12-26-25 Ken Broo

Ken hosts his post-Christmas show and talks with Dan Varoney about the impact of holiday shopping on the economy, a new online shopping scam, and more.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):
Where I am. I believe we have all survived Christmas,
or else we would not be here today.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
Right. Maybe we didn't survive Christmas.

Speaker 1 (00:18):
I wouldn't be talking, you wouldn't be listening, and you
wouldn't be yelling back at me.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
So we're here. We survived yet another Christmas.

Speaker 1 (00:24):
All of the spending, all of the cooking, all of
the cleaning, all of the things you have to do.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
But I hope the things that you did.

Speaker 1 (00:30):
I hope whatever gifts you gave, whatever gifts you received,
I hope wherever you went yesterday to celebrate Christmas, which
I hope was someplace that does have some religious connotations.
But nevertheless, however it went down, I hope it was
a blessed and happy Christmas for you, because there are
so few times that we, not just as an American society,

(00:51):
but we as family, can gather together. And though family
can cause tensions, sometimes families can cause great joy, sometimes
they can cause great sorrow. We only have a finite
number of days that we can get together and do
things like that. So that's what I hoped for for you,
and I hope it all turned out that way for you,
And if it did not for whatever reason, you got

(01:13):
to keep trying, right, You just got to keep trying.
We had a great time here at our place, and
we're now to press on for the things that are
going to define you, me and everyone else in the
next couple of days and on into twenty twenty six.
We keep hearing the twenty twenty six is going to
be a wonderful year economically. Keep hearing that the one

(01:35):
Big Beautiful Law is no longer one big beautiful bill.
It's one big beautiful law that will kick in on
January the first will reap a lot of benefits for
you and us financially and otherwise.

Speaker 2 (01:47):
And so because of.

Speaker 1 (01:50):
That, I think it might be time to just sit
back and just take sense of where we are as
not only a country, but also as a world. And
there are a number of hot spots around the world,
one of which is Nigeria. As I'm sure you know
by now, the President Donald J. Trump launched a quote
unquote powerful and deadly strike against forces of the Islamic State,

(02:13):
the folks that have been slaughtering Christians in Nigeria. Well,
Trump had pledged to a number of people, including entertainer
Nicki Minaj, that he was going to take care of
all of that. And he certainly started that process by
just unleashing the wrath of the United States military in
this in this attack on Christmas night, and he had

(02:37):
been planning it, accordingly to or according to sources inside
the Pentagon, he had been planning this for weeks and
so it was carried out. And just about a week
before that, of course, we had a three We had
three Americans killed by the Islamic Islamic State, two soldiers
at a civilian, three others injured an attack in Syria. Now,

(02:58):
did anybody wonder what is the United States still doing
in Syria? Thought we were done with that, you know,
on to the next but apparently not. And so Trump
subsequently ordered an attack on the Islamic State, the camp
that launched the attack on the Americans, and more strikes

(03:18):
are expected inside Syria. But we seem to be focused
on a lot of different things. Blown up drug boats
in Venezuela, blocking Venezuela. Seemed to be distracted in a
great sense by what's going on with Russia and Ukraine,
and to maybe a lesser extent, the ongoing struggle now
between Israel and forces from various jihad groups in that

(03:41):
area of the world that seems to be simmering, that
Yahoo has been summered. He's going to meet with Trump
next week, as is Olenski. But Syria, what are we
doing in Syria? And do we have our eye on
the ball on the real important things? Standing by to
join us as somebody that's wondering the same things too.
Jeff Crower is a political commentator of great note. He's

(04:02):
been around a very long time. You can see him
on a lot of different outlets. I mean we're talking
about MSNBC, CNN, He's written for The New York Times,
He's appeared on Fox News, Newsmax, has his own talk
show in Louisiana down in New Orleans, and I wanted
to get him on the show today to talk about

(04:23):
this because it's been kind of an advocation of his
to keep track of what troops are doing from the
United States around the world and why the heck we're
still in Syria. So standing by is the aforementioned Jeff Crower.
How are you on this glorious day after Christmas?

Speaker 3 (04:39):
Hey, Ken, thanks for having me.

Speaker 1 (04:41):
I'm glad you're here. Obviously, this is a serious situation.
Three Americans killed by the Islamic State gunmen. Gunmen's probably
two soldiers and a civilian. Three others injured. The United
States retaliates with an attack about seventy targets. I think
a lot of people in this country were unaware that
the United States still had an active presence in Syria.

(05:04):
I think that our presence in Syria is a mission
that really has no definition at this point, does it.

Speaker 3 (05:11):
I agree. I mean, I know the President during his
first term was trying to get our troops out of Syria,
and I supported that completely because I don't understand why
we're there. I don't understand why we were in Afghanistan
for twenty years or Iraq for so many years. I mean,
this is not, I think, a vital interest in the
United States. And we're losing our soldiers, we're spending money

(05:36):
that we don't have, and we're in a reason that
is forever marked by turmoil and war and different factions
within you know, radical Islam. So we're aligning ourselves with
a president there who's a former terrorist.

Speaker 2 (05:52):
So a Jeff. They hate us.

Speaker 1 (05:56):
I mean, it's obvious that they don't want us there.
It's obvious that the president of the country doesn't like
the United States. Isis I mean, I mean, there's so
many different titles. This is the Islamic State, then there's Isis,
you know, then there's you know. I mean, it just
it's obvious. It's a quagmire over there. We tried to
get into nation building at a lot of places and

(06:18):
it failed, and here we go again. I don't even
know what the strategic value is to the United States,
do you.

Speaker 3 (06:25):
Well, supposedly we're there to limit the Islamic State ISIS
from expanding and to try to go after you know,
isis terrace in that country. And I'm thinking, well, I
mean that should be the job of the president of Syria.
I mean, this is a country that was led by

(06:48):
the Asade dictatorship, the family dictatorship for five decades. He
was forced out by a military force that grew quickly
and swept over the country. He's in exile in Russia.
For all his faults, he was at least permitting Christianity
to remain in Syria. Since the new leadership has taken over,

(07:12):
we've had Christian churches that have been targeted, burned down,
Christians killed. The Christian population there in Syria, which is
a historic connection to Christianity, is dwindling. So I mean,
I have my questions about whether we can trust this regime. Supposedly,
the Americans that were killed were killed by a member

(07:34):
of the Syrian security force that had turned to ISIS
and had been recruited by ISIS. And my question is,
can how many others within the security forces of Syria
are really to have true allegiance to ISIS.

Speaker 1 (07:50):
Yeah, And the answer to that question for me is
I don't know. I don't think anybody knows at this point.
But regardless of strategic objective and regardless of what genocide
is going on in Syria, it just seems like we
get dragged into these quagmires all the time, and there's
no easy way out. I mean, you can go back

(08:10):
as far as Korea and up as recently as Vietnam.
We get in there and rather than just declare victory
and go home, we just get bogged down in these things.
Afghanistan is the same way here recently. I don't understand.
I don't understand why, through various administrations, we think we
have to police the world. Why do we have to
do that?

Speaker 3 (08:31):
You are one hundred percent right, we do not. We
should not. The track record is abysmal. I mean, just
give you. Let's just look at Afghanistan. We went in
there in two thousand and one after the nine to
eleven attacks, supposedly to go after those who plan the
nine to eleven attacks, and Osama bin Laden slipped away,

(08:53):
so instead of declaring victory and coming home, we stayed
there for twenty years. When we went to Afghanistan, the
Taliban was in charge. When we left Afghanistan, the Taliban
was in charge. They outlasted us. So all the people
that were killed, maimed, mentally impacted, all the Afghan allies

(09:14):
quote unquote of ours who died, all that was for
naught because Afghanistan was still ruled by I think a
terrorist regime, the Taliban. But now they had billions of
dollars of our weapons that we left behind, and we
built an airbase that we left behind for them called Bogrum.
So it was a disaster of epic proportions. And then

(09:35):
the way we left was disastrous, and of course thirteen
of our heroes were killed.

Speaker 1 (09:40):
You know, I like to say, the answer to all
of our questions in life is money. The answer to
all of our geopolitical interests may be oil. I know
Syria has oil, it's crude oil. But they have got oil,
natural gas. They've got some minerals I guess over there, rock, salt, marble, gypsum,

(10:02):
things like that. So there may be some strategic reason
that we're over there, But from a I guess from
an economic standpoint, maybe that strategic is oil. It seems
like everything is oil these days. Venezuela is oil. Russia
cutting off Russia is about oil, cutting off China is
about oil. So maybe it's money and oil is at

(10:25):
the root of all of these things. I mean that
theory may be as good as any at this point.

Speaker 2 (10:29):
Right.

Speaker 3 (10:30):
No, I think that that could be a factor.

Speaker 4 (10:33):
But I mean, I think in.

Speaker 3 (10:34):
The thissadministration, we're working to become energy independent where we
shouldn't have to go send our troops to the Middle East.
I mean, we should have enough resources here to be
able to take care of ourselves. I mean, I know
that was why we got involved in the first Golf War,
because you know, Rock Invada, Kuwait, and we were worried
about the world oil supply, and that led to all

(10:57):
these other engagements wars over there.

Speaker 2 (11:01):
Now.

Speaker 3 (11:01):
I mean, we're unleashing our energy potential here, so as
we become energy independent, we shouldn't be worried about what's
going on all over the world. But I think it
is a reason. I think it definitely is a reason
with Venezuela because they're massive supplies there, so you know,
the world markets, I guess for one of the reasons

(11:22):
and so forth. The President wants to have low price
of oil and the free flow of oil. So we're
taking action against Venezuela, which is a whole other issue.
But I can see that more than I can SyRI
A kin, because at least Venezuela is in our neighborhood,
is impacting Americans through the drugs that are coming here.

(11:43):
That is an impact on our country. I don't see
the Syrian situation as being something that is the most
important to our own national security.

Speaker 2 (11:52):
Maybe Israel, but not ours.

Speaker 1 (11:55):
What would happen, in your opinion, if we just declared
victory and pulled out of Syria him Afghanistan obviously was
a debacle the way we left, but even leaving was
in the works before Joe Biden completely you know, made
that a complete Chataki mushroom show. What you know, what
what what would be the what would be the folly

(12:16):
and just saying Okay, we're done with Syria.

Speaker 3 (12:19):
I think zero. I think we would save money. I
think we would save lives. I think we could put
our troops are over there into places that are of
more importance to us, like the border. I think that,
you know, Israel might have to step up and do more,
but I mean that should be left to Israel to
do so. Again, I think that there would not be

(12:41):
devastating ramifications at all. I mean, I think our troops
over there are target to be terrorists.

Speaker 4 (12:49):
That's why you know these attacks occurred.

Speaker 3 (12:50):
They want to they want to kill Americans, and be
harder for them to do it if we're not there.

Speaker 2 (12:55):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, who knows. I don't know. I
was still I was a little.

Speaker 1 (12:59):
Taken aback by what happened, And maybe that was in
essence the strategy, the surprise of the attack.

Speaker 2 (13:05):
They poked the beast.

Speaker 1 (13:06):
Apparently we retaliated, but that to me seems so nineteen
nineties in the way we responded over there. I just
don't know what our policy is globally.

Speaker 2 (13:18):
I just don't know.

Speaker 3 (13:19):
And can I would say, hey, we responded, that's a
great time to say, Okay, we're victorious. We responded, we
struck back at the enemy. We're leaving where we're taking
our troops out. And I know that President Trump shares
this view.

Speaker 4 (13:36):
Because he had it during his first term.

Speaker 3 (13:38):
It's just incredible to me that we're still there, that
we're still there, and I'm sure somehow Israel is one
of the reasons why we are.

Speaker 1 (13:47):
Jeff Cruerer is our guest political commentator. Analysts seeing him
on all kinds of outlets MSNBC, Fox, CNBC, places like that.
What do you think? And I've got to ask you this.
It's a half a globe away from Syria, but we
touched on it. What do you think the endgame is
in Venezuela. Trump doesn't want troops on the ground. He

(14:09):
said that he's got a blockade going, he's seizing tanker ships.
I'm just I'm wondering there's got to be a next
step or an end run here.

Speaker 2 (14:17):
What do you figure it is.

Speaker 3 (14:20):
I think he's trying to pressure him the Duro to leave,
to exit, and I think he's trying to do it
without introduction of US troops. And if there is I
think it would be a short term situation, but I
think that's the goal, to try to get Maduro to

(14:41):
leave because of you know, his involvement in narco terrorism, etc.
And I know a lot of Libertarians are not fans
of this, and I don't think it's really something that
we should be focusing on. And I think a lot
of you know, Republicans are split about this. You know,
Tucker Calls and Martie Taylor Green and others are raising

(15:02):
questions about it. I do believe that Maduro's illegitimate in
that he stole the election there, and you know, it's
in power in a dictatorship that is propping up Cuba
and you know when in alliance with Russia and China.
The question is, I mean, is this our role and

(15:25):
responsibility to remove him? And you know, I do think
we can make a case for blowing.

Speaker 4 (15:33):
Up these narco terrorist votes that are.

Speaker 3 (15:35):
On their way to the US and possibly to recover
some of the assets that were stolen from US when
the dictatorship started, some of our oil assets. But as
far as regime change, I would hope we're not moving
in the direction of introducing US troops because I don't
want to trade a war in Afghanistan for war in Venezuela.

Speaker 2 (15:56):
Sure.

Speaker 1 (15:56):
Absolutely, again going back to the policeman of the world
point of view, but this, as as you and I
both know and I think you mentioned, has more strategic
value to deal with this than perhaps what's going on
in places like Siria. Jeff Corware, it's always great having
you on the show. Good luck with your shows down

(16:16):
there in New Orleans. We'll do this again after the
new year. But for your time today.

Speaker 2 (16:20):
Thanks, let's do it.

Speaker 3 (16:21):
I can thank you so much.

Speaker 2 (16:23):
You bet all right.

Speaker 1 (16:24):
So you got what happened in Nigeria over Christmas, and
then this Islamic State gunman that killed three Americans wounded
three others about a week and a half ago, and
so Trump obviously has got isis in his crossairs again.
They're rearing their ugly head. But stand by, I mean,
this whole thing in Syria could blow up too. The
world is not a safe place, and the administration is

(16:48):
trying to do I think a lot right now, but
I think it realizes that Syria is at this point
something they have to start paying attention to. Again, I'm
just saying there's a lot of things going on globe
that affect you and me here at home, twelve twenty five,
on this Friday, the average American in for the Great
American News Radio seven hundred W l W.

Speaker 5 (17:10):
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Speaker 1 (18:07):
Hey, football fans gear up from the holidays and conquer
that to do list in a brand new Chevy truck.
Twelve forty News Radio seven hundred WLW Welcome back.

Speaker 2 (18:18):
I am ken Brew.

Speaker 1 (18:20):
Well, we spent a lot of money this holiday season.

Speaker 2 (18:23):
I know that.

Speaker 1 (18:24):
All I have to do is look out the window
here at Kenwood Town Center. It's been jammed upright untul
Christmas Eve, and it's jammed again today. So I'm just
just thinking anecdotally, we seem to have spent a lot
of money. The Amazon truck goes up and down my
street at least fifty times a day. But we're getting
mixed messages on the economy, aren't we. American consumers in

(18:46):
December remain downbeat about the state of economy. This according
to the Conference Board, which is a nonprofit group that
represents small businesses and Americans. According to a CBS News poll,
say that now they're basically down to maybe maybe as
good as average on the economy. But yet we see
things like the GDP. The GDP was a blistering four

(19:11):
point three percent in the third quarter of twenty twenty five,
so we're still spending. Jobs are pretty good. For the
last week of November, sixty four thousand jobs in the
month of November that wasn't all that much better, but
better than what it.

Speaker 2 (19:28):
Was in October.

Speaker 1 (19:29):
So you can see there's mixed messages on all of
that stuff that economists look at, and then it comes
right down to you and me and how we feel
because we're the ones that are actually going out there
and doing the buying that make those numbers what they are.
So where is the economy as we enter into twenty
twenty six? Standing by to check in.

Speaker 2 (19:48):
On all of that?

Speaker 1 (19:48):
As Dan Veroni, he is a terrific economist, strategist, two
time author, and he's got a best seller on Amazon
right now that he was kind enough to send me
Rethinking Economic Growth, and he is with Potonacre Potonacre dot
com And Dan, how are you on this glorious day
after Christmas.

Speaker 2 (20:09):
Of your listeners.

Speaker 1 (20:11):
I'm glad you're here. Let's just talk about this. You
can see where there's a disconnect between Wall Street and
Main Street. You probably see it where you live. I
see it where I live. People spend and then it
gets onto credit cards and oh my good goodness, here
come those bills down the road. And I suppose, I
suppose that may be the start of where this uncertainty

(20:32):
about economics and the American consumer's opinion about where we're
going economically in this country. Will that be a fair
starting point for this?

Speaker 7 (20:41):
You know, I think probably the fairest starting point is
what the consumer experiences. So if for all of us, right,
we go to the guest pump, and you know, a
year two years ago, we were getting sticker shock, and
that sticker shock came in two forms, right, So one
was the price we're paying forget saline, and two was

(21:01):
the lower amount of spendable dollars we had after we
filled our guest tanks up and then it's spilled over
to the food store. We went into the food store
and I said, oh my gosh, these food prices are
absolutely ridiculous, and they keep climbing. So when you look
at the things that we all experience, you can understand

(21:23):
why affordability is an issue, or why for the first
time home buyer those numbers seem not only unreachable, but unrealistic,
you know, in terms of making that first first time purchase.
So the answer is where are we today compared to
twelve months ago or even twenty four months ago. And
I'm happy to report that on an inflation basis, meaning

(21:44):
the prices that we're paying for things. When the inflation
numbers came in, the core inflation, right, came in a
two point six percent versus you know what was closer
to the three percent.

Speaker 2 (21:54):
So that's good news.

Speaker 7 (21:56):
But the best news of all, and this really matters,
is the gasoline prices are down on average nationally about
eighty cents a gallon. And here's really what that means.
What that means is is that's going to have an
impact on prices that we pay for things. So is
an example where we're seeing what I call deflation come in.

(22:19):
So dairy and related prices are down, milk prices are down,
and cheese prices are flat to down, right, So that's
good news. It's good news because those gasoline prices are down.
How to gethylene impact those things, you got to ship
those food products from point A to point B, and
it requires gasoline. Lower gasoline prices means lower gas prices.

(22:43):
It also means more spendable dollars in our pocket. I
believe we're all going to be feeling better at the
end of the first quarter next year, and absolutely at
the end of the second quarter next year. Because we're
going to be paying less for things, We're going to
have more money in our pockets.

Speaker 1 (22:59):
Well, a couple of things President Trump inherited what I
think was just a couple of insanities when it comes
to economics in this country.

Speaker 2 (23:07):
First was inflation. I mean, it was just totally out
of control.

Speaker 1 (23:12):
You and I'm guessing by the name of your company,
you must live out near the Washington, DC area?

Speaker 2 (23:17):
Am I correct on that?

Speaker 7 (23:19):
I do. I'm within thirty miles of the Washington, DC border,
and I'm there pretty often.

Speaker 2 (23:23):
Okay, Well, I.

Speaker 1 (23:24):
Used to live in rest in Virginia many many years ago,
and you know, I know that sometimes inside the Beltway
it's not always what is in effect around the rest
of the country. But you're right about gasoline prices, it
will cost less to ship. Inflation when the previous president
was in office was out of sight because yeah, I mean,

(23:46):
they threw money at problems and they just created more problems.
And there is not a forgiving media when it comes
to Donald Trump. And so these are all great stories
that have happened economically. I don't sense he's getting credit
for it because of the way the media is. And
I'm guessing hoping like you that when we get in

(24:06):
second quarter of twenty twenty six, that the one Big
Beautiful Now Law will allow some of these better stories
to come out. And so we're not completely hit over
the head with Jeffrey Epstein every day. I mean, I
am I hoping for too much here?

Speaker 7 (24:21):
No, I don't think you're hoping too much, because prices
in data matters. And you know, so next year when
everybody opens up their paychecks, the withholding rates are going
to be lower because of the Big Beautiful Law. When
they get refund on average a tax refund, a federal
tax refund to the tune of one to two thousand dollars.
That's going to because of the Big Beautiful Law. When

(24:43):
you look at the lowering gas prices, that's because the
Trump administration inherited regulations that replied to the tune of
about one point four trillion dollars. So when Republicans and
Democrats say, so, Dan, tell me what these high prices are, Well,
you know, last administration spent you know, seven eight trillion dollars,

(25:04):
and that violated the loss of supply and demand, and
that raised prices. But what they really did was add
these excessive regulations that really added the prices. We all
saw that at a guest pump the food store. Especially
small businesses saw that, and I heard about how much
they saw that. When I wrote my last book, I

(25:25):
spent fifty hours of interviewing these small businesses and we
spoke a lot about inflation, but we also talked a
lot about regulations and how it was increasing prices. But
I think at the end of the day when things
start to come back, and they are coming back already.
So let me give you another data point. Lenard Holmes,
one of the biggest home builders in the country. President

(25:47):
Trump announced on x just a few moments ago that
they were lowering their prices by almost thirty percent. Wow,
thirty percent. That's a big deal. So there's good news coming.
I feel very good about it. But I want to
tell you what needs to happen to really get the

(26:09):
economy moving and to really have us feeling even better
than we do today. The Federal Reserve needs to cut
rates further. Several months ago, I had written two op
eds that were published on Real Clear Politics, and I
said that the Fed needed to reduce rates by one
hundred and fifty basis points. They're reduced them by seventy

(26:29):
five basis points. The reason why I was pushing is
hard for that is because ninety nine point nine percent
of the companies in this country are small businesses. These
are the companies that employee on average eight or fewer employees.
With a big, beautiful law and the ability to expense
one hundred percent of purchases involved in new plants and

(26:52):
new equipment. That will get the hiring machine going, and
that will get the economy growing as far as the
eye can say. But the Federal Reserve right now is
a challenge, and I think when you look at the
jobs numbers, they could be far better than they are today.
That will come with another seventy five basis points worth

(27:13):
the cuts.

Speaker 1 (27:15):
Dan mentioned his book, It's Rethinking Economic Growth. In fact,
Dan quotes a rather prominent Cincinnatian businessman here in Cincinnati
in your book, spoke to Jim Schwab right professional Palace. Yeah,
and he had some real interesting comments about just where
we are and where we need to go and just
how we rethink everything, not just in business, but in

(27:37):
education as well. I think we have a lot of
people not to get sidetracked here on the economy we
have a lot of people in this country I think
that are applying old logic to where we are as
a country, and education is a big reason why I
think we may be slugging along here and dragging some
folks along into twenty twenty six. It all be I

(27:59):
think there was this American dream you got to go
to college. You've got to go to college, you've got
to get a degree, you got to get a job.
And all that really happened was a lot of people
that we're very young, We're just driving up debt and
not getting jobs that could pay down that debt.

Speaker 2 (28:13):
And that was a problem on a number of different levels.

Speaker 1 (28:16):
But we really do need to rethink in this country
where we are going with our education system, and I
think your book touches on that.

Speaker 2 (28:22):
Could you elaborate us a little bit on.

Speaker 7 (28:24):
That, absolutely.

Speaker 3 (28:26):
So.

Speaker 7 (28:27):
One of the things that I learned in the book
is that the thirty five small business owners that I
spoke to is that we need skilled, qualified workers, and
that is the biggest need that most small businesses have nowadays.
But at the end of the day, when you look
at the wage earning capacity of an HVAC technician, you

(28:48):
know you're looking at six figures. When you look at electricians,
you're looking at six figures. And most people don't know
that you can go to school for two years and
literally get hired to be a you know, do programming
language tnology companies, so and the numbers, the pay gills
are very impressive. And it starts with getting back into

(29:12):
investing into vocational and technical training and education. We've got
to recommit to that and invest at higher levels. The
Trump administration has taken several significant steps in that direction,
and I think that's highly promising. I think the other
thing that's happening is I think that parents and their

(29:33):
kids are having serious conversations around what makes sense for
their kids long term career wise, because if you can't
get a job after you've taken out a few hundred
thousand dollars.

Speaker 3 (29:46):
Loans, what's the point.

Speaker 7 (29:48):
So I think that refocusing is happening and I'm highly
encouraged by that.

Speaker 2 (29:53):
And I learned a lot about that in doing interviews
for my book.

Speaker 1 (29:57):
Well, and despite the fact with the last administration did
with its Department of Justice. As a parent, I think
you need to get involved with your school board as
to what's actually being taught, and what's actually being taught
is it helping these kids when they get out of school.

Speaker 2 (30:12):
In other words, I think you make this point in
your book as well.

Speaker 1 (30:14):
There's no reason why you can't have dual paths in
an education system coming out of high school. And for
that matter, if indeed you want to go to college
and study something that isn't a trade, why not have
a dual path that that trade is also taught so
that it's not a stigma of well he didn't go
to college, or well you know he's he's just a
high school graduate. Well so what you know, why not

(30:35):
why not be deep into what is going on with
your child's education? And I you know that means showing
up in school board meetings and one of these these
people running for elected office to the board of education
knock on your door and they want your vote, Ask
them how they feel about things like that, and then
hold them accountable.

Speaker 7 (30:53):
Yeah, home rule government is where it's at in this country.
And what I love about small business is whole business
really ties things together. They are the energy in every community.
And one of the things that I was especially impressed
with is that there are small businesses that are literally
building relationships with schools and saying, will you help us

(31:20):
get skilled trained workers, will you change your curriculum around
to accommodate that, facilitate that, And in fact they are
and that's really energizing. But this accountability thing for school
boards is absolutely mission critical for parents. You're paying a
lot of your local tax dollars to these school boards,
and it's incumbent upon you to go to these meetings,

(31:43):
look through the school budgets to see how the money
is being spent, to get a full download on the
curriculum and have them explain it to you. And then
when you're better informed, get your friends and neighbors and
relatives better informed, and then you all show up at.

Speaker 2 (31:59):
These meetings and you push for meaningful change.

Speaker 1 (32:02):
Well, Dan Veroni, I happen to think twenty twenty six
is going to be a robust year just because of
what has signed. What has been signed into law, one
big beautiful law. Now I think a lot of people
are going to be shocked. We'll see where the credit
goes for it. But the fact of the matter is,
listening to you, you sound like twenty twenty six could
be for all economic strata, could be a robust year.

Speaker 2 (32:23):
Am I right about that? Or I hear you?

Speaker 7 (32:25):
I think you if I didn't, let me be absolutely
on point about this. We are going to have a
strong year. We'll get off to a good start in
the first quarter, but I think quarters two through four
will be very strong. I am very optimistic. When you
put taxpayer money back in the hands of taxpayers, they're

(32:46):
going to spend it. We're seventy percent consumer driven economy.
That in and of itself is a good sign. Lower
guess prices, more money to consumers, more money to spend.
We are looking an opportunity, especially on a small business front,
with tax incentives for plants and equipment. I believe that

(33:07):
in twenty twenty six that small businesses are going to
lead the way in the US economy.

Speaker 1 (33:13):
Well, Dan Varoni, happy twenty twenty six to you in
advance again. His book is Rethinking Economic Growth is a
it's a good read. It's a fun read actually, and
like I say, there's a couple of Cincinnati connections in
there as well. Dan, this was good stuff. Let's do
it again. Can we do it again in twenty twenty six.
I'll phone you up. Maybe we can do this again.

Speaker 2 (33:29):
Hum I'd love to I'd love to do it. Please,
please do it. Let's do it right. You take care
and we'll talk down the road. All right, Thank you.
Have a great day.

Speaker 1 (33:37):
Dan Varoni again rethinking economic growth. It's I read it
gosh in a day and a half. It was, and
it's enlightening. And it's not one of those books where
you get bogged down and numbers and things like that.
It's it's just a good solid way of looking at
what might be best as we look into twenty twenty six,
it's coming up on twelve fifty five. We got a

(33:58):
lot more to get to.

Speaker 2 (33:59):
Today.

Speaker 1 (33:59):
It's the average American in for the Great American. Happy
day after Christmas. It's still jammed at the mall, so
be careful going in there. Remember you're driving. I'm walking
on seven hundred WLW. All right.

Speaker 2 (34:21):
As we've pressed on this, they had to Christmas.

Speaker 1 (34:23):
It's the average American in for the Great American on
seven hundred WLW Radio.

Speaker 2 (34:28):
Great to have you with us. A lot to get to.

Speaker 1 (34:30):
As I say, between now and when we're done here
in a couple of hours, I want to get into
this big new thing. It's bald guys getting on airplanes
and flying to Hungry Why why are a bunch of
bald guys getting on planes and flying a hungry Well,
apparently that is the place the destination for hair restoration.

Speaker 2 (34:55):
But what do you get when you go over there?

Speaker 1 (34:56):
I mean, you could literally get some dude put in
plugs in your hair, and right next door it could
be you know, not next door, but in the same room,
could be somebody doing nails, and then next to them
it could.

Speaker 2 (35:08):
Be like a you know, like a subway station.

Speaker 1 (35:11):
So I want to get into what I want to
get into what this is all about, because apparently the
world's greatest hair transplant surgeon is now living in the
United States.

Speaker 2 (35:23):
Who knew? You don't have to get on a plane, You.

Speaker 1 (35:26):
Don't have to play halfway around the world or Hungry
or Turkey or someplace like that. But I want to
find out why this guy is the world's greatest transplant
in the world, the world's greatest hair transplant doctor, and.

Speaker 2 (35:40):
He lives right here in the United States.

Speaker 1 (35:43):
So if you see a bunch of bald guys getting
on a plane and they're flying east, you might want
to flag them down and say, look, all you to
get you know, guy in Florida can help you out.
We'll talk to him coming up in just a little bit.
How much it really costs to get your hair restored
in this day and age. I thought you just kind
of like pop some pills, right, That's what they would

(36:04):
have you believe on TV. You just pop a few
pills pro pisha something like that.

Speaker 2 (36:09):
Apparently not. I don't know.

Speaker 1 (36:12):
There are a lot of things wrong with me, but
the one thing I got going for me, I got
a nice head of hair. So I watched some of
these NFL games yesterday, and man, Netflix, they they just
need to stick with movies and documentaries a little rough
to coverage. Yesterday, Dallas won by seven over Washington in

(36:34):
a meaningless game. Detroit got knocked out of the playoffs
by Minnesota. Detroit looked like they wanted to be anywhere
but Minneapolis. And then you had Denver beating Kansas City.
Kansas City is a shell of what it is. They
were on a third string quarterback. Andy Reid did manage
to squeeze thirteen points out of that offense, but Denver

(36:56):
twenty to thirteen. Do you think the Bengals have some
trouble trying to figure things out for twenty twenty six.
I mean the Chiefs are their defense is aging. The
quarterback is having ACL surgery, the backup quarterback is having
ACL surgery. Travis Kelcey is running off to be I

(37:18):
guess Taylor Swift's roadie. They got to rebuild that entire team.
One thing Kansas City though very well. What they do
is they spend money wisely, they seem to find dudes.
So I was alarmed to hear this over the weekend.
I don't know whether you heard this or not, but

(37:39):
there is a there is a scam going on. It's
called squishing, and it's not SQI, SSI and G. It's
spelled QUI, SSI and G squishing. And I'm sure you've
seen these QR codes. Might see a QR code on
your television, whether it's a commercial or a charge, hold

(38:00):
your phone up to here and now we'll get bring
all the details. Or you might go into a restaurant
and the menu might be on a QR code that's
plastered on the table, so they want you to hold
the phone over the QR code and then up pops
the menu. Well, apparently there is now a big deal

(38:20):
about quishing, which is scanning a restaurant menu or scanning
any QR code, and then the nefarious people in this
world have figured out a way to bastardize that particular
code and steal your private information. So something that was
viewed or is viewed as a convenience now could be

(38:41):
a problem the next time you try it. So what
is quishing? And why did these guys, Why do guys
or there could be women for all I know, why
do they come up with these ideas that I guess
baffle the smart guys in this country when it comes
to security, When it comes to security. So I got

(39:04):
Damien Fortune standing by. He's online too. I've had Dabien
with me many times before. He's a cybersecurity expert, knows
all about these QR codes. He's CEO of Centrics, which
is a global leader in secure communication solutions. What better
person to have on than Damien Fortune on this this

(39:24):
thing that I just said, Wow, you're not even safe
going into a restaurant anymore.

Speaker 2 (39:29):
Damien Fortune, how are you on this glorious day? I'm
doing well, Ken? How about you? So I'm good?

Speaker 1 (39:34):
But I don't know what squishing is? What is squishing?
Just to find the term squishing for us please.

Speaker 8 (39:40):
Yeah, So, if you've heard of fishing before, this is
just another kind of variety of a predatory cyber attack.
This time it's leveraging those QR codes that you see
posted everywhere, whether it's you at a restaurant, on your
light bill or you know kind of just distributed around
town on posters and things like that. And essentially the
attack is one where they expect folks to you know,
scan that code with the phone and then they're taken

(40:01):
to a website that you know, sometimes looks exactly like
their utility website or a restaurant's menu page or a
checkout page. And the idea there is to get you
to put in either your private or personal information or
to actually put in a payment method, and then to
actually take money from you.

Speaker 1 (40:16):
Well, this is interesting if I see a secure code. Now,
a lot of times you'll you'll watch television and they'll say,
get more information on the product here, or if you're
watching the show that's trying to raise money for a charity,
you'll say, just put your phone up to the QR
code and it'll take your right to where you can
make your donation. I guess my question is, how can

(40:36):
that QR code that may be a scam, a phoney,
how can that replicate what a particular restaurant or charity
or shopping place, whatever it may be.

Speaker 2 (40:49):
How can they do that?

Speaker 8 (40:51):
Yeah, so a lot of times these bad guys are
now doing the research right, So they'll go to the
restaurant and they'll look up the website or the menu
page of the website, or they'll actually go to the
charity's website and make.

Speaker 2 (41:02):
A copy of it.

Speaker 8 (41:03):
Essentially that has a slightly different web address, but it
looks close enough that if you weren't looking too carefully,
you feel like, oh, okay, this is a this is
a legit.

Speaker 2 (41:11):
This is where she's putting in FRAN information or making
that donation.

Speaker 1 (41:14):
Okay, so they're out there, they're smartt they're doing this. Well,
then why can't the establishment change it?

Speaker 3 (41:20):
Then?

Speaker 2 (41:20):
I mean, is it just one of those things, Hey,
you know, change it. We'll get you again. Why.

Speaker 1 (41:24):
I mean, the establishment would have to know if somebody
got burned trying to look at a menu at a
restaurant on a QR code, My guess is I would
immediately call not only my bank, but I would also
call a restaurant.

Speaker 8 (41:35):
Yeah, absolutely, And you know, there's always this kind of
circular race that goes on there where you can alert
folks that this is happening. But a lot of times
that bad guys are going so far as to a
lot of restaurants now, for example, have those QR codes
posted either on a little standing thing on the table
or they actually have it as a sticker on the table,
so they may not even be sure which of those
stickers have been replaced. It's kind of like the old
ATM card skimming thing from back in the day where

(41:58):
they would insert of a device in and and scrape
your card that way.

Speaker 2 (42:01):
It's the same kind of idea. Folks are just putting
stickers on top.

Speaker 8 (42:04):
Of stickers basically, So then you'd have to have someone
in the restaurant going around to every table trying to
figure out which one of these QR codes isn't like
the other. Then, as you can imagine, right, that's a
pretty tough thing to.

Speaker 1 (42:14):
Do with the Yeah, I mean, I mean, I get
the mechanism, and I understand that there are people out
there that want to do nefarious things like this, but
it would seem to me that this is a tool
of convenience, and maybe it shouldn't be used anywhere until
they can lasso this thing. I mean, because you really
don't know, you might think, oh, oh, okay, well, this

(42:36):
is a legitimate business. I don't have to worry about
it here. I mean, it would sound to me like
the smart business play here is to just simply not
use these QR codes.

Speaker 8 (42:46):
Yeah, and a lot of folks actually have because of
issues like this, moved away from it or have changed
the way that they do things.

Speaker 2 (42:53):
In some cases.

Speaker 8 (42:54):
Now the QR codes are kind of behind some sort
of area, right, so they're under the varnish on the
top of the tabletop, or the waiter will bring the
QR code to you once you finish your meal, so
you can scan and pay that way, to kind of
leave the QR code less exposed for folks to come
in and tamper with it in some way.

Speaker 1 (43:13):
I was always led to believe that these kinds of
things more often than not happen to let's call them elderly,
maybe the sixty plus seventy plus crowd. But I think
anymore it's probably all demographics get caught in this, don't they.

Speaker 8 (43:28):
Yeah, absolutely, I mean more and more we're making this
trade off of convenience and security, and as we move
more towards, you know, being able to pay your bill
without you and interacting with the waiter anymore through one
of these QR codes, we're going to see more and
more of this stuff. And there's always this cycle of
the cyber folks like myself trying to come in and
help catch up and find ways to at least throw

(43:49):
a wrench in the bad guy's operation to keep folks
safe for at least at least a little bit more
than they are currently.

Speaker 1 (43:54):
Okay, that's an interesting exit ramp. Okay, let's say I
get scammed. Let's say I go to a restaurant, I
scan the QR code and the next thing I know,
my information is out there. I don't know how it
got out there, why I got out there. A would
if I contracted with Damian Fortune in this company, would
they be able to track back where that scam occurred.

Speaker 2 (44:19):
We have partners that do exactly that sort of thing.

Speaker 8 (44:22):
We focus more on the communication side, but yeah, there's
lots of folks out there that do these kind of
scam track backs. Now, they obviously worked with your bank
and can help you at least recover the money and
hopefully work with law enforcement to get those folks shut down.

Speaker 1 (44:34):
And conversely, you would probably be able to scam it,
or not scam it, but play it forward and find
out not just necessarily how I got scammed, what restaurant
or some place else I fell a victim to this squishing,
but you'd be able to probably then begin a pathway
to the people who are actually doing it. Am I

(44:55):
am I too far ahead of technology here.

Speaker 2 (44:58):
No, I mean I think that's exactly right.

Speaker 8 (45:00):
Thing about the QR code thing is that it's a
physical installation most of the time. So you know, this
isn't necessarily fighting the enemy, the unseen enemy on the
other side of the planet.

Speaker 2 (45:09):
Right That's that's putting up a fake website or.

Speaker 8 (45:11):
Send you an email of the bad linked if this
is a person that actually had to come into that restaurant,
for example, and put that sticker somewhere. So those folks
are local and therefore you know, a subject to the
jurisdiction law, law enforcement and that sort of thing. So
there are there is actually a recourse for this particular
scam where you can actually get at the folks that
are that are doing the scamming.

Speaker 1 (45:29):
So I and again I'm guessing here and correctly if
I'm wrong. But QR codes were built as a way
of convenience. They weren't built by way of security. So
I'm just I'm wondering why would somebody use Why would
somebody make one of these things in the first place?
If you have to take a device which can be

(45:52):
compromised so easily and then put it on this code
that wasn't built with security in mind, who thought that
was a good idea?

Speaker 8 (46:00):
Like all things, it starts with that convenience factor. You know,
there's a we go to movies now and we can
buy tickets.

Speaker 9 (46:06):
With scanning a QR code.

Speaker 2 (46:07):
We can order food at restaurants and pay for it
with scanning those QR code. So there's this. There's always
that force in the.

Speaker 8 (46:13):
Economy to say, well I can I can pull costs
out of the system by using this, and unfortunately a
lot of times the security is left holding the bag
when those compromises are made.

Speaker 1 (46:22):
Damian Fortune our guest. He's a cybersecurity expert. His company
is Centric Centric state of the art security platform which
I'm told here is designed to protect the integrity of
group communications in real time? Group communications in real time?
Will that be like those chat groups that businesses have
or like inter company communication?

Speaker 2 (46:42):
Is that what that's all about?

Speaker 8 (46:44):
Yeah, that's exactly right. I think of us like an
ultra secure version of teams or Slack.

Speaker 1 (46:49):
So when I guess that encrypted invitation that was sent
out by the Department of Defense and Department of War
back in the winter time, if they had tracted with
cybersecurity expert Damian Fortune, it would never become a problem.

Speaker 2 (47:05):
That's the idea.

Speaker 1 (47:07):
Yeah, is anything safe on the Internet anymore? With with
when dealing with personal information, shopping on the Internet with
a credit card, U conducting business of any kind involving
money or personal information on the on the Internet. I know,
I see HTTP and http S. The S is supposed

(47:29):
to stand for security and it would make the transaction
above board and nobody can hack it. But really and truly,
there's a risk every time you go on the Internet
to try and conduct business, isn't there?

Speaker 2 (47:40):
Absolutely right? I mean, the speed at the enemy in
this case.

Speaker 8 (47:44):
Is so a lot of times you just have to
take that extra second to make sure that the website
that you're sending information through is which are backed by
a company that has the resources in place to protect
you those sorts of things.

Speaker 2 (47:56):
Even with those QR code that we were.

Speaker 8 (47:58):
Talking about a moment ago, your phone actually give you
a preview of the website that they're going to send
you to by scanning it. If you hold the camera
over the code to see a little yellow box pop
up that gives you a.

Speaker 2 (48:07):
Little bit of the URL. There's little things like that.

Speaker 8 (48:10):
I can take that extra second before you click on it,
and you can say, maybe that doesn't look exactly right,
Maybe I should slack my waiter and ask if this
is a legitimate thing or not.

Speaker 1 (48:19):
I was always told, or I always thought, Damien, that
you know, most of this stuff that goes on, this
nefarious stuff, was being done by you know, a bunch
of people in a basement in Bulgaria. But anymore, it
seems like that a lot of this stuff is being conducted,
not all of it, certainly, but right here in our country.
People that would go to one of the top technical universities,

(48:39):
mit wherever it might be, and decide, you know, I
want to get into this line of work, ripping people
off and using my intelligence for things that might benefit mankind.
I think a lot of this occurs right here in
the United States, doesn't It absolutely.

Speaker 8 (48:55):
Unfortunately, a lot of those brilliant folks figured out that
instead of actually committing the crimes and bearing their sells,
they could make just as much money selling the tool
So a lot of places on the Internet now you
can go and actually download hacking toolkits or information stealing
toolkits that you pay a subscription fee for and you
get all of the tools you need to generate theparious
QR codes or steal people's information from the emails and

(49:18):
these sorts of things. So the economy, unfortunately has evolved
on the dark side, and that's led up to a
lot of you know, essentially cottage industry here in the
US for hacking and information test.

Speaker 1 (49:29):
Yeah, I am just after reading about it, I'm just
not going to do it. I mean it just again, convenience,
I suppose is the most important thing here for a
lot of Americans. But I mean just step back and
you think, wait a minute, I've got this device, it's portable,
it's easily hackable, even with some of the best security

(49:49):
stuff on it, whatever it may be. I just I
think I think I'm just going to back off from
using it for that. Am I being too polyannish? Or
should I? Should I keep doing it?

Speaker 3 (49:59):
With?

Speaker 2 (50:00):
What should I need? Help? Damien? What should I do?

Speaker 7 (50:04):
Well?

Speaker 8 (50:04):
It's a cyberperson. That's my responsibility to tell you to
do the most secure thing all the time. But there's
always that sliding scale, right. What we try to tell
folks is that without completely undoing your way of doing things,
insert tools that can help add additional layers of security.
When you're on the internet shopping, for example, use a
debit card, use a credit card, even better, use one
of the payment intermediaries like a PayPal for example. When

(50:27):
you're surfing on the internet, use a secure browser. Try
to use software on your phone, for example, that can
scan for scan email, scam, text messages, those sorts of things.
So just little things that you can do to actually
keep some of the convenience in your life without leaving
yourself fully exposed to these scans.

Speaker 1 (50:43):
And if someone wants to get the cybersecurity expertise of
Damian Fortune, they go to centrics se n.

Speaker 2 (50:49):
T r q s dot com. Am I right about that?
Centric sc nt r IQs dot com.

Speaker 1 (50:56):
Yeah, I thought that's what I said. That maybe I didn't,
but thanks for thanks for clearing that up. And whatever
you do. When you see Damian Fortune's name, if he's
got a QR code next to him, chances are it's
a scam, right.

Speaker 2 (51:09):
Right, protect yourself at all.

Speaker 1 (51:11):
Done Here you go, Damien, Thanks for your time here,
good stuff, Stay well and happy New Year.

Speaker 2 (51:16):
Thanks so much. Ken, you too, you bet so. The
next time you're in.

Speaker 1 (51:19):
A restaurant you see one of those QR codes, just
politely say to your server, excuse me, ma'am, and I
order over here. Cybersecurity, you know, just security in general.
It is one twenty seven on this day after Christmas.
It's the average American in for the Great Americans. Seven

(51:39):
hundred WLWS Radio, seven hundred WLW, the average American in
for the Great American on this day after Christmas. Gloom
me outside. But that's all right. It's gonna be that
way all week and then it's gonna get cold. That's
the way we like it here in Cincinnati. That's why

(52:00):
we live here. I just sard Jack Crumley at one
point thirty talk about the players strike that is imminent
now in the East Coast Hockey League ECHL and the
Cyclones game has been canceled tonight. That's happening all over now.
I'm just seeing that the games in Fort Wayne and Greensboro,

(52:20):
they're all being canceled as the Players Union is at
odds over a collective bargaining agreement with the ECHL, which
is in actuality in arm of the NHL. These players
they make about I don't know, like five fifties six
hundred a week. Six hundred might be a little high.

(52:41):
They average about twenty grand a year because you don't
get paid in the summer. There's no ice in the summer.
They get their housing paid for, and they get their
medical benefits paid for in season, not year round. So
if this this strike goes on for a while, you know,
the league just say, hey, we're going to pull all

(53:01):
that stuff from me. But last night, Christmas night, the
ECHL received a or the I should say, the ECHL
delivered to the players Union its last best final offer,
and the last best final offer from what I'm reading here,
is that there would be an additional salary cap for

(53:24):
future years. There would be a retroactive salary cap for
this year, which is about twenty percent of an increase
on what the cap is this year for teams, and
it says the EHL will continue to cover one hundred
percent of the player costs for fully funded housing, utility,
internet costs, medical and debt hoo benefits, but only for

(53:44):
the season, only for the five or six months they play.
After that, they're they're on their own. So if you're
a Psycolones fan, stay tuned, because it looks like this
thing is it.

Speaker 2 (53:56):
Might it might go on for a while. How about
this one?

Speaker 1 (54:01):
According to multiple reports, and that would mean reports from
all over the place, misinformation on social media about mental
health is becoming a crisis. More than half of all
top trending videos offering mental health advice on TikTok contain misinformation. Wait, stop,
stop the presses. There's misinformation on the internet. People looking

(54:28):
for quick fixed solutions to what Alvin Forbes says, Clinicians
are seeing a spike in self diagnoses and self prescribed
protocols sourced from short videos and influencer threads on tick talk.

Speaker 2 (54:47):
But I thought TikTok was my friend.

Speaker 1 (54:51):
Lee Richardson has found a place called the Brain Performance Center.
And she is a consultant, and she is a doctor.
Great note, and she is the author of the book
Turn Your Brain On to get Your game on the
how What Why to peak performance. I've had Lee on
the show several times because I likely number one, number two.

(55:12):
She speaks the truth when it comes to all things
involving the brain. TikTok for mental crises. That's where you're going.

Speaker 2 (55:22):
Better. You should listen now, Lee Richardson, how are you
in this glorious day? I'm doing very well. Thanks for
having me.

Speaker 1 (55:29):
I used to call you Lee, but now I call
you doctor because I think anybody that put that much
work into getting a doctorate deserves to be called doctor.

Speaker 2 (55:37):
Does that make sense?

Speaker 4 (55:39):
Well, thank you so much for that recognition.

Speaker 1 (55:41):
Well, good for you, and good good for the folks
that taught you. Look, I saw this, and there are
a lot of reasons to not like social media. This
is just added to the list that it may go
to the top of the list. Is that increasingly, more
and more, particularly younger people are turning to places like
TikTok to figure out what might be wrong with them

(56:05):
from a mental state. And I'm thinking to myself, well, yeah,
there probably is something wrong with you mentally. If you're
getting advice on TikTok This has got to be concerning
to a professional like you.

Speaker 10 (56:18):
Absolutely and TikTok, whether it's TikTok or Instagram or Facebook,
it's so easy. Social media penetrates so many lines, and
for many people it's their first stop for mental or health.

Speaker 3 (56:34):
And mental health.

Speaker 1 (56:35):
Nobody wants to hear bad news, no matter what it is.
But when it comes to your health, you don't really
want to hear bad news. And I think most people
know that there's something wrong with them, and so I
mean physically wrong with them before they even go to
see a doctor.

Speaker 2 (56:52):
You can feel it.

Speaker 1 (56:53):
You just know, and I would guess from a mental
outlook that you would know too that maybe something isn't
quite right. So to avoid going to a doctor, you
probably turned to other means. It's a quick, fixed mentality.
That's the way to find out what's wrong with you
without actually having a human being tell you there's something
that's wrong with you.

Speaker 2 (57:11):
Does that make sense? Well, I mean this is when
you think about it.

Speaker 10 (57:17):
When the World Health Organization declares that we are in
a state and phodemic, there's just too much information. It's false,
it's misleading, it makes its cross of confusion. It causes
people to take risky behavior and these things can can
harm you. But I think we have to stop and
recognize that we've now kids are taught how to use

(57:42):
AI in school, and we're coming out of the aftermath
of the pandemic, or that for many people during the pandemic,
all they had was social media, and so I think
that that has kind of about made it more valid
in our heads.

Speaker 9 (57:58):
Oh, I've used to.

Speaker 10 (58:00):
Years and sometimes perhaps you do get some good information.
But I think if people will just slow down, you know,
you put something in there and you go to social
media and you see it, and instead of automatically reacting
to it, think ask yourself, is that is that right?

(58:20):
I mean, it's really easy. Go go to Google scholar
and put a question in and it'll find research that
will support it. And if you can't find anything that
supports it, you know. I think another big issue can
is you know, we always find what we're looking for,

(58:41):
and we do, and if we're looking for something to
support what we already believe, that's called a confirmation bias.

Speaker 2 (58:50):
Of course we're going to run with it. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (58:52):
Yeah, I mean I refer to that as people want affirmation,
they don't necessarily want information and so if you can
go some that affirms what you think or what you've heard,
that's exactly right. But I just I guess the thing
that concerned me the most is if you think you
have something wrong with you, you probably do.

Speaker 2 (59:12):
And Emily on.

Speaker 1 (59:13):
TikTok or you know, Bob on TikTok is not going
to be able to help you through what's wrong with you.
A licensed professional also known as a doctor is going
to help you through.

Speaker 2 (59:24):
Through with it. Am I right?

Speaker 10 (59:26):
You are right? And anytime I hear a one size
fits all, now it doesn't. There's not a one size
because everybody reacts to what's going on to their life differently.
The genetics come into play, stress comes into play. The
only time I hear one size fits all, I start

(59:48):
backing up. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (59:50):
Absolutely, There's so many things I want to get to
with you today, but that in particular, and I think
the headline that we've just been talking about is if
you know, go see somebody. If you can't afford to
go see somebody, there are ways that you can get
medical help and they'll work with you. But the other
thing that struck me here too is that the amount

(01:00:11):
of stress, the amount of mental health concerns that are
going on, particularly on the job, have risen dramatically here
according to this report I see from comsych I don't
know Compsyke, you probably know it, but mental health leave
is up three hundred percent in a very recent time period.
What's going on with mental health health leave at work?

(01:00:35):
Why is work so stressful today, maybe than what it
was even five years ago.

Speaker 4 (01:00:41):
Well, I think a big part of it is is
there's no psychological.

Speaker 3 (01:00:44):
Safety at work.

Speaker 10 (01:00:45):
People, you know, they are being forced to come back
to the office, and that they liked working from home
and they felt safe in their home. They didn't have
to deal with traffic, they didn't have to deal with
running into after work, and really they don't feel safe
at work.

Speaker 2 (01:01:04):
They feel like that and part of that.

Speaker 10 (01:01:07):
One out of five of us can is suffering from
either anxiety or depression, and sometimes both. So I think
that when we're stressed out, we were in an overreactive mode.
We react to everything instead of hitting the pause button
and thinking it through. And I think that there is

(01:01:31):
help for people. But if your manager or your supervisor,
you know, struggles with anxiety or depression, you don't feel
comfortable going to that person, and if you're the manager
or the supervisor. And I saw a survey that NAMMY,
the National Alliance of Mental Illness, put out, and they
said forty two percent of the managers knew that their

(01:01:55):
workers needed help with mental health, but.

Speaker 2 (01:01:58):
They didn't know how to do it.

Speaker 10 (01:02:00):
And as an organization that something, employee well being is
something that's got to be factored in to their strategy.

Speaker 1 (01:02:09):
One out of go back to your beginning of your answer.
One out of five people, that's twenty percent and are
suffering from anxiety or stress.

Speaker 2 (01:02:17):
It's a significant number. Has it always? Has it always
been that way?

Speaker 1 (01:02:22):
Or and nobody paid attention to it because my guess
is is that the stress is that this current group,
let's just say, from millennials younger, that's that they're experiencing.
My guess is those same stressors existed for people that
are boomers or whatever the next group was. It had
to have been there in the past. Did we just
ignore it?

Speaker 3 (01:02:43):
Well?

Speaker 10 (01:02:43):
I think that we did ignore it to some degree
because we were too ashamed to talk about it. The
stigma associated was huge. And Kim, when I first started
working in the brain world back in two thousand and
five and up state myself here, But we used to
talk about mental health and I would say, oh, my sense,

(01:03:05):
you've got some depression.

Speaker 2 (01:03:07):
Oh no, no, I'm fine.

Speaker 10 (01:03:09):
And when I in two thousand and nine, when I
opened the Brain Performance Center, I decided, I'm not using
that language anymore. I'm not talking mental health because it's lonely,
nobody wants to talk about it. And I switched my
language to brain help. And I got a lot more
conversation out of that because that and put it into

(01:03:30):
context of the brain is an organ, just like your heart.
And if we think there's something wrong with our heart,
it doesn't paint more than a day to get an
appointment with a cardiologist. But if we wake up and
we just feel too overwhelmed to go to work or
it's just too fatigue, we don't think, oh my brain,

(01:03:51):
it's an organ it needs care. We just have nasty
conversations with ourselves. Come on, man power through, suck it up,
butter up, yep. And that is we're not reacting in
the right way. And brain health has evolved in my mind.
In twenty twenty one, when I opened the Brain Performance Institute,

(01:04:13):
I started talking about brain capital because the biggest asset
any of us.

Speaker 2 (01:04:18):
Have is our brain.

Speaker 1 (01:04:20):
Gee is the author of the book Turn Your Brain
On to Get Your game on? The How What Why
to peak performance? Doctor Lee Richardson is always great having
me on. You stay well, We need to hear your voice.

Speaker 2 (01:04:32):
Okay, thank you, kem Yeah, you bet. You know it's
the core of all This is me anecdotally. I'm not
a doctor, don't pretend to be one.

Speaker 1 (01:04:41):
I think sleep issues, I think those are are largely
to blame for a lot of what goes on inside
the rest of our body.

Speaker 2 (01:04:51):
Seventy million people have sleep issues.

Speaker 1 (01:04:53):
I didn't know that until I actually looked it up
and then I saw this from the Mayo Clinic forty
percent increase if you have sleep issues, There was a
forty There was a forty percent increase according to the
Mayo Clinic Clinic for risk of dementia, equivalent to about

(01:05:13):
three and a half years of accelerated brain aging. And
then insomnia leads to other things like high blood pressure,
heart disease, stroke, obesity, type two diabetes. If you have
trouble sleeping, get some get some help for that, because
the fact of the matter is it could really turn
your upside down. And then it makes you so crazy

(01:05:36):
you go to TikTok for advice. It's coming up on
one fifty five. Why are so many bald guys getting
on airplanes and flying to Turkey and hungry?

Speaker 2 (01:05:45):
We'll deal with that next on seven hundred WLW. All right,
here we go, Here we go, Oh, here we go.

Speaker 1 (01:06:01):
The average American in for the great American on this Friday,
two ten in the afternoon here in Greater Cincinnati. However
you're listening, whether it's through this great medium of terrestrial
radio or on the iHeartRadio app. However, you're consuming this
fifty thousand watt mother flamethrower WLWWI welcome you in. We

(01:06:25):
got bowl games today. You know these ball games. I mean,
I love college football, But what am I watching? Watching uniforms.
A lot of players don't show up, They go into
the paral, they declare for the draft. Miami had a
quarterback quit in the middle of the season, So I'm
not sure what I'm watching. Maybe some players that'll be
something down the road or whatever. But I mean, we've

(01:06:45):
got the game above Sports Bowl. Well wait a minute,
let's think about this. We're watching the game above Sports Bowl, right,
But it's sports that we're watching, so I'm not sure
about that anyway. It is Central Michigan in Northwestern Northwestern
with a fourteen to nothing lead in the second quarter,

(01:07:07):
and then later on tonight like four point thirty. We
got more bowl games. We've got four point thirty tonight.
We have the Rate Bowl New Mexico against Minnesota that's
in Phoenix, and then the Serve Pro First Responders Bowl
Florida International against the University of Texas San Antonio. Oh

(01:07:30):
be still my beating heart. I'm going to be front
and center for that one. That's a Gerald J. Ford
Stadium in Dallas, Texas. So that's all that's going on. Oh.
By the way, Ohio University has found a coach. It's
their defensive coordinator. They elevated him, John Howser. He replaces
Brian Smith, who was fired for cause after allegations of

(01:07:54):
quote unquote serious professional misconduct romantic relationship with a student.
I'm shucked that that's going on at Ohio University. Why
are so many bald guys getting on airplanes and heading
across the seas to Turkey. Well, I'm telling you why.
Hair restoration is booming globally. But Turkey has become a

(01:08:16):
major hotspot because it offers top tier procedures for around
four thousand dollars. Here in the United States, you're looking
to get some plugs twelve grand. So that makes traveling
abroad appealing. And that's where a lot of guys go
when they want to, you know, recapture the rapture when
it comes to their follicles. But there is a more

(01:08:39):
sane alternative, and standing by is someone who offers it.
Doctor Brett Bolton is the founder of Great Hair Transplants
and creator of the Max Harvest, and he is widely
believed to be the number one hair transplant surgeon in
the world. In fact, the World's Greatest tell Vision Show

(01:09:01):
named him the greatest hair transplant surgeon in the entire world.
So if you're boarding a plane anytime soon to go
to Turkey or Hungry or any place in between, stop,
do not proceed to go. Listen to doctor Bret Bolton.
Doctor Bolton, how are you in this glorious Friday after Christmas?

Speaker 2 (01:09:21):
Oh my gosh, what a great introduction.

Speaker 9 (01:09:23):
Thank you so much. I'm very appreciative of that introduction.

Speaker 2 (01:09:26):
I'm doing great.

Speaker 9 (01:09:26):
Thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:09:27):
I'm glad you are.

Speaker 1 (01:09:28):
Let let's just talk about hair restoration. I mean, I
see a lot of ball guys. Okay, see the guys
that are let's just say, folliclely challenged that are walking
around and I think they've given up. They just shaved
the old head because of receding hairlines that have gone
awry and whatnot. But before we get into why you
are so great and why you don't have to go
halfway around the world to get your hair back, just

(01:09:49):
how difficult a process is hair restoration? I mean, is
it involved? I'm sure it's not one stop and your cured.
But how involved is the process?

Speaker 9 (01:09:58):
Well, it's great question you're asking, and that the answer
is it can be extremely involved or can not be
because many patients have different stages of hair loss. So
dependent upon the stage of hair loss, you have determines
how much of a challenge it may be to restore it.

(01:10:19):
But step one ways in the process is trying to
keep the patients on some form of preventative treatment. We
fortunately have two FDA approved preventive treatments that exist, the
first one being Propecia, which is the brand name. The
ingredient is an asteride and that's a pill and you
take one pill and that helps to stop the genetic

(01:10:41):
reason we're losing our hair. So that stops the testostrome
from diverting into the dihydro testosterone. That's what's causing a
mucacy secretion called the sebum to build up. That sebum
build up will that miniaturize the hair follicle and keep
it from making its way through, So that propecia is
directly stopping that conversion, and that helps to keep what
we have in place. The second ft airproof treatment is

(01:11:05):
called Rogain, which I know you know about bentofis the seventies.
That's another great product. However, that's applied twice a day. Topically,
it's a vasodia lator, so it opens up the plug assels.
It allows more minerals and nutrients and oxygen to get
where it needs to go to make a better environment
for those ministrized hairs to make their way through. So

(01:11:26):
if you have extensive hair loss, you know what, we
always recommend more than one procedure because it's a large
surface area, whereas if you might have a smaller area
that just needs to be filled in, you might get
away with one, dependent upon the stage you're at. And
whether or not you're on these preventive treatments.

Speaker 1 (01:11:42):
But if you're completely bald, you've got it through the plugs, right,
I mean, taking finesteride is great. A lot of people,
a lot of men take finesteride because of an enlarged
prostate rogain. I mean, it's great if you're just snitning.
But if you're you know, if you're somebody that that
it's all gone, you got to get into the drugs

(01:12:02):
at that point, don't you.

Speaker 2 (01:12:05):
You're exactly right.

Speaker 9 (01:12:06):
But even though even though you're lost most of your hair,
we still need to secure what's left because so for example,
let's say I, you know, restore the top of your
head and then on the side it drops down, so
then you create this like alley around the transplanted area,
so you're chasing the laws. So whether you're bald or not,

(01:12:29):
it's always recommended you do the treatments so we don't
have a moving target because it just makes it easier
to get you to finish line. Those products do not
grow hair. That's one of the biggest misconceptions. People think, oh,
I'll get my hair back.

Speaker 2 (01:12:42):
No you don't.

Speaker 9 (01:12:44):
You're just using those to help protect whatever you can,
and you still can lose more hair. So in the
case you're talking about a guy who has a lot
of hair. Typically, you know what I do is unique.
I happen to more here than anybody in the world.
My patient's flying from all over the world. They have
me do what I do because it's a unique procedure,

(01:13:07):
and you know I could I usually, like my patient
today just got finished. He was pretty much balled. Like
you said, we took him from front to back, but
he's going to need to come back. You know, I
have to space it out a little bit more so
depending on time with their expectations are determined how many
times they want to go through it.

Speaker 3 (01:13:25):
This.

Speaker 9 (01:13:25):
One guy might come out and say, hey, this is great,
I love it. The next guy might come back and say,
I need so it's you know, beauts, and they had
them older.

Speaker 2 (01:13:32):
So you would do the plugs and then maybe do
like finished right or something like that as a maintenance.
Is that what you would do, exactly right? Yeah? So,
and I love how you keep saying plugs.

Speaker 4 (01:13:42):
That's awesome.

Speaker 9 (01:13:43):
You know what's funny is the fue surgery that they're
doing now that Turkey does is essentially the plugs are invented,
so for for us, for us older folks, remember the
baby hair, the baby doll hair, look or they had
the little plugs all over the place. So what they're
doing with the fue is they're using the same punch

(01:14:05):
paths that they do with the plugs. However, they're just
now using a smaller punch paths. So they took the
oldest piece of garbage procedure, reinvented it with a new name,
and they're.

Speaker 4 (01:14:17):
Sewing it to the public as the latest and greatest technique.

Speaker 1 (01:14:19):
Well, I'm watching, I'm reading the story here, and it's
said that the hair restoration and transplant business is massive.
I mean, in twenty twenty two, the total number of
hair restoration procedures worldwide was seven hundred and thirty five thousand,
and that the hair transplant market so I stood at
US dollars at almost six billion, with a B billion dollars.

(01:14:41):
So I'm sure it's greater than that because those numbers
are at least three maybe four years old. Well, you
mentioned you mentioned Turkey, Okay, so I envisioned all these
bald guys.

Speaker 2 (01:14:52):
Getting on an airplane and flying a Turkey to get
this time they're doing it.

Speaker 1 (01:14:57):
Yeah, they're doing it Turkey. Is it cheaper in Turkey?
And if it is cheaper or are you getting the
same thing you'd get in the United States.

Speaker 9 (01:15:07):
So again it's going to be a mixed bag. So
the reason why people are going there, they're offering procedures
at a fraction of the cost and what we're doing here.
But they're doing the fuwe procedure what we were just
talking about. And the reason they're doing that is the
doctor doesn't have to be involved as much in the case.
So for example, I could offer fuwe in my clinic,

(01:15:28):
put it in the back room, have technicians do it
and not be involved and probably triple my revenue. I
don't do that because I don't believe that's the best
way to do it. I would do it if I
felt it the best way to do a procedure, I'd
be doing anfewe So you know, you don't like even
in the United States, the doctors that are doing fuwe

(01:15:48):
aren't doing it. They have clinicians. They are technicians, fly
in they do the procedure for them, and they're in.

Speaker 4 (01:15:55):
Their other room doing them a nose job or a
move job or dermatology.

Speaker 2 (01:15:59):
Or whatever they're doing.

Speaker 9 (01:16:01):
So that helped to sload the industry because you don't
have to have the doctor be hands on, and it's
not even legal in any the state what they're doing.

Speaker 1 (01:16:11):
So you could go like the Turkey and get hair restoration,
get a boob job, maybe a Brazilian button list, and
be out the door.

Speaker 2 (01:16:18):
Like in eight hours. Right maybe, yeah, but what are
you saying for? That's the whole thing is what do
you do?

Speaker 9 (01:16:25):
You know it's back, so you us to get them
for a few thousand dollars down there, but they're not doing,
in my opinion, quality work. I do a lot of
correct the searching on those stations. The hairlines are very unnatural.
The graphs are always in the wrong angles, which is
very important. How they're angled up and they'll just be
angled funny where they don't like it.

Speaker 3 (01:16:45):
Actually.

Speaker 9 (01:16:46):
Also, the way they harvest the donor hair, they're taking
out of doing what's called the safe zone.

Speaker 2 (01:16:53):
So you know how you picture that ball.

Speaker 9 (01:16:54):
Guy's got that ring around the back, so they're taking
outside of that ring when the patient has hair. But
when the patients losing the hair later on, they're going
to lose their terms because yeah, you got to be
specific where you get the hair from. So there's a
lot of pitfalls. Who's working on you in Turkey? Who's there,
who's in that room?

Speaker 2 (01:17:13):
You have no idea.

Speaker 9 (01:17:14):
I mean with me, my same staff ten years, that's
all we do every day, doing the same thing every
day with my staff. And I've been doing this twenty
eight years. So you know, you got to understand you
get what you pay for.

Speaker 1 (01:17:26):
No, absolutely, I mean you created this Max Harvest, which
is trademarked under your name. That's the technique you use.
I said you where you were, I guess it was
the world's greatest television show. You were named the greatest
hair transplant surgery in the world. I mean, that's pretty
big stuff, there, dog pretty big stuff.

Speaker 9 (01:17:45):
Thank you, Thank you so much. It's that's very humbly.
I'm very very humble by that. I really appreciate.

Speaker 1 (01:17:51):
Why are younger people driving this demand for hair restoration?

Speaker 2 (01:17:56):
Are people?

Speaker 1 (01:17:56):
Have you noticed that that that that hair, that baldness
or whatever the medical term is for. Do you know
that it is happening You notice that that is happening
more and more with younger people than it might have been.

Speaker 2 (01:18:08):
In years past.

Speaker 9 (01:18:10):
I think the biggest driving factor social media. You have
a lot of these influencers that are going out and
they're going to Turkey and they're filming the whole thing,
and they have their followings, and then you have a
lot of these all sorts of like social media pages
where they communicate about the transplant and pending commercials for

(01:18:32):
hymns in Roland and blah blah blah.

Speaker 2 (01:18:35):
So I think with all that marketing, it's really put.

Speaker 9 (01:18:40):
An emphasis for younger people to get the restoration, whereas
before you never saw that that was never out there.
So I think all of those factor into this, and
then it's available everywhere now that all these doctors, like, you.

Speaker 4 (01:18:53):
Know, there's a dentist locally that does deftuely.

Speaker 9 (01:18:57):
We have the guy down the black you know, anyone
gets put a machine in their back room and have
a technician do it. So that's really changed everything, and
that's made it where it's a lot more available. Where
when I first started my patience, you know, everyone flew
in because there was just not that many quality doctors
doing the transplants. But now they can go locally because

(01:19:20):
there's more people doing it.

Speaker 1 (01:19:21):
Doctor Brett Bolton is our guest again. He is regarded
as the greatest hair transplant surgeon in the world, and
we're talking about how you not only can get a
nice bull head of hair, but also you can maintain
it so that you don't have to worry every six
eight months whether or not you know it's all going
to fall out in the shower. Do you have to
take hair doctor from the head? I mean some guys

(01:19:43):
are just hairy. They got it on their chest, they
got on their back, they got it on their arms.
Could you have to take it from the header? Can
you take it from other places on the body?

Speaker 9 (01:19:52):
So you're one hundred percent right, Yes, you can definitely
take hair from other parts. Soloicles can be moved from
your arm or your back or anywhere there's a blood
bike and grow. So yes, we can definitely do that,
but those are for like super string cases. We want
to you know, obviously get as much out of the
donor area as possible because.

Speaker 4 (01:20:14):
Remember, your arm hair is going to grow like an
arm hair whenning to sit on the top of your head.

Speaker 2 (01:20:17):
Your back hair is going to look like a back here,
you know what I mean? Right, So yeah, so we.

Speaker 9 (01:20:22):
Want to definitely use the proper donor here if possible,
But there's definitely some extreme cases where patients are really
gone and we need to take it from other area.

Speaker 1 (01:20:31):
For sure, I try to nail you down on a price.
If I go to see doctor Brett Bolton and he said, well,
it depends on the severity. So obviously people that have
a little more here to work with, it's not going
to be quite expensive. But there's got to be like
an entry level price, right, there's got to be like
that car without air conditioning and a radio.

Speaker 2 (01:20:50):
So what is it in your business? What's the entry
level adace?

Speaker 9 (01:20:53):
So for me, my prices started two thousand dollars, but
then they can go off ards to twenty so depending
on how much.

Speaker 2 (01:21:02):
Yeah.

Speaker 9 (01:21:03):
Well but yeah, to understand when when you pick a
doctor that's I'm doing this twenty eight years with guarantee
the results, you're you're getting what you're paying for. So
when you go to yeah that's what you want to do.

Speaker 1 (01:21:15):
Yeah, I mean look you you you you hung the
shingle twenty eight years ago and if it didn't work,
you'd be in some other line of work at this point,
so yeah, it must work. How backed up are you
like if somebody's listening right now. And then I say, hey,
I want to go to Fort Laura. I'm going to
see this guy. Are you are you taking patients into
twenty twenty six or are you booked up to like
twenty thirty five.

Speaker 9 (01:21:38):
I wish yeah, but no, we definitely will. We'll make
room for anybody who's ready for an air, especially if
they come from your show. So we'll make a spash
live for your audience.

Speaker 1 (01:21:50):
Well, that's doctor Bolton there. He'll guarantee a full head
of hair and a full set of teeth. And but
the fact that the battle is it is a booming
business because people want to people. You know, Doc, people
just want to look younger. They want to look better,
and they want to look younger. And whether it's a
facelift or some other part of your body that needs
a lift or hair restoration, we're in a society right

(01:22:13):
now that does not treat older people as well as
they treat younger, good looking people.

Speaker 2 (01:22:17):
Have you noticed that?

Speaker 9 (01:22:19):
I completely agree. Yeah, I have patients like it was funny.
I tell a story about a month ago. My Monday
patient was an eighty four year old man, and my
Tuesday patient was an eighty five year old woman and
just to imploid it, you know, and.

Speaker 2 (01:22:32):
They both said that.

Speaker 9 (01:22:33):
I asked them, you know, what's your goal is, why
do you want to do this? They both had the
same answer. I look in the mirror and I don't
see myself anymore, and I want to feel like myself again.
And when they get that hair back, it gives me
the confidence back. It changes the way they see themselves.
Even though they're elderly. They don't want to look that

(01:22:54):
way or feel that way. So it's it's you know,
it's a great time for Cosmix because we have all
sorts of you know, different treatments that little touches that
are not too hard to do, as far as the
injections boatocks erexcellent.

Speaker 4 (01:23:08):
And you know the big you know for the manners
the hair.

Speaker 9 (01:23:11):
So it's a really great thing and it really it's
as it sounds, to change the people vide.

Speaker 1 (01:23:16):
Yeah, I look in the mirror and I say, who
the hell are you? And how did you get into
my house? That's that's how people get hold of you.
Where can they find doctor Brett? Thank you so much
at Great Hair Transplants dot com. Okay hair trade hair
your great hairtag plants dot com. You got it all right,
thought this is good stuff. I'm in.

Speaker 2 (01:23:36):
Thank you, hopefully someone else is you.

Speaker 1 (01:23:39):
Take care, stay well and if if we don't talk again,
have a happy twenty twenty six.

Speaker 2 (01:23:44):
Thank you so much for other can words, and thank
you for having me. And you're shore you bet.

Speaker 1 (01:23:49):
And by the way, if you're at the airport you
see a bald guy getting on a planet it's flying ease,
just say hey, are you really going to Turkey? Or
you know, maybe just making a side trip first to
Fort Lauderd, or maybe you could just mind your own
business to twenty eight.

Speaker 2 (01:24:05):
On this Friday news Radio seven hundred wl W.

Speaker 1 (01:24:11):
Two forty two on this Friday afternoon, it's the average
American and for the great American, Dan Carol and Jason Williams.
And after the news at the top of the hour,
they'll take you right to six o'clock. No hockey game
tonight is we've been mentioning. Jack Crumley has been mentioning
all afternoon. The Cyclones sounds like they're fixing to go

(01:24:32):
on strike with the rest of the East Coast Hockey
League players and with no agreement between the Cyclones and
the folks at the EHL.

Speaker 2 (01:24:43):
It's it's on, baby.

Speaker 1 (01:24:46):
You might see some of your favorite players picketing outside
Heritage Bank Center soon.

Speaker 2 (01:24:52):
Stay tuned for that.

Speaker 1 (01:24:54):
There's a lot of there are, I'm sorry, a lot
of things that I would like to see in twenty
twenty six, and I'm sure you do to The list
probably is fairly endless. One thing I think a lot
of people would like more is more out of their job.
Gallup just at a study and it was a worldwide study,
it was not anything confined to the United States, and
it found that seventy seven percent of employees worldwide, seventy

(01:25:20):
seven percent feel disengaged at work, and that disengagement is
costing employe ers around the world eight point eight trillion,
with a t trillion dollars. Used to be you got
bored out at work. Now apparently you're I mean you
used to get burned out of work. I'm sorry. Now

(01:25:41):
apparently you're bored out at work. And I've often wondered
that phenomena, because why take a job if you don't
think it's going to be something that's going to really
jazz up? And it leads into a theory that I
have and that is particularly with the younger generation, the
gen Z folks. They're not looking for careers. They're not
looking for a old watch at the end of the line,

(01:26:02):
They're looking for a job that fits into their lifestyle,
something that will pay the bills at home, because home
is the most important thing. And you know, there's nothing
wrong with that. In the bad old days, the employer
thought that he or she owned you, hook line and sinker,
whether you were on the job or not. And it
shouldn't be that way. And the pengulum is spunk swung

(01:26:23):
the other way. But apparently this bore out is a
big deal. Dwayne Deson is someone who is employe er
slash employee relationship expert, and he has written a book
called Operationally Spelt and that sounds like maybe it's got
something to do with AI. But nevertheless, I asked Dwayne

(01:26:44):
to join me on the show here to talk a
little bit about what's this difference between borout and burnout
and if it does have anything to do with AI.
So let's bring them on in. He's here on a Friday,
it's probably a day off from him, and hit him
carving out some time for us.

Speaker 2 (01:27:01):
Dwayne decent, how are you on this glorious Friday?

Speaker 3 (01:27:05):
I am very welken.

Speaker 2 (01:27:06):
Thank you for calling.

Speaker 9 (01:27:07):
What is the.

Speaker 1 (01:27:07):
Difference between bore out and burnout? Where would the line
be drawn there?

Speaker 11 (01:27:14):
Well, the big difference is that I think is with
burnout you're much more exhausted because you're being overworked, and
borout can be for a few reasons. Either you're underworked
and therefore your board, or perhaps you're just not challenged,
which is the other common aspect of boorout. Now there's
they're very both have serious consequences. One a lot of

(01:27:36):
people you start having ascesses and people leave because of
the burned out, But people that are borout are not
engaged and usually are not producing the best work because
of that.

Speaker 2 (01:27:45):
Either way, it sounds like it's a management problem.

Speaker 11 (01:27:49):
Well, I would actually say cube issues one. It is
the management problem where that means you're not challenging your ployees,
you're not creating a dynamic, exciting environment and therefore you
and you're not helping your employee grow and they're.

Speaker 2 (01:28:00):
For their board.

Speaker 11 (01:28:00):
So I would say yes, But there's also an employee
aspect of this where you have to make sure you
don't take a job that is not going to challenge you.
If you take a job just because you want maybe
a work life balance and low hours or whatever your criteria,
and then all of a sudden you're not challenged at work,
that's a bad thing too. So I think you have

(01:28:21):
to make sure that you seek opportunities as an employee
that is going to challenge you and going to make
you work and not cause a bore out certain extent,
you know.

Speaker 1 (01:28:28):
I see this this Gallop report that says that employee
engagement in our country fell to its lowest level in
ten years. That was a report of survey I guess
taken in twenty twenty four, thirty one percent of workers
say they feel engaged on the job. Okay, So if
you're not engaged on the job, you're either not buying
in right or you're not be given a reason to

(01:28:49):
buy in.

Speaker 2 (01:28:49):
And I.

Speaker 1 (01:28:51):
Don't understand where the problem is here, because if the
boss wants to make money, right, boss wants to make money,
and on a lot of jobs, if the boss is
making money, chances are you doing the work for the
boss will make money. So how has it fallen into
only thirty one percent here in recent In this recent
survey how's it falling that low?

Speaker 11 (01:29:12):
Well, I think that's set back to a little bit
of the combination of employees are taking positions that aren't
challenging them, is one, and so that's creating a problem
because people want to have this work life balance, and
that's very common on the younger generations now. But then
I also think that work is trying to become so
automated now that we are trying to we feel like

(01:29:33):
to be efficient and to manage costs, we have to
make everything very routine and tight, and so there's very
little variation in processes, and because of that, we almost
end up acting like you're a machine where you're doing
one function over and over and over again, and then
you result and end up feeling unchallenged because of it.

Speaker 1 (01:29:52):
Yeah, this is the second time that you've said the
word or the phrase, don't feel challenged at work. Okay,
I'm looking for another job. Well, this is a hypothetical.
I'm very happy where I am with us. I'm looking
for another job and I'm looking around, and I'm looking
at various companies that offer what I do. How would
I how would I go through the interview process and

(01:30:14):
know that this is a job that would challenge me,
knowing full well that the other side of this is
we're talking about work life balance, where you'll take anything
to earn a paycheck, to make sure that things at
home are the most important things in your life. Nothing worried,
nothing wrong about that. Certainly that's a great priority for
a number of people. But how do you know when

(01:30:35):
you're out there if a job that's offered to you
will be a job that will challenge you and you
will not become bored out?

Speaker 3 (01:30:43):
Great question. What you really need to do is ask
to speak to.

Speaker 11 (01:30:47):
Other peers that you'll be working with and to get
a feel for the company, to get a.

Speaker 2 (01:30:52):
Feel for what they do and what their job roles are.

Speaker 11 (01:30:55):
And then one of the questions you can ask them
to say how challenged do they feel on the day
to day base, whether what's their hours are, do they
receive additional training or other types of aspects that might
make their positions more interesting.

Speaker 2 (01:31:08):
So don't just.

Speaker 11 (01:31:10):
Take a job that you that you interview with your boss.
You spend an hour with that person. You assume you
understand a position if you can, and I think usually
the most companies are very open to this. Try to
speak with some of the people that you'll be working
with that have similar positions, so that you really garner
what they're doing.

Speaker 2 (01:31:26):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:31:27):
Yeah, it would seem to me that the people that
would be the most successful at this would be the
people are speaking of, people who are not going to
be bored out or not going to be burned out,
would have an ultimate goal. This is what I would
want to do, This is what I want to do
ten years from now, This is where I would ultimately
like to wind up in this career that I'm building.

(01:31:49):
I mean, that's probably old guy thinking because now I think,
as you mentioned, we have a society, particularly the younger
demographic of it, that wants work life life balance. And
because of that, careers really aren't the issue here. It's jobs.
They'll take a job as opposed to looking at what
the long term goals are for a quote unquote career.

(01:32:12):
Have careers taken a back seat with the under thirty
crowd in your opinion, I think there.

Speaker 2 (01:32:18):
Is a problem with that.

Speaker 11 (01:32:18):
I think many people aren't looking what they want today
and not necessarily what they're.

Speaker 2 (01:32:22):
Going to want in ten or twenty years from now.

Speaker 11 (01:32:25):
So when you are thinking about your career, you should
be thinking about the long term aspects of that and
make sure that you are working to that and progressing
along that path. And I think you bring up a
good point about making sure that you're challenged and be
other ways of doing that other than just what the
employee provides you. You can go to your employer and
tell them and say i'd like additional responsibility, take the initiative.

(01:32:48):
You can look for training opportunities so you can expand
your skills, look for processes that aren't working well and
make suggestions and get involved in how to improve them,
so kind of become part of a solution. And if
you do that, you really ask not only you're going
to feel more engaged, but you're going to add a
lot more value to the company and be more appreciated.

Speaker 5 (01:33:06):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:33:06):
I would have to think that anybody who with half
a brain that runs a company would be able to
identify a person like that as opposed to just some
floater or somebody that's just trying to take a job.
Dwin decent business strategist. His book has operationally spelt managed
costs to increase profit and enhance performance. Look, this is
maybe all topic a little bit, but AI is here,

(01:33:29):
and it's only going to become more prevalent in a
lot of businesses. If you're somebody who is a line worker,
someone who's not middle management, someone who is not in
the corner.

Speaker 2 (01:33:39):
Suite, the C suite, what should you be doing about AI?

Speaker 1 (01:33:43):
Because it sounds like AI is going to take away
a lot of the jobs maybe that we've been talking
about here in the last couple of minutes.

Speaker 2 (01:33:51):
Yeah, I do not think you're off point at all.

Speaker 11 (01:33:53):
AI is a big factor, particularly here because you're talking
about people that are doing somewhat read team task or
not challenged for whatever reason. But usually that's a sign
that has worked that AI can do pretty efficiently as well.

Speaker 3 (01:34:06):
So if you are in a position where you're bored.

Speaker 11 (01:34:09):
Out, I do think you're more at risk being replaced
by an AI type of solution.

Speaker 4 (01:34:14):
And I think the solution to that is not.

Speaker 11 (01:34:16):
To avoid AI and dredd it, but it's actually to
engage AI. How do you embrace AI in order to
make your job easier. May take away the boredom aspects
of what you do and the routine aspects of what
you do and try to make them something a little
bit more exciting, so you know you have the time
to concentrate on a type of work that maybe you

(01:34:37):
enjoy more, that's more creative that AI really.

Speaker 3 (01:34:40):
Hasn't been able to do yet.

Speaker 4 (01:34:41):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:34:41):
Absolutely, And probably pick up a copy of operationally spelled
Manage Cost to Increase Profit and Enhance Performance would be
a good starting point and entry point and the Dwayne
Deson Business Strategist. And look, thanks for your time here, Dwayne.
I think you explain things rather well. We appreciate it,
let's face it. Down the road about that, I.

Speaker 2 (01:35:01):
Look forward to it.

Speaker 1 (01:35:02):
Yeah, burnout, maybe not, Maybe you're just flat out board
neither man in either event. I mean, you know it's
up to you to fix it, right, nobody's gonna fix
it if you're bored except you. So hopefully that's not
a problem for you, well for me for that matter.
Going into twenty twenty six, two point fifty three, on

(01:35:22):
this Friday afternoon, news Radio seven hundred WLW