All right, it is President's Day twenty twenty five. Remember in the good old days used to get Lincoln's birthday and Washington's birthday. It makes you wonder wherever they are in the great Beyond, if they're having a conversation right now saying what did we do wrong? How do we get lumped together? I didn't even like you, But yet that's what we have. We have President's Day to day twenty twenty five when we remember some of the great and some of the not so great presidents in the
history of our country. By the way, it's the average American in for the great American. I'm glad wherever you are you've chosen to join us in police. Whoever left the air conditioning on outside? Could they turn it off?
Place?
We are not done with winter yet, but it is a day when we, you know, take time off. I'm not sure how many people are reflecting on the great leaders this country has had, or even takes the time to figure out who's done, what went and to whom and why where they actually rank in the great list of effective presidents. But I know somebody who has, because he has authored a book called Presidential Power and the American political system. He is a presidential historian, and he's
also a great guest of this program. This day, on any day, would be the perfect day to welcome in doctor Frank M. Sorrentino. How are you on this glorious President's day.
I'm doing great. Can It's a pleasure to be with you.
You know, I know, what did we have to lump Lincoln and Washington together? We don't even know if these two people liked each other, and now all of a sudden, instead of getting two holidays, we get one.
How did that happen?
Well, I think it's a matter of you could almost say, adi situation where all the presidents are celebrated regardless of their merit or demerit. Before we were able to distinguish how Washington and Lincoln were outstanding. They had their flaws, but they were outstanding. And to put them in with James Buchanan, Woodrow Wilson, Joseph Biden, I mean, I think there's some judgment that needs to be presented here.
Absolutely, this club should have exclusivity. But no, nevertheless, that's our federal government at work. You know, I took some time a doctor before this interview. I took some time over the last few days to do a little research, try to figure out who did what in their presidency and why we should consider this president an outstanding president and this president, you know, kind of a buffoon who just for somehow, some way wound up in the White House.
I think, by most accounts, the worst president in my lifetime is the guy that just left office. I don't think there's any question about it. Internationally. Domestically, I'm not even sure he was president. I think he was a trojan horn. I think he arrived in Washington with a cabal. I think it was an anointment by in South Carolina election year twenty twenty, James Clyburne, the congressman from South Carolina, basically anointed Joe Biden as the candidate, and then COVID
and then Trump weariness, whatever you want to say. He arrived as a trojan horse with all of these special interest groups jumping out of his horse. He's the worst by far in my lifetime. The worst by far that I could figure out in the history of this country was James Buchanan. I mean, this is the guy that led this country, and it doesn't seem unwittingly led this country.
Into the Civil War. As a presidential historian, would you rate James Buchanan the worst president in the history of this country?
I agree with that. Not only did he do nothing, but he actually encouraged the divisions and the contact with Roger Taney, who was the Chief Justice, in supporting the Judge Scott decision, which was known to inflame the passions in the South and the passions in the North. He did more to polarize the nation than any other single individual at that time. So not only did he not do anything to alleviate to ameliorate, but he did the exact opposite. So I think that prize does belong to him.
Others would say that perhaps Andrew Johnson, who followed Abraham Lincoln after Lincoln was murdered, might be the worst. He was impeached, was acquitted by only one vote in the Senate. But I give Andrew Johnson a little leeway. I mean, this country was torn apart, The South was an absolute mess. In some cases, it was reduced to rubble, and the country had to be pieced back together again. I look at Andrew Johnson kind of the same way I look
at Gerald Ford. Herided a presidency and there was really a no win situation for either of those guys. I'm not quite sure that Andrew Johnson was the brightest bull in the circuit. I think Ford was much brighter and deserves much more credit than Andrew Johnson. But they were kind of in the same situation, weren't they.
Yes, But I think it's worse than that that can He was a Democrat on the ticket with Abraham Lincoln, and this was Abraham Lincoln's great plan to unify the country. And nobody ever thought of the vice presidency as a important position, you know, we you know the notion it's office not worth a bucket of warm spit. I am nothing, but I could be everything. No one expected him, and when he became president after Lincoln's assassination, he had no
political party to support him. Now, he was inebriated, perhaps at the time of his inauguration as vice president, and maybe that there was part of his problem is inability to deal effectively with the political class. But I think in all senses he was way above his league. You know, a week always league, I should say, in terms of competition, and no one would have ever taken him seriously if it wasn't for Lincoln would have counted on being assassinated. Yeah, that's a big take.
Yeah, I'm sure, Yeah, I'm sure he never He never said, hey, you know what, today's a good day to die. I'm sure that didn't that didn't cross his mind. And actually you could throw Harry Truman into that mix. Because FDR died, Truman then was left with how to finish off World War Two and left with the unenviable decision to drop nuclear weapons on Japan the first time that they had been used. But Truman, I think was a much more likable guy and somebody that went ahead and what his
own election. So I think I think Harry Truman, although in a similar circumstance it was of the three, I think was probably the best of the three.
Would you would you agree?
I think he also rose to the occasion. He was basically selected because Franklin Roosevelt believed that Burns was too far left and would not be able to settle the issues at the post war. He kept Truman in the dark. Truman didn't know any of the agreements that were made with Churchill or Stalin. He didn't know anything about the Manhattan Project. So Truman, despite that, maybe some crude aspects
of him and lack of education. He rose to the occasion, and many people believe he was a quite effective president, although I think there's some serious problems in his presidency. We often talk about the Marshall Plan, which is a great plan, the exact opposite of, let's say, what Woodrow Wilson did at the end of World War One, although
he did have a stroke at that point. But the Marshall Plan also allowed for a certain percentage of money to go to intelligence and dirty tricks, and he got himself involved in a situation which he said he would never do because he was opposed to intelligence capacity, called that the American Gestapo. And then when we find out that we're involved in fixing elections in Italy, were involved in France, were involved in Greece and Turkey, and then of course the great tobacco of the Korean War, and
with Doublasmabatam. So I think he did show some greatness, but at the same time, I don't think he could comprehend, and I would have to say, in fairness, I'm not sure anybody could comprehend the complexities of the post World War through period. He tried his best style.
Yeah, no, I think he did, and I think I think history has been very good to him.
Of course, you have Hoover.
The CBS did a ranking, and I don't know what the metrics were. You've got to be careful with this stuff because most of it is mind candy by usually some intern or some low level at these news organizations. But in twenty twenty two they did a ranking of presidents.
They had Herbert Hoover the ninth worst.
Of course, that was the man who presided over the Great market crash of twenty twenty nine. They had Reagan eighteenth, but I think the eighteenth best. I'm sorry, I think Reagan was low there. I think Reagan was perfect for the country what he needed when the country needed it. His presidency did not start off well. A lot of that was the remnants of what Carter left him from an economic standpoint, and true he was scandal ridden towards the end, and during the middle he had a lot
of his I mean, I remember this. You know, Ronald Reagan is the hero of the Republican Party. But I you know, if you want to go back and be honest about it, during his presidency, a lot of the people that work for him, wound up involved in scandals. He always stayed above the fray because of his personality. But Reagan, who did great work for this country and getting its back on its feet from a morale standpoint, he wasn't pure either, was he.
You know, there's a great expression, No man is a hero to his butler. And when you look both anybody, you find the flaws. And certainly Reagan had his flaws, But we can't underestimate the brilliance, the spirit that he was able to engender, the quiet dignity of his assassination attempt, the steadfastness on defeating inflation and moving the economy growing at five and six percent. Those were outstanding achievements, and
he did preside. Although people give him credit for ending the Cold War, I think the Soviet Union collapsed more than the United States won. But the fact that he managed that, and as Gorbachrow was making adjustments, he changed his rhetoric and tried to cooperate with a peaceful resolution of a dying empire and what was to succeed in Russia. So I think on that basis, I think road Wagan deserves very high marks. Now, Iran contrat is one of the critical things and which I think it belies what's
really going on. Uh, they set up an intelligence operation in which the CIA would buy they would set up a corporation, and that corporation would buy defense equipment which would then sell it to Iran, and then the profits would go to Nicaragua fighting the U the Sandinistas. But what that did was display that the financial ability of the intelligence agency of the United States were somewhat independent of congressional appropriations and authorization. Now that's not the first
time that happened. It happened in the Iron Triangle in in Southeast Asia, that happened with the pop seeds in Afghanistan, it happened in South America where the CIA and his attributed groups sometimes involved themselves in the sale of cocaine. And that sale of cocaine was a very lucrative thing which allowed the intelligence agencies to have far more money than anybody anticipated without any controls. And that is not necessarily Reagan's fault, although you would have hoped that he
would have been more on top of that. But that goes back to Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and certainly makes and we could go all the way through and find that once we created the national security state, it became less democratic and less accountable.
We got about thirty seconds here doc This poll by CBS said FDR the best president ever. I disagree with that. I think socially he was a terrific president. But he was a socialist. He led us and I'm not sure it was unwittingly into World War Two. And he tried to pack the Supreme Court and thankfully was stopped by this by Congress. But would in your opinion, who was of all of these presidents the forty seven? Now I guess the forty six, because we have two Trump terms.
Of the forty of the forty of the forty six, which which one do you think is the best?
I am partial towards Lincoln. I mean sounds cliche, but he was an extraordinary man, and people forget that while he violated the Constitution, he was willing to be impeached and suffer all the consequences to be a matyl on
the altar of democracy in American unity. His second inaugural address, with malice towards none, is one of the great opportunities of an American president to extend himself and extend the nation to reconciliation, healing, and I think no one rhetorically or intellectually surpasses Lincoln.
No, I agree, one hundred one hundred percent.
And unfortunately the problem with history is that the farther you get away from when history is made, the more distant it becomes, and the voice has become more faint. And it's up to people like you to make sure that that is kept alive. And that's why we love you, doctor Frank Sorrentino. We will do this again. Stay well again if you want to get his book. And I keep saying this, this is a great read. It's called
Presidential Power in the American political system. It is out there right now, and it's a good study as to how we got here and the people had helped it along the way. Thank you, Doc, Stay well, we'll talk down the road.
Thank I appreciate it.
Yeah, this CBS newspooll had FDR number one No. At Reagan eighteenth best. They're short selling him. They had Biden nineteenth best. But of course this was in two thousand and two and Biden had not not yet wrecked havoc on the country. But I think for my money, the worst is Buchanan, and I would have to in I would have to go along with the doctor Sorrentino. You know, unless you were lived through that time, which none of
us have, because everybody that did is gone. You can't fully appreciate what Abraham Lincoln.
Did and why he got.
I can't say the word on radio out of his own day. And you know what Georgia ought to feel that way too. Plus it would have given us one more holiday. Twelve twenty five News Radio seven hundred WLW twelve thirty seven News Radio, seven hundred WLW, Welcome back, the average American in for the Great American Hiring rates are down twenty two percent of unemployed out of work workers in the last six months, twenty six percent of
them are not finding work. And if you're looking for work, it is not the same climate as it was even a year ago. So what's going on here? We'll talk about that today. Also, dirtiest places on a plane. A lot of people are getting ready to get on a plane and get the.
Hell out away from cold weather.
Well, if you're getting on a plane for spring break or whatever it may be, a spring break season is coming up here quickly. For some within the next three three weeks. You're getting on a plane. What should you do? Because planes are filthy, They just are. I mean maybe the filthiest place in the world is a laboratory on a plane, but even more so around your seat, around the windows, trade tables, anyway, dirtiest places on a plane.
Maybe we get you get to where you're going, and you don't get sick when you get there, and then I don't think this is a shock, but there is now a study that's out that too much screen time
hinders development in toddlers. How many times have you been out at a restaurant, or been with friends, or just been just paying attention to what goes on around you and you see parents putting devices in front of kids, phones or tablets or whatever it is to entertain the kid while mom and dad probably whip out their devices
and start texting to other people. Too much screen time, now we know, is bad for the verbal and psychological development of toddler's So if you're a parent that is wondering, gees share I keep doing that, The answer is no, and we can tell you exactly what damage you've already done to your kid that's coming up at two h six. Getting back to presidents for a second again, I go back to the CBS News poll. They say the worst is Andrew Johnson, impeached acquitted by one vote. Then James
Buchanan led this country into the Civil War. Trump comes next on the list. Now, yeah, this was done in twenty twenty two, when he was impeached twice, acquitted by the way twice. Sometimes people say, well, he was impeached twice, he was acquitted twice, and I would think most reasonable people would say, if you look at why he was impeached both times in the first place, it was politically driven. They had Carter the twenty fourth best. Jimmy Carter was
a brilliant man. He was inept as a president. He couldn't he couldn't deal with inflation, and internationally he led us right into the hostage crisis in Iran. Could never, couldn't, couldn't solve it. Now, he had the he had the peace accords between Egypt and Israel. Okay, that's great, Camp David Accord. What did that really lead to? Well, we know now not much as we look at what that area of the country is like right now, But at the time it was hailed as a great piece of
international legislation and international success. And it was that Biden the nineteenth best president in this poll in twenty twenty two. In twenty twenty two, inflation was out of control. In twenty twenty two, we were beginning to see what was transpiring along the southern border. In twenty twenty two, we had the botched pull out of Afghanistan. So probably tells you more about the political bent of CBS News than
whether Joe Biden was nineteenth best. I would think there are people inside the Biden family that would not say that Joe Biden was the nineteenth best president in the United States and only one spot worse than Ronald Rigan. Don't think that's happening. FDR are and I was not alive during FDR's presidency. I would doubt there are there's anybody within the sound of my voice that was alive when FDR was president.
He was He died in April of forty five. But FDR was a bit of a dictator.
He was a four term president, and because of that, legislation was enacted by Congress to limit presidents to two terms. For a number of reasons, it was almost an imperial rule. Yes, he was guiding us through World War Two, but the attack on Pearl Harbor, if you believe what historians have written, a lot of that could be traced back to the ineptness of the army and the Navy at that time, directly under the rule of who yes, the commander in chief.
Socially he was a terrific president, but he was a bit of a bit of a dictator, and Lincoln I think was our best president. There's no question in my mind about that. Washington would be very close because what we are as a nation today is because of George Washington. We are not a democracy. If you hear anybody say that this country is a democracy, they're obviously ill informed or they're just trying to foster a narrative. We are a republic. We are fifty states that make up one nation.
We are a republic. And Washington very easily back then War Hero British defeated. There were those that wanted to make George Washington king. People in this country, believe it or not, wanted to make Kim king. And he said, no, that's what we just got done fighting. We're not going to have a monarchy. We're going to have a republic. There were thirteen states in this case colonies, and they made up one and.
Then we grew from there.
But without Washington saying that we might have had a monarchy like exists today in the United Kingdom. And all you need to do is look at what's going on in the UK, look what's going on in London to see how that's working out. Not real well, by the way I found this out too. This was pretty interesting. Do you know in the history of our country there was one president that was arrested while he was president.
One president the history of our country who was arrested while he was president, and he guesses us Grant Ulysses Grant. He was arrested for speeding in his horse and buggy in eighteen seventy two. He had been arrested twice twice before while he was commanding US horses, but in eighteen seventy two, when he was president, he was warned on one day and the next day the same cop caught him again speeding in his horse and buggy. Didn't care that it was the president of the United States. They
hauled him into jail. He posted twenty dollars to get out a lot of money at that time, didn't show up in court the next day lost the twenty dollars. Further proceedings were not enforced anyway. That's my little president's spiel on this President's Day. Here's something almost important fact. I think this is even more important. You feel a little down, you feel in a little blue nothing getting up anymore. That makes you want to get out and just say I want to tackle the world. You know
what you should do. Get a dog. Get a dog. Pet ownership, unconditional love, trust and loyalty from a canine companion not only is beneficial to your mental health, it can help you lose weight, it can help you meet people, and it can help you make big decisions because of that. Get a dog. Now you got to take care of the dog when you get the dog. But apparently we now know after I wanted to make sure I've got the right people that have done this survey.
There you go.
It's not even somebody that is tied to the canine world. Gallup did this poll here in the last three weeks. Dogs are good for your health, mental and otherwise. You know who knows that. My next guest, Lee Richardson, has been on the show a lot. She is a doctor. She is a psychologist, and she is part of the Brain Performance Center where they study things in the mind, so she would know about this.
Lee, how are you on this glorious day?
I am great, Ken, thanks for having me join you.
Yeah, I'm glad you're back here with us. So this is I think interesting. We've suspected this about dogs all along, that they just make people feel better, but there may be something more than just I guess an anecdotal definition of that. There's something going on here psychologically, isn't there?
There absolutely is, and you know it's really There's been lots of studies done that look on about how dogs can be used, you know, with service dogs with veterans and how they have less PTSD in different ways. But this they looked at just how a dog just being able to play with the dog, or massage a dog or brush a dog really increase it increased beta ways in your brain and that means it increases your attention
and concentration. And then they look at how taking the dog for a walk in the park or playing with a squeaky toy. Doesn't that sound like fun?
Yeah?
It does me.
Yeah, I'm a dog person.
I totally get what you're what you're talking about, but it says it reduces blood pressure, lowers levels of the stress hormone cortisol. I mean, there's been studies done on this, so I'm not saying it's the only reason to get a dog to make yourself feel better, but it's certainly a compelling reason.
Oh, it absolutely is. And you know, when we get stressed out, first thing that happens is our blood pressure goes up. And with people with health blood pressure have
a lot higher heart attacks and strokes. So just you know, you can look at the benefit of a dog on a physiological basis, how it helps him improve your body state, and then a psychological basis, because they found to know that people just feeding the dogs, treat or hugging them really improve people's mood and increase the positive emotions that they have.
Yeah, I guess there was this research done in South Korea from what I'm reading, that they attached electrodes, headsets of headsets of electrodes to thirty adults and then man measure their wave changes, their brain wave changes as they interacted with a dog, and you know, the dog made the people that were being surveyed feel more relaxed. Brushing the dog made the concentration and playing with her yield both better effects. So it's interesting the relationship that the
human race has with dogs. I suppose we could trace it back, you know, centuries to where it all began, but it is something that has survived centuries. And maybe this is a reason why I'm not saying other pets come and go. Cats are still there, you know, fish are still there, but just over the course of centuries, it seems like that the relationship between a human and a dog may be the strongest of all interactions that.
We have with animals.
Well, you know, they say, evening, working in a dog's eyes, will we release oxycotton, And that's a neurow transmitter that occurs, and that's that feeling of love and trust. So there's some kind of connection with a dog. I think it's very different than a cat or a fish. I mean, I know people that have horses and the way they connect with those horses is incredible.
Yeah.
Yeah, I've been told by people and I don't have a dog right now. Our our our dog died just a little while ago, and we're just not ready but we will be I think before long. But I've been told by a lot of people, and I've experienced this too, that a dog knows exactly how you feel, if you're if you're not feeling well, the dog knows that. If there's something that's horrible going on in your life, the dog knows that. And it's it's interesting for an animal
that can't talk. It's certainly, uh, particularly specific breeds of dogs are certainly very prescient when it comes to what that particular dog owner is going through. It's it's it's almost uncanny.
Is it not.
It is, And you know, it's amazing to me. I can pull in the garage and I can open the door to walk in the house and at least one of the two will be standing.
You're like, oh, she's home.
She's home, you know, and that tails wagon like crazy mean and what a great welcome.
Yeah.
Yeah, the less the less dog I had, she was wonderful. She was a Cocker Spaniel, and she knew when I came home and I work lates because I worked television news, and so I would it would be after midnight and I would shut the door of my car, and boy, you could just hear you know, she's going she's at the door and you could hear going crazy. But if I opened the other door of the car to get something out of the other front seat and shut the door,
she'd bark like something was going on. She didn't know what was going on, but she knew something was going on. It No, no, no, I'm just getting someone out of the front seat. And I just think they pick up
on just different things that are going on in your life. Now, if someone's listening, you're not telling them just get a dog to make you feel better, right, You're telling them that if you have a dog, or if you're thinking about getting a dog, then it might be something that might be a selling point.
I think that's what we're saying here, right.
It is because people that do not you know, there are people that have had bad experiences with animals, and I doubt that if you've a bad experience with a dog, I doubt getting a dog is going to improve your stress levels and make you feel better. But if you're thinking about it, or you've got one tap into that, think about all that positive energy that you get from that. Pope.
Yeah, are you a big rescue person? Rescue animal person.
And he must have hearted him my voice. The last four has been rescued dogs.
I think a lot of people may be reticent because they don't know what the history of that dog is. They might look, you know, or go look at a rescue animal operation and they might see a four year old whatever, pick a breed four year old retriever, and they're not sure, you know what the history the dog is. The dog might have been abused, the dog might have been used for other things too, just besides being a
family pet. Is there a way to get around that, even with the information you may get from the rescue operation, how do you get around that? Just if you're a little reticent about a rescue well, I.
Think if you're a little there, that freight a lot of the programs. You can foster the dog, you can keep the dog for a period of time to be sure the dogs would fit for you and your family, and if not, you can return the dog. I think that really it starts with you checking in with yourself and asking yourself, are you really ready for a dog? Because it doesn't matter whether it's to rescue or you know, the breeder dogs puppies are a lot of work. Yeah,
they require time commitment. You know, you said Kim was just not ready for.
An out of dog yet, and you know that I know, yeah, yeah, because there was an emotional attachment, and I don't want to do something initially with the dog.
We would rescue. We're huge rescue folks. Well, I wouldn't want to do something that I rush into and then make the relationship with the dog not what it should be.
I know when I'm ready, and I know that there will be plenty of options out there because there's so many dogs that have been missing or god missing, or ben abused or just dumped on the side of the road or whatever it may be, that really need some home and attention, and the rescue folks, I think go a long way in helping that dog transition from what it was to where it might be going with a family. I think those people do they do God's work when
you think about it. They do a very good job in getting that transition period for the dog to the owner. I think they do great work that way.
Well, you know, ken, dog is God spelled backwards. When you get God's work, I thought, yes, they do.
Yeah, I wasn't quite that bright because I can spell backwards his neck. But I was not really ready to make you give me far too much creditly far too much better.
So Lee Richardson, you of all.
Things of the mind, are saying that if you're thinking about getting a dog, one of the things that can really do is help you enjoy life just a little bit more, don't We don't have a dog? All right, Lee, always always great having you on the show. Thank you so much for your time. Stay well, Thank you, Jim you bet yep. If you want a best friend, get yourself a dog. But you got to take care of it.
Uh twelve fifty four already straight ahead. Twenty two percent of unemployed have been out of work for the last six months, and the number appears to be going up. So if you're looking for a job, listen up. If you're not, chances are you will be, so listen up. That's what we want you to do. On seven hundred WLW. All right, one O seven and welcome back seven hundred WLW the Average American from the Great American. It's President's Day.
I hope you have the day off. I hope if you do have the day off, you're doing something fun, which is difficult. I know here at this time of the year. I mean, my gosh, just seems like when has just been endless up here and it is today. It's walk outside, it's feels like you're walking into a freezer. Nevertheless, we're warm and fuzzy inside here, and we want to help you with something. We really do. The labor market webs ebbs and flows. Sometimes it's it's terrific for someone
seeking work. Other times it is not so great. And when I saw this, it just jumped out at me. USA today did a story, I want to say it was maybe last week end of last week, and in that story it reported that hiring rates are down and that twenty two percent, so one quarter, basically, twenty two percent of those who are unemployed in America have been
out of work for six months. And I've often said this, I said it to my kids, I say to anybody that will listen to me, the best way to look for a job is if you already have a job. When you're out of work and you're looking for a job, it can seem that everything in life is just enveloping you.
So how do you do that? How do you make sure that you're not a statistic that You're not someone that is caught up in the wash of being out of work, not being able to find work, or certainly not being able to find work in a profession that you will like and will challenge you.
Aha.
That's why when it turns to a topic like this, we dial up doctor Ivan Meisner. He is the author of the Third Paradigm, A Radical Shift to Greater Success. He is also the founder of b and I, which is the world's largest largest business networking organization. And I think he's going to help us here, doctor Eisner. Ivan, I'm supposed to call you that, No, Doctor, I've learned that the last time.
Ivan. How are you in this glorious day?
I am doing fantastic. It's a beautiful day out here in Austin.
Yeah. Well, okay, that's enough of that. Okay, somebody left the air conditioning on outside up here. But nevertheless, welcome on it, and we hope you can help. Look, I said, I don't know if you heard the intro, but it's always better to look for work when I have a job. You don't want to be placed behind the eight ball where you're scrambling to get something to pay the bills.
Am I right? About that.
Oh, you're You're absolutely right.
And even if it's not looking for a job, it's making the connections that will lead you to a job when you need it. And so it's really about your network and building a network and understanding that networking is more about farming than it is about hunting. Then it's about constantly cultivating relationships. And when you do that, you can be in effect looking for a job without a directly looking for a job, because you're making these connections.
That will open the door for you down the road.
I think a lot of people just drill down on the job they're doing, and they concentrate on the job they have and this is what my task is, and I'm going to do this, and then I'm going to go get a beer or I'm going to go home, or I'm going to do what and I'll come back tomorrow and do the same thing all over again. Now, in this day and age, networking inside your own building
should not be tough. But you got to get outside the tent, right, You need to get outside of your comfort area and not necessarily just put all time on tasks, but also put time on you. Easy to say, if you're someone that is an extrovert or an ambervert. But if you're an introvert, and a lot of these people that are working today, particularly the younger generation, not used in networking. They're used to interacting in one hundred and
forty two hundred and eighty characters. How do you get from that to where you got to be?
Well, he hits a multi layered set of questions that you've got there. Let's start with networking within your organization.
That's important.
You want to connect with people within your organization because if you're looking for promotions, having a relationship with other people in the organization will help you get that promotion. But outside the organization, which you also mentioned, you can join professional associations, business organizations, alumni associations, organizations that particularly the professional associations that directly or indirectly relate to your profession.
So in a way, you're working, but you're not working. You're working and you're building connections with people that can lead you to job opportunities down the road.
So you're I suppose you need to be thinking ahead twelve eighteen months, a couple of years down the road. You're not certainly trying to use people, but in a sense, maybe you are, but it's not something that is a one way use. You're trying to expand your base so that when something does come up where maybe they're layoffs or maybe you've hit the end of the road as to what you're doing, it's not a scramble mode you get into. I guess that's what you're saying here.
Yeah, well, and you use a good term. He said, you don't want to use people, which is correct. A number of years ago I did a survey on networking. We surveyed twelve thousand people, and we found that some people tended to be very transactional, that is, they were really just using the relationship, and other people were more relational and the way they networked with people, And interestingly enough, people who were relational actually did more business. These are
mostly salespeople. They actually generated more business than the people who were transactional. And so you're on the right track. You don't want to network just to be transactional. You really truly want to be relational, and part of that is looking for ways to help other people, because when you help other people in some way, they're much more likely to go out of their way to help you.
When you need it sure, and it may have a residual effect with people that they know, Hey, Ivan, just just help me find this job. Well, who's Ivan, Well, let me tell you a little bit about him. And then there are different ways to build all that stuff. I guess the word is maybe leverage as opposed to use would a leverage be a better word?
I would use the word relational, but leverage is certainly an aspect of it. You want to leverage your contacts, but you do it in a relational way rather than a transactional way.
One of the things that I.
Teach in networking is what I call a VCP process visibility, credibility, profitability. The first, you have to be visible. People have to know who you are and what you do. That's why joining associations is a good idea. That's why networking within your organization is a good idea. You have to create visibility. The thing you have to create credibility. You have to
show that you know what you're doing. And one of the ways to do that outside your organization is to volunteer to be, you know, on the leadership team, the vice chair or the chair, so people can see you
as a leader. And then you get to the profitability stage when you've got a relationship that's strong enough that somebody is going to say, yeah, let me refer you to a job or you know, I know you're looking for a different kind of role within the organization and there's something coming up, let me tell you about it. And and the VCP process is really the foundation of effect of networking.
How do you get into the self cleansed cleansing process? Because online I didn't have to worry about online media. My goodness, when I was in the middle of what I've done for a living and there still wasn't an Internet. It was just you know, a phone. But now you have a lot of things. You have you have Twitter accounts, I G. Facebook, I mean, there are a lot of
There are a lot of things out there. How how often do you need to do a deep dive into the way you're projecting yourself to other people through these social media platforms.
Well, again, there's a that's a very layered question. Let's start with the way you're presenting yourself.
Are you telling tell me about my questions are too complex?
Is that what you're trying to tell me around? And do I need to work on which is fantastic.
And the first piece of it is clean up your social media. I mean, trust me, hr, when you're applying for a job, they're going to your Facebook or Instagram, They're going to your social media platforms. They're looking at what you're posting. And I remember, I haven't been directly hiring people in some time.
Our company has grown to the point where I don't need to do that.
But when I was hiring people, I would get on their social media and you know, I remember once seeing a person where they were throwing the F bomb out on social media. On every other post, they had really inappropriate photos of things and people, and I'm like, yeah, this is not a person. This is not a person I want working in my company. And so clean up your social media. And you know, you can't unless you're really trying to market something. You can't be on all platforms.
Find the platform or two or three that you think are most important for looking for a job. LinkedIn's got to.
Be one of them.
Oh absolutely, yeah.
Yeah, for the others, I leave that up to you.
For me, it's Facebook because most of my followers are you know, they're not teenagers, and so Facebook is where I've got the overwhelming I've got like three hundred and forty six thousand followers and Facebook. But LinkedIn is the social media site for looking for job opportunities.
But is there any substitute understanding what you just said? Is there any substitute for in person eyeball to eyeball, conversation to conversation a third dimension if you will too, all of this relationship process.
Well, the eyeball to eyeball is the best. Even LinkedIn had a survey last year. It found that fifty percent, fifty percent of all new hires did not come off an advertisement, really came off of a referral from somebody. And so if you really, you know, a lot of us if we're looking for work, it's a long time since I had to look for work. But if we're looking for work, we look at, you know, advertisements, and yet half of all jobs are got, they're gotten through referrals.
So working the relationships you have now, like you started in this discussion, working relationships.
Now can pay off down the road later.
Yeah, I remember a conversation you had, it's got to be a couple of maybe three years ago, where we were talking about how jobs were drying up that the pendulum had swung the other way, and you said something to the effect that forget about the number of unemployed. That's that's that's global, that's just that's out there. It only matters for you. Don't worry about being a number or something. It only matters for you. And we're saying
the same thing here right now. It doesn't matter, really and truly if twenty two percent I've been out of work for six months, or whether or not there are one hundred and fifty people lined up for this one job, and only matters for you and how you present yourself. I thought that was great advice.
Thanks. And here's a bit of advice.
I don't know if I shared it the last time, but it's such an effective technique, especially at a little more entry level roles.
Not managerial rules.
But say to the person you're doing the interview with, I'd be happy to do a working interview with your company. And most of the time people don't know what that is, and they'll say, what is that.
I'll come in for.
The day, I'll come in for two, three days, whatever you'd like. Show me what it is that you need done. Let me show you what I can do and you don't have to pay me. I'll come in and I'll just show you what I can do. Now, honestly, most companies have to pay them, and so they probably will, but you offer to do a working interview. Now, I have recommended this to a lot of young people, and many of them have gotten jobs this way, including my daughter got her first job by saying, let me do a.
Working interview and then what's that? And then she did the working interview and they hired her that night.
There's an evening thing where she had to take photographs for some event and they hire her that night. So that's a great technique and you'll stand out with that one.
Well, sure absolutely.
It shows obviously some initiative on your part and a lot of a lot of people would not even think to do something like that, and you probably would. I mean sure, I mean you're gonna you'll pick up a couple of bucks. But the important thing is is how you're projecting yourself and presenting yourself as somebody that can help that company in a tangible way. Doctor Ivan Meisner's our guest, and we're talking about out of work or looking for a new job, and it's the n word.
It's networking, and there's no no expense for it. You said something. I'm going back to other things too, because you ought to be I pay attention to you, doctor. I don't know if you do other interviews and guys are out, you know they're cutting their nails or doing something.
I pay attention. You said something else once where if you if you meet somebody, let's say you get to a networking event, you go back to your hotel room or whatever it is, write down the name and write down something about that person, and then you can do a follow up or even at the very least the next time you meet that person. It's not like, yeah, what's your name, Fred Frank or something like that. Just a little thing like that goes a long way in making yourself stand out from other people.
Right it doesn't.
I recommend that you actually write something on the back of their card. Now the one very important thing culturally that is a problem in Asian countries writing on the back of a card, so they don't want to do that. But in North America it's not a big deal. So and you just say to somebody, oh, that's really interesting. You might I find make a note on the back of your card and they'll say yes, it's okay, and
then you'll remember who they are. Because if you go to a networking event, you meet five, ten, fifteen, twenty people, I don't know about you, but I can't remember what conversation I had with whom, and so having a notice too in the back of the card really helps. Then you want to do what you were saying, follow up. The best follow up system is what I call the twenty four to seven thirty follow up. Within twenty four hours, drop an email and say hey, it was great meeting you.
Within seven days, connect with them on the social media. So one of the things that you when you're talking to them is you ask them what's your favorite social media platform, and whatever they tell you, connect with them there. And then within thirty days, set up an appointment to meet with them, either by zoom or in person. And okay,
don't sell to them all right, don't be asked. Just try to see if there are overlapping areas of interest or anything that you can do for them, but meet with them after thirty days.
That's a great follow up system. Twenty four to seven thirty.
Yeah, I guess you refer to that as category or categorize your contacts dormant, passive, active. The active would be when you know the five alarm bell is going off and you're out of work or whatever. But the other two are just a way of and you just you don't have to do it once you can keep that. Or you see something that might catch your eye and okay, well Joe might might be interested in listen. Just forwarded
to them and say, hey, I saw this. We were talking about this when we met, and it just it's way to stay active in someone's mind without being intrusive. I think you know, nobody wants to be ENTUSI, but you want to stay in the presence of that person.
Yeah.
Nothing dissipates a relationship faster than benign neglect, where you just over time don't connect with somebody. I mean, we all have people that we went to high school with or college with that we liked, we were friends, but yet we lost touch with them because we didn't stay connected. And ironically, you know, just yesterday, I have somebody who I've known for probably ten years, and he said, hey, I haven't seen you in a long time. I'm in town.
You mind if I drop by? And so absolutely, and it's making those and I hadn't seen him in.
Almost two years.
We talked in between ones, but it's that Stein, it's those touch points to keep the relationship going.
And by the way, I gave him a referral.
For he needed a client for something, a vendor for something he was doing, and I gave him a referral.
I sent him the email today.
So those kinds of contacts can lead to business, they can lead to jobs, they can lead tom many things.
Stop by to see you in Austin. Did you take them to the hula Hut? Did you take them there?
I did not, But I have a really really nice wine cellar, and we pulled out a nineteen year old bottle Cabernet and a seventeen year old cabinet.
Listen to you living the good life doctor.
Your book is again the third paradigm, a radical shift to greater success. And you're available at Imandmeisner dot com and there you can get information on B and I, which is the world's largest business networking organization.
How big is it?
Oh, we now have eleven thousand, three hundred chapters and seventy five countries around the world. Three hundred and thirty five thousand members. Let me give you one quick statistic. We track how much business our members generate because we're for a organization. In twenty twenty four, we generated twenty five billion with a B five billion dollars in what we call thank you for business. That's business that our
members give each other. Now, just to put that in perspective, there are actually one hundred countries countries in the world based on the United Nations estimates of GDP, one hundred countries in the world with a lowered GDP in what our members generated for each other through this crazy thing called networking.
Which in a sense is a very difficult thing to do, but in a larger sense, all you have to do is take the first step and amazingly everything else kind of it is absolutely doctor. I always feel better I have to talking to you. Not that I think I'm going to be out of work, but who knows, you know, but I think anybody listening today maybe feels a little bit better as well. Stay well, we need to hear your voice. We need to hear your voice, all right, Ivan,
thank you anytime. Yeah, I mean, when you meet somebody, just acknowledge that you met them and who knows, And maybe you're not going to be stuck at a job where you're you feel no purpose or no worth. I mean to me, you only go through this one. This isn't a dress rehearsal right, I mean, this is it no follow up act. You might as well do something you like, meet somebody, follow it up, network it out,
and meet people. The under thirty crowd has trouble with this because it is it's it's all characters, it's all texting, it's all Facebook and in and of itself, that's fine, but nothing. There's no substitute for meeting people. Just a thought from a guy shaking his hands at the clouds.
Uh.
It's the average American in for the Great American News Radio seven hundred WLW on news Radio seven hundred a WLW. I am ken Brew, the average American in for the Great American President's Day segs out today. No Studge Report. What can I tell you? May Why can I tell you he's not here?
I'm here. I'll tell you what's going on. It's sports. Nothing.
The NBA All Star Game yesterday, it was like most of the NBA season is was unwatchable. It was just terrible. I mean, if that's the best they can do, they should just not have an All Star game. It was I mean, it's just stupid. It really was just a stupid format they had, And I would much as bad as the NBA All Star games have been in recent years where the final score was something outrageous like one sixty two to one fifty eight, where there was absolutely
no defense. I would rather watch that than which than what I watched last night. And all the NBA players now are upset with Lebron James. Turns out he might have been the smartest guy in the room because he was a no show, pulled out of the game on only a few hours notice. The first anyone knew of james decision to sit out on the sidelines was what he mentioned he was not suiting up during the press
availability just before the game. And so these players are upset not because Lebron wasn't out there doing whatever Lebron does. It's that he took a spot from someone else. I would argue he saved somebody else from having to go out there last night. So everybody's upset with Lebron, which is nothing new. Hockey's got it right, man, with this four Nations Tournament. Tonight it's the USA against Sweden. The game's meaningless because the USA is already in the finals
on Thursday night. They're playing this next round in Boston. We'll find out later tonight who they face in the finals. It will be either Finland or Canada. Finland and Canada play. They could get a rematch with Canada, a rematch of that game on Saturday night that had had three fights in the first nine seconds of the game.
Here's what the call sounded like.
This four.
Underway and the gloves are on.
To Kachuck and Brandon Hegel.
Yeah, the Kachuck brothers. What are they? Matthew and Brady? Is that what his name is?
Apparently they had a chat going on earlier in the day with several other players as to what Canadian players they wanted to get into a fight with and how soon they wanted to do it, and they did it. From the time the puck was dropped. It might have had something to do with the national anthem and the Canadians booing the American national anthem. It just might have been look, let's let's get a little excitement in life. It was unbelievable. I said I'll tune in and I'll
watch this. We'll see how interesting it is. Man, they hadn't made for the rest of the game, and it turned out to be a great game.
So maybe the maybe they can go to school on that.
In the NBA Red's full squad reports to Goodyear today. Okay, great, wake me up when it's opening day. We'll see we're gonna we're getting the usual. Well, seashells and balloons out a good Year. About this guy looks great. Oh, he looks fantastic.
Oh.
I can't wait to see that, you know.
Okay, all of that is what you would expect at this time of the year, except accept uh. Terry Francona comes with resume. The Reds haven't had a manager of with this kind of gravatas since Dusty Baker. And you can say which one about Dusty Baker. The last time this team was any good, Dusty Baker was the manager. He comes with this kind of gravatas that Luke Panela had.
And that's why I'm excited. And that's why when I hear the seashells and balloons out of Goodyear, I'm thinking to myself, Well, there may be some truth to all of that. I had Scott and Miller on with me yesterday on Sunday Morning Sports Talk. He is a guy who has written for a number of publications. He was a beat writer, that means that's a newspaper writer that works on a daily basis to cover the team in San Diego, did that with the Padres, wrote for cbssports
dot Com. Now contributes to the New York Times, and he has a book coming out in May called Skipper, Why Baseball Managers Matter and.
Why they Always will.
And we got to talking about Terry Francona and how I think not only will he make players accountable because of his resume, you can look up what he's accomplished in his time.
It's not difficult to do.
But also because one of the things I think the Reds will start being what they have not been in recent years is a better team defensively, and you win games not just by scoring runs, but by preventing runs run prevention. Here's what Miller had to say when I suggested.
That, Yeah, you make a great point. There ken no doubt about it. And the thing with him is his resume helps you know. I mean, if I'm whoever it is if I'm Gavin Lutz, if I'm you know, high married Candelario, and I committed a couple of errors and maybe even mental errors, and the manager comes after me and says, hey, we'll come out early tomorrow for betting practice.
We're going to clean that up. It's different coming from Kerry Francona than from some other managers, because I mean, this is a guy that's managed David Ortiz, Manny Ramirez, Dustin Pedroia. This is the guy that went to Cleveland after Boston and yeah, I mean even before Boston Philadelphia managed Kurt Shilling and you know, some other superstars, and and then he went to Cleveland and he, you know, pretty much turned water into wine quite often in Cleveland,
more often than he probably should have. So I mean he's managed superstars, Pedro Martinez, uh, you know, on and on and on. So what he's been around, he's seen. I'm not gonna say he's seen at all, because I don't think anybody ever sees it all in this game, you know, whether you're that's like they say, every day you go to the ballpark, you have a chancey something new.
And you know, even guys like carry Francona see that, but he sees so much and he relates to guys as a player because he's never forgotten his own playing days.
And that's one of the.
Keys to the way he builds relationships with his players is you know, he understands the games hard.
So I think when he to.
Your point, if he's going to clean up the defense, got he's going to get through to guys because they're gonna see right away this guy gets us. He understands the games hard. Also he's got all the managing chaps that I just laid out. This guy's different and well we need to listen to him. And he's such a personal guy too. Even when Francona gets on you, he's got a great sense of humor and he can do it in a way that maybe doesn't anger you or make you a teed off. And then you listen to him.
Now, well you would hope doesn't make up for any efficiencies you may have on your roster, but one would hope. So we'll see first exhibition game of Saturday. You'll hear it here on seven hundred at WLW. Today would be a good day to get out of town. I mean, it's and then more snow coming. So maybe you are maybe you're going to get on an airplane and fly
somewhere warm. And when you get on that airplane, maybe in a couple three weeks, when the kids have spring break or whatever, you and mama just want to get away for a while, you're going to get on in an airplane that is going to be a Petri dish twenty fifteen studies.
So this has been a while by travel math.
It's I guess the best way for me to describe it as a search engine that answers data related questions about travel.
Would be the way I would describe it. Anyway.
It tests sampled hard surfaces and airplanes and found that tray table services had eight times the amount of bacteria per square inch than even the livey flush buttons. You go into a laboratory on a plane. You're taking your health in your hands. Anyway, they had these colonies forming units of bacteria per square inch, and it was the number was high. I mean, I'm not a doctor. I'm not somebody that understands this. I just understand that when
the number's high, there's a problem. The bathroom sink had the highest number of germs. The trade table was runner up. So what do you do if you're traveling and you know that you want to get there in one piece, certainly, and you also want to get there healthy?
What do you do? What do you do?
Well?
If you listen to the guy that's online too right now that we're going to go to. His name is Brandt in Sero. He works for the National Cleaning Fraternity. Yes, they have a fraternity. It's called ISA, I SSA. I'm guessing it's IS and maybe it's ISSA.
I don't know. It probably is ISA because of ISO.
But anyway, I had works for this group, and I wanted to get on the radio here with me because I know a lot of people are going to be getting out of town here very soon. And let's see what he has to say. Bran, how are I on this glorious day?
I am absolutely wonderful, and thank you for having me. We shouldn't be spooked out about the germs on a plane, should we?
No?
No, I'd be more spooked out by snakes on a plane, that movie that came out about fifteen years ago. That's what I'm more concerned about. Our rooms on a plane, or allows you pilot, but germs on a plane. It seems to me if you take care of yourself in a healthy manner when you're not flying, it shouldn't be all that difficult when you fly.
Yeah, you extinct, right, But let's just take a giant step back, right, Let's think about how is this bacterial bactery and viruses. How would they transmit it? There's really two ways, right, It's airborne droplets as well as surface transmission from things that people are touching. So just simple awareness about this will help us.
That's the first step.
You cannot avoid thickness undred percent, so it's a fact. So we know how this stuff is transmitted. We know that we can't avoid it one hundred percent. But what we can do is break the pattern of transmission. And that's the exciting thing. So when we think about this, you know on the airplane, they come out of every year with these studies of all the different surfaces and the bacteria loads and what to avoid the reality is just lower the quantity of things that you're touching on
an airplane. And you know what, some of these airlines they actually provide you disinfecting lights. Yeah, use them, They work.
Yeah, Yeah, that's true. I mean, well, there's some things you can't avoid touching. One would be a seat belt. I mean, you have to do it. You have to lock it up, So it would be wise, I guess ahead of time to wipe that down with some sort of disinfectant wipe. You don't have to touch your trade table, you can leave it alone. You don't have to touch the pocket in front of you where they have all those cars and whatnot.
Just leave it alone.
You do have to touch the overhead ben I suppose when you put your bags in there. But again, just wipe down your hands and I think there'll be You'll be fine there. Most of this is common sense, is it not?
It is common sense, But we're creatures of habit. It's muscle memory. So I travel a lot, and I honestly follow the same exact path every single time I get on a plane. I pick the same seat number, you know, and I walk that same pattern every time. So I absolutely will bring little travel hand sanitizers with me for my hands. I'm using the disinfecting whites. But quite honestly, all I'm doing is I'm making sure I go to
the bathroom before I get on a plane. So I don't have to use the bathroom on the plane, which is a big help because there's a lot of bacteria in there. I tend not to use a tray table, and if I do, I'm not touching it other than just to drop it down and put my laptop on it. And then you know, I also try to avoid the seat buckle. It sounds crazy, the underneath part of the latch because people reach their hand underneath the latch and that's what's actually being touched, is your finger pats on
the underside. And then way ever cleans that part of it, they wipe the.
Outside of it.
Yeah, yeah, the little spot.
Yeah yeah, no, I mean, heck, you know even you know, I travel a lot and never thought about that at all. I mean, that's that's phenomenal. What about the air inside a plane, because I know during during COVID, when they'd make their little speech before you would take off, it was all the air is recycled in here. It's the cleanest area you're going to inhale anywhere, even when you get off the plane.
And this and that.
I know the air is recyl recircled, recirculated, and I know it's filtered, but I mean, how much is it filtered? And if you've got a half dozen people on the plane that have the flu, is it really helping you all that much?
You know, it absolutely does help, but again it doesn't guarantee that you're safe one hundred percent. So I always recommend if anybody has underlying illnesses, you know, bring a mass just in case. If there's people that are starting to cost needs, put it on. It's another layer of protection. It may seem silly post pandemic, but those little things do work, all right.
So we got that, we got ourselves covered traveling on a plane. Now you get off a plane, then you get into a an uber or you get into a taxi. I guess in New York and to be a taxi and other towns are to be an uber. You get it in an uber, what do you do? Because you're not the first person in that car. It's generally somebody else's car. So when you sit down inside of uber, what do you do?
I mean, you're really doing the same exact things. You're trying to limit how many times you're touching your face. So you want to limit how much you're touching your mouth, your eyes, because that's where that bacterial or viral load can enter in your body. People forget that we often touch our face as a nervous habit. Again, the hand sanitizer will help that. But you're getting somebody's personal vehicle.
I mean, there's no way to guarantee that they are cleaning and disinfecting that vehicle after every single passenger, like we did during COVID.
Yeah, what about when you get to a hotel? I remember hotels. Maybe they still do it. It's been a while since I've stayed in a hotel. But they wouldn't change the sheets every day so long as it was the same people in the room. They wouldn't change the towels every day. You could request it, but you might not get it. They were big about telling you how much the room has been disinfected in this and that. But you and I both know we've seen the horror stories of what's on top of a comforter in a
hotel room, or what a bathroom looks like. I mean, what do you do when you gets to a hotel, and even a high high end hotel not necessarily Ed's beds and do boys Pennsylvania. But let's just say you're at a five star hotel somewhere, what do you do when you check in?
Yeah, it's funny because I'm literally in my hotel room right now as I'm traveling this week, and you know, you made me just kind of look around my room while I was sitting here. But you know, I always go through a visual inspection, right, So there's a couple of things. There's clean and there's disinfected. So as we think about cleaning, it's the visible soil, dirt, debris on a surface. So I look around, you know, is they're leftover soil in the bathroom or on your bed first?
And if there is, I always request another room or ask them to come clean it. But the reality is they're back to the basics and they're understaffed at this point, so they're trying to find ways to save on time as much as possible.
So they actually.
Allow a lot of their travelers to opt in for cleaning the room versus opting out. So when you you know, you check in, if they ask you would you like to have your room service? Oh, by the way, if you don't have a service, there's an extra you know, five thousand points have it serviced. It's important Yeah, you know, we're really big advocates on technology at the association, so ensuring that people are using things like electrostatics, prayers, they're
monitoring services and measuring the air. So it's really important that technology is enabled in a lot of these facilities.
Yeah. Absolutely.
Brad and Service the senior director of Education, Training, Certification Standards for i SSA. It's the leading trade association for the cleaning industry worldwide. I'm just interested how do we compare to Europe? You know, a lot of my friends are going to go over to Europe a couple for the holidays, some right after the first.
Of the year.
By and large, are we a cleaner society when it comes to travel then, say, for example, those that live and travel in the UK or Europe, places like that.
Yeah, here's what I can tell you is specific to the cleaning industry. Technology and sustainability is far more advanced in the European market. We are behind the times, but we are catching up fast.
Well ahead how by cleaning, but with supplies or just in dedication to cleaning.
It's actually both right, So they're actually they've been using, as an example, microfiberclosts a lot longer than we have in the United States. They are following more critical processes to their cleaning in many of the countries in Europe, they also have the appropriate labor to accomplish the tasks at many locations, and they're also implementing robotics and IoT technology.
So from the supply side, they are more advanced. And when we visit a lot of the conferences and trade shows internationally, it's visible.
We can see that change.
Wow, I walked into a room and there was a robot cleaning it. I'd run the hell out of the building. I would day. You can see it right exactly, and you know, the robots not getting sick exactly.
Brent, good stuff.
I'd wish you safe and healthy travel, but that's kind of redundant in the business you're in. But great stuff with regards how the rest of us can get through the holidays hopefully unscathed.
Brent and Serro.
You can find him at i s SA dot com. I s SA dot com. That's the International Trade Association, the leading association for the cleaning industry, and it is worldwide. Brent, thank you so much. We'll talk down the road.
Thanks for having me a great day.
Yeah, you bet, or you could just invest in a hazmat suit.
Could get to that news radio seven hundred WLW.
All right back on the big one, the average America and for the great American on this President's Day Monday. Great to have you with us wherever you are, however you may be listening either through this great medium of terrestrial radio or perhaps on the iHeart app.
We welcome you on in.
Some things in life are a surprise, and some things in life you say yourself, you know, I think I probably knew that. I think this falls into the ladder for me, but my days of raising children are well behind me. Screen time, you know, in front of the television set or the computer, or now in front of a tablet or a phone. Screen time can delay language development in toddlers. That's not anecdotal anymore. There is a
study that supports that. In fact, this study says that if your kid is spending too much time in front of a screen, whatever device, it may be, unless time interacting with Let me think you, as a parent, you are not doing a good job of parenting your kid. I don't care what the excuses are. You know, in this day and age, everybody wants to have kids. I want to have kids. I want to have a career, I want to have kids. Well, that's all well and good.
The easiest thing about having a kid is literally conceiving a kid. The hard work is raising the kid and understanding that along the way he or she needs something
more than a device. Do you ever notice when you go out to a restaurant you see a mom and dad sitting there and the kids are there, and invariably the kids got a device, and the kids sitting there with his nose in the device doing what, playing what, God knows what, and mom and dad are probably more often than not, are on their own devices, going down
their doom scroll or wherever it may be. I mean, it's kind of a it's kind of a little entertainment for me to go to a restaurant, see a family, young families sit down and outcome the devices.
What's happened to us?
Somebody that must be wondering the same thing as standing by to join us right now. Kelly Shoe is a licensed pediacric occupational therapist. She's got twenty years of work on that end, and by the way, is also a mom, and she hosts a podcast. It's called making sense of parenting. Who wouldn't want to do that? Let's welcome her in Kelly Shoe. How are you on this glorious Monday.
I'm doing great, Thank you? How are you?
I'm good because I don't have any kids to raise, so I can sit back and look at some of this stuff and wonder and laugh at some point, at some points and then empathy for the kid. But did you notice that when you go out, if you go out to a restaurant, you see it, and it just it absolutely baffles me. What's the point of going out as a family if everybody has their own device out? Do you understand that?
I don't.
I think it's just the ease of pulling out a device. And it's also parents not understanding, not intentionally realizing, that they're harming their kids and that their kids need to see social interaction. They need to practice speaking and talking and using words and pronouncing words. They need to understand nonverbal language, eye contacts, social cues, all of these things.
But I think parents don't really understand that they're missing that opportunity at the restaurant to be helping their child and helping their child get skills valuable critical skills that the child's going to need later in life.
Sure, and look, I get it. It's different today than it was even ten years ago. Two income families. Mom works, dad works out of the house. Kids may come home no mom and dad, kids may come home to one parent. I mean, it's a lot of it is is not Ozzie and Harriet or modern family. It's different today than what it was when I was a kid growing up. And I get that. But what I don't understand is if you want to have a child, if you really want to have a child, you have to understand the
work that goes into it. And it's not just giving the kids something to eat and putting clothes on his back and making sure he gets off onto the school bus. You've got to raise the child. And I think a lot of times parents get home and they're exhausted and all they want to do is either veg out or do something that doesn't involve a child, which up until about eighteen, it's a lot of work.
I think.
I think a lot of parents just don't have the energy or the desire to do this. I know that's a blanket. Yeah, that's overarching it. It's blanket but I just sense that it's a drain and they don't know anything else. So here take this, well, I can just veg.
Out for a while, right, I think they don't understand the cost that it will have later. And so we are seeing, you know, ten years ago the landscape look very different, but now we see so many deficits and deficiencies and difficulties with kids as they get older, right, and so we need to be doing a better job informing parents. So I have a little saying that I
will tell parents. I'm like, giving your child a device now which is easy for you and keeps the house clean and you don't have to interact with your child, you are making it difficult for your child later. So it will result in, you know, difficulties in school, difficulties with friends, deficiencies, deficits that are showing up in strength in coordination and handwriting skills and language skills, understanding friendships.
How do I navigate friendships as a third grader? If all I've done is watch a device for second grade, first grade, and you know the five years before that, it's really sad and it's alarming, and we're seeing study after studies show oh my goodness, kids aren't reading? Why aren't they reading? Will they? In toddlerhood they need to be practicing gibberish and saying words and changing how loud they talk, how soft they talk. They need to ask
their parents why a thousand times over again why why? Developmentally, they are in a stage of curiosity and learning and they need it to be an active, engaged experience that they're not watching passively on a screen.
That was always my favorite, the why questions. You know, it could get to be a little it could get to be a bit much after a while, but you have to understand there's the wheels are turning inside there and they're trying to figure out why. But this is not anecdotal. I mean, I'm looking at this study. Scientists from over twenty nations did this this study and although it was conducted in Latin America, about nineteen hundred kids
toddlers ages twelve to forty eight months. Even though it was Latin America, kids are kids.
I mean, it's it's a global problem. Yes exactly.
This is not This is not a US, This isn't a you know, are continent. This is across the globe because we all have access to these devices, and again we don't understand that, you know, God created humans specific developmental way they have windows. When they're learning is more intense, and for little kids it's from eight under. They are
really there's a spunge. They're picking up everything. They're learning so much and parents are thinking, well, I'm on my device, that's fine, and I'll say, but you have a fully formed brain and body at thirty years old. The four year old does not. They don't have that ability with their brain. We're trying to form them in the right way, and it doesn't look like a device because a device
is passive passive entertainment passive. You know, kids need to be active and moving using their senses, touching, tasting, smelling, all those things, because that builds their nervous system and allows them to self regulate and allows them to be calm and focused when they're in middle school and math class. All of that is starting with, you know, when they're three and four and two. All of that's important then for how they operate later.
Sure, not just.
Learning and developing skills, but also you mentioned this just a while back, their social skills and how they interact with other kids, which is really important. You put a device in front of somebody, it's a passive thing. You know, they're absorbed in whatever is happening on that device, a game, a cartoon, whatever it may be. But it doesn't help
develop how the child develops socially. And look, we've had a lot of challenges thrown at us in the last four or five years, particularly with you know, with COVID and isolation and things like that, and I'm not sure you want to add to that avalanche by shoving this device under a kid's nose. Okay, So we know it's a problem. If you're if you're a mom or dad
that's listening right now, you're you're the parenting expert. What needs to happen here short of taking the device away completely, at which point, you know, I'm not sure that's the worst thing, that's the best thing in the world to do.
So what are we doing here to make this right?
Well, so I advise kind of middle of the road. I mean, if you're extreme, you're going to say this child can't be on any device until they're eighteen. But that's not realistic and it's way too hard for parents to do. And so you know, if you have a kid who's under the age of eight. Okay, maybe twenty minutes once a day, but just to understand that you need to be engaging with your child. You need to make eye contact with them, you need to be talking
to them. They need to be watching you face to face. Form words say, sentences say words allow them to ask what was that? How do you say that?
What?
How do I pronounce that? Like all of these things are so important, and just that the deficiencies are everywhere that we are seeing. So you've got to put the time in now and if you will put the time in now when they're little and also developmentally, they want
to spend time with their parents. So thinking that you're going to go back and fix these deficits and deficiencies and their social emotional ability, it's not going to happen in the teenage years because that's when they're developmentally separating from their parents leading for college. So you have to catch it in the window when it was originally designed and it makes everything easier, got right.
And look, you've got to be prepared for the child to pitch a fit. It's going to happen, but the reason why the child's pitching a fit has nothing to do with the kid. It's what you've allowed to happen up to that point. It's of your making. Not only the child, but the suite situation is of your making. So look, maybe the kid pitches a fit for a couple or three days, and then after that it's not going to be all that it's not going to be all that bad. You know, again, exceptions to every rule.
But what I found is after there's a little bit of reasoning that goes on. And honestly, I think when a child gets to be two two and a half, there's reasoning that's beginning to develop. Okay, if I do this, I get in trouble. If I do this, maybe I get what I want. Here there's deal making that's beginning to form there. So you know, give it three or four days, let the child get upset, and after that, chances are you'll probably be okay with.
This, right right, Yes, And I have many parents who will want my help in regard their kids are throwing tantrums, they're having meltdown. Kids won't listen, they're defiant, and it's
again regulating their emotions, feelings, their bodies. And so I'll suggest let's get away from all TV and all devices for a week, and the parents will come back and say, oh, yeah, the first two or three days were brutal with the kid wanting the device, but after that they noticed such an increase in good behavior, less meltdowns, less tantrums, n't able to control their own bodies and their feelings and
their voice volumes and things like that. And we also have to realize that the makers of the kids shows and the apps, they're intentionally making them addictive. They're intentionally harming the very population that they're serving, which I have a huge problem with. Like they want more airtime for these little kids, who that's the opposite of what they need. They more need more outside time, more face to face time, more active play.
Yeah, I I you can.
You know it's there, whether or not your kids watching it or you're scrolling through it. You can see where a lot of there's this addictive there. I can't remember the cartoon maker, Oh my gosh, it's just scaming. But the eye they the psychologists had figured out the eye movement of the characters mesmerized the kid.
It was almost hypnotic.
And you've got a as a parent, you've got to understand that nothing happens by chance. When it comes to these things. There's a reason why it's happening. Okay, so I think we've got a solution here. It's just going to be tough. And your child's crying out for time with you, right, Kelly, that's what he wants. He or she wants time with you.
They may not know it exactly.
They may think that that whatever is on that screen as a substitute, but what they really want is time with you. It's like it's like when a parent says later on they might have a teenager, oh, she's my best friend. Oh, they don't want a best friend, they want a parent, and they just want.
Somebody to pay attention to you.
Yes.
Yeah.
They want to feel seen and heard and known, and they want to know that as the parent that you can meet their needs. And it might look like I just need some conversation and some eye contact with you, mom. But they also see parents who are modeling being on a device all the time. Absolutely, the kids are going, oh, well, mom's on their device all the time, where's my device?
So exactly? Its exactly.
Yeah, it's challenging.
Yeah, I mean, there's no one size fits all. But the one thing I would say is at dinner time especially, nobody takes the device out. Just check them at the door or put them in a basket or something and then sit there and interact.
That's all you got to do, is very simple.
What do we do and if it's your house, your rules. So I used to have a basket in my house that when my kids had friends over. Yeah, the phones all went in the basket. The laptop's never left, you know, public areas like again, you have to be the parent and your kids will follow suit if you enforce it.
But yeah, making sense of parenting podcasts, I'm sure that's up there where every single podcast is Spotify, Apple and things like that.
How often do you have episodes that come out.
About every month that there's some episodes that they could go and find on all these things that are already there?
Good good And you're at Kelly shoot dot com K.
E L O Y Kelly yeah with a middle initial.
K Kelly K yeah okay, Kelly yeah there you are.
Okay, good stuff, good ideas there. I think maybe you might have nipped a problem in the bud for a lot of parents and stay, well, this was good stuff.
Kelly Hope, we can do it again.
Thank you so much.
Okayye uh yeah. I mean it's just just do that. The next time you go out to dinner and just look around and if you see a family, you'll invariably see one. Everybody's got a device out. Kids got their nose and a device. It's like, why did you have kids in the first place. Two twenty six News Radio seven hundred WLW. The drums are beating because coming up today at three oh six, Dan Carroll is in flying solo. He'll show that that plane doesn't need two people. At
three oh six he'll take off and land properly. Anyway, he's in it for Rocky and Eddy today at three oh six, on this President's Day.
What's going on? What's going on? Oh?
What's interesting I think at this point is tomorrow is the day that NFL teams can begin signing franchise tags or applying franchise tags to the players they don't want to lose to free agency. And I said this yesterday. I'm going to say it again. The Bengals are going to do that to t Higgins and it has nothing to do with their desire to work out a long term deal.
It's just a business procedure.
I'm sure they've told Higgins exactly what's going on and that they are trying to work out a long term deal. This is just prudence on their part. If indeed things blow up, and they quite possibly could, and Higgins goes someplace else in free agency. By the way, the free agent signing period is less than a month away. The free agent signing period opens up on March twelfth. So if it's March twelfth and T Higgins isn't signed here in Cincinnati, he's gone. But I just think tomorrow is
a bookkeeping procedure. That way, if he is gone, if it blows up, they can get some sort of compensation from the NFL in terms of draft picks.
That's all it is.
So when that news breaks, don't go crazy. It's exactly what's going on with him, and whether or not he stays here, we'll see.
We shall see.
Here is something that is fact, more students are choosing not to go to college. High school students choosing not to go to college. This is according to the National Student Clearinghouse. Enrollment in construction trade courses increased almost twenty percent. Culinary programs twelve and a half percent, while enrollment increases in trade schools. Over All mechanics and whatnot increased eleven
and a half percent year to year. Now, this study is a few years old, twenty twenty one to twenty twenty.
Two, but it applies now.
Enrollment in two year colleges down eight percent, enrollment in four year colleges drop by three and a half percent.
Why so, Well, because kids.
Don't want to run up a lot of debt, or their moms and dads don't and then have to get out of college and try and find the job that may not pay as much as a trade would pay if they had gone to trade school. Standing by the way in is Christina et. She is the director of Institute Improvement, that Scholar Shot. That's a company that helps at risk students earn degrees in high school and position themselves for what they want to do later in life,
whether it's college, whether it's trade school. And she's standing by the way in on this on this President's Day, Christina Eddie, how are you on this glorious day?
I am doing great.
I know this, you know this. If only anecdotally, we don't need this survey. There are fewer kids going to college and more going into trades because you can get into a trade, learn a trade, and very quickly either work for a large trade company or starts your own trade company. The money is there where. Perhaps if you go into a college, try to get a four year degree, you may not even realize the debt you accrued for five, six, seven, ten years. So this is not surprising. It's not surprising
to me. Was it surprising to you?
It's not surprising to me that more kids are opting out of four year university, more of them are going to community college now than we've seen in several years, for that very reason. They are learning that hey, I can get an associate's degree, I can get a vocational certification, and I can go to work making substantially more than just a living wage. And that really appeals to a
lot of kids. And you know, I think for your school have have their work cut out for them to you know, increase enrollment again.
But a lot of these Christina are not four year schools. You know, the bad old days when I went to my university, Ohio University neatly take away in the southeast part of Ohio. It's widely considered the Harvard on the Hawking River. It's a little plug there for my school.
But anyway, yeah, there you go.
When I went. When I went, you could get a degree in four years. A lot a lot of these schools anymore, it's a chore to get it in for almost impossible. And that's because most of these universities. I don't want to castigate all of them, but most of them are nothing more than factories to generate money so they can keep chugging along. And hey, if the caution extra year tuition, well that's just the way it goes. A lot of these universities are at the root of the problem for.
This, are they not, Well, I think it's it's definitely a factor. You know, universities, it's a business, and you know, it's one of those situations where students may not always be able to get the classes that they need in order to graduate when they need them, which then extends right the time that students spend. Also, students tend to change their minds a lot, you know, not many eighteen or nineteen year olds know what they want to do for the rest of their life, and so they'll change
majors several times. I mean, I know when I went to school many many, many many moons ago, back in the dinosaur ages, I think I changed my major three or four times. So it's kind of a combinationist thing.
But again, these universities will offer courses, you know, they'll run concurrent. I need to take this course to get my degree. Oh wait a minute, I also have to take that course, but I can only take that. I can't take that course because it's at the same time as this other course. Well, that's where the trouble begins,
and that's where the dollars start to run up. I do think, oh absolutely, a lot of these places just exist to churn money so they can get enough faculty paid and they can publish enough papers to self generate their interest at the expense of mom and dad or whomever is paying for junior to go to that school.
I don't want tons about this, but I think that exists.
Oh absolutely, it exists, and that's one of the reasons why I think more families are starting to see the value in community college or the trades.
Uh.
You know, I think about how much we paid the plumber to come to our house a few months ago, and I kept joking that I was in the wrong business because what he charged us was incredible. And you you have a workforce that is rapidly aging out. They're retiring, and we just don't have the young people to fill those those jobs, those careers.
I'm looking at, christine A.
Costs for attending a two year community college fall in more than nine percent over the last decade. Whereas you know there it used to be, they were there. Even a two year school was very, very difficult financially on a lot of people. But I do think that this, I do think that this, this, this college Board survey indicates that with tuitions coming down, uh, some of these universities are going to have to And this cites well, there are some private universities, but its cites a great
deal of what state public universities are going through. And some of these universities are going to have to tailor what they offer in terms of course selection because it may not be in concert with what the real world is looking for, and they're going to have to, I think tighten their belts a little bit.
You know, the next thing may be layoffs.
If you know a lot of people going to your school, you're going to do one or two things to maintain your faculty size. You're either going to have to increase tuition, which obviously are not or you're going to let some people go. So I think some of these state universities are going to go through some hard times.
Here in the next few well, and I agree.
And I do think too that while tuition might be going down in general, the cost of living is still kind of rising. So we have to look at the whole picture. It's the total cost of attendance for a university or community college versus just the tuition, and that's and that's really what gets people. While I may only pay eight or nine thousand dollars in tuition because it's gone down, I still have to pay for housing and food and transportation and the two pages of fees that
most universities charge. So it's it's really the total cost. And I do think there needs to be some change as far as how we fund public universities and what people can afford. What is what are the jobs of the future? And you know, is every kid ready for a four year university?
Sure?
You know there's a lot of questions, So there.
Are, and I think those are the questions that are being asked by mom and dad, who's ever responsible for junior when they're fifteen, sixteen, seventeen years old. I mean, there might be a lot of conversations like, hey, buddy, let's face it, you're not going to set the world on fire with your grades. You're not the next Albert Einstein? Is this really what we want to do?
Do you have someone? Now?
The other thing that's going on here at Christina Etrian again, we're chatting with Christina Etri. She's with Scholarshop, which is a nonprofit dedicated to helping at risk students. We'll get into what that's all about in just a second. But the other thing too is it doesn't matter whether it's nine thousand dollars a year or eleven thousand dollars a
year or whatever. Rare are the people that walk in to a university where the tuition is eleven twelve thousand dollars a year and PLoP down twelve thousand dollars a year and say educate my kid.
A lot of parents exactly take loans out. What is the loan landscape?
What does that look like both in terms of interest rates, loan forgiveness, Things like that because you know, you're dealing with banks, and you're dealing with the FED, and you're dealing with loans that you know, fluctuate up and down.
What does that look like the financing.
End of it.
Financing end of it is often very complicated because there are a variety of different loans that people can take out to pay for education. Interest rates are high, you know, six percent, seven percent, especially if you're if you're going to a private lender. But nationwide, I believe the last statistic loan balances were roughly twenty between twenty seven and thirty thousand dollars, which is still you know, I mean, that's an average, but now we're looking at the middle fifty percent.
Right, So.
I think that people don't want to graduate with a lot of debt, and financing needs to change.
Sure, let's just take twenty seven thousand dollars. You're graduating with a debt at twenty seven thousand dollars and you start paying that loan back again. It's been a while, But I think for me.
It was like kay, one, yeah, it wasn't like, yeah.
You know, get to we'll get back to you in nine months. You know, here's here's a book, a pa, here's a book. This is how long ago it was. Here's a booklet with a payment, you know, month by month and mail in the check. So, so you're graduating, and so you're thinking, Okay, I got to get a job. Well I don't have a job. Well I've got to find a job, and I have to find a job that not only lets me eat and live and all that,
but I also have to pay off this note. So a lot of you know, you have one or two choices. You either you either pay it off or you don't. In that case and your credit is ruined forever and it's difficult ye to get it back. So it's immediately you need it. And this goes back to our initial talk.
Do you want a job that do you want to go get an education that will get you a job that will pay off for you ten years down the road, or do you want to get a job that's going to pay you today when your bills are due today? And I think that's where we're at all of this, aren't we?
No, I completely agree. I mean I think back to when I graduated and my student loans, I had enormous, an enormous amount because I went to a private school. You know, it took me twenty plus years to finally pay it off, and a lot of that was really only because we had a second income that afforded me that opportunity to be aggressive about paying it. Not everybody's
in that situation. You know, it's it's really a balance, and I do think that there needs to be some change in how we finance higher education and what we expect as families and students young people, because they don't have the same economic situation that we did twenty years ago, thirty years ago. It's much harder now, and you know, no fault of their own.
No, but you know, unless they're a professional student, that just keeps you truly dead, which is what Joe Biden wanted to do. He wanted to, you know, just excuse all these loans of people that were going for graduate degrees that never really and you know, at the expense of people that didn't send their kids to college or people actually pay their loan off. But you raise a great point. I think there's I believe it's Linda McMahon
who's going to be his Secretary of Education. This is this is an excellent opportunity to not just throw money at a problem, which unfortunately what the outgoing administration wanted.
To do, but fix the problem so that it's not a problem. And I think that's what people want. They want problems.
This is an excellent opportunity to fix what you just said.
I hope they do it. Yes, I hope they do it.
I do too.
I would love to see some real bipartisan solutions for the real working families of this nation. We're begging for it, right and it's it's not all just as sweep as the pen and everything is forgiven, but but really really looking at the root causes and then making those changes and implementing you know, transition to whatever plan they can come up with. I think it'll take both sides. It's
not just the one for all. But you know, I think families need the help and kids need careers that can sustain, you know, future generations.
Right.
So, Christina Christina Etree tell us about scholarship, so you help at risk kids get ready for their lives, finding learning, career ready vocational jobs with associated undergraduate degrees. So it sounds like it's a little bit of counseling and a little bit of a boost up for maybe some kids that would not have the same opportunity as some others.
How do people get a hold of you?
So our organization students supply in their senior year. We have certain criteria that they have to adhere to. They need to be palgrant eligible, So we do look at their financial situation. We you know, counsel them on whether they should be making a two year start or if they're ready for a four year start. We provide academic
advising and that's very customized to that student. We also provide some financial support for the duration of their time in their post secondary career, and you know, social and emotional resources should they need it, we find we help them find those resources. So we have a website scholarshot dot org. People are welcome to check us out, scholars. We're doing lots of great things.
Dot com scholarshot dot org. All right, Christina, this was good stuff, and I thank you. You and I have talked about over the last few minutes. Comes to fruition because it looks like it's occasion as we know it right now is changing and unless you change weather, you're going to be left at the post.
Christina, stay well, We appreciate you.
Thank you, thanks for having me.
You bet, you bet. Yeah, you got to find a job. That should be the number one goal of educate higher education. Help the student find a job. That's what you're investing in. And if it's not there at a four year school or a two year school and you want to go to a trade school, look, there are a lot of jobs out there, a lot of jobs. Two point fifty five already on this President's Day, News Radio seven hundred WLW