a little bit more tactfully and make them more edible because I have a good sense of humor."

"Everyone calls it the psychic Tourette's. I go into the grocery store and I will walk over to people and say, look, I don't want to bother you. I'm a psychic medium, blah, blah, blah. I got an impression. I'm told to tell you this. And then they look around for cameras. But I try to help people and give a message."

I've always noticed people are a little weird when they're around psychics. All they want to know is, what a psychic knows about them? They always want to talk about it. But most people don't want to hear any bad stuff. I wondered how that has affected Francine's personal life.

"Do you have a personal life?", I asked her.

"Not really. As far as my personal life goes, most guys are scared of it. They don't even want to shake my hands believe it or not and you know either they come in and they try to challenge me to see what I know. You know I'm saying. but it's hard when it comes to yourself. It's hard to be objective. You know you know it is what it is."

BUT, professionally men aren't scared of Francine at all. She has a lot of male clients that come to her for business consultations. Mostly by phone and Zoom.

"Are you a business psychic?" I asked her, because I often joke that I'm a business psychic. LOL. I'm just highly intuitive when it comes to business. I know where the matches are. I know what people should do. I'm like, what do you mean you haven't thought of that? I see opportunities for people, and I have some fun with that skill as a consultant.

Yes, Francine does help many businesses with her skills as a psychic. She's also a medium, and a medical intuitive. She's currently re-branding herself and her website.

It's probably why she thought of me. She knows I love helping people re-think new opportunities for themselves.

Call Francine if you need her. Or who knows, she might call you. LOL

Meet Francine here on the podcast of our live conversation from The Debbie Nigro Show.

I need to shine a light on Saratoga NY one of the kindest places in America.

That's where the idea for a viral event that took place across the country this year called "Leap of Kindness Day' emanated from. It was held on …you guessed it…Leap Day!

I love Saratoga. Been there enough times to know I could live there.

I invited Todd Shimkus the President of The Saratoga Chamber of Commerce, and originator of the kindness idea, to join me on The Debbie Nigro Show to talk about 'The Kindness Movement' they started in 2016.

Leap of Kindness was such a great idea, that 250 other Chambers of Commerce in the US and Canada joined in the movement this year to encourage the spread of meaningful kindness vibes and deeds.

It's always worth my time to showcase people on this planet doing beautiful things because most people are good, and I know we sometimes forget that because the world we live in is tough.

Speaking of good things, Todd shared all the cool stuff coming up in Saratoga, NY this year.

"Oh my God, we have so much going on in our community, especially as we head into this summer. You know, the New York City Ballet is coming back to SPAC, the Philadelphia Orchestra, we are their summer home. They've got some extraordinary performances there. We've got the Universal Preservation Hall, which is new coming out of COVID. It's a fully restored church that was acoustically designed to allow people to perform and the sound to be just amazing for musical events. Cafe Lina, which is one of the oldest venues you'll find for music as well is here. And then of course the Saratoga Racecourse, and our casino. We are hosting the Belmont Stakes Saratoga on June 8th for the first time ever. And it's sold out for Saturday, June 8th."50,000 people will be at the racecourse that day. There's still tickets available for Thursday and Friday and Sunday around that. And we expect a week-long celebration of that just amazing event, especially if there's a Triple Crown potential for one of the horses."

That Saratoga Racecourse is special. Sports Illustrated named it one of the world's greatest sporting venues. As I kid I remember that every Summer for years and years, my parents and all my aunts, uncles and their friends would go to Saratoga in August and always stayed at place called The Gideon Putnam, and always left all us kids home.

It was decades later that I finally went there myself and got to see what all the fuss was about. It's an incredible place. I was so annoyed they never took us kids all those years! LOL

Saratoga Racecourse is a Thoroughbred horse racing opened in 1863 and is considered to be the oldest major sporting venue of any kind in the country but is actually the fourth oldest racetrack in the U.S. according to Wikipedia. You will feel the nostalgia there and you get to see all the beautiful horses up close. There's a lot more too in Saratoga that captured my soul and I've gone back a few times to enjoy the food, the music, and the beauty of this charming place.

And Saratoga has active mineral springs. I just learned there are currently 21 public mineral springs in various locations throughout Saratoga. Most of the springs are naturally carbonated and no two springs taste exactly alike. That's because each spring has its own distinct mineral makeup and flavor profile. There are supposed health benefits from clearing skin, to helping digestion, and even strengthening blood! You can even Design Your Own Mineral Springs Private Tasting Tour.

I should also mention it's supposedly the home of the original potato chip. That alone is worth a tasting trip to see about that!

Enjoy this podcast of my live conversation with Todd Shimkus the President of The Saratoga Chamber of Commerce on The Debbie Nigro Show.

When it comes to politics these days you can be sure there are LOTS of divisive conversations going on.

It's not expected that we'll all agree on the important topics, but come on everybody - can't we at least learn how to respectfully disagree?

Before you argue with, block, curse out or cut off individuals due to their political views, learn how to respectfully disagree and build bridges instead of barriers. We need to challenge our own perspective because we all think that we're right, I guess, until we realize maybe we're not 100%, right.

That's the message Justin Jones-Fosu is shouting from the rooftops in his upcoming book "I Respectfully Disagree: How to Have Difficult Conversations in a Divided World".

Justin is international speaker and the founder of Work. Meaningful. He shares some great advice on how to handle extreme political conversations. We had a much-needed conversation about this topic live on my radio show and Justin pointed out, "It's been bad for a long time, but it's with the rise of media and everybody having a voice and platform that It's gotten really bad. Even in workplaces, three out of four people say that their management can handle, should handle conflict better."

"But just think about anecdotally, as we see online, as people talk to each other, there's these two things that are happening."

"One of, we see a respectful disagreement, disrespectful disagreement. But Debbie, there's also an interesting phenomenon we found in our studies, is this other thing called 'disrespectful agreement'.

"And I see it in a lot of the audiences and corporations I go in, is that people are in front of your face, they're like, oh Debbie, I think that music was amazing. And then behind the scenes, they're talking to the producer, like, why would you even play that?""

"And that's one of the things that's also causing disrespectful discriminates as well, is because people are passively, or what the new generation is calling gaslighting others."

I couldn't agree more with Justin that people need to try harder to build bridges to people rather than barriers from them.

He shares some good suggestions about how we all can start to go about doing that better.

"I think the foundation for us lies in the statement I've been making for about the last decade is that we can vehemently disagree with someone's ideology and yet still passionately pursue their humanity. That's the starting point. Because oftentimes we consistently attach ideology with identity.

And so I'll start with challenging perspective because I think that speaks to what we do. I mean, it starts before any disagreement happens. It's the posture, the position that we put ourselves in. "

Justin Shared a Practical Example:

"One of the things I started to challenge myself to do is this thing called Circles of Grace, where it's the thing that my mom taught me. My mom took us to events that we didn't know a lot about and that we also disagreed with. And so when you constantly are putting yourself in positions of learning and hearing other people's perspectives, so every six months I go to events, experiences, or I engage with people that I either don't know a lot about or that I disagree with. And that's helped me to consistently challenge my perspective and learn."

I'm glad I took the time to chat with Justin. Besides being an author Justin Jones- Fosu is also a full-time dad-e, and social entrepreneur. He speaks 50-60 times a year for professionals, corporations, organizations, and associations. His clients include some of the biggest names in The Fortune 500 to the best spelled names in Fourth Grades across the country he says. LOL

I also really like that he's fun. Like me, he often uses humor to get a serious message across.

I think it would be meaningful for you to take a few minutes to listen to this podcast of our live conversation from The Debbie Nigro Show. Might save some of your relationships!

Juan Vides is the CEO & Founder of TechAcs Corp. His love for tinkering with computers as a kid, led to his now 25 years of experience in the digital marketing industry.

He Can Get You On the 1st Page of Google!

Attorneys especially seek out his services.

Juan Vides is a WOW. A class act who counts his blessings every day.

At four years old he fled civil war in El Salvador with his family and through hard work & education became an American citizen and created a very successful life and business on Long Island.

Besides building 1000's of websites, and perfecting SEO & social media marketing for clients. Juan really knows how to network. He understands as I do, that people do business with people they know, like, and trust.

Juan created a formalized platform for entrepreneurs all over the globe to network that zooms every week called 'Winning On Wednesdays'. Between 60-90 people join the zoom at 11am and share their professions and passions.They break out into individual groups and get to know each other and share what they need and know to create relationships for the future to help one another.

Yes WOW.

Juan serves on various Boards both for-profit and non-profit and has been featured on Fox News in an episode of The American Dream.

He's the real deal. And charming too!

Enjoy meeting Juan in this podcast of our live conversation on The Debbie Nigro Show on WGCH Radio.

The Debbie Nigro show airs live 11-12 noon in the NY/CT area on 1490 WGCH and around the world on the digital live stream at WGCH,com.

'Random Run In' with NASA photographer Max Evans on the Port Canaveral Pier the day #odysseus was supposed to go to the moon.

My significant other 'Dave' and I went to visit his son Keith who moved from NY to Fla. near Cape Canaveral. We were jazzed we'd accidentally be on time to see the launch of the first craft to the moon in 50 years!

"Odysseus" was launched by a private company named "Intuitive Machines". As we all now know, the spacecraft did make it to the moon and even though it landed on it's side was still able to send information back to earth. The mission was in fact a SUCCESS!

As luck would have it the big launch set for the last night we'd be there, was delayed till the next day and we missed it. Total Bummer.

Thankfully guys like Max Evans, who I ran into, are around to capture moments like this for the rest of us.

Max Evans, a NASA Space Flight photographer was on that fishing pier across from the launch pad that day. He was observing hardware movement at Launch Complex 36 in anticipation of Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket launch.

Max has been shooting for nasaspaceflight.com for almost 12 months and has spent 4 years telling the story of modern spaceflight. He feels fortunate to be a part of the space industry.

His job is to capture moments of space missions for those of us who cannot see them in person. He feels fulfilled being part of something larger than himself, contributing to space exploration efforts like SpaceX's goal of making life interplanetary.

Given the chance Max said he'd 'absolutely' be willing to travel to space himself. (Sadly I won't be traveling with him beacuse I'm claustrophobic)

Oh, and wanted to mention Max gave me a cool NASA Space Flight Patch. I'll let you know where I decide to put it. LOL

Of course, I invited him to join me on The Debbie Nigro Show to talk about his cool job as NASA's Space photographer. I love 'Random Run Ins' They're some of my most fun interviews.

Tune in Live weekdays from anywhere to hear The Debbie Nigro Show on WGCH.com .

All Women Who Like To Make People Laugh Should Check out GOLD Comedy! You may just find your people.

GOLD COMEDY is a comedy school, professional community, and content studio where women + non-binary folks grow their comedy careers and creative side hustles, build powerful networks, and make funny stuff.

I'm personally all about using humor to address serious matters. Humor gets people to pay attention. That I know. So naturally I was drawn to Lynn Harris, the CEO and founder of GOLD Comedy when I came across her profile on LinkedIn which read:

Founder | brand-builder | writer | producer | podcaster | multi-hyphenate using the power of comedy and humor to connect, humanize, and transform.

Lynn's done stand-up comedy in Boston and New York and has had many comedy adjacent roles, including using comedy to make tough issues more accessible while working for a human rights organization. One past success includes her infamous internet co-creation called 'Breakup Girl'.

GOLD Comedy offers classes, celebrity speaker series, digital shorts teams, mics, shows, and more to help build expertise, careers, and resumes for women and other "others" who are chasing showbiz dreams or all the other opportunities and outlets that comedy provides.

Lynn shared that GOLD Comedy even creates opportunities for women to 'collaborate' on comedy content, including forming teams to produce digital sketches. These teams retain ownership of their content, with GOLD Comedy even subsidizing some expenses.

Why GOLD? Dudes still dominate the comedy world and access to it. Twice as many ads feature men being funny versus women. Standup lineups are still up to 70% men. Amy Schumer is STILL the only woman ever to make the Forbes 100 list of top-earning comedians.

Even though women are more and more visible in comedy, men still control and define it. Women have more challenges in the comedy industry, including the perception of women comedians and the male-dominated landscape of late-night TV and stand-up comedy. And let's face it, comedy is mostly a late-night activity, which can be challenging for women, especially those with families.

GOLD Comedy is here for the gals.

Rachel Dratch is an advisor, and their guests + mentors have included Margaret Cho, Paula Pell, Judy Gold, Rachel Bloom, Ashley Nicole Black, Patti Harrison, Paula Pell, Bridget Everett, and staffers from The Daily Show, SNL, A Black Lady Sketch Show, Broad City, Search Party, Inside Amy Schumer, and more.

You must check out a fabulous GOLD Comedy bit on You Tube called 'Spanx for Nex'! It's a riot.

Tune in to this fun podcast of our live conversation on The Debbie Nigro Show.

Loren Stephens found her way to LA from NY in a career and life transition. While there away from her Mom, she convinced her mother, 'a grand dame' to let her write her write her memoir. In doing so, she was sparked to launch a business writing other people's memoirs.

Loren who is now "Hollywood's Go-To Ghostwriter" founded two companies. 'Bright Star Memoirs' geared toward helping entertainment and sports figures tell their life stories.

And 'Write Wisdom', to provide support and guidance for 'anyone' interested in writing their life story.

Every life is unique, but not everyone has the self-confidence or skill to tell their story without help. Not even celebrities.

Her latest celeb book out is a dazzling Hollywood memoir with Jeff Margolis who produced television's most memorable variety series and specials over the past fifty years—from iconic variety shows of the 1970s to 8 Oscars!

"We're Live in 5", is the ultimate behind-the-scenes tour says Loren, with a foreword by Billy Crystal. It's a tell-it-as-it-is with all the glamour you expect, along with a deeply revealing human portrait of working with larger-than-life personalities at television's most dizzying and demanding heights. It's also a great insider education for anyone aspiring to be an entertianment producer.

Loren Stephens own personal essays and short stories have been published in numerous literary journals and newspapers including the Los Angeles Times; the Chicago Tribune and more.

A New York native, Loren's love for the theater, film and writing is what really led her to Los Angeles. As an executive producer, she received an Emmy nomination for the PBS documentary, Legacy of the Hollywood Blacklist, narrated by Burt Lancaster. Her debut historical novel, 'All Sorrows Can Be Borne', was originally published in 2021 by Rarebird.

Loren is a member of Greenlight Women, a dynamic and diverse community of women over forty in media and entertainment. She also serves as a National Commissioner of the Anti-Defamation League.

Enjoy this podcast of our warm insightful conversation on The Debbie Nigro Show.

Misty LaBoy Knows a Thing or Two About Negative Self-Talk.

A health and beauty industry leader for over 20 years (in the top 2% of multiple billion-dollar health and beauty organizations) her career success did nothing for a long while to offset her personal struggle with weight and self-image.

Even after successfully losing 60 pounds, she had to work on her internal feelings to maintain her weight loss. She believes lifestyle changes, including mindset changes, are more effective than diets.

Misty believes it so much she made a business out of it!

Misty Laboy who has produced countless live events and trainings brings a wealth of knowledge to help people dealing with rejection, doubt, people pleasing, etc. by teaching them how transform to think look and feel their best. She joined me on my radio show to some tips to help you get rid of your own negative self-talk.

Misty emphasizes that negative self-talk is a significant challenge for many people and that individuals have the power to be either their own critic or cheerleader. It's a matter of choosing to think differently since negative thoughts are typically not beneficial.

I personally always like to talk about what I call our "higher brain" vs our "lower brain". Our lower brain seems to be a troublemaker, even when our higher brain knows better. LOL

Misty suggests that self-awareness is crucial in recognizing and changing automatic negative thoughts. She recommends reframing negative thoughts to combat them. For example, changing "I hate my fat stomach" to "I'm working on leaning out my stomach" can make a significant difference.

Social media, says Misty, often has a negative impact on self-image, especially among women, especially when they start comparing themselves to the unrealistic highlight reels of others online.

But Misty does loves social media that sends the right messaging. She's an avid podcast listener and liked my upbeat messaging so much when she found me on Spotify that she reached out to be on my show and share her knowledge. I'm glad she did.

Misty's Course and Coaching:

Misty offers a 12-week course focused on self-love and self-worth, addressing core issues and including one-on-one sessions tailored to individual needs. Misty feels comfortable discussing a wide range of subjects from self-love to alternative lifestyles and has diverse expertise and interests.

For example, she mentioned she is in a polyamorous relationship, and has both a husband and a boyfriend, and they are teaching a seminar on the topic. That will have to be a whole other show!

Enjoy the podcast of our live conversation on The Debbie Nigro Show on WGCH Radio.

Once a week I cover trends and trending topics on my radio show. On this show I cover "fluting" as a hot 2024 design trend and "grounding shoes," as a current meta trend. Oh and how 98% of influencers are making less than 100K not millions as you might have been led to believe.

Yet these days everybody and their mother and grandmother too, wants to be an influencer, which would be fine if everybody had a good cause they were trying to influence.

Terry Torok who joined me in the studio this week has a company called 'Creative Intelligence Agency' and represents rising Influencers & A-List Artists with Causes. People like George Clooney, Elton John, Alicia Keys, Jamie Fox, Kevin Bacon, and Deepak Chopra. His focus is on creating films and projects of positive impact.

Terry has worked in Entertainment Media for 30 years, including brand sponsorships for the Super Bowl 1/2-time show, 4 Olympics and 3 World Cups. He was also one of the original pioneers of Esports, creating the first world competitions, tours, TV series and the first Esports arenas in Times Square. Terry is also the Executive Producer at Live from Earth Entertainment.

Terry and Deepak Chopra just collaborated on a new game called 'Graticube'. They've gamified a way to more meaningful conversations for people interested in connecting deeper with others.

Graticube is a game that aligns with my own personal mission to inspire more authentic connections and conversation between perfect strangers, best friends, family, and co-workers. It's the same reason I wrote a book called "How To Talk To Strangers Advice from a Professional Stranger Talker" that just debuted on Amazon.

The Graticube game involves dice and cards that prompt players to share stories and foster deeper connections during gameplay.

Terry and I discussed the importance of establishing trust for meaningful interactions and we talked about how social media platforms like LinkedIn often lack genuine conversation, even though you'd assume a platform for connecting in business would see a higher rate of returned messages after you've reached out to someone.

Fortunately, Terry and I are the kind of people who respond! LOL We originally met on LinkedIn, and established the trust and connection which led to this warm and wonderful in-person catch up.

Enjoy this podcast of our live inspiring conversation on The Debbie Nigro Show .