12-26-25 Ken Broo

Where I am. I believe we have all survived Christmas, or else we would not be here today.

Right. Maybe we didn't survive Christmas.

I wouldn't be talking, you wouldn't be listening, and you wouldn't be yelling back at me.

So we're here. We survived yet another Christmas.

All of the spending, all of the cooking, all of the cleaning, all of the things you have to do.

But I hope the things that you did.

I hope whatever gifts you gave, whatever gifts you received, I hope wherever you went yesterday to celebrate Christmas, which I hope was someplace that does have some religious connotations. But nevertheless, however it went down, I hope it was a blessed and happy Christmas for you, because there are so few times that we, not just as an American society, but we as family, can gather together. And though family can cause tensions, sometimes families can cause great joy, sometimes

And so because of.

That, I think it might be time to just sit back and just take sense of where we are as not only a country, but also as a world. And there are a number of hot spots around the world, one of which is Nigeria. As I'm sure you know by now, the President Donald J. Trump launched a quote unquote powerful and deadly strike against forces of the Islamic State,

Hey, Ken, thanks for having me.

I'm glad you're here. Obviously, this is a serious situation. Three Americans killed by the Islamic State gunmen. Gunmen's probably two soldiers and a civilian. Three others injured. The United States retaliates with an attack about seventy targets. I think a lot of people in this country were unaware that the United States still had an active presence in Syria. I think that our presence in Syria is a mission that really has no definition at this point, does it.

I agree. I mean, I know the President during his first term was trying to get our troops out of Syria, and I supported that completely because I don't understand why we're there. I don't understand why we were in Afghanistan for twenty years or Iraq for so many years. I mean, this is not, I think, a vital interest in the United States. And we're losing our soldiers, we're spending money that we don't have, and we're in a reason that is forever marked by turmoil and war and different factions

So a Jeff. They hate us.

I mean, it's obvious that they don't want us there. It's obvious that the president of the country doesn't like the United States. Isis I mean, I mean, there's so many different titles. This is the Islamic State, then there's Isis, you know, then there's you know. I mean, it just it's obvious. It's a quagmire over there. We tried to get into nation building at a lot of places and it failed, and here we go again. I don't even know what the strategic value is to the United States, do you.

Well, supposedly we're there to limit the Islamic State ISIS from expanding and to try to go after you know, isis terrace in that country. And I'm thinking, well, I mean that should be the job of the president of Syria. I mean, this is a country that was led by the Asade dictatorship, the family dictatorship for five decades. He was forced out by a military force that grew quickly and swept over the country. He's in exile in Russia. For all his faults, he was at least permitting Christianity

Yeah, And the answer to that question for me is I don't know. I don't think anybody knows at this point. But regardless of strategic objective and regardless of what genocide is going on in Syria, it just seems like we get dragged into these quagmires all the time, and there's no easy way out. I mean, you can go back as far as Korea and up as recently as Vietnam. We get in there and rather than just declare victory and go home, we just get bogged down in these things.

You are one hundred percent right, we do not. We should not. The track record is abysmal. I mean, just give you. Let's just look at Afghanistan. We went in there in two thousand and one after the nine to eleven attacks, supposedly to go after those who plan the nine to eleven attacks, and Osama bin Laden slipped away, so instead of declaring victory and coming home, we stayed there for twenty years. When we went to Afghanistan, the Taliban was in charge. When we left Afghanistan, the Taliban

You know, I like to say, the answer to all of our questions in life is money. The answer to all of our geopolitical interests may be oil. I know Syria has oil, it's crude oil. But they have got oil, natural gas. They've got some minerals I guess over there, rock, salt, marble, gypsum, things like that. So there may be some strategic reason that we're over there, But from a I guess from an economic standpoint, maybe that strategic is oil. It seems

Right.

No, I think that that could be a factor.

But I mean, I think in.

The thissadministration, we're working to become energy independent where we shouldn't have to go send our troops to the Middle East. I mean, we should have enough resources here to be able to take care of ourselves. I mean, I know that was why we got involved in the first Golf War, because you know, Rock Invada, Kuwait, and we were worried about the world oil supply, and that led to all these other engagements wars over there.

Now.

I mean, we're unleashing our energy potential here, so as we become energy independent, we shouldn't be worried about what's going on all over the world. But I think it is a reason. I think it definitely is a reason with Venezuela because they're massive supplies there, so you know, the world markets, I guess for one of the reasons and so forth. The President wants to have low price of oil and the free flow of oil. So we're taking action against Venezuela, which is a whole other issue.

Maybe Israel, but not ours.

What would happen, in your opinion, if we just declared victory and pulled out of Syria him Afghanistan obviously was a debacle the way we left, but even leaving was in the works before Joe Biden completely you know, made that a complete Chataki mushroom show. What you know, what what what would be the what would be the folly and just saying Okay, we're done with Syria.

I think zero. I think we would save money. I think we would save lives. I think we could put our troops are over there into places that are of more importance to us, like the border. I think that, you know, Israel might have to step up and do more, but I mean that should be left to Israel to do so. Again, I think that there would not be devastating ramifications at all. I mean, I think our troops over there are target to be terrorists.

That's why you know these attacks occurred.

They want to they want to kill Americans, and be harder for them to do it if we're not there.

Yeah, yeah, I mean, who knows. I don't know. I was still I was a little.

Taken aback by what happened, And maybe that was in essence the strategy, the surprise of the attack.

They poked the beast.

Apparently we retaliated, but that to me seems so nineteen nineties in the way we responded over there. I just don't know what our policy is globally.

I just don't know.

And can I would say, hey, we responded, that's a great time to say, Okay, we're victorious. We responded, we struck back at the enemy. We're leaving where we're taking our troops out. And I know that President Trump shares this view.

Because he had it during his first term.

It's just incredible to me that we're still there, that we're still there, and I'm sure somehow Israel is one of the reasons why we are.

Jeff Cruerer is our guest political commentator. Analysts seeing him on all kinds of outlets MSNBC, Fox, CNBC, places like that. What do you think? And I've got to ask you this. It's a half a globe away from Syria, but we touched on it. What do you think the endgame is in Venezuela. Trump doesn't want troops on the ground. He said that he's got a blockade going, he's seizing tanker ships. I'm just I'm wondering there's got to be a next step or an end run here.

What do you figure it is.

I think he's trying to pressure him the Duro to leave, to exit, and I think he's trying to do it without introduction of US troops. And if there is I think it would be a short term situation, but I think that's the goal, to try to get Maduro to leave because of you know, his involvement in narco terrorism, etc. And I know a lot of Libertarians are not fans of this, and I don't think it's really something that we should be focusing on. And I think a lot

Up these narco terrorist votes that are.

On their way to the US and possibly to recover some of the assets that were stolen from US when the dictatorship started, some of our oil assets. But as far as regime change, I would hope we're not moving in the direction of introducing US troops because I don't want to trade a war in Afghanistan for war in Venezuela.

Sure.

Absolutely, again going back to the policeman of the world point of view, but this, as as you and I both know and I think you mentioned, has more strategic value to deal with this than perhaps what's going on in places like Siria. Jeff Corware, it's always great having you on the show. Good luck with your shows down there in New Orleans. We'll do this again after the new year. But for your time today.

Thanks, let's do it.

I can thank you so much.

You bet all right.

So you got what happened in Nigeria over Christmas, and then this Islamic State gunman that killed three Americans wounded three others about a week and a half ago, and so Trump obviously has got isis in his crossairs again. They're rearing their ugly head. But stand by, I mean, this whole thing in Syria could blow up too. The world is not a safe place, and the administration is trying to do I think a lot right now, but I think it realizes that Syria is at this point

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Hey, football fans gear up from the holidays and conquer that to do list in a brand new Chevy truck. Twelve forty News Radio seven hundred WLW Welcome back.

I am ken Brew.

Well, we spent a lot of money this holiday season.

I know that.

All I have to do is look out the window here at Kenwood Town Center. It's been jammed upright untul Christmas Eve, and it's jammed again today. So I'm just just thinking anecdotally, we seem to have spent a lot of money. The Amazon truck goes up and down my street at least fifty times a day. But we're getting mixed messages on the economy, aren't we. American consumers in December remain downbeat about the state of economy. This according to the Conference Board, which is a nonprofit group that

Was in October.

So you can see there's mixed messages on all of that stuff that economists look at, and then it comes right down to you and me and how we feel because we're the ones that are actually going out there and doing the buying that make those numbers what they are. So where is the economy as we enter into twenty twenty six? Standing by to check in.

On all of that?

As Dan Veroni, he is a terrific economist, strategist, two time author, and he's got a best seller on Amazon right now that he was kind enough to send me Rethinking Economic Growth, and he is with Potonacre Potonacre dot com And Dan, how are you on this glorious day after Christmas.

Of your listeners.

I'm glad you're here. Let's just talk about this. You can see where there's a disconnect between Wall Street and Main Street. You probably see it where you live. I see it where I live. People spend and then it gets onto credit cards and oh my good goodness, here come those bills down the road. And I suppose, I suppose that may be the start of where this uncertainty about economics and the American consumer's opinion about where we're

You know, I think probably the fairest starting point is what the consumer experiences. So if for all of us, right, we go to the guest pump, and you know, a year two years ago, we were getting sticker shock, and that sticker shock came in two forms, right, So one was the price we're paying forget saline, and two was the lower amount of spendable dollars we had after we filled our guest tanks up and then it's spilled over

So that's good news.

But the best news of all, and this really matters, is the gasoline prices are down on average nationally about eighty cents a gallon. And here's really what that means. What that means is is that's going to have an impact on prices that we pay for things. So is an example where we're seeing what I call deflation come in. So dairy and related prices are down, milk prices are down, and cheese prices are flat to down, right, So that's

Well, a couple of things President Trump inherited what I think was just a couple of insanities when it comes to economics in this country.

First was inflation. I mean, it was just totally out of control.

You and I'm guessing by the name of your company, you must live out near the Washington, DC area?

Am I correct on that?

I do. I'm within thirty miles of the Washington, DC border, and I'm there pretty often.

Okay, Well, I.

Used to live in rest in Virginia many many years ago, and you know, I know that sometimes inside the Beltway it's not always what is in effect around the rest of the country. But you're right about gasoline prices, it will cost less to ship. Inflation when the previous president was in office was out of sight because yeah, I mean, they threw money at problems and they just created more problems. And there is not a forgiving media when it comes to Donald Trump. And so these are all great stories

No, I don't think you're hoping too much, because prices in data matters. And you know, so next year when everybody opens up their paychecks, the withholding rates are going to be lower because of the Big Beautiful Law. When they get refund on average a tax refund, a federal tax refund to the tune of one to two thousand dollars.

Dan mentioned his book, It's Rethinking Economic Growth. In fact, Dan quotes a rather prominent Cincinnatian businessman here in Cincinnati in your book, spoke to Jim Schwab right professional Palace. Yeah, and he had some real interesting comments about just where we are and where we need to go and just how we rethink everything, not just in business, but in

And that was a problem on a number of different levels.

But we really do need to rethink in this country where we are going with our education system, and I think your book touches on that.

Could you elaborate us a little bit on.

That, absolutely.

So.

One of the things that I learned in the book is that the thirty five small business owners that I spoke to is that we need skilled, qualified workers, and that is the biggest need that most small businesses have nowadays. But at the end of the day, when you look at the wage earning capacity of an HVAC technician, you know you're looking at six figures. When you look at electricians,

Loans, what's the point.

So I think that refocusing is happening and I'm highly encouraged by that.

And I learned a lot about that in doing interviews for my book.

Well, and despite the fact with the last administration did with its Department of Justice. As a parent, I think you need to get involved with your school board as to what's actually being taught, and what's actually being taught is it helping these kids when they get out of school.

In other words, I think you make this point in your book as well.

There's no reason why you can't have dual paths in an education system coming out of high school. And for that matter, if indeed you want to go to college and study something that isn't a trade, why not have a dual path that that trade is also taught so that it's not a stigma of well he didn't go to college, or well you know he's he's just a high school graduate. Well so what you know, why not why not be deep into what is going on with

Yeah, home rule government is where it's at in this country. And what I love about small business is whole business really ties things together. They are the energy in every community. And one of the things that I was especially impressed with is that there are small businesses that are literally building relationships with schools and saying, will you help us get skilled trained workers, will you change your curriculum around to accommodate that, facilitate that, And in fact they are

These meetings and you push for meaningful change.

Well, Dan Veroni, I happen to think twenty twenty six is going to be a robust year just because of what has signed. What has been signed into law, one big beautiful law. Now I think a lot of people are going to be shocked. We'll see where the credit goes for it. But the fact of the matter is, listening to you, you sound like twenty twenty six could be for all economic strata, could be a robust year.

Am I right about that? Or I hear you?

I think you if I didn't, let me be absolutely on point about this. We are going to have a strong year. We'll get off to a good start in the first quarter, but I think quarters two through four will be very strong. I am very optimistic. When you put taxpayer money back in the hands of taxpayers, they're going to spend it. We're seventy percent consumer driven economy. That in and of itself is a good sign. Lower guess prices, more money to consumers, more money to spend.

Well, Dan Varoni, happy twenty twenty six to you in advance again. His book is Rethinking Economic Growth is a it's a good read. It's a fun read actually, and like I say, there's a couple of Cincinnati connections in there as well. Dan, this was good stuff. Let's do it again. Can we do it again in twenty twenty six. I'll phone you up. Maybe we can do this again.

Hum I'd love to I'd love to do it. Please, please do it. Let's do it right. You take care and we'll talk down the road. All right, Thank you. Have a great day.

Dan Varoni again rethinking economic growth. It's I read it gosh in a day and a half. It was, and it's enlightening. And it's not one of those books where you get bogged down and numbers and things like that. It's it's just a good solid way of looking at what might be best as we look into twenty twenty six, it's coming up on twelve fifty five. We got a lot more to get to.

Today.

It's the average American in for the Great American. Happy day after Christmas. It's still jammed at the mall, so be careful going in there. Remember you're driving. I'm walking on seven hundred WLW. All right.

As we've pressed on this, they had to Christmas.

It's the average American in for the Great American on seven hundred WLW Radio.

Great to have you with us. A lot to get to.

As I say, between now and when we're done here in a couple of hours, I want to get into this big new thing. It's bald guys getting on airplanes and flying to Hungry Why why are a bunch of bald guys getting on planes and flying a hungry Well, apparently that is the place the destination for hair restoration.

But what do you get when you go over there?

I mean, you could literally get some dude put in plugs in your hair, and right next door it could be you know, not next door, but in the same room, could be somebody doing nails, and then next to them it could.

Be like a you know, like a subway station.

So I want to get into what I want to get into what this is all about, because apparently the world's greatest hair transplant surgeon is now living in the United States.

Who knew? You don't have to get on a plane, You.

Don't have to play halfway around the world or Hungry or Turkey or someplace like that. But I want to find out why this guy is the world's greatest transplant in the world, the world's greatest hair transplant doctor, and.

He lives right here in the United States.

So if you see a bunch of bald guys getting on a plane and they're flying east, you might want to flag them down and say, look, all you to get you know, guy in Florida can help you out. We'll talk to him coming up in just a little bit. How much it really costs to get your hair restored in this day and age. I thought you just kind of like pop some pills, right, That's what they would have you believe on TV. You just pop a few pills pro pisha something like that.

Apparently not. I don't know.

There are a lot of things wrong with me, but the one thing I got going for me, I got a nice head of hair. So I watched some of these NFL games yesterday, and man, Netflix, they they just need to stick with movies and documentaries a little rough to coverage. Yesterday, Dallas won by seven over Washington in a meaningless game. Detroit got knocked out of the playoffs by Minnesota. Detroit looked like they wanted to be anywhere but Minneapolis. And then you had Denver beating Kansas City.

Damien Fortune, how are you on this glorious day? I'm doing well, Ken? How about you? So I'm good?

But I don't know what squishing is? What is squishing? Just to find the term squishing for us please.

Yeah, So, if you've heard of fishing before, this is just another kind of variety of a predatory cyber attack. This time it's leveraging those QR codes that you see posted everywhere, whether it's you at a restaurant, on your light bill or you know kind of just distributed around

Well, this is interesting if I see a secure code. Now, a lot of times you'll you'll watch television and they'll say, get more information on the product here, or if you're watching the show that's trying to raise money for a charity, you'll say, just put your phone up to the QR code and it'll take your right to where you can

How can they do that?

Yeah, so a lot of times these bad guys are now doing the research right, So they'll go to the restaurant and they'll look up the website or the menu page of the website, or they'll actually go to the charity's website and make.

A copy of it.

Essentially that has a slightly different web address, but it looks close enough that if you weren't looking too carefully, you feel like, oh, okay, this is a this is a legit.

This is where she's putting in FRAN information or making that donation.

Okay, so they're out there, they're smartt they're doing this. Well, then why can't the establishment change it?

Then?

I mean, is it just one of those things, Hey, you know, change it. We'll get you again. Why.

I mean, the establishment would have to know if somebody got burned trying to look at a menu at a restaurant on a QR code, My guess is I would immediately call not only my bank, but I would also call a restaurant.

Yeah, absolutely, And you know, there's always this kind of circular race that goes on there where you can alert folks that this is happening. But a lot of times that bad guys are going so far as to a lot of restaurants now, for example, have those QR codes posted either on a little standing thing on the table or they actually have it as a sticker on the table, so they may not even be sure which of those

It's the same kind of idea. Folks are just putting stickers on top.

Of stickers basically, So then you'd have to have someone in the restaurant going around to every table trying to figure out which one of these QR codes isn't like the other. Then, as you can imagine, right, that's a pretty tough thing to.

Do with the Yeah, I mean, I mean, I get the mechanism, and I understand that there are people out there that want to do nefarious things like this, but it would seem to me that this is a tool of convenience, and maybe it shouldn't be used anywhere until they can lasso this thing. I mean, because you really don't know, you might think, oh, oh, okay, well, this is a legitimate business. I don't have to worry about

Yeah, and a lot of folks actually have because of issues like this, moved away from it or have changed the way that they do things.

In some cases.

Now the QR codes are kind of behind some sort of area, right, so they're under the varnish on the top of the tabletop, or the waiter will bring the QR code to you once you finish your meal, so you can scan and pay that way, to kind of leave the QR code less exposed for folks to come in and tamper with it in some way.

I was always led to believe that these kinds of things more often than not happen to let's call them elderly, maybe the sixty plus seventy plus crowd. But I think anymore it's probably all demographics get caught in this, don't they.

Yeah, absolutely, I mean more and more we're making this trade off of convenience and security, and as we move more towards, you know, being able to pay your bill without you and interacting with the waiter anymore through one of these QR codes, we're going to see more and

Okay, that's an interesting exit ramp. Okay, let's say I get scammed. Let's say I go to a restaurant, I scan the QR code and the next thing I know, my information is out there. I don't know how it got out there, why I got out there. A would if I contracted with Damian Fortune in this company, would they be able to track back where that scam occurred.

We have partners that do exactly that sort of thing.

We focus more on the communication side, but yeah, there's lots of folks out there that do these kind of scam track backs. Now, they obviously worked with your bank and can help you at least recover the money and hopefully work with law enforcement to get those folks shut down.

And conversely, you would probably be able to scam it, or not scam it, but play it forward and find out not just necessarily how I got scammed, what restaurant or some place else I fell a victim to this squishing, but you'd be able to probably then begin a pathway to the people who are actually doing it. Am I am I too far ahead of technology here.

No, I mean I think that's exactly right.

Thing about the QR code thing is that it's a physical installation most of the time. So you know, this isn't necessarily fighting the enemy, the unseen enemy on the other side of the planet.

Right That's that's putting up a fake website or.

Send you an email of the bad linked if this is a person that actually had to come into that restaurant, for example, and put that sticker somewhere. So those folks are local and therefore you know, a subject to the jurisdiction law, law enforcement and that sort of thing. So there are there is actually a recourse for this particular scam where you can actually get at the folks that are that are doing the scamming.

So I and again I'm guessing here and correctly if I'm wrong. But QR codes were built as a way of convenience. They weren't built by way of security. So I'm just I'm wondering why would somebody use Why would somebody make one of these things in the first place? If you have to take a device which can be compromised so easily and then put it on this code that wasn't built with security in mind, who thought that was a good idea?

Like all things, it starts with that convenience factor. You know, there's a we go to movies now and we can buy tickets.

With scanning a QR code.

We can order food at restaurants and pay for it with scanning those QR code. So there's this. There's always that force in the.

Economy to say, well I can I can pull costs out of the system by using this, and unfortunately a lot of times the security is left holding the bag when those compromises are made.

Damian Fortune our guest. He's a cybersecurity expert. His company is Centric Centric state of the art security platform which I'm told here is designed to protect the integrity of group communications in real time? Group communications in real time? Will that be like those chat groups that businesses have or like inter company communication?

Is that what that's all about?

Yeah, that's exactly right. I think of us like an ultra secure version of teams or Slack.

So when I guess that encrypted invitation that was sent out by the Department of Defense and Department of War back in the winter time, if they had tracted with cybersecurity expert Damian Fortune, it would never become a problem.

That's the idea.

Yeah, is anything safe on the Internet anymore? With with when dealing with personal information, shopping on the Internet with a credit card, U conducting business of any kind involving money or personal information on the on the Internet. I know, I see HTTP and http S. The S is supposed to stand for security and it would make the transaction above board and nobody can hack it. But really and truly, there's a risk every time you go on the Internet to try and conduct business, isn't there?

Absolutely right? I mean, the speed at the enemy in this case.

Is so a lot of times you just have to take that extra second to make sure that the website that you're sending information through is which are backed by a company that has the resources in place to protect you those sorts of things.

Even with those QR code that we were.

Talking about a moment ago, your phone actually give you a preview of the website that they're going to send you to by scanning it. If you hold the camera over the code to see a little yellow box pop up that gives you a.

Little bit of the URL. There's little things like that.

I can take that extra second before you click on it, and you can say, maybe that doesn't look exactly right, Maybe I should slack my waiter and ask if this is a legitimate thing or not.

I was always told, or I always thought, Damien, that you know, most of this stuff that goes on, this nefarious stuff, was being done by you know, a bunch of people in a basement in Bulgaria. But anymore, it seems like that a lot of this stuff is being conducted, not all of it, certainly, but right here in our country.

Unfortunately, a lot of those brilliant folks figured out that instead of actually committing the crimes and bearing their sells, they could make just as much money selling the tool So a lot of places on the Internet now you can go and actually download hacking toolkits or information stealing toolkits that you pay a subscription fee for and you get all of the tools you need to generate theparious QR codes or steal people's information from the emails and

Yeah, I am just after reading about it, I'm just not going to do it. I mean it just again, convenience, I suppose is the most important thing here for a lot of Americans. But I mean just step back and you think, wait a minute, I've got this device, it's portable, it's easily hackable, even with some of the best security stuff on it, whatever it may be. I just I think I think I'm just going to back off from using it for that. Am I being too polyannish? Or should I? Should I keep doing it?

With?

What should I need? Help? Damien? What should I do?

Well?

It's a cyberperson. That's my responsibility to tell you to do the most secure thing all the time. But there's always that sliding scale, right. What we try to tell folks is that without completely undoing your way of doing things, insert tools that can help add additional layers of security. When you're on the internet shopping, for example, use a debit card, use a credit card, even better, use one of the payment intermediaries like a PayPal for example. When

And if someone wants to get the cybersecurity expertise of Damian Fortune, they go to centrics se n.

T r q s dot com. Am I right about that? Centric sc nt r IQs dot com.

Yeah, I thought that's what I said. That maybe I didn't, but thanks for thanks for clearing that up. And whatever you do. When you see Damian Fortune's name, if he's got a QR code next to him, chances are it's a scam, right.

Right, protect yourself at all.

Done Here you go, Damien, Thanks for your time here, good stuff, Stay well and happy New Year.

Thanks so much. Ken, you too, you bet so. The next time you're in.

A restaurant you see one of those QR codes, just politely say to your server, excuse me, ma'am, and I order over here. Cybersecurity, you know, just security in general. It is one twenty seven on this day after Christmas. It's the average American in for the Great Americans. Seven hundred WLWS Radio, seven hundred WLW, the average American in for the Great American on this day after Christmas. Gloom me outside. But that's all right. It's gonna be that

Might it might go on for a while. How about this one?

According to multiple reports, and that would mean reports from all over the place, misinformation on social media about mental health is becoming a crisis. More than half of all top trending videos offering mental health advice on TikTok contain misinformation. Wait, stop,

But I thought TikTok was my friend.

Lee Richardson has found a place called the Brain Performance Center. And she is a consultant, and she is a doctor. Great note, and she is the author of the book Turn Your Brain On to get Your game on the how What Why to peak performance. I've had Lee on the show several times because I likely number one, number two. She speaks the truth when it comes to all things involving the brain. TikTok for mental crises. That's where you're going.

Better. You should listen now, Lee Richardson, how are you in this glorious day? I'm doing very well. Thanks for having me.

I used to call you Lee, but now I call you doctor because I think anybody that put that much work into getting a doctorate deserves to be called doctor.

Does that make sense?

Well, thank you so much for that recognition.

Well, good for you, and good good for the folks that taught you. Look, I saw this, and there are a lot of reasons to not like social media. This is just added to the list that it may go to the top of the list. Is that increasingly, more and more, particularly younger people are turning to places like TikTok to figure out what might be wrong with them from a mental state. And I'm thinking to myself, well, yeah,

Absolutely and TikTok, whether it's TikTok or Instagram or Facebook, it's so easy. Social media penetrates so many lines, and for many people it's their first stop for mental or health.

And mental health.

Nobody wants to hear bad news, no matter what it is. But when it comes to your health, you don't really want to hear bad news. And I think most people know that there's something wrong with them, and so I mean physically wrong with them before they even go to see a doctor.

You can feel it.

You just know, and I would guess from a mental outlook that you would know too that maybe something isn't quite right. So to avoid going to a doctor, you probably turned to other means. It's a quick, fixed mentality. That's the way to find out what's wrong with you without actually having a human being tell you there's something that's wrong with you.

Does that make sense? Well, I mean this is when you think about it.

When the World Health Organization declares that we are in a state and phodemic, there's just too much information. It's false, it's misleading, it makes its cross of confusion. It causes people to take risky behavior and these things can can

Oh, I've used to.

Years and sometimes perhaps you do get some good information. But I think if people will just slow down, you know, you put something in there and you go to social media and you see it, and instead of automatically reacting to it, think ask yourself, is that is that right? I mean, it's really easy. Go go to Google scholar and put a question in and it'll find research that will support it. And if you can't find anything that

Of course we're going to run with it. Yeah.

Yeah, I mean I refer to that as people want affirmation, they don't necessarily want information and so if you can go some that affirms what you think or what you've heard, that's exactly right. But I just I guess the thing that concerned me the most is if you think you have something wrong with you, you probably do.

And Emily on.

TikTok or you know, Bob on TikTok is not going to be able to help you through what's wrong with you. A licensed professional also known as a doctor is going to help you through.

Through with it. Am I right?

You are right? And anytime I hear a one size fits all, now it doesn't. There's not a one size because everybody reacts to what's going on to their life differently. The genetics come into play, stress comes into play. The only time I hear one size fits all, I start backing up. Yeah.

Absolutely, There's so many things I want to get to with you today, but that in particular, and I think the headline that we've just been talking about is if you know, go see somebody. If you can't afford to go see somebody, there are ways that you can get

Well, I think a big part of it is is there's no psychological.

Safety at work.

People, you know, they are being forced to come back to the office, and that they liked working from home and they felt safe in their home. They didn't have to deal with traffic, they didn't have to deal with running into after work, and really they don't feel safe at work.

They feel like that and part of that.

One out of five of us can is suffering from either anxiety or depression, and sometimes both. So I think that when we're stressed out, we were in an overreactive mode. We react to everything instead of hitting the pause button and thinking it through. And I think that there is help for people. But if your manager or your supervisor, you know, struggles with anxiety or depression, you don't feel comfortable going to that person, and if you're the manager

They didn't know how to do it.

And as an organization that something, employee well being is something that's got to be factored in to their strategy.

One out of go back to your beginning of your answer. One out of five people, that's twenty percent and are suffering from anxiety or stress.

It's a significant number. Has it always? Has it always been that way?

Or and nobody paid attention to it because my guess is is that the stress is that this current group, let's just say, from millennials younger, that's that they're experiencing. My guess is those same stressors existed for people that are boomers or whatever the next group was. It had to have been there in the past. Did we just ignore it?

Well?

I think that we did ignore it to some degree because we were too ashamed to talk about it. The stigma associated was huge. And Kim, when I first started working in the brain world back in two thousand and five and up state myself here, But we used to talk about mental health and I would say, oh, my sense, you've got some depression.

Oh no, no, I'm fine.

And when I in two thousand and nine, when I opened the Brain Performance Center, I decided, I'm not using that language anymore. I'm not talking mental health because it's lonely, nobody wants to talk about it. And I switched my language to brain help. And I got a lot more conversation out of that because that and put it into context of the brain is an organ, just like your heart. And if we think there's something wrong with our heart, it doesn't paint more than a day to get an

Have is our brain.

Gee is the author of the book Turn Your Brain On to Get Your game on? The How What Why to peak performance? Doctor Lee Richardson is always great having me on. You stay well, We need to hear your voice.

Okay, thank you, kem Yeah, you bet. You know it's the core of all This is me anecdotally. I'm not a doctor, don't pretend to be one.

I think sleep issues, I think those are are largely to blame for a lot of what goes on inside the rest of our body.

Seventy million people have sleep issues.

I didn't know that until I actually looked it up and then I saw this from the Mayo Clinic forty percent increase if you have sleep issues, There was a forty There was a forty percent increase according to the Mayo Clinic Clinic for risk of dementia, equivalent to about three and a half years of accelerated brain aging. And then insomnia leads to other things like high blood pressure,

We'll deal with that next on seven hundred WLW. All right, here we go, Here we go, Oh, here we go.

The average American in for the great American on this Friday, two ten in the afternoon here in Greater Cincinnati. However you're listening, whether it's through this great medium of terrestrial radio or on the iHeartRadio app. However, you're consuming this fifty thousand watt mother flamethrower WLWWI welcome you in. We got bowl games today. You know these ball games. I mean, I love college football, But what am I watching? Watching uniforms. A lot of players don't show up, They go into

Oh my gosh, what a great introduction.

Thank you so much. I'm very appreciative of that introduction.

I'm doing great.

Thank you.

I'm glad you are.

Let let's just talk about hair restoration. I mean, I see a lot of ball guys. Okay, see the guys that are let's just say, folliclely challenged that are walking around and I think they've given up. They just shaved the old head because of receding hairlines that have gone awry and whatnot. But before we get into why you are so great and why you don't have to go halfway around the world to get your hair back, just how difficult a process is hair restoration? I mean, is

Well, it's great question you're asking, and that the answer is it can be extremely involved or can not be because many patients have different stages of hair loss. So dependent upon the stage of hair loss, you have determines how much of a challenge it may be to restore it. But step one ways in the process is trying to keep the patients on some form of preventative treatment. We fortunately have two FDA approved preventive treatments that exist, the

But if you're completely bald, you've got it through the plugs, right, I mean, taking finesteride is great. A lot of people, a lot of men take finesteride because of an enlarged prostate rogain. I mean, it's great if you're just snitning. But if you're you know, if you're somebody that that it's all gone, you got to get into the drugs at that point, don't you.

You're exactly right.

But even though even though you're lost most of your hair, we still need to secure what's left because so for example, let's say I, you know, restore the top of your head and then on the side it drops down, so then you create this like alley around the transplanted area, so you're chasing the laws. So whether you're bald or not, it's always recommended you do the treatments so we don't have a moving target because it just makes it easier to get you to finish line. Those products do not

No you don't.

You're just using those to help protect whatever you can, and you still can lose more hair. So in the case you're talking about a guy who has a lot of hair. Typically, you know what I do is unique. I happen to more here than anybody in the world. My patient's flying from all over the world. They have me do what I do because it's a unique procedure, and you know I could I usually, like my patient

This.

One guy might come out and say, hey, this is great, I love it. The next guy might come back and say, I need so it's you know, beauts, and they had them older.

So you would do the plugs and then maybe do like finished right or something like that as a maintenance. Is that what you would do, exactly right? Yeah? So, and I love how you keep saying plugs.

That's awesome.

You know what's funny is the fue surgery that they're doing now that Turkey does is essentially the plugs are invented, so for for us, for us older folks, remember the baby hair, the baby doll hair, look or they had the little plugs all over the place. So what they're doing with the fue is they're using the same punch paths that they do with the plugs. However, they're just

Sewing it to the public as the latest and greatest technique.

Well, I'm watching, I'm reading the story here, and it's said that the hair restoration and transplant business is massive. I mean, in twenty twenty two, the total number of hair restoration procedures worldwide was seven hundred and thirty five thousand, and that the hair transplant market so I stood at US dollars at almost six billion, with a B billion dollars. So I'm sure it's greater than that because those numbers

Getting on an airplane and flying a Turkey to get this time they're doing it.

Yeah, they're doing it Turkey. Is it cheaper in Turkey? And if it is cheaper or are you getting the same thing you'd get in the United States.

So again it's going to be a mixed bag. So the reason why people are going there, they're offering procedures at a fraction of the cost and what we're doing here. But they're doing the fuwe procedure what we were just talking about. And the reason they're doing that is the doctor doesn't have to be involved as much in the case. So for example, I could offer fuwe in my clinic, put it in the back room, have technicians do it

Their other room doing them a nose job or a move job or dermatology.

Or whatever they're doing.

So that helped to sload the industry because you don't have to have the doctor be hands on, and it's not even legal in any the state what they're doing.

So you could go like the Turkey and get hair restoration, get a boob job, maybe a Brazilian button list, and be out the door.

Like in eight hours. Right maybe, yeah, but what are you saying for? That's the whole thing is what do you do?

You know it's back, so you us to get them for a few thousand dollars down there, but they're not doing, in my opinion, quality work. I do a lot of correct the searching on those stations. The hairlines are very unnatural. The graphs are always in the wrong angles, which is very important. How they're angled up and they'll just be angled funny where they don't like it.

Actually.

Also, the way they harvest the donor hair, they're taking out of doing what's called the safe zone.

So you know how you picture that ball.

Guy's got that ring around the back, so they're taking outside of that ring when the patient has hair. But when the patients losing the hair later on, they're going to lose their terms because yeah, you got to be specific where you get the hair from. So there's a lot of pitfalls. Who's working on you in Turkey? Who's there, who's in that room?

You have no idea.

I mean with me, my same staff ten years, that's all we do every day, doing the same thing every day with my staff. And I've been doing this twenty eight years. So you know, you got to understand you get what you pay for.

No, absolutely, I mean you created this Max Harvest, which is trademarked under your name. That's the technique you use. I said you where you were, I guess it was the world's greatest television show. You were named the greatest hair transplant surgery in the world. I mean, that's pretty big stuff, there, dog pretty big stuff.

Thank you, Thank you so much. It's that's very humbly. I'm very very humble by that. I really appreciate.

Why are younger people driving this demand for hair restoration?

Are people?

Have you noticed that that that that hair, that baldness or whatever the medical term is for. Do you know that it is happening You notice that that is happening more and more with younger people than it might have been.

In years past.

I think the biggest driving factor social media. You have a lot of these influencers that are going out and they're going to Turkey and they're filming the whole thing, and they have their followings, and then you have a lot of these all sorts of like social media pages where they communicate about the transplant and pending commercials for hymns in Roland and blah blah blah.

So I think with all that marketing, it's really put.

An emphasis for younger people to get the restoration, whereas before you never saw that that was never out there. So I think all of those factor into this, and then it's available everywhere now that all these doctors, like, you.

Know, there's a dentist locally that does deftuely.

We have the guy down the black you know, anyone gets put a machine in their back room and have a technician do it. So that's really changed everything, and that's made it where it's a lot more available. Where when I first started my patience, you know, everyone flew in because there was just not that many quality doctors doing the transplants. But now they can go locally because there's more people doing it.

Doctor Brett Bolton is our guest again. He is regarded as the greatest hair transplant surgeon in the world, and we're talking about how you not only can get a nice bull head of hair, but also you can maintain it so that you don't have to worry every six eight months whether or not you know it's all going to fall out in the shower. Do you have to take hair doctor from the head? I mean some guys are just hairy. They got it on their chest, they got on their back, they got it on their arms.

So you're one hundred percent right, Yes, you can definitely take hair from other parts. Soloicles can be moved from your arm or your back or anywhere there's a blood bike and grow. So yes, we can definitely do that, but those are for like super string cases. We want to you know, obviously get as much out of the donor area as possible because.

Remember, your arm hair is going to grow like an arm hair whenning to sit on the top of your head.

Your back hair is going to look like a back here, you know what I mean? Right, So yeah, so we.

Want to definitely use the proper donor here if possible, But there's definitely some extreme cases where patients are really gone and we need to take it from other area.

For sure, I try to nail you down on a price. If I go to see doctor Brett Bolton and he said, well, it depends on the severity. So obviously people that have a little more here to work with, it's not going to be quite expensive. But there's got to be like an entry level price, right, there's got to be like that car without air conditioning and a radio.

So what is it in your business? What's the entry level adace?

So for me, my prices started two thousand dollars, but then they can go off ards to twenty so depending on how much.

Yeah.

Well but yeah, to understand when when you pick a doctor that's I'm doing this twenty eight years with guarantee the results, you're you're getting what you're paying for. So when you go to yeah that's what you want to do.

Yeah, I mean look you you you you hung the shingle twenty eight years ago and if it didn't work, you'd be in some other line of work at this point, so yeah, it must work. How backed up are you like if somebody's listening right now. And then I say, hey, I want to go to Fort Laura. I'm going to see this guy. Are you are you taking patients into twenty twenty six or are you booked up to like twenty thirty five.

I wish yeah, but no, we definitely will. We'll make room for anybody who's ready for an air, especially if they come from your show. So we'll make a spash live for your audience.

Well, that's doctor Bolton there. He'll guarantee a full head of hair and a full set of teeth. And but the fact that the battle is it is a booming business because people want to people. You know, Doc, people just want to look younger. They want to look better,

Have you noticed that?

I completely agree. Yeah, I have patients like it was funny. I tell a story about a month ago. My Monday patient was an eighty four year old man, and my Tuesday patient was an eighty five year old woman and just to imploid it, you know, and.

They both said that.

I asked them, you know, what's your goal is, why do you want to do this? They both had the same answer. I look in the mirror and I don't see myself anymore, and I want to feel like myself again. And when they get that hair back, it gives me the confidence back. It changes the way they see themselves. Even though they're elderly. They don't want to look that

And you know the big you know for the manners the hair.

So it's a really great thing and it really it's as it sounds, to change the people vide.

Yeah, I look in the mirror and I say, who the hell are you? And how did you get into my house? That's that's how people get hold of you. Where can they find doctor Brett? Thank you so much at Great Hair Transplants dot com. Okay hair trade hair your great hairtag plants dot com. You got it all right, thought this is good stuff. I'm in.

Thank you, hopefully someone else is you.

Take care, stay well and if if we don't talk again, have a happy twenty twenty six.

Thank you so much for other can words, and thank you for having me. And you're shore you bet.

And by the way, if you're at the airport you see a bald guy getting on a planet it's flying ease, just say hey, are you really going to Turkey? Or you know, maybe just making a side trip first to Fort Lauderd, or maybe you could just mind your own business to twenty eight.

On this Friday news Radio seven hundred wl W.

Two forty two on this Friday afternoon, it's the average American and for the great American, Dan Carol and Jason Williams. And after the news at the top of the hour, they'll take you right to six o'clock. No hockey game tonight is we've been mentioning. Jack Crumley has been mentioning all afternoon. The Cyclones sounds like they're fixing to go on strike with the rest of the East Coast Hockey League players and with no agreement between the Cyclones and the folks at the EHL.

It's it's on, baby.

You might see some of your favorite players picketing outside Heritage Bank Center soon.

Stay tuned for that.

There's a lot of there are, I'm sorry, a lot of things that I would like to see in twenty twenty six, and I'm sure you do to The list probably is fairly endless. One thing I think a lot of people would like more is more out of their job.

Dwayne decent, how are you on this glorious Friday?

I am very welken.

Thank you for calling.

What is the.

Difference between bore out and burnout? Where would the line be drawn there?

Well, the big difference is that I think is with burnout you're much more exhausted because you're being overworked, and borout can be for a few reasons. Either you're underworked and therefore your board, or perhaps you're just not challenged, which is the other common aspect of boorout. Now there's

Either way, it sounds like it's a management problem.

Well, I would actually say cube issues one. It is the management problem where that means you're not challenging your ployees, you're not creating a dynamic, exciting environment and therefore you and you're not helping your employee grow and they're.

For their board.

So I would say yes, But there's also an employee aspect of this where you have to make sure you don't take a job that is not going to challenge you. If you take a job just because you want maybe a work life balance and low hours or whatever your criteria, and then all of a sudden you're not challenged at work,

I see this this Gallop report that says that employee engagement in our country fell to its lowest level in ten years. That was a report of survey I guess taken in twenty twenty four, thirty one percent of workers say they feel engaged on the job. Okay, So if you're not engaged on the job, you're either not buying in right or you're not be given a reason to buy in.

And I.

Don't understand where the problem is here, because if the boss wants to make money, right, boss wants to make money, and on a lot of jobs, if the boss is making money, chances are you doing the work for the boss will make money. So how has it fallen into only thirty one percent here in recent In this recent survey how's it falling that low?

Well, I think that's set back to a little bit of the combination of employees are taking positions that aren't challenging them, is one, and so that's creating a problem because people want to have this work life balance, and

Yeah, this is the second time that you've said the word or the phrase, don't feel challenged at work. Okay, I'm looking for another job. Well, this is a hypothetical. I'm very happy where I am with us. I'm looking for another job and I'm looking around, and I'm looking

Great question. What you really need to do is ask to speak to.

Other peers that you'll be working with and to get a feel for the company, to get a.

Feel for what they do and what their job roles are.

And then one of the questions you can ask them to say how challenged do they feel on the day to day base, whether what's their hours are, do they receive additional training or other types of aspects that might make their positions more interesting.

So don't just.

Take a job that you that you interview with your boss. You spend an hour with that person. You assume you understand a position if you can, and I think usually the most companies are very open to this. Try to speak with some of the people that you'll be working with that have similar positions, so that you really garner what they're doing.

Yeah.

Yeah, it would seem to me that the people that would be the most successful at this would be the people are speaking of, people who are not going to be bored out or not going to be burned out, would have an ultimate goal. This is what I would want to do, This is what I want to do ten years from now, This is where I would ultimately like to wind up in this career that I'm building.

Is a problem with that.

I think many people aren't looking what they want today and not necessarily what they're.

Going to want in ten or twenty years from now.

So when you are thinking about your career, you should be thinking about the long term aspects of that and make sure that you are working to that and progressing along that path. And I think you bring up a good point about making sure that you're challenged and be other ways of doing that other than just what the employee provides you. You can go to your employer and tell them and say i'd like additional responsibility, take the initiative.

Yeah.

I would have to think that anybody who with half a brain that runs a company would be able to identify a person like that as opposed to just some floater or somebody that's just trying to take a job. Dwin decent business strategist. His book has operationally spelt managed costs to increase profit and enhance performance. Look, this is maybe all topic a little bit, but AI is here, and it's only going to become more prevalent in a

Suite, the C suite, what should you be doing about AI?

Because it sounds like AI is going to take away a lot of the jobs maybe that we've been talking about here in the last couple of minutes.

Yeah, I do not think you're off point at all.

AI is a big factor, particularly here because you're talking about people that are doing somewhat read team task or not challenged for whatever reason. But usually that's a sign that has worked that AI can do pretty efficiently as well.

So if you are in a position where you're bored.

Out, I do think you're more at risk being replaced by an AI type of solution.

And I think the solution to that is not.

To avoid AI and dredd it, but it's actually to engage AI. How do you embrace AI in order to make your job easier. May take away the boredom aspects of what you do and the routine aspects of what you do and try to make them something a little bit more exciting, so you know you have the time to concentrate on a type of work that maybe you enjoy more, that's more creative that AI really.

Hasn't been able to do yet.

Yeah.

Absolutely, And probably pick up a copy of operationally spelled Manage Cost to Increase Profit and Enhance Performance would be a good starting point and entry point and the Dwayne Deson Business Strategist. And look, thanks for your time here, Dwayne. I think you explain things rather well. We appreciate it, let's face it. Down the road about that, I.

Look forward to it.

Yeah, burnout, maybe not, Maybe you're just flat out board neither man in either event. I mean, you know it's up to you to fix it, right, nobody's gonna fix it if you're bored except you. So hopefully that's not a problem for you, well for me for that matter. Going into twenty twenty six, two point fifty three, on this Friday afternoon, news Radio seven hundred WLW