Michelle Niemeyer - Your Schedule Is merely a Quantum Physics Experiment

Michelle Niemeyer is a Time Management Expert, Keynote Speaker and Productivity Consultant. She came on our show earlier this year to talk about maybe the most precious resource in our day to day lives, time itself. 

Michelle shares her time management philosophy called "The Art of Bending Time," which helps people connect the dots between different aspects of their lives to create synergies and accelerate goal achievement.

She shares how Time management is about creating clarity on what truly energizes you. Finding your passion isn't about grand goals but identifying what makes you "light up"

Join us for a refreshing pint and conversation, this time done over ZOOM across borders from the Great Canadian North to Miami, Florida. 

Kimia Nejat of Kimia Nejat Realty
 

Marc Zirka - Strategy Up 

Chapters

• 0:00 Afternoon Drinks Introduction
• 2:29 The Art of Bending Time
• 8:37 Finding Clarity & Creating Energy
• 17:42 Making Passions & Purpose Practical
• 24:36 Color-Coding Your Schedule
• 33:48 From Law to Passion & Burnout
• 46:08 Florida Politics & Insurance Crisis
• 1:01:57 Ten Questions Game

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:13

Cheers, cheers.

Speaker 2: 0:15

Cheers and welcome to the Afternoon Pike. I'm Mike Tolbin, I am Matt Conrad, and who do we have here? Charlene Meyer, charlene Meyer, nice to meet you, michelle.

Speaker 3: 0:22

Nice to meet you guys.

Speaker 2: 0:24

Yeah, so what are you guys drinking? I got this Coldstream Lemon Gin, which is going down pretty smooth.

Speaker 1: 0:32

There you go. I got the Deception Bay IPA. That's a household favorite right there. Good brand.

Speaker 3: 0:44

You can't see it in my blue travel wine mug, but it's a Spanish Albariño from a company called Rios Baixas.

Speaker 1: 0:48

Oh nice, oh cool. Now you're in Florida. Are they local in Florida or where are they from?

Speaker 3: 0:53

No, no, they're from Spain.

Speaker 1: 0:55

Oh Spain.

Speaker 3: 0:57

But we have a lot of spanish wines in spain and I lived there in college and I'm a big fan cool yeah, I do like a good rioja, that's for sure yeah, and and so the the albarino is like a it's a crispy, fruity, but not sweet white okay so it's kind of like between a chardonnay and a pinot grigio okay.

Speaker 2: 1:26

So yeah, kind of that medium. It's like a pinot grigio with flavor okay, yeah, that's that's fair. If you know, grigio is pretty easy drinking that kind of thing. Yeah, it's more of a it's.

Speaker 3: 1:37

It's almost like a bitey.

Speaker 2: 1:39

It's not nasty, but kind of a bitey flavor to it, not like uh, it's not as sweet, it's not like a german riesling or something but it doesn't have that oakiness that a chardonnay would have yeah, probably kind of like an unoak chardonnay kind of type of flavor I'm not not sure, but it's definitely my favorite by far. I don't drink a lot of Spanish whites. It's generally like reds, like the Rioja or the Tempranillo or the Rapaso kind of thing. Those types of.

Speaker 3: 2:09

Try it sometime.

Speaker 2: 2:11

They're from.

Speaker 3: 2:12

Galicia, I think up in the north.

Speaker 2: 2:15

Awesome, you don't have to, michelle. We have you on here because you bend time.

Speaker 3: 2:22

I do, and I think the name kind of came from. I have this subconscious magician thing going on. My dad's father was actually an amateur magician who was really, really into it, to the point that at his funeral there was a wand breaking ceremony and he knew David Copperfield when he was a kid. Oh, wow, oh cool.

Speaker 3: 2:44

And so, you know, I kind of look at these things and I'm like, oh, that's kind of like magic. So I have a time management program that I teach and it essentially teaches you how to connect the dots between different things in your life, and I have a, I have a visual for you, since we're here.

Speaker 3: 3:07

So, like if you imagine this dog toy is time or the universe or space, whatever, right, let's say. This spot represents your desire to learn to be a private pilot and this spot represents people you know in your office that you never knew what their families did or anything like that. And this spot represents your desire to get to know people better at work and you have a conversation with your people at work about. You know, hey, I have this outside of work goal I want to become a private pilot. And it's one of those things you don't talk to people about, you know, because you're like I don't want to talk to them at work about my home life, whatever.

Speaker 3: 3:53

All of a sudden you find out the person down the hall, their spouse, is already a private pilot. They belong to a club. It's way less expensive than you thought it was and all of a sudden, the time that you thought it was going to take, which would be like here right, becomes this Because you've pulled together all these synergies. They come together and they help move you forward. Or you meet somebody who has you know, you might have spent a bunch of time doing a bunch of research or learning something by failing and you failed over and over and it took you five years to get there or you could have had the conversation with somebody who's outside your normal box and you could have gotten the information you needed to take to take three years off that five-year journey okay.

Speaker 1: 4:40

So now I'm saying dog toy, a bunch of different sides of you and dimensions of a person. How in the heck does that relate to time management?

Speaker 3: 4:48

um. So how it relates to time management is that a lot of times we in our current world first all a lot of us get stuck in whatever box or boxes we've been taught are what we should do with that big capital, should the societal expectations? You were good at school. I became a lawyer because I was an A student and then for years I was like law isn't really me. I was great at it, by the way, but it's not me. I'm not. You know, I was in litigation and there's so many other things I could do that I'd be happier and that will fulfill me more than being a lawyer. And you know lots of people do those things. They go in, they get in a track, they stay in the track, they follow it. They have goals that were put on them by other people or by what they believe based on what they've picked up Right.

Speaker 3: 5:41

And so one of the things I do with people is get really deep into clarity on who they are and what makes them light up, because a lot of times there may be parts of what you do for your job that you really love and you might be able to get more of that and like your job better Right, or you might like allow yourself to be able to get more of that and like your job better, right, or you might like allow yourself to be shoehorned out of that and into stuff that you really you're going to like five years down that path, hate your job and want out, and so knowing what you love is really it's really important, knowing what makes you tick and making sure you have that in your life, and so I start people with that, and then we go into things that make you just more likely to be able to be focused, to get in flow state. So I do, I do a thing about creating energy yeah, which is really about passions, huh like right your passion, your purpose, what makes you light up?

Speaker 3: 6:39

so passion, I mean I, I passion the word doesn't really do a lot for me because I think it's we put too much on that. You know, some of it's really little stuff it's like for me. I love to research and pull things together and, like I said, the connecting the dots.

Speaker 3: 6:56

That's my superpower, okay, so so I am like when I, when I write something and this is what I loved about being a lawyer when I can pull stuff together, that's outside what everybody's looking at and bring a new argument together and have and like, bring it all together, like stuff from all over Right, and I make this thing and it's really great. I love that part. And then there's other parts. I couldn't stand like billing in 10 second, 10 minute increments or six minute increments. I freaking hated billing. I was like if I could have just charged my what I was gonna say.

Speaker 2: 7:29

Are you talking about toby or are you talking about you, like right? So?

Speaker 3: 7:34

we're doing the accounting or doing the. You know like there was a lot of stuff that I had to do as a lawyer that I was just like God kill me now, you know. And then there was the, the intellectual part. I liked, you know, the mean people, cause I was in litigation and truly there are some really mean people. You deal with the mean people part. I didn't like, you know, yeah, and I can, I can hold my ground with mean people, but I don't want to have to deal with them by choice, you know.

Speaker 1: 8:07

Sure.

Speaker 3: 8:08

So but anyway, I I help people with that, like figuring out what it is that they really want, and then I help them with it's not like a hardcore like health change thing, but I I got an autoimmune disease because I got burned out, I'm going to say, or at least it was related I got so much stress for so long in my life that I ended up with this autoimmune thing and I went to a health coaching school to learn how to deal with it without taking steroids and stuff, and so I know a lot about that stuff and I do teach people about you know things like okay. So where are you on your nutrition? Where are you on your exercise? Are you sleeping? Are you getting blue light out of your life for a little while before you go to bed soon? You're not awake.

Speaker 1: 8:56

You know, the step one, that passion. This is how I feel that a lot of people I feel that are might be listening to this genuinely and they say, well, you know, you know, yeah, I want to follow my passion and be a pilot, but that's school, that's, that's a lot of money to go be a, get your pilot's license not guaranteed, my eyesight's kind of shitty, um. But you know, you got to get like kind of all of these steps now to go try that next or new thing and you might not financially be there. Like you know your job that pays that mortgage and those bills. You can't afford to leave it and invest in that passion. So how do people get there? So how do people get there?

Speaker 3: 9:35

Well, and that's. You know, that's part of. In fact, this was something I discovered that I use being a pilot as an example. Because of that, Because we all have this perception that that's crazy expensive.

Speaker 3: 9:46

However, I a while back dated a guy who had a pilot's license and had done it through a club and the flying club he belonged to was really inexpensive. I mean, I was shocked at how inexpensive it was. It really wasn't that expensive at all. So no, you had a membership fee of some amount of money and you had to pay to rent the plane while you used it. Like they each chipped in. But they had inexpensive Cessnas. They had people who were part of the club, who were volunteers, who did things to maintain the Cessnas. They had volunteers who were part of the club who were volunteers who did things to maintain the Cessnas.

Speaker 3: 10:21

They had volunteers who were teaching and so really, when it came down to it, it wasn't nearly as expensive as going to one of these flight schools where it was tens of thousands of dollars and it put them in a club full of. It was like a social scene as well. You know it was really cool and you know my dad really cool and you know my dad actually fly. For years he flew gliders and he they never had the money to do the whole, like you know, owning a jet thing, but being a glider pilot again, he was part of a club and at first he he used club planes until he got his license and then he bought a plane with like two other guys and it really, when you do that, it wasn't that expensive and they had again like they had volunteers doing some of the ground duty and that kind of thing at the club.

Speaker 3: 11:09

And you know, and it was a social scene as well, it was more of a hobby. Obviously that wasn't going to become a pilot for his career, it was more of a. You know that wasn't going to become a pilot for his career, it was more of a. You know, he just wanted to get out there and fly something.

Speaker 1: 11:21

Sure, but still cool, like, and I mean I've done that myself, matt, you've done that, yeah, just kind of. I mean, the show was based on passion. We both wanted to do radio and thankfully we're in the future where podcasts can exist and we get a chance to have a voice out there and as everyone else does, which is super cool, right. So I like it. I do follow you following your passion, right, and, uh, I've directed community theater where I've seen, uh, people who just love acting and wanting to do it so bad. Well, it gets them a chance out on the stage in front of an audience yeah, they're never going to be on broadway.

Speaker 3: 11:53

They can't afford to leave their families and move to new york and work as a waitress, but they're gonna. You know, they can be the person who's on a show in your local theater okay, so passions are realized. We'll just say here, for the sake of this step and my point is it's not just even like the passion, isn't necessarily like a big end goal thing. Sometimes the passion, like the knowing what lights you up, could be as little as enjoying getting the coffee at the corner cafe.

Speaker 3: 12:23

Sure and having that connection with people or being in nature or enjoying a beautiful sunrise or a beautiful sunset or some aspect of what your work is. But when you notice those things, your life in, whatever that is like if you make like I said, I mean you get things that you like to do and work, and everybody went into what they do. For the most part, there was something about what they do that they probably thought they'd like right or they wouldn't have taken the job.

Speaker 3: 12:57

Sure, do that they probably thought they'd like right or they wouldn't have taken the job. Sure, and then you know, sometimes that goes away and sadly, because you get promoted out of the fun part. I had a friend in law school whose dad worked for the US Census as he was involved with like making sure all the maps were up to date and stuff and he was really into that. That was his thing. He was a total nerd and he loved that and they kept trying to get him to be a manager because he was so good at what he did and they thought he should be the manager and refused. He stayed in that job and you know there were people he worked with who were like I don't understand why you saying that dead-end job he's like because I I I'd quit in a year if I was the manager. I wouldn't want to do that and he just kept doing what he did yeah, something said about that.

Speaker 2: 13:48

Sometimes you're just really good at your job and oftentimes companies try to put the really good person at their job as the manager and that doesn't always work out.

Speaker 3: 13:57

It's not always and they don't always have skills in management and they don't have the personality for it or they don't really want to do that part right and yet they're a great salesperson or they're a great engineer or whatever.

Speaker 2: 14:11

That isn't the management part and I will say like kind of going back a little bit too, like about when you were talking about finding a passion. I'm a firm believer that finding and doing a passion can also be a stress reliever on it. I mean, obviously, if you have the time and the ability to do it, but, like, sometimes taking things on that you just love, that bring you joy, is another way of preventing burnout because you're just so charged up, right, you're charged up like wanting to do whatever that is once a week, right and you know, flow state activities are really really good at helping with burnout and that could be, you know, it could be running an ultra marathon, it could be, it could be walking in the park, it could be.

Speaker 3: 15:04

You know, I used to race sailboats and you know, depending on the circumstances, that can be flows, hater, it can be craziness, but it's, you know, like it's definitely something where you're focused on that the whole time, like it's definitely something where you're focused on that the whole time and if you're, you know, if you're not, bad things happen frankly. So, you know, and it's having things like that is really good. And the thing that I encourage people to do with the art of bending time is finding things that are complementary in ways that help in multiple aspects of their goals. So, for instance, I'm not doing law anymore, but if I was, and I was racing sailboats and I joined a sailing club where people who race sailboats own businesses and hire lawyers like if I was in the kind of law that that would have helped, it would have been very beneficial.

Speaker 3: 16:07

You used to see that with the small town doctor, the small town lawyer, the small town accountant at the golf club. Yeah, you know, and I think to some degree we've lost a lot in getting so boxed in and corporate that we've stopped having those connections that go beyond just the thing that we do or the office we go to.

Speaker 1: 16:21

I agree with you, so much on that. Yes.

Speaker 3: 16:26

And it's not just about your you know being able to get your next job at maybe another company. It's also about you know having people who give you like a three-dimensional life.

Speaker 1: 16:38

Right, it's about putting identity behind brand too, because if you know someone and they work somewhere and you trust them, it changes the whole relationship you might have with that entire vertical.

Speaker 3: 16:50

Sure, yeah, I had a client who worked with me and I can give you a great example of the thing with the entire vertical. He owned an SEO optimization company in Australia and he came to me saying I'm really worried, I need to make more money. His wife was about to leave because she was pregnant and having their second child and she was a personal trainer, so he was going to be the breadwinner for a while. His hope was not just temporarily and they had a goal of like sometime down the road a little while later, they wanted to take their two kids and get as is very popular in Australia get a camper van and travel around the country in a camper van and homeschool their kids for a while, while they saw the world, you know.

Speaker 2: 17:45

Cool.

Speaker 3: 17:46

And, and when I first met him he was like you know, I'm having, I'm just, I feel like I'm kind of stuck and I don't feel like I have the motivation I used to like. I still kind of like, I like what I do, but I just don't love it anymore and I'm not sure what to do. And when we started discovering, like, what is it that lights you up, what we realized was that he was a guy who had been really athletic in school, big into surfing, and they lived two blocks from the beach because he wanted surfing in his daily life, but he wasn't surfing at all. They had a three-year-old, they had a family value of exercising with the three-year-old in the mornings and that meant he was giving up his own workout to do working out with a three-year-old and he was like sluggish, Like he was just. You know, if you're really physical and you stop, even if you're not really physical, if you're not exercising at all, your body just starts to die you know so he's basically like he's, he's suffering from this.

Speaker 3: 18:55

And so I said to him we, we finally realized that, and I was like well, you need to get surfing back into your life Somehow. You need to get your body moving and get a real workout. And since you love surfing so much, why don't you, you know, could you talk to your wife, see if your wife would be willing to do the workout with the kid while you go surfing? And so they started doing a family trip to the beach in the morning and she'd work out with the kid on the beach and he'd go surfing. Oh, that's cool. And he doubled his sales call volume just by having the more energy and being more like, in just having more behind it, you know he was happier and yeah, and he started doing like way better on his sales.

Speaker 3: 19:41

That was in like the first couple of weeks I was working with him, because we do that clarity exercise right away. And then, as we got into this part about goals, which is after about six weeks, we get into doing a really hardcore goal setting session where I have people choose two or three what I call big hairy goals.

Speaker 1: 20:00

So I just want to pump the brakes for one second because I love what you just said there, the clarity thing, like I mean that's what that value was. I didn't understand it at first time management. I'm like what do you want me to find my passions for? I'm supposed to get these emails, get these tasks done or improve on the things that are sucking all of my day away, and I have two lessons on that.

Speaker 3: 20:21

I call them time suck, ninja, but that's really not the main bit. The important part is clarity.

Speaker 1: 20:26

Cool Time. Suck, ninja, I like it, but like, yeah, but like you know, clarity. So once you get clarity in what you do, what you love, it gives you more energy, which is going to enable us to get to part two, right.

Speaker 3: 20:39

Exactly, and it gives you more focus. And then we go into the big goal setting section. Have you guys ever worked with? There's a business school concept called a SWOT analysis?

Speaker 2: 20:52

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, so I get my employees to do that.

Speaker 3: 20:57

I call it a SWORD because I actually learned it. I reverse engineered it from Spanish, so I learned it from a business coach who called it FLOOR, so I learned the words in Spanish and then I translated it to English, which turned into strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and risks. And then I added a D for desire, and the reason I did that was going back to that. You know, talking about being put in boxes and following what you were taught to do. A lot of people go through that analysis for three goals and they get to the part about desire and they realize they don't even want to do it. Really, it's just something they've carried around with them like baggage for their entire lives. It's like expected of them. Like you know, maybe they they're a lawyer who had grown up in a family of lawyers and so like being a partner is not a question for them. They're just they expect they have to be a partner, right.

Speaker 1: 21:54

When you said sword, I was. I had to check my phone. I'm like well, how do you spell sword then?

Speaker 3: 22:00

It goes with time, suck ninja.

Speaker 1: 22:02

Yeah. I was like oh my gosh, I forgot to spell sword and I've been like oh my God, Okay, Right, so so some people, like some people, scrap one of their big goals.

Speaker 3: 22:15

They've been walking around. It's been like this weight around their neck because they felt like they had to do it and they've been putting time into it. They've been putting mental energy into feeling like they're failures because they hadn't done this thing that they feel like they should do, when they don't really even want it. So, of course, if you don't really want it, you're not going to put the energy you need to get it right and you're wasting time putting any energy on it at all, right, so so we go through that and then we do two other things, which is we plan for?

Speaker 3: 22:46

we plan for building a team, and so that's. I have people proactively talk to people in parts of their life they wouldn't normally talk about these things with and say, hey, I'm interested in becoming a pilot or hey, I'm interested in whatever, and you know, do you know anything about that? Or do you know anybody who does it, or whatever? And just try to, like, broaden your network of people who might be able to help, and then actually make calls and meet some people and learn about some things that you wouldn't have learned otherwise. And then I have them plan growth for like things you need to learn, because those people are going to be able to tell you, hey, you have to take that course or you have to, whatever the things are.

Speaker 3: 23:28

So when he did his team building thing and we talked about the getting a camper van dream, he said you know, I've got a client who does that. And I said have you talked to him about it? He said no, I never wanted him to feel like I was asking for something for free, said okay, it was like don't ask him for anything for free. You can even open the conversation by saying you know, I would never ask you for anything free. I just was curious, because you're in this industry and my wife and I have this goal right.

Speaker 3: 24:05

And, talking about the vertical, he got six new clients in that industry. Because that guy, when he realized, hey, this is not only a guy who's doing a good job for me and I really like him, but all of a sudden he's like he's one of us because he's got this goal and he's really interested in what I do, he's like hey, you know, I've got this supplier and I've got this vendor, and like there were people that he was able to introduce him to that ultimately also became his clients and I'm sure down the road will help him with the camper van thing, you know so anyway.

Speaker 3: 24:41

That's the connecting the dots, that's the art of ending time that's.

Speaker 2: 24:47

It's interesting because, like, when people think of time management, they kind of like this is kind of a quantum physics of time. Exactly when you were talking about like squishing it and going through, I was thinking of wormholes, right, exactly, yeah.

Speaker 3: 25:05

And that's exactly what it is, and it's taking advantage of those overlaps. Advantage of those overlaps. And one of the things I have them do is when we do this word analysis on three very different goals, usually like one big personal goal, maybe two, maybe two work goals, whatever like, but three goals typically is we start looking for overlaps and there are times where they overlap. And when they overlap you can actually, you know, expedite because you've got, all of a sudden, you may have one person you need to meet who connects in two different ways, and all of a sudden, that work friendship that happened because you talk to somebody's spouse about his pilot's license, right, and now you've got like a work friendship could turn into an alliance that helps move you forward in your career.

Speaker 2: 26:33

It's kind of I mean a little bit of networking and kind of working smarter and not harder, kind of thing.

Speaker 3: 26:40

Exactly, exactly.

Speaker 2: 26:43

And then the other thing is that I mean.

Speaker 3: 26:45

I'm all about working smarter, not harder.

Speaker 2: 26:48

Yeah, and it's definitely introduces like mean it's I, I would, I would say it's this this concept is not foreign to me, but hearing you talk about it kind of makes me like more aware, because I think I do a lot of the things that you're like that you're talking about, because I I'm I like to network and I like to kind of connect people and things like that.

Speaker 2: 27:10

But it's something I never really like consciously think about and I think that's important to kind of consciously think about it, cause when I think of time management like Tobin's heard me talk about this probably more times than he'd like, but the I always talk about I talk about color coding your week and that's kind of my and you may have even have heard this concept before, but when I and I'll do it quickly, but color coding your week is essentially uh, for me it's green, is green symbolizes money. That's time that you schedule in your week to make money. Whatever you're going to do in that time, whatever makes you money, when that hour block comes up in your calendar that says green time, you gotta do something that makes you money. Uh, the next time is blue time. Blue symbolizes sadness and that is paperwork, because that makes everybody sad, so that you actually calendar being sad, no, no, no.

Speaker 2: 28:01

Well, this is this is the time. So blue time comes up and that means, hey, you know what? I got to put my head down. I got to do that stuff that I've been procrastinating to do. This is my time to do it. And then red time is meetings. So it's like everyone has meetings and things like that that you got to go through with, you know, throughout your day. And then I have yellow time. You're going to love yellow time. I know who you like. Now, knowing who you are, you're going to love yellow time. Yellow time is a blend between red and green. It's not quite green, not quite red. It can be a meeting and it can potentially make you money. That's networking.

Speaker 3: 28:31

I was just going to say it sounds like beer.

Speaker 2: 28:35

It's this, honestly we're sitting here, we're having a conversation, we're having a drink, but we're learning, right, right, I try to keep my Fridays very yellow. If someone in my network or a good referral source calls me up and says, matt, what are you doing today? I, someone in my network or a good referral source calls me up and says, matt, what are you doing today? I thought of you. And why don't we grab a drink? Or why don't we grab lunch? That's yellow time, right, I'm going to go out, I have a chat with him. He might say hey, you know what I was thinking about you. I got a weird thing. Maybe you can help this person and that leads into a lead or something like that. So, so that for me, that's color coding your weekend. I still like it, but it's more kind of two dimensional, where you're looking into like more of a three dimensional way of looking at time.

Speaker 3: 29:17

Now, matt, do you have? I'm assuming I don't really know what you do in insurance. You're an agent, right, or a broker?

Speaker 2: 29:24

I manage a team of brokers.

Speaker 3: 29:25

OK, and so Are you self-employed or employed by somebody?

Speaker 2: 29:32

I'm employed by someone.

Speaker 3: 29:35

Okay, cause I was going to say one of the things that we have somebody who's in a mastermind with me, who's written a book, and it's a great book called buy back your time, and he talks a lot about how things like your sad time, your blue, shouldn't even be on your calendar, because there are things that if it's not making you money and it's not making you happy and it's not doing anything to move you forward at all, but it's something you could pay somebody else to do for you.

Speaker 2: 30:07

Right.

Speaker 3: 30:07

Like your paperwork. Yes to do for you. Like your paperwork, yes, and you know, maybe do it with like invest in some different computer system or some AI or some or another staff member. It actually may be much more highly profitable and make you happier to not do that.

Speaker 2: 30:22

I totally agree with that.

Speaker 3: 30:23

I agree, but I know when you work for somebody, you don't always control it and you know it's funny, we control it with this show, which is kind of a business in itself.

Speaker 1: 30:33

It, yeah, it's in revenue. It does different things. Uh, we're organizing the networking events this year. So with this show, that's exactly what we do. Matt and I kind of almost strategically focus on the parts where we have the most fun individually together right, and it really yeah, mike, and it really works.

Speaker 2: 30:52

Mike's really good at certain things and I'm really good at certain things, and those things are not necessarily the same thing.

Speaker 1: 30:57

Right, yeah, and it's back and forth and Matt like, yeah, I actually enjoy the production elements of a show or whatever and Matt likes this. You know, matt likes the sales element of bringing sponsors in and and stuff like that, so it's fantastic, right and I like social media and mike sweats when he tries to upload things. So last night we had a terrible. We had a. We were out with a food influencer, so this guy's from from nova scotia, canada, where we are, uh but he has 500 000 tiktok, uh tiktok followers.

Speaker 1: 31:34

His name's early pete and he's a foodie, like a food, a food guy. He goes around to restaurants and has, just has fun. He's a very sweet guy and we spent the day with him on sunday or saturday saturday sorry, so saturday and then we had some footage to upload last night and I said Matt was like I'll upload it and I said no worries, do it, I'll take care of it, don't worry. I was there sweating because these were big files and trying to get them to work right with Instagram and all the hoops you got to go through to upload a large or longer video file.

Speaker 3: 32:09

Yeah, it can be a hassle. Yeah, through to upload a large or longer video file? Yeah, it can be a hassle. Yeah, especially, I actually had to get it. I finally bought a mac when I started doing online courses because I had the computer I was using for my law practice, which was an hp. You know, it's not a bad computer, it's fine right but uploading like a 40 minute course module would take all night yeah, yeah, that's ridiculous.

Speaker 3: 32:36

And it was like you know I bought the mac and the same course module would upload in 10 minutes yeah, yeah, I did too.

Speaker 1: 32:43

I found the max like the fun computer and the pc's, the the work computer uh, just different work.

Speaker 3: 32:50

I mean, I treat it like different creative fun work.

Speaker 2: 32:53

It seems to go on the mat for whatever reason, so yeah, yeah so, michelle, I actually I really think, um, what could be really interesting is, uh, I, I'm, I'm in, I'm in a networking group that meets once a month. I almost feel like you should join it because one of them, the guy who leads it's actually one of our sponsors named mark zirka. He he just straddled me up and he talks about kind of efficiencies within a business and he helps them. But I think it could be interesting. You should join maybe sometime, and I think you and Mark actually might have some, maybe some synergies there. He's international, I mean he is. Some of his clients are pretty interesting, like he works in different countries, so I gotta know he was doing some work in saudi arabia yeah, so yeah, yeah, really, really cool stuff.

Speaker 2: 33:40

I mean he's, he's, he's been on the show and he talked about some stuff that he did in in africa and things like that as well, and so, but I think there should be. There could be some synergies there for sure. So I'll have to introduce the two of you and you should come on to one of them, I'd love that?

Speaker 2: 33:54

Yeah, that would be. Yeah, I think it'd be interesting hearing you chat as well, like maybe on one of the meetings we meet every third Thursday, the third Thursday of every month. So that would be something that could be interesting too. Okay, but yeah, so, going back a little bit to the beginning and everything I mean so you were in, you were in law and you said you didn't necessarily want to get into law, you just did it because you had to go, so I didn't understand what the job would be. Yeah.

Speaker 3: 34:24

Realistically, I didn't understand what the job would be. I got into law as a kid who didn't have any lawyers in my family.

Speaker 2: 34:32

Right.

Speaker 3: 34:33

And I had a teacher in high school who said, Michelle, you're a really great writer. And and I was that kid who was like, I'd look at my test and she'd give me an A minus and I'd be like, but that answer was right. And then I'd go talk to her about it and she changed my grade because I convinced her that the answer was right and a lot right.

Speaker 3: 34:57

So she called me aside one day this was like my sophomore year in high school and said listen, you know you have this skill and this is what lawyers do. And have you ever considered being a lawyer? And I said you know I hadn't. And life moved on. My family moved away from there. I went to college. I went to college fully expecting that I would probably go into business or sales of some sort. I was really done with academics.

Speaker 3: 35:26

At the end of college I had no desire to get a graduate degree and I moved to Boston and I was a headhunter in the tech industry for like two years and during that time there were things I loved about that.

Speaker 3: 35:42

Now that I understand more about the world, I probably should have stayed in that world, but at the time there were times it was frustrating. There were times it was boring. It's really I call it the hardest sales job in the world, because you're selling a product that has to be convinced to be sold. So you're soliciting companies to get the job assignments and then you're recruiting people and sending them for interviews and then they get to decide if they want to work there or not. It's not like you're just selling them to the company and that's the end of the story. So I had some really crazy things happen, like women telling me that they had to ask their husband after they'd had a great interview and they'd gotten an offer and you know, and then they don't take the job because they have to drive on the highway and their husband doesn't like it. That really happened once.

Speaker 1: 36:35

No way.

Speaker 3: 36:35

Seriously, this woman was going to have to drive on 128 around Boston and her husband didn't want her to take the job because she'd have to go on the highway and it was a shorter commute than where she was working at the time. It was just one, literally one highway exit from where she lived, but it wasn't easy to go from point A to point B without getting on the highway.

Speaker 1: 36:57

Okay.

Speaker 3: 36:58

And crazy things like that, right. So I I was like, oh, I'm going to consider, maybe I'll go to grad school, maybe I'll I'll go to law school, cause I had that teacher's grad school. Maybe I'll I'll go to law school Cause I had that teacher's I'd you know her plant. She planted a seed. So I was literally interviewing with tech companies in Boston in 1987. I'm like what the hell was I thinking? Right, I could have been like one of those people like early, early in the computer world, right. And I took the LSat and I decided that if I got a high score on the lsat I would go to law school.

Speaker 3: 37:35

And I got a 95th percentile score oh, wow so I was like you know, and then I applied to law schools. I went to bu and um finished, loved my job. Like said, there's times you grow out of the good part, right. So when I started out I worked for this big national firm. It was out of DC and we worked on these huge environmental cases and huge product liability coverage cases. And this was back before everything was on computers.

Speaker 3: 38:08

So document reviews meant flying someplace, sitting around in a room with a bunch of other people filling out forms about what we were seeing on the documents, like pulling out the key stuff. So basically it was like great travel, staying in really nice hotels, eating great meals and hanging out with a really nice bunch of people and working nine to five, because they'd kick us out of the document depositories at five. Oh, you know. I mean their travel was long hours because we'd leave someplace, we'd fly in the night, we'd fly in the. You know like I'd fly on Saturday sometimes to be there Sunday or Sunday to be there Monday, all that kind of thing.

Speaker 3: 39:50

But the job itself was like it was kind of interesting going through the stuff we were doing. And then I started attending depositions the same way I was running around the country, living in really nice hotels, eating great meals, hanging out with cool people and taking depositions. And then I moved down to Florida where I started actually doing like regular lawyer work, where I was sitting in an office most of the time I was having getting yelled at by mean people. I was, you know, like a lot of the work I was doing was no longer fun, and the more senior I got, the less fun it got to be.

Speaker 2: 40:27

So I saw on your LinkedIn that you were a resident and civic activist.

Speaker 3: 40:31

Yes, I was.

Speaker 2: 40:32

Yeah, what like was it? Was it dealing with a lot of mean people? Then, like, tell us a little bit about that.

Speaker 3: 40:38

It was dealing with corrupt and greedy people. Although you didn't hear me say that, okay, so.

Speaker 1: 40:48

You got to move to Canada. I hate to tell you.

Speaker 3: 40:54

I know, you know I lived in minnesota for a while and everybody was honest there yeah, really okay it's kind of like canada there. I think cool, they say a boat yeah I used to say a boat

Speaker 3: 41:08

don't you know, yeah so I lived in a part of Miami called Coconut Grove and my ex and I had a boat in a public marina there and I had just started my law practice and I'd moved my office to a little office building that I could walk to from where I lived, lived and I was trying to, you know, getting involved in the local chamber of commerce, all that stuff, trying to get some business, cause it was the first, you know, I was starting my own thing and I get an email from somebody and it says the city of Miami is hiring an architect to design the coconut Grove waterfront. And in Miami speak, anybody who's lived here long enough would just have the alarm bells go off. What are they planning to build in our parks on the waterfront? Because we had lots of parks, coconut Grove has more park space on the water than anywhere else in the city and these marinas, including the one that my boat was in, and it was reasonably priced and I didn't want to lose that Right. So I responded to this by saying to some it was like a reply to all, to this group of people who had concluded to me what we want it's like hiring Frank Lloyd Wright to design a colonial house, right. Well, it turns out they were looking for landscape architects and they were. This is typical. A lot of times they'll hire an architecture firm, they'll have a public planning process, right, but really what they're trying to do is steer that process to the end goal they already know they want and then they have justification through this process.

Speaker 3: 42:59

So I get contacted and asked to be on a committee of a few people I mean, it was like six people total to deal with this planning process, because waterfront condos, the sailing club on the water, like people like that, were really uncomfortable with this and they'd seen what I wrote. And I get to the meeting of these people and they and the sailing club. Commodore was supposed to become the chair of this group and before our meeting their board had told him not to be doing anything visible because they were afraid the city kicked them off the property. They were on a lease with the city that was ending and they were trying to renew it and they were like if you know you can't cause problems for us, you need to keep your name in the background. So I arrive at this meeting and they're like you're a lawyer, why don't you be the chair?

Speaker 3: 43:53

So I ended up chairing this group and the group literally watchdogged every step of the process, got involved to the level that we worked with the people who were writing the contract, with the architects, and so we created the scenario of the public input that would be done and we built a relationship with the architects.

Speaker 3: 44:15

We ended up with a great plan and we created a committee that was going to oversee like a long-term implementation committee that would outlive political change, so that there'd be somebody who would be watching, you know, as the thing moved forward, somebody who would be watching, you know, as the thing moved forward.

Speaker 3: 44:36

And that went well for a while until the city didn't like that we were holding them to the plan and ultimately they disbanded our implementation committee and then they disbanded their overall waterfront advisory board. And now there's all kinds of stuff going on in Miami that there's no like there's no input at all because they don't want the input and they've done things with our plan that are like I mean I don't even want to go. Now, you know there's some things they did that were so completely some are just completely incompetent and some are absolutely against what people had said they wanted incompetent and some are absolutely against what people had said they wanted. Yeah, they wanted an inexpensive waterfront like burgers and fries and bring your kids and dogs place on the water, which was replaced and it was supposed to be replaced with a similar concept plus a couple of other restaurants, and they ended up bringing in somebody who basically does a nightclub with food trucks.

Speaker 2: 45:34

Oh, okay, like it's really loud.

Speaker 3: 45:35

The people who live in the Marine are going crazy. The you know it's, it's not. It's cool if you don't know what people wanted, but you know, um, and then the other thing, the other thing they did. That was really funny, was it? Do either of you guys sail? I know you have water lots of it.

Speaker 2: 45:55

I've been sailing, but I'm not.

Speaker 1: 45:57

I've done it too, I did a race once yeah. Okay.

Speaker 3: 46:00

Did either of you go sailing in a place where they use hoists to take the boat off a trailer and put it in the water?

Speaker 1: 46:04

Oh, yeah, yeah, Okay.

Speaker 3: 46:06

Okay, so part of what we did was we created a launch area, for they actually renamed the park Regatta Park. We have a lot of regattas like big Olympic qualifications, stuff, like that happens in Coconut Grove, and so we created this park that honored the regattas and created a launch site. And the launch site was designed to have a place to put in, like you know, coach boats and all that kind of stuff on like a ramp. That was like a floating. It was like a floating ramp that went into the water and then it also had a lit, like two lifts with arms that you could pick up sailboats off off trailers and put them in the water. And this was after they eliminated our committee. They had a ribbon cutting for this. They didn't invite any of us.

Speaker 3: 47:02

Somebody I knew who was part of it with me said, hey, I heard about this, let's go. And we went and I'm looking at this thing and I'm like something doesn't look right about this, right. And the guy who was going to host the first regatta was there. I used to race J24s and he was hosting a big J24 regatta there. And I look at this guy, mark, and I said, is that going to be able to lift a boat into the water. He's like Nope, he's like I had to get cranes. They, they put in a hoist that didn't have an arm long enough to put a boat into the water. If you put the boat down, it would hit the seawall.

Speaker 2: 47:44

Oh, wow, okay.

Speaker 3: 47:45

It costs $600,000 or something like it was, and I don't think they've ever fixed it. They just they had funding and they had to spend it, and it was like this match grant thing that that was after they eliminated. The committee that I was part of had brought in like experts from Newport and they had all these plans and then they just like squash the committee and then they hadn't gotten any of the work done and last minute they would have lost their grant money if they didn't stick the things in the ground.

Speaker 2: 48:17

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 48:17

So they just rushed the job, and the people doing it had no idea what they were doing.

Speaker 2: 48:23

So doing this for 12 years? Is that what made you decide to run politically?

Speaker 3: 48:29

When I ran for office.

Speaker 2: 48:30

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 48:33

Well, seeing some of that kind of ineptitude and seeing some of the things. Yeah, I mean, and there was a guy, there was a particular person who was running, who was incumbent and who, let me just say, was somebody who I didn't want representing me and I was encouraged by a lot of people to run. Unfortunately, he was very, very vindictive toward businesses that supported anybody but him and, you know, I got my ass handed to me. I did not do well in this race. I didn't know anything about politics. I had, you know, a campaign manager who spent most of my money I had. I fired her finally, and when I fired her, somebody came in and was feeding information about my fundraising to somebody.

Speaker 2: 49:23

Oh, no way Wow.

Speaker 3: 49:24

I had people canceling meetings with me and I couldn't figure out why, until I realized this volunteer was giving away information this volunteer was giving away information to the other side Terrible. Yeah, I learned the hard way. Miami politics is a contact sport and it's really crazy.

Speaker 2: 49:43

Have you ever thought about going at it again?

Speaker 3: 49:45

Mm-mm.

Speaker 2: 49:46

No.

Speaker 3: 49:47

No way, no how.

Speaker 2: 49:48

One and done eh.

Speaker 3: 49:50

It costs too much. You know what I imagine it does. I mean, it's the part that I the part that was the hard part for me really was that I was a self-employed solo lawyer and when I went to do the campaign, the people who are working on convincing me to do it were telling me it would take no more than three or four hours a day.

Speaker 1: 50:12

Right.

Speaker 3: 50:14

But I had to fundraise and I spent hours every day fundraising that were not part of that three or four hours a day. And then on top of that, I still had my law practice going and I wasn't putting my time in and I billed by the hour. So it was like I had a paralegal, I was paying, I had office rent, I was paying, and it got to the point that I was paying bills by writing credit card checks into my business operating account and paying my paralegal with it.

Speaker 2: 50:45

Like.

Speaker 3: 50:45

I ended up in such big debt it wasn't even funny. And most of the people who run are people who they work for a business that benefits from the fact that they're in office. Or maybe they're a lawyer in a law firm where they're like, hey, you know what, if this person gets an office, then we're going to get business from it or we're going to do lobbying, whatever it is.

Speaker 1: 51:07

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3: 51:08

And they pay their salaries while they're running. But I wasn't getting paid.

Speaker 2: 51:12

This is the thing, this is. I think one of the biggest things is, like, oftentimes Canadians kind of mix up how American politics and Canadian politics work and I don't think people realize I'm not saying Canadian politics are perfect, you know, it's certainly not. But politics in America is big money in america is big money and it doesn't matter if you're, uh, you know, a counselor or whatever in in miami or a state senator or a federal senator. It's all big money and they, they can. They can survive off of donations because you know they can pay their rent through it through sneaky ways of kind of.

Speaker 3: 51:50

But you can't I mean you can't if you're going to do it legally and I wasn't going to not do it- that's right, no exactly. And so a lot of times, you know, like I said, a lot of them have employers who continue to pay their bills, even you know they're getting paid a salary, even though they're still they're working all the time on their campaign.

Speaker 2: 52:07

Right.

Speaker 3: 52:08

Or they're fundraising no-transcript. I had one other person had, I think, more in her campaign account, but it was because she put $60,000 of her own money in.

Speaker 2: 52:43

Oh, wow.

Speaker 3: 52:44

And then the guy who was in office to give you an idea of how much like the corporate influence is.

Speaker 2: 52:52

He had $2 million dollars, I had 120 000 so just to give you an example, I ran for office, uh, four years ago for municipal politics here in halifax.

Speaker 3: 53:03

You know my total campaign cost me six grand yeah, yeah and, and it's you know, it know it was crazy. It was crazy and part of the problem I had was I hired a consultant who I had a campaign manager, who had worked on congressional races, local ones. She hired a consultant for $10,000 to write speeches for me. I'm like I don't need that.

Speaker 3: 53:37

Oh yes you know, and I'm like okay, and you know, that guy was really cool, I loved him, he was wonderful, but I didn't need that and I didn't know enough to say no to it at the time.

Speaker 2: 53:50

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 53:51

Because I also didn't have other people that were, you know, knowledgeable that way.

Speaker 2: 53:55

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 53:56

But I would have been better off candidly holding to my guns and just say, saying okay, I've got friends who are smart people who can help me, and just letting them help me.

Speaker 2: 54:06

Right.

Speaker 3: 54:06

That would have been better.

Speaker 2: 54:07

Yeah. But you know sounds like it I'm not going to risk bankruptcy again.

Speaker 3: 54:12

I didn't go bankrupt but I, you know I probably should have like smart people would have gone bankrupt. I just didn't want to be that person.

Speaker 2: 54:19

Right.

Speaker 3: 54:20

You know there's certain impact to lawyers If you go bankrupt. It's not a good idea and I've I know it's just not something I want to do no, that's fair.

Speaker 2: 54:40

That's fair, I mean. And I mean it seems like you found your, your joy anyway, right, like it seems like you've, you know what you talk about and everything. It seems like you found really what grew I, I, I I can relate to you. Honestly. I thought politics was what I wanted for a long time, since I was 14 years old and, uh, I think I did this podcast and a lot of the things that have come along with it had made me realize, like I think I'm really comfortable giving that up and moving on from that and just exploring different avenues and things like that. So I think politics is dead for me too. So I can totally relate.

Speaker 3: 55:16

I wouldn't have said like politics was never a goal for me. When I was in college, I had friends who went and moved to dc and worked on the hill and I was like, ew, I, I wouldn't have wanted to do that, you know. Um, I really got into it because of an aspect of my life that I care a lot about, which was the waterfront and oh, that makes sense, yeah and you know.

Speaker 3: 55:39

And then I got to know more about what was going on in my community and I was trying to do things.

Speaker 3: 55:45

I hit a point and this was a piece of an aspect of my burnout, frankly where I realized like I, if I wasn't working for my law clients and and part of it was law was so isolating and I and I really didn't like it. So working for free in this volunteer realm was where I was getting the satisfaction part of what I like doing something for other people and being in involved in things. But what I realized was there was a whole lot of work I was putting in where I was benefiting everybody but me and putting a whole lot of time into it, and it was kind of there was sort of a nail in the coffin for me, which was about two weeks after I lost the race that I ran. I got a letter from these people in a part of the area that I was running in. They hadn't been nice. I'll just say that the people who lived in that part of Coconut Grove were truly not nice to me or my volunteers when we walked and knocked on doors and all that.

Speaker 2: 56:47

Right.

Speaker 3: 56:47

And they were very, very aligned with the guy who was the incumbent, because he'd made all kinds of promises and you know, they thought that he was their guy, but he's, he was not honest in how he talked to people. I'll just put it that way.

Speaker 1: 57:02

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 57:03

So they came away from those conversations believing that he was going to take care of them and he was going to help them with some things that mattered to them in their neighborhood.

Speaker 3: 57:11

Two weeks after the elections over, after they some of them had literally shut their doors in my face. When I was knocking on doors, I got a letter, and it was an anonymous letter saying it started with the phrase you need to help us, and then it, and then it explained to me about how there was this, this there was a builder who had who was building in like teardowns in their neighborhood and he had a couple of empty lots he was using as like a like staging area and he was running forklifts around on their street and it was really a hassle for them and apparently promises has been made that the day after the election they were basically told yeah, blow off, Like we don't, I'm not going to help you, and you know they wanted me to intervene and help them with this because I I should want to. And then the letter wasn't even signed by anybody. It was your friends on this street, huh, and I'm like, hmm, really that doesn't really help either though right and I mean so, I mean like even now.

Speaker 2: 58:27

So like I mean being being in, you know, such involved in a lot of things, and I mean we talked a little bit bit this before we started recording everything but like being in florida, it uh, florida, I mean this is what we get the perception of, so you can shed some clarity on us canadians up here in nova scotia. We here for the most part outside of when you're down there having fun at, like, disney world and things like that. Like florida, we understand, is a bit of a mess in a lot of ways. I mean we talked a little bit about insurance. You were in insurance litigation and how all the hurricanes oh, they completely.

Speaker 3: 59:01

I mean, not only is insurance litigation like it's, you know, it's a mess, that they're not paying people and that kind of thing. Um, and we talked about the fact that they're all these affiliate companies that get paid money, all get siphoned off and then they go bankrupt and yeah. But the other thing is that there used to be fee shifting for coverage lawyers who represented policyholders, and there was a pretty strong bad faith law so that when the insurance companies did things wrong, you could represent somebody and you could hopefully get them paid.

Speaker 1: 59:41

Right.

Speaker 3: 59:56

If they didn't go bankrupt two different years where they they added legislation which were like they basically were kneecapping policyholder lawyers like they. They've made it virtually impossible to get attorney's fees right, which means, of course, if, if, if you can't get attorney's fees for your claim, a lot of lawyers aren't going to take these claims because either they're not enough money to make, enough money to make it worth taking the case.

Speaker 2: 1:00:16

Right.

Speaker 3: 1:00:17

Or, if it's a bigger case, the people can't afford the fees.

Speaker 2: 1:00:23

Right, right.

Speaker 3: 1:00:24

You know, and so there's a lot of cases where there's literally a built in incentive now, for an insurance company can get away with legally underpaying you by just under 25 percent and then lose in court and they still won't have to pay fees huh, I, you know it's.

Speaker 2: 1:00:47

It's funny. I mean, I don't know anything about law, but um, I'm watching Suits for the second time. I'm almost done. I love Suits. I know it's a great show and you know what? It's funny because my favorite character I actually kind of had a little bit of a debate with someone not that long ago. Everyone loves Spectre, Everyone likes Mike. My favorite character is Louis Lit.

Speaker 3: 1:01:10

Oh, he's awesome.

Speaker 2: 1:01:12

Greatest character, best character development, most complex, depth character like the best, right. So I love that show, but I'm almost I'm actually almost all the way through the second time and, um, but it's, it is interesting because I mean, you watch some of the stuff I don't know you can, you can judge whether or not, uh, the show is accurate and all that, and you know how like it works. But I did kind of like realize that, uh, if, if a, if a company is going to go bankrupt by, like basically the lawsuit like they, that's a, that's a defense, essentially no that's true, no, no, and I mean it's only a defense in the fact that it's not practical or responsible for a lawyer to continue in a lawsuit where there's no money.

Speaker 2: 1:02:00

But that's kind of like. They were basically saying like, hey, we'll, and like I said, this is just a TV show, but I hope they base it on somewhat reality. But basically they were saying like we'll go bankrupt and then you won't get any money because we'll just declare bankruptcy.

Speaker 3: 1:02:13

I mean it is a defense that way it's, it's a you know they can say, listen like, but that doesn't happen in the insurance cases. What happens? They will never tell you that they'll just go bankrupt.

Speaker 2: 1:02:24

Right.

Speaker 3: 1:02:24

They'll have thousands and thousands of people they've screwed and there's going to be a bunch of lawsuits filed against them and then they'll go bankrupt. And then, once they go bankrupt, there's no bad faith against. There's Florida insurance guarantee association, which is this association that has to take on the bankrupt company's claims, and they can be really evil and they don't have to get. There's no, there's no recourse against them.

Speaker 3: 1:02:51

Huh, wow, there's no recourse against them. Huh, wow. So you know, generally they'll pay Like if it's owed, you should get paid. But if they're like kind of underhanded in how they deal with things, there's no bad faith against them. So they have no incentive to be like fast or treat you well. Um, you know, and and it's, I think the business with the, the affiliate companies, is a huge problem and it needs to be taken care of, and a lot of the big national carriers have pulled out yes, that's right, they pull out and then they come back for a while and then they pull out again.

Speaker 3: 1:03:32

so I think they're kind of playing the same game, like they stick their toe in for a while, they bring in some premiums and then they go. Yeah, you know, maybe we're just not going to do Florida anymore.

Speaker 2: 1:03:42

Well, that was, I guess, a little bit kind of like how, I think it was the state farm got into a little bit of heat with all the fires in California. Right, they were non-renewing a bunch of places they had already non-renewed. They pulled out of the state.

Speaker 3: 1:03:57

So yeah, so, like all these properties, apparently there were a lot of people who were uninsured because they'd non-renewed them and they hadn't replaced it, or they just I don't know for whatever reason they hadn't replaced their insurance. My guess is it costs more once state firm pulled out.

Speaker 2: 1:04:19

Yeah, yeah. So it's, yeah, it's, it's interesting. I mean, probably to some not quite as much, but I, I mean I, I, you know a bit of an insurance guy. I find that pretty interesting.

Speaker 3: 1:04:24

But Florida's Florida's got a lot of really difficult things happening. Right now. The condo situation is really crazy because we had I'm sure you saw in the news we had that condo that fell down on all of its people about three years ago just fell down yeah, it collapsed oh geez, I didn't even see this.

Speaker 3: 1:04:44

The building was called champlain towers. Look it up it. It literally collapsed in the middle of the night. It collapsed at like two in the morning. 98 people were killed no way it just like and when they look up, go to the miami herald website yeah, I will look up champlain towers and they have like a it's, it's like a timeline tied with graphics, tied with their investigative reporting.

Speaker 3: 1:05:10

It's fascinating because basically what they found was that they were like from day one there were problems, like this building had construction defect problems, it had problems with the inspections, where they didn't do the things they should have and they got passed anyway and then they had problems. The building was built in like 1980 something, so it wasn't even that old. Yeah, um, it had a place in the pool deck where water pooled and it was leaking down into a pump room and there were all these rust stains and all this. And and their board had been fighting over what to do to fix things for like a 10 years and they hadn't done an assessment to pay to fix this stuff and they had just reached a point.

Speaker 3: 1:05:55

We have these inspections that are mandatory for 40 year old buildings here and they have to have an engineering inspection and they have to get everything done that the engineer says before the 40 year mark. And they had just done an assessment, they had the money in the bank and they hadn't started the work and the building fell down like structural engineering inspections and if anything's wrong, they have to fix it and they have to have reserves for all this. You know, type maintenance, type stuff where you used to be able to waive reserves. So a lot of these older buildings, they waived reserves and now you've got old buildings that are, like you know, I, my friend who moved from this building that has the place in Halifax- Right yeah.

Speaker 3: 1:06:54

Move to a building that is an older building and she had an assessment that was like $130,000. And it was to pay for work that they, now that these rules happen, they have to do it and they don't have any choice. But there was all kinds of I mean, it was like you know, the board members were accused of fraud and all kinds of stuff, and it really wasn't fraud. It was just that the people in the building had voted for years and years and years not to have reserves, so they didn't save anything, and all of a sudden they've got to come up with millions and millions of dollars.

Speaker 3: 1:07:31

Wow so that's a whole other thing. Like condos in Miami are. I'm scared. I own a condo. It's like I'm not. I'm going to hold onto this condo for many, many years before it's going to be worth what it was two weeks ago.

Speaker 2: 1:07:45

But yeah, condos are complicated anyway. I think people don't realize how complicated they can actually be. But yeah, changing gears a little bit, going back, still going back to the mess, a little bit of Florida. The big looming question that all Canadians want to know is what's Florida like now that we've had you know, we now, you have now have a new president, a new ish, I guess, repeat president, and everything Like. What is it? Or, you know, newish, I guess repeat president, and everything. What is it? Is it just a big divide? Or friends and family just hating each other, and what's it?

Speaker 3: 1:08:19

like I think a lot of people here are in denial. Okay, I mean, miami-dade went red for the first time in a long, long time on the presidential election yeah. And I think now some people are getting buyer's remorse. I think you know we have a very heavily immigrant population.

Speaker 2: 1:08:42

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 1:08:43

And in some ways it's a weird immigrant population in that, like a lot of the people who came from Cuba, at least the early ones, they were educated. They might not have come with worldly goods, they didn't have money, they didn't have, you know, they came with the clothes on their backs, but they had college educations, they were, you know. So a lot of them came here and they built businesses and they became the power structure of Miami. And we've had the same thing happen with Venezuelans. We've had the same thing happen with people from all over. I mean, it's like people think of it as a lot of Cubans, but there's people from all over, latin America primarily, who come to Miami, and that's been for generations, you know. So, like the last 40, 50 years, we have this very, very heavy immigrant population and I think all of them thought, because they were part of the power elite, so to speak, I think there were a lot of people who thought, oh well, they'll never really do those things or they'll never really, you know, like Right.

Speaker 3: 1:09:47

I don't know. I see Marco Rubio sitting there looking miserable and it kind of makes me laugh because he sold his soul to be where he is. But you know, like I've met him, he's not the guy who wants what's happening right now to be happening, I'm sure of it. Okay, but he's in a position where he can't say no or he's going to lose his job, like he's just going along, which I think is despicable. But you know, we have a lot of people, a lot of our businesses are dependent on, you know, the TPS workers, the temporary protective status the Nicaraguans and the Venezuelans and I just lost my hairdresser.

Speaker 3: 1:10:26

Now I have this short hair. I didn't want this short hair. My hairdresser was awesome. He was from Nicaragua and when I went to show up to get my haircut, I was told he has moved far, far away because he knows his status isn't safe and so he's left the country. Wow, he's probably in Spain. He told me he lived in Spain before. But, um, businesses are dependent on that here oh, heavily, heavily.

Speaker 3: 1:10:53

I heard all about restaurants, all the servers, all the busboys, all the. You know like it's going to be amazing if if I mean if they just took everybody out, like who depends on protected status or who's illegal, we go to a dead stop in this city.

Speaker 2: 1:11:11

That's. That's one of the things it's. It's a really kind of like a catch 22, I guess, maybe, I don't know it's. It's a system that works because there are undocumented people there. However, it's a system that seems to like hate that they're there, but it just it's gonna crumble if they're not right.

Speaker 3: 1:11:28

We don't hate that they're there, like in miami.

Speaker 2: 1:11:30

We don't hate that they're there I think no, no, no, but I like there's this rhetoric that's been created in other parts of the country where. That's what I mean, yeah.

Speaker 3: 1:11:38

You don't know people who came from those places, right? They see this stuff on the news, but it's not their friend, it's not the waitress at the restaurant they go to Um. But at the same time, those people also don't understand that you know their house, that they paid $300,000 for, would have cost $600,000 if it wasn't relying on immigrant labor. They don't understand that that thing they buy at Walmart for $5 would cost them $20 if it was manufactured in this country.

Speaker 2: 1:12:14

And we haven't had like the back, we haven't been able to manufacture those things here for 25 years right, yes, we were talking a little bit about that actually today and just how like yeah and that and that's mostly what I mean is not like the people surrounding them. Obviously, the people you know, living with them every day, it's a different thing, but people like politics run on platforms of you know. Let's get rid of these people. I mean we.

Speaker 2: 1:12:36

We heard people like I think part of the reason they did it is those people can't vote right, yeah, they can, they're an integral part of our economic system, but they can't vote against you right and you know I don't buy that they're taking jobs away from people, because if they were the other people working in those jobs, it's, it's, it's and it's even worse, like it seems like it got even worse this election season because they were accusing them of, uh, eating ducks and stuff like that and eating pets or something.

Speaker 3: 1:13:11

Oh, killing the dogs and the cats.

Speaker 2: 1:13:13

Yeah, exactly, so there was all of that too. So they went even a little step further.

Speaker 3: 1:13:19

And they were accusing Haitians of that in Ohio.

Speaker 2: 1:13:23

Yes, exactly yes.

Speaker 3: 1:13:25

Which, ironically, those of us in Miami were all laughing about that, because we know they don't kill the dogs and the cats. It's not what they do and it's not the Haitians, it's. It's typically, it's it's other islands. Haitians do voodoo too, but the, the Cubans, are into Santeria and they kill chickens and goats and they leave the chickens and goats in places like public parks, like we have like, or you find them floating in the water, or you know there are certain like religious ceremonies that involve chickens and goats, purification ceremonies, and you know, but they voted for the orange man, so well, I can tell you right now, as, as Canadians, for the most part we, we, we, we, we.

Speaker 2: 1:14:17

The most part, we want you guys to do well and we don't wish any ill will on you guys. But it was certainly an entertaining run. We kind of chuckle along with it, but then, when reality set in, we were kind of like whoa right.

Speaker 3: 1:14:39

Yeah, well, I think there's a lot of us feeling that way and, like I said in the beginning, it's a lot lower percentage of Americans voted for this than it's being applied by things you see on TV for this than it's being supplied by things you see on tv.

Speaker 2: 1:14:57

Well it's. I I wonder a little bit about like the canoes coverage and stuff like that, because I mean, you know we just had the. Uh, I mean, when this airs? It'll be later, but literally just when we're talking right now, uh, the four seasons and the nhl, like four nations tournament, ended and uh, when we were when the, when the americans played the canadians in montreal, the, the Canadians there booed the anthem and there's lots of mixed emotions about that. But this is the first time in like a long great history of our two nations being friends, the best of friends where there's animosity, it's ugly.

Speaker 3: 1:15:30

It's ugly and you know it's hard. It's frustrating for those of us who are rational, frankly, here to see that. And I don't think a lot of people who voted for Trump thought that he was going to go after Canada.

Speaker 2: 1:15:46

Well, it's the thing like the 51st state. What is he?

Speaker 3: 1:15:48

thinking it's crazy. It's crazy and it went after Mexico the same way way. And, by the way, I have to tell you, the mexican president right now is like my heroine. I think she's awesome. Her way, the way she's handled some of this has been fantastic and it's like it's just unreasonable and it doesn't make sense. But you know, it's embarrassing, frankly, for a lot of us.

Speaker 2: 1:16:14

Well, you know, on that note I'd say, let's, it's been really I could, I would. You know, we could probably spend a whole hour just talking about you know the perceptions and stuff like that. But let's move into our 10 questions here.

Speaker 1: 1:16:28

Yeah, 10 questions. Let's move into that and have some fun. Yeah, okay, 10 questions. There we go, okay.

Speaker 2: 1:16:32

Matt, you lead them all. This is the thing Michelle was most afraid of.

Speaker 3: 1:16:35

I'm terrified of your ten questions.

Speaker 1: 1:16:42

Okay, so let's just, we might do this as a short too. Michelle, just this bit, so we'll just reintroduce you.

Speaker 3: 1:16:46

So who do we have with us today? I'm Michelle Niemeyer, and I am a time bending expert who teaches people how to do time management through essentially integrating their lives.

Speaker 1: 1:16:57

Awesome. Welcome to 10 Questions, matt. You lead with the first five and then I'll follow with five more.

Speaker 2: 1:17:04

Okay, so the first one I'm going to pick, just because I know we spoke a little bit about politics. So the first question I'm going to give you is would win in a fight donald trump or elon musk?

Speaker 3: 1:17:19

I think elon musk's kid he's, he's been, he's been pretty entertaining uh, I think for sure musk would win in a fight against trump.

Speaker 2: 1:17:30

For sure, I think, think so too actually.

Speaker 3: 1:17:36

Mike gets to defend himself a lot when he was a kid.

Speaker 2: 1:17:40

That's fair Over to Mike for question number two.

Speaker 1: 1:17:44

Who did six-year-old Michelle want to be?

Speaker 3: 1:17:48

Oh God, Six-year-old.

Speaker 1: 1:17:52

Or seven, I wanted to be a swimmer. When I was six years old, I when you're a kid, what did you want? To be a swimmer?

Speaker 3: 1:17:56

when I was six years old, I joined the swim team. That was like my obsession.

Speaker 1: 1:17:59

It was all I did now, if you go back earlier to our episode, if you check out our episode, you talk a little about bending time. So was that on your like? Focus?

Speaker 3: 1:18:07

um magic was magic, okay, cool um, because when I was five, my birthday party was a magician party. My grandfather did I was doing tricks at six and like tricks with like I had this thing with scarves that came out, like you kept pulling and different colors would come out. And yeah, I was into magic at six for sure awesome, all right.

Speaker 2: 1:18:30

So next question is if you ran out of time and today was your last day, what would you do?

Speaker 3: 1:18:40

I would go to the water.

Speaker 2: 1:18:42

Okay.

Speaker 3: 1:18:44

If I had a boat, I'd be on the water. If I didn't have a boat, I'd be by the water.

Speaker 2: 1:18:49

But I love the water. I relate to that. I relate to that heavily yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:18:54

Okay, I'll part two matt's question, because I wrote one pretty similar that I didn't realize. Okay, so at the end of the world, what would be the best album, song or book for you to enjoy if you're just gonna sit with a piece of whatever from whomever?

Speaker 3: 1:19:07

at the end of the world say god, I've got book, one album.

Speaker 1: 1:19:13

You don't have to pick all of them, but if you just say gee, I'd like to hear that song again, or an album again, or a book again. What's something you'd like to have with you?

Speaker 3: 1:19:21

Pink Floyd the Wall oh yeah, no choice. All right, yeah, I love that.

Speaker 2: 1:19:28

All right. So next question If you could be any age forever, what age would you be?

Speaker 3: 1:19:39

Any age, forever, I'd say like 35.

Speaker 2: 1:19:47

Okay, I don't hate that answer, actually Probably your game game 35, what age?

Speaker 3: 1:19:51

I'd say like 35, because when I was younger than that I wasn't really fully confident, didn't know what I was up to, whatever, and you know like none of the stuff where you've like hurt yourself and you have repeat repetitive injuries and stuff, that stuff isn't happening yet. So you're like totally like you could do anything you want at 35.

Speaker 2: 1:20:16

You're also like kind of more mature still too, like 35 is a great age. I love that answer.

Speaker 3: 1:20:21

Like there's still a lot of room to do a lot of stuff. But you know things and you're physically in great shape and you know like you could do a lot. Like today I'm 60, I would not be like doing some things physically that I would have done at 35. I I do a lot, a lot of things probably most people my age wouldn't do. But you know, there's certain things that I'd be like I'm not so sure that maybe I would do that. You know, like at 35, I'd climb Elmer Everest. I wouldn't do it now.

Speaker 1: 1:20:56

Fair enough. Okay, describe your own personal perfect sandwich. You're making a sandwich for yourself. How would you make it? What would you do? Everybody likes a perfect sandwich.

Speaker 3: 1:21:06

I'm allergic to gluten, so there is no perfect sandwich for me. I'll tell you what I would do though I sandwich for me. I'll tell you what I would do though I would make my perfect sandwich with a Venezuelan arepa.

Speaker 3: 1:21:18

I would hollow it out because I don't like too much stuff on the inside and arepa is about that thick. But when you cook it in a pan first and you make the skin of it, like it's kind of got a skin on the outside, and then you bake it and you can like take some of that stuff out and it ends up being a little lighter and kind of like a shell, and then I would probably put really really rare roast beef, some like field greens, some good lettuce.

Speaker 1: 1:21:58

Brie Sounds good. Yeah, yeah, you meant canadian roast beef.

Speaker 3: 1:22:01

Right, that must have been perfect if it's like really great rare roast beef like super rare roast beef I I want it moving oh yeah, and then brie, and then like maybe some horseradish with it oh all right, brilliant, I've got some great answers all right, all right.

Speaker 2: 1:22:22

Next question so you live in florida, uh, which is the land of disney. So what is your favorite disney character?

Speaker 3: 1:22:31

What is your favorite Disney character Tigger, tigger, okay, tigger, I love Tigger. And you know what They've like backed off on Tigger and it's really, really hard to get Tigger merch. I had a friend go to Disney and he had to look around to get me something that was Tigger.

Speaker 1: 1:22:52

Took a lot of work to get.

Speaker 3: 1:22:53

Tigger. For some reason, Tigger is not cool now and I don't know why.

Speaker 2: 1:22:57

So I gotta, I gotta, I gotta tell you this joke quickly. I just heard this joke on the weekend and it was a little kid that said, mom, where does poo come from? And the person was like like, uh, well, you know, like someone eats something and like you digested, and then you know it comes out of you and everything. And then the kid stops and goes okay, where does Tigger come from? Love it, yeah. So yeah, that's my little Disney joke. I guess Pooh bear joke. Tobin over to you.

Speaker 1: 1:23:33

Okay, Okay, Okay. So by the time this episode airs, we will probably have tariffs in place. My question to you is will you help me smuggle oranges?

Speaker 3: 1:23:45

I will absolutely help you smuggle oranges. You didn't hear this from me.

Speaker 2: 1:23:50

Okay, cool, okay. So second last question. Um so, since you're the time bender, I want to know what is for the time bender? What is the best way to waste time?

Speaker 3: 1:24:08

the best way to waste time binge watching Netflix.

Speaker 2: 1:24:15

Okay, all right, I feel it. Yeah, I'm down with that.

Speaker 3: 1:24:24

I'm watching Scandal right now for the second time around.

Speaker 2: 1:24:27

Okay, cool Never seen it. I know it, but I haven't watched it.

Speaker 3: 1:24:33

It's actually worthy. It really is. If you like suits, you would like Scandal. Okay, for sure, yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:24:42

Awesome. Okay, so the very last question.

Speaker 2: 1:24:44

Last question over to Tobin.

Speaker 1: 1:24:46

All right. What's a piece of advice that you were given in your life, at any point in life, from anyone that you kind of hold on to, that you'd like to pass on to others?

Speaker 3: 1:24:58

oh boy, piece of advice.

Speaker 1: 1:25:00

I was given a piece of advice that sticks with you, that you use a lot in your, in your day-to-day or life, or whatever don't know what you don't know don't know what you don't know. Don't know what you don't know I can put that in a rap song. I like that. There you go. Don't know what you don't know.

Speaker 3: 1:25:20

Yeah, and I actually learned that at a sales pitch for a personal development program called Landmark in Boston, that one of my neighbors, like a girl I worked with, dragged me to this thing and it was like a full day and that was like this core message of their program and it was like, wow, that's fricking brilliant. Because it's so true, you only know what you're exposed to, and there's so much you're not exposed to and we often don't make the effort to look to the next level or to try to find out more, or to you know, know, and there's just always stuff we don't know, we don't know we're not in somebody else's shoes unless we truly talk to them right.

Speaker 1: 1:26:00

It's a real good boundary to find respect for others with that kind of uh little thought. Right, because sometimes you can't understand where somebody's coming from, but everybody's coming from something different.

Speaker 3: 1:26:09

And they all come from different experiences and that colors everything they do. So you have, you know that was part of what this program talked about was like just because, like somebody treats you a certain way, it doesn't mean they feel a certain way about you. It might have nothing to do with you, it might be because they have this real difficult thing going on in their life, or you know, know, like they're insecure and they are frustrated. Who knows, right, you don't know what you don't know, love it.

Speaker 1: 1:26:41

That's awesome, Well, Michelle it was awesome talking with you. Yes, it was really great talking, and I know it was quiet, but I was listening attentively to the second half of our podcast, just enjoying the combo. So cheers to you, cheers to you.

Speaker 3: 1:26:53

Well cheers to both of you and to a happy and healthy American-Canadian relationship.

Speaker 1: 1:27:01

Let's hope.

Speaker 3: 1:27:02

And you know I might need a passport, that's right.

Speaker 1: 1:27:07

Yeah, well, you know, you find a way to get up some oranges, we can arrange a couple of humans.

Speaker 3: 1:27:12

I don't know if there's any special passport program from people who have ancestors who were like French Canadians from way back.

Speaker 1: 1:27:18

Probably Maybe. Cheers to you. Talk again soon.

Speaker 2: 1:27:24

Thank you, thank you.