Good Day Google+ - Celebrating Life

Hey everyone, welcome to Good Day Google+. I'm Chef Dennis and I've got a great group of plusers on for you today and we even have some live entertainment. So Good Day Google+ is going the way of a real variety show today. Any of you out there that would like to be on Good Day and you have a musical talent or you like to read Shakespeare or dramatic readings or anything like that, juggling, dancing, you know, we're always looking for some live entertainment to liven up Good Day and bring a new aspect to it. So right now I'm going to introduce my guests and we'll start right to my— I don't know what side of the screen you guys are on, but I'm going to introduce Susan Finch. How you doing, Susan?

Good morning, I'm doing great. I'm so glad to be here and I'm meeting new people that I've seen around and chatted with but never been on a show with, so this is really exciting.

That's the best part of Good Day is getting to meet some new people and network with them. And you're coming from— are you from California today, or where are you from?

I'm actually in Beaverton, Oregon, which is a suburb of Portland.

That's right, I keep forgetting that Oregon. I'll have to think of the Oregon Ducks when I see you. I don't know how I'll work that in. Hmm. That's the only thing Oregon I really know, so I have to go with what I know. So maybe if you quack when you come on, that will remind me right away.

Got it. I should have grabbed a Quacker. My kids have Quackers.

That will help me, you know, Jeff's mental images. You know, men are very—

from Mars.

Yeah, that's true. We'll just leave it at that. And next to Susan, I have Lorraine. Ladish, is it, or Ladish?

Ladish. Everybody asks me that. I think I should put an accent on it or something.

Okay.

But that's fine.

You are in Florida with me, aren't you?

I am, yes. I'm in Sarasota, and it's terrible weather here. I don't know about you, but it's kind of thundering here.

It's, you know, I've learned very appropriately that if you don't like the weather in Florida, just to wait 5 minutes. Last week we had thunder and lightning in the middle of my show, and I had to mute myself, it was so loud. And right now it's sunny and beautiful.

Oh, that's nice. Well, I'm on the Gulf Coast, so here it's not very nice, but it'll, as you said, it will pass too.

I was just in Brandon last night over towards Tampa. I went to Della's After Dark.

Oh, that sounds very interesting.

Oh my God, they fed me like there was not going to be any tomorrow.

Now weren't you broadcasting from there?

Yep, did a food and booze show from Della's. Last night. First we started with the deli, some of the deli things, and then they brought on— I had octopus. I don't eat octopus. I told her, I said, "This is the first time anyone has gotten me to eat octopus," and it was actually really good. Had lamb. We had shrimp, her version of shrimp and grits. Gator, I had gator two ways. That's great. It was fried like nuggets, and they were so tender and moist and delicious. Then I had a gator stew that was really, really— it was kind of like a— not a jambalaya, but one of those Cajun seafood dishes. It was really good. She got me to eat things that normally I would not eat because I don't eat lamb either, and it was very good. I had a wonderful time and just stuffed myself silly. Been out to Sarasota too, so I do get around. We're just starting to learn Florida a little more, but I'm having fun. Happy to have you on. We're going to talk more about what you do in a little bit.

Thank you.

And then Lisa Angles, and this is a first time for us too, as long as we've both been on.

I know. I haven't been with anybody. Susan, you and Susan, I see you guys all around. I'm always watching you guys, you know, interacting, but I'm so happy to be here with you guys. Thanks so much for having me.

Great.

We're going to have some fun talking to you. And then our musical guest for today is Mr. Gavin Wolf. And Gavin, I'm so glad you could join us today.

Hi.

I'm so glad to be here too. This is awesome.

I got to watch your concert last week on My Music Hangout and really enjoyed your songs. And I'd like to introduce you to some of my viewers, and hopefully you'll have some new fans that will be happily listening to you. I know you have some more shows coming up.

Yay!

Thank you so much.

So, well, if you'd like to open with a couple songs for us, I'd like to turn it over to you if you're ready.

I'm always ready. Okay. Oh wait, I'm ready if I'm in studio mode. Let me see if I'm in studio mode. All right, let's see. I'm in studio mode. That's fantastic.

Okay, I love the sound.

Now I have to turn up my guitar. Can you hear me now? Can you hear me now?

know just when to bend and when to snap and when to breathe and when to stop and when to take All the while, just keeping the cycle always spinning, full of denial. A lot exists way before the end, but you gotta know just when to bend. We are programmed to follow. Thoughts become hollow. It's the way that we're taught. Just so easily bought. And all the while, just keeping the cycle They always been here, full of denial. The light exists way before the end, but you gotta know just when to bend. Is the way that we're made. Is the way that we're trained. Is the way that we're taught. Just so easily bought.

I love that applause, uh, um, sound thing. Because I hear it in here and I've got it coming through my speakers and all of a sudden it's like I'm doing a concert and it's like all this applause and I'm like, yeah!

You're getting it, you did get applause.

Thank you so much, everyone.

If everyone watching could applaud for you, they would and that's what you would hear. That was cool and that was Denial?

That song was Denial, yes.

I'm recognizing your songs now, that's a good thing.

I like that one.

So actually, um, it's funny. So I wrote that one a long time ago, and then when I was on the concert, I mentioned it's brand new, but I said that because I haven't played it in like at least a year. I didn't even play it for a year, and then I opened it up at my Music Hangout because I needed to do originals, and I actually don't have that many originals. So I was like digging through all my notes of things that I've played and things that I've written for years and years years and years and I came across that one. I'm like, "Oh, I think I can play that." And so that was like the debut of it, I think, even though I wrote it a while ago, but yeah, yeah. So I have the lyrics here in front of me because I keep forgetting them.

It was excellent. We enjoyed it and we had some nice comments for you and I'm looking for one. Don Sturgill wanted to know how he could find out more about Studio Mode and the equipment you use to perform online.

Ah, so I can tell you a little bit about studio mode and the voice codecs for Google+. So Google+, I'm not sure how much details we're going to go to, so I'll make it really, really, really short. So when you're transporting the sound through the Google+ Hangouts On Air, there's different ways you can do it. And the default way is to use standard voice. And what that does is it automatically adjusts your volume, it automatically adjust things like EQ and tries to minimize any sort of echo and whatnot that you might get. And I'm not talking about reverb echo, because right now I got reverb echo, which makes it sound like I'm in like a bathroom or something. Sounds like water dripping, right? So that's, that's like studio reverb. That's all cool equipment. But that's the kind of echo that it minimizes, is when your speakers make a sound that it doesn't come in through the mic. Studio mode has none of that, and it's basically just taking the raw output and it's not doing anything to it and just piping it straight through. So I have to run my own software limiters to make sure that the volume stays somewhat normalized. I have to do things like run a stage mic so you guys don't hear yourselves coming through it, et cetera. And I have to still be careful because sometimes people get on a Hangout with me and they say, "I can hear myself." And I say sorry, and I have to turn them way down.

Let me throw a couple more comments up here for you. Kevin Burns, I see now why bandwidth hangout on air. Christine DeGraff likes Gavin Wolfe acoustic guitar, rich, deep, slightly gravelly voice.

Thank you so much, Kevin.

And Jamal is saying Gavin Wolfe, like your voice transformation. Wow, it's great. You're not the same when you sing and talk. Lovely, and nice smile, young man.

Oh man, thank you so much, Jamal. I love the young man part too.

Enjoy it while you can, it gets bad.

If you look at some of the older pictures of me, I have much lighter hair normally. This is all completely natural, there's chemical-free, you know, henna doesn't count, right?

Yeah. Well, that was great. So if you'd like to play another song for us, then we'll go on and move on and have a little discussion if that sounds okay with you.

Oh, I'd love to play another song. So, um, I'm gonna play one called "One Little Kiss." Can you tell my fingers are still cold? I'm telling them to do something and they're doing something different.

That's weird. And I looked everywhere, not knowing what was true. Searching for myself. And that's when I found you. You opened my eyes and showed me what I missed. You opened my heart with just one little kiss. Open eyes and open truth. Open my forever youth. Take my hand and you will see what there is inside of me. Along the path we will wind, your heartbeat's right next to mine. Open doors and open eyes, free yourself so that we will rise. And I looked everywhere, not knowing what was you. Searching for myself, that's when I found you. You opened my eyes and showed me what I missed. You opened my heart with just one little kiss. Open eyes and open truth. Open my forever youth. Take my hand and you will see what there is inside of me. I'll take you on Under my arms, keep you safe with me. We'll protect your everything, but baby, I'll take your key. You open my heart with just one little kiss.

I have to know, who are you smiling at off camera?

My wife Lily is standing over there. She peeked in and she waved to me.

Hi!

You light up though when you look over at her, and it's sweet.

Absolutely. Did you write that for her?

What's that, Chef?

Did you write that for her? And I hope you're going to say yes even if you didn't. Of course.

Good answer.

That was when my mouth worked before my mind worked on that because that was a male thing saying I shouldn't have asked that question because this is what she meant. Kind of loaded. Thanks so much for the second one. I hope you'll get into some conversation with us now as we move on to our guests. I'm going to turn it over right now to Lisa. Lisa, why don't you tell us about what you're doing on and off the Plus or any thoughts you might have today?

Yeah, I've been doing— I came over here about a year ago because I, it was sort of like Google+ was my last ditch effort. I was completely, I tried the Facebook thing, I tried the LinkedIn thing, and I'm like, what are people getting that I'm not getting here? Because this thing is, none of this is working for me. And I'm a coach, I'm not a social media person, so granted I wasn't probably doing things quite right. I don't know, it was like Google+ was my last ditch effort and I came over about a year ago and the rest is history. I've been doing a lot over here and connecting with so many amazing people. I swear I have private Hangouts at least twice a week with people that I've never met before and I realize that that has been a strategy that I didn't even think of. For making new friends, meeting new colleagues, creating promotional partnerships for my business. I don't even know what else to say. I mean, you know, I have my own show that I started a year ago, The Power of Practice, and then about 4 months ago I added another show. As if I— anybody who hosts Hangouts knows the amount of work that goes into a Hangout. So to add another show But I'm sort of crazy for them. The other one is Hangouts with Visionary Leaders. And ultimately Hangouts have become an integral part of my coaching business. It's not even just about shows. Actually shows are the smallest piece of how I use Hangouts in my business. And so yeah, it's just been, I don't know, like I don't want to ramble on and on, but It's been, long story short, amazing to be over here in Google+ and meet so many people from all over the world who are doing amazing things. And then meeting people, it's fun to get into a Hangout like this and have Gavin be my next-door neighbor, basically. Like, because that rarely happens. Usually we're all over the world when you come into a Hangout. So—

What do you coach about? And do you have a whistle?

Yeah, yeah.

Well, okay, so here's the, the quick trajectory of my career as a coach, because I've always been passionate about human potential and physical potential. So my coaching career began in my early 20s as a personal trainer, running and triathlon coach. I was obsessed pretty much with physical performance, so Everything was about how can you reach your highest physical potential. My late 20s, really came to the conclusion that that wasn't very fulfilling for me to just focus on physical potential. I was more interested in human potential. What can we accomplish as human beings in our lives? And so that sort of led my coaching into more of the life coaching piece. And then that trajectory has led to, well, still the human potential, but how can we now as individuals come together as a collective to serve and support the awakening of social potential and planetary potential. So I still, the crux of my coaching is still helping people who feel like something has to give in their life to regain momentum and to get back on track and start going where they want to be going. And awaken to their own human potential. And sometimes that means that part of their work in the world is also in service to the planet and social potential. So that's sort of like the crux of what I do with my coaching work.

How hard is it for you to draw that out of someone? Because I would think that doesn't sound like an easy task to me.

Well, most people come to me already because they feel— a lot of people come to me because they feel like, alright, I have these moments of total clarity in my life and then these moments of total chaos, or it might feel more like a moment of clarity and more of the chaos in their life thing going on, or they feel completely stuck in a rut, or they might be really aware and on a social—

or social—

spiritual type of journey already. They were already doing the work. They've already had some type of personal development stuff, but they have this recurring drama that seems to be over and over again in their life. So by the time clients come to me, they're already aware, like, crap, I need some major help to get through this. So it's— in the beginning, people just find me because they know that they need help to get out of their stuckness and gain momentum towards something else. Now, in my opinion, I believe that there's a huge awakening happening on this planet right now. There's an awakening of our consciousness. So a lot of people are experiencing what I call the signs and symptoms of the awakening, and that can be mistaken for feeling like, I'm not getting anything done, I'm not getting anywhere, why is my life crumbling apart right now? So a huge piece of my work is helping my clients to recognize the signs and symptoms of awakening and to give them the tools and resources that they need in order to navigate their way through that journey of awakening. That was sort of a long answer to your question.

It's a global awakening. What are you talking about? Is it something more spiritual for the whole planet itself, or is it personal?

Yeah, it's both. There's an— it's interesting because I believe that there's two things happening right now within this time-space frame that we're in. There's individual and collective awakening happening together at the same time. So yes, we're going through an individual thing, but at the same time we're going through a collective thing. And when you recognize that the shit that you're going through in your life right now is actually a theme that many other people are experiencing in their lives too. At least this is what's happened for me and for the clients that I work with. It gives us a sense of like, wow, this is a collective experience that we're moving through together. And so when I say a global awakening, that's what I mean. There's, there are themes, there are patterns that are being expressed right now in each of our individual lives, but also as a collective theme so that we can move through the shit and awaken to our highest human potential, to our highest social potential, to our highest planetary potential. Because I think most people would agree that we're in a state right now, we're at the precipice of humanity where things are either going to go to shit or we're going to make a decision to move in a different direction. We're at that precipice right now. It's part of what I love about Google+ is meeting so many people that are moving towards the movement of come on, we're going to do something right now. We're going to make a different choice than what we've made previously because those old choices are outdated paradigms that no longer support us in getting where we need to go individually and collectively.

I think, I'm hearing what you're saying about that, I read a lot of biographies, you know, things going back to 1500s, 1600s, 1700s, and by different authors and different perspectives, and what I found is kind of interesting is a lot of them are going through the same things at the same time, but because there was not the ability to communicate it or physically be aware in real time as we have now, I think that's part of it. Part of what people are seeing as an awakening, it's more of an availability of the awareness. Even though it, you know, this has been going on throughout history where, you know, throughout parts of the world everybody's going through different crud at the same time. You know, between wars and battles and changes in monarchies and all that kind of thing. And it affects everybody the same way. They're all going through this crap and everybody's poor or everybody's rich or everybody's struggling or everybody's sick. But now, you know, because we do have, you know, how blessed we are, and then again too, we can feel that pain in real time. And we can try and collect them at that point and gather together and solve those pains together in real time.

I totally agree with you because we are— the technology that we have right now, a few weeks ago I did a hangout with Efot Cohen and Mark Goffney on digital intimacy and how the technology, the communication technologies that we have right now, like Hangouts, are allowing us to come together to find each other. Barbara Marx Hubbard, who is a futurist, talks about we are coming together, finding each other, and spontaneously creating pods, which is sort of like what we're doing here in our Hangouts, right? We're spontaneously creating these pods so that we can support each other and go, yeah, shit, I'm going through that thing too, you know, how are you dealing with it? And we can become innovative together and find the other— like you said, before everybody was isolated because we didn't have the technology, we didn't have the advancements that we have now.

You know, I have to say that I'm really, really grateful for— I am a big social media person And I'm still kicking myself for not having joined, say, Twitter when it started. So when Google+ started, and I still haven't grasped it very well, but it has enabled me to take my own career and make personal and professional contacts, just as you just said, that I would never ever make. At a recent— actually at the conference, the Food and Wine Conference, where I actually met the chef. There was a blogger who lives in my same city, and I never even knew that people where I live were doing the things that I do. You know, I don't know the people down the street, but I've made very, very strong connections. And what you're saying is that, you know, we have the possibility of meeting people who think like us, and that is so great. That for better or worse, I've even done away with some real-life friendships that weren't serving me very well and substituted them for others that I made online, but they are thriving and, and helping both parties very much.

I've had some interesting experiences the last few months, and I think part of it is too, when we— like Lisa and I, you know, feel like we know each other to a degree because we've watched each other and we've chatted. I think sometimes relationships get fast-tracked a little bit. You have that ability for those intimate side chats face-to-face where before it would have been a lot of emails going back and forth or even letters or phone calls or whatever. You're able to fast-track it. I have a group of women and we, in the last few weeks, talk about an awakening. We call it kind of a unicorn collective, these unique people. But we've all pulled in each other's strengths, identified them, spent 2 hours really sifting through it to get excited and are actually supporting each other and bringing each other business through that and pulling each other— what do you want to do? Not what are you doing to make money, what do you want to do to make money? What do you want to do to reach out? How do you want to affect the world? And pulling all those strengths, making a list, like a little bullet list, and it's so exciting when it's like, I have something that will fit you. Let me bring it to you and let's talk about it. I couldn't have done that before. Before you're slammed into offices and things with people you didn't hire them and you're crammed in there and you have to make it work. Now we get to select and it might be for a little bit and then maybe not later and then later we get somebody new. How fun!

It's so cool. It's like I always say that Google+ and Hangouts like this And like I said, a lot of my Hangouts throughout the day with my work are private Hangouts with people like you, Susan, or yesterday I was talking to Andy Bryan. You know, it's really easy for me to just get on a Hangout and it feels like the cubicle. Like I'm going to go, okay, I'm going to have a Hangout with Andy or IFA or whoever it is. And I'm just going to like do a private chat, or Mia, for 20 minutes. And I feel like it's the evolution of as solopreneurs who are at home all day long, we have, I think all of us here have our home offices, you know. I'm right behind, this is my meditation area. So it is, and it's the other thing for me as a mom who has a 12-year-old daughter, I'm like, I'm the soccer mom too, and the mompreneur thing, and I know the other ladies here are too, yeah. So You know, going to BNI, going to eWomen's Network meetings and spending 3 hours, and I live in the Bay Area, Gavin knows driving in the Bay Area is no fun in the middle of the day when you have to go to a BNI meeting at 11 o'clock and you're dealing with traffic. The Bay Area, it's like a waste of my day. I don't have that time. I'm a mom. I have a limited amount of time, so this type of technology has allowed me to quantum leap my business because of the connections I'm able to make. I can do my networking things like you said, Susan, like, what do you want, what do you need, how can I help you? And maybe we're just— I have no agenda. We might be friends, we might be colleagues, we might end up being JV partners, I don't know. But what I love is that spirit of no agenda and coming in just who I am and Yeah, it's enhanced my business in a huge way.

You know, I wanted to mention something. I've never worked in an office in my life, and I'm 51, and I make a living off telling people how old I am. So the thing is that when I was 18 or I was 20, I was already telecommuting when nobody even knew what that was. And I remember it was back then, I think there weren't even faxes. And when somebody tried to explain to me what a fax was and that you could sign a document and it would appear on the other side of the phone line, it sounded crazy. But anyway, the whole point of this is that if back 30-some years ago I was able to telecommute with couriers, cab drivers, regular typing machine, you know, typewriters and all that, this for me is a wet dream. It's my dream come true. So for people who are unicorns like me, also all this technology has just helped. I think, you know, it even— I can't even find a reason to actually have to hire somebody to work for you, if that's your mentality, who lives near you. This allows everybody to choose the best talent, if we're talking professionally, and reach the people that you need to reach. And plus, look, it's giving you this platform, or all of us, to showcase what we want to do. And nowadays, even when, you know, when, um, uh, who was she, the Yahoo CEO who said everybody had to come into the office and all that, I thought it was a step backwards because it's so ridiculous that you have to actually go somewhere. Look, I don't commute. Just as you were saying, you know, I work from home, so I roll out of bed, take a shower, and I'm working. That's it. No commute, no 1 hour there, back. And the kids are really close at school, so that— I mean, my productivity, when people say, well, how are you doing so many things? I manage a website, I freelance, I take care of my kids, I run, I'm a marathoner, I do so many different things. But I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that with these tools we can be way more focused instead of having to be scattered and, you know, wasting time commuting and all that.

I think though there's a different mindset here. There, you know, I spend time on LinkedIn, I spend time on Twitter, you know, I get around. But what I've noticed though is I have friends that they're in pharmaceutical sales or they sell device, they're medical device reps, they could never do this because they aren't disciplined enough. As much as I love being more productive, it's also very much a self-discipline, especially if your income depends on it. It becomes a time management thing and everything else, and some people still really need that accountability to show up and have somebody guide them.

I would say most people do.

They do, and until some businesses kind of rethink it and to do it this way, let's have our weekly meeting here, you show up, you know, no pajamas, you show up.

But that's where you choose the people who you know are that kind of person, obviously, because I've managed teams of people all over the States or even the world, actually. One of my editors was in Italy, the other one is in Argentina, and we just manage. But then what you do is that you hire the people or work with the people who are like you and do not need to be told what to do, and they're going to take the idea or the job and they're going to run with it. So I believe that, yes, exactly what you said, some people do not have the self-discipline, but for those who do, or we're crazy enough that we'll work ourselves, you know, like do whatever it takes because we have a vision, then this is a perfect tool for sure.

Excellent. And Lorraine, since we have you, we've ended on you, why don't you tell us something about your site and what you do?

Well, I would be talking for several hours, but to tell you what I'm doing now—

the condensed version.

The condensed version. Well, the thing is, first of all, I have to explain, I'm Hispanic, I'm Latina, I'm half Spanish, half American. So my half Spanish part is the one that rambles on and gesticulates and wants to say goodbye for 2 hours. So the short version is I'm a published author. I've published 17 books so far. One-seven. But of course I started many years ago. And my latest venture and what I'm most passionate about right now is that a few months ago, after being the editor-in-chief of an online publication for Latina moms, called Momiverse, I went off on my own and I took everything that I know about the web and social media and I launched my own site called Viva50.com. And Viva50 is a place where I want to empower women in English and in Spanish. Those are my two languages and two cultures. And mainly it's women because I've noticed that women are the people reading me, although I originally wanted to bring in men as well, and there are things for men. But basically it's an empowerment site, it's a community. I'm very, very grateful that social media is helping me create this community. And at the same time I also go to conferences and speak about social media, how I do it, and about writing and being the best you can be at 50+.

Well, I think a lot of what you probably tell us would apply to those under 52.

Yes, of course.

We don't learn enough to actually believe it until we start to get older, is what it is.

Yes, I agree. When I was— you know, it's funny because I still don't believe I'm 51. I turned recently, but because I have young kids as well, they're 10, 11, and 13, and when I hear somebody's age and they say, "Oh, so-and-so turned 50," whatever, I'm imagining an old lady. You know, I'm not politically correct, so I'm not going to say it. But then I realized, wow, wait a minute, that's me, you know. And I just— for the Latino community also, women feel, I think, older faster, or they're ashamed of their age. And I want to take those, like, the fear of aging away. I'd love that.

Well, I'm going to be 61 this month, so— and as you get older, you kind of embrace it because it means you're not dead yet.

I agree. I do.

Every day.

Every day.

So, all right. Well, great. And we'll talk a little bit more, but let's move on to Susan. Hello, Susan. There you are. Okay.

Hi, Susan.

Let's talk to you about what you're doing, and I know you've got some projects and on tap, so let's talk about them.

Well, I'm pretty excited, and Lorraine, I'm also half Mexican and half German. Oh, how nice!

I'm half Mexican too.

So I get that. I have my 93-year-old aunt who still dyes her hair some weird shade of red-brown, and she gets on my case because I let some of the salt and pepper show through. So, like, this is the best I can do. But right now, thanks for asking, Chef. I've been running a nonprofit since '96. It's called Binky Patrol. We make blankets for kids that are ill and abused or in need of comfort throughout the country. We just make them and give them away. So that's the only criteria. We don't care about demographics. We don't care about anything. If a child is hurting, is sad, is sick, scared, whatever it is, in foster care, they want a blanket, we will give them one just so they know that they aren't forgotten, that they're not invisible, that somebody sees them, takes notice of them and cares. So that's what Binky Patrol does. And it's, you know, when I started it, my mom had inspired me to do that years ago when she wanted to make blankets for unwed mothers. And none of us, neither of us knew how to sew. It was really scary how we used to make these blankets. She had a sewing machine and she gave me that one and then she got a new one and we did our best. Thank goodness we had volunteers that joined us immediately. I started the organization when I had an art gallery in Laguna and I put a sign-up sheet out in front and I had 4 people sign up and 3 of them are still with the organization and we still make blankets. And we have about 120 chapters across the country. I don't go in— you know, I inspire people in other countries to do it, but the tax filings and stuff, forget it. You make— just make blankets, give them away, and just be inspired. That's good enough for me. I don't care, just so kids get blankets. So in October, if you went to bit.ly, bit.ly/globalbat, B-A-T for bink-a-thon, we are making blankets around the world all in the same day and I'm daring every continent to join me and make a blanket for a kid near you or that's in a shelter or give it to a clinic, give it to somebody homeless, I don't care. But I want to challenge everybody on that one day. If you go to that link, you will see the details of the event and I would really like to have people sign up to have me broadcast live throughout the day of you making blankets and they're really easy. I have one right here. It's just a blanket with fleece, which is a piece of fabric, and you need that and a pair of sharp scissors. And Heather Crafter and I are going to teach everybody in a couple weeks how to make these online. It's really easy. You can sew, knit, crochet— we don't care. Just make something from your heart. If it's from your heart, it's perfect.

So, so then, so basically it's all going to happen on one day. And then, so say I was to make a blanket, then I take that blanket and I can give it to whoever I want to give it to.

Whoever is near you. Touch the life of somebody in your community. Because that's what raises awareness too. When we pull together as a community and raise awareness that these kids need to not be invisible. The ones who are, you know, my kids see them at school. They're the ones that are quiet, that sit in the corners, because they don't really have a home or they're bouncing between families and things or on the couch somewhere. It's those kids, the ones that don't think that they matter. And that's why I reach to— there are a lot of groups that make them for the kids that have cancer, for the kids that are like this and that, with that kind of criteria. I've always been partial to the invisible kids.

It's beautiful. I love that.

It's so cool.

That touches me really deeply because after I was divorced in 2008, with the recession, I used to write for print. I lost my job. I lost it all. And I was on welfare. And I will never forget how my kids and I were on the receiving end of, oh, of charity that Christmas. And I think it's when you said what you were doing, it's really beautiful.

So that's my I dare you. And if you want, get a group together, we'll put you on camera, and let's get everybody inspired to touch a life. It's really easy to make a difference in the life of a kid.

When somebody's in very dire straits, that can make their day, their life.

Yeah, so that's my passion. That is October— oops, I think I just broke something in my house. That's October 25th, Round the World. I'll put the link in the chat and people can look at that. And so it'll be on YouTube. I'm just going to be broadcasting kind of like one of those ongoing check-in events, and there might be a video going, there might not be, but in the meantime, everybody can show up with scissors and a piece of fleece and make a blanket.

I think you can run, what, up to 8 hours now, isn't it?

Yep. Yeah, I'd love to get a bunch of time zones involved. I'll get up as early as anybody wants me to. I'm on.

I'll do it. Well, that could be interesting. We'll have to get behind that and see what we can do to help you promote that and get some awareness around the globe, get some people from different parts of the world involved in this. That would be fun.

Well, Susan, then of course you need to be on Hangouts with Visionary Leaders because that's the— you need to be a guest on my show. So we'll get you on my show before, sometime before the event as well and really create more awareness too. So I want to support you in that way.

Thank you.

As well as making a blanket.

Yeah, you can learn from Heather. She says, okay, teach me, let's do it on camera.

Yeah, yeah, totally. It sounds like something my daughter would like to do too, so I can get her involved in that.

My wife's been crocheting a blanket and she's made mistakes and pulled it out and I always keep asking her if that's a towel she's making because it doesn't look very big. Maybe I can get her involved. Lately she's been making a triangle so I call it a babushka. She's Polish.

My son loves that word. He walks around just saying that word.

We find in our hometown— there's a road in Orlando that we just love going on because we love saying it. It's called Bumby. And we're going on Bumby. We're on Bumby. You know, it's just, there's so many fun words to say that, you know, and if a little thing like that can brighten your day, that's a good thing.

Yeah, like Buca di Beppo. Do you guys have that restaurant around you? We had this thing of how many times Can you say "buca di beppo" really fast? Like, buca di beppo, buca di beppo, buca di beppo, buca di beppo, buca di beppo, buca di beppo. And it took us— it was a fun family thing. I dare you to try to say "buca di beppo" 10 times fast. It's hilarious when you're trying to get your mouth around those letters and say it. Imagine that.

That's funny.

Well, Gavin, you've been awful quiet there. You know, you can join in, but—

It was so much great conversation, I didn't want to interrupt.

I'm very jealous of you because you play the guitar. I've always wanted to do that.

You know, I was thinking of doing a— I think Mark calls it a help out on air, and getting people who want to learn how to play the guitar together on a Hangout and do that.

Wow, my eldest plays and she watches videos and stuff like that, but a Hangout sounds better.

I think it would be fun.

Could be very interesting. Now we've all talked about meeting people online, have you met other musicians because of this?

Yes, there's a bunch of great musicians here on Google+ that I met and just building up some relations with. I started doing some collaboration projects with some people from SoundCloud, but it's just, it's, it's sometimes it's very difficult when you're not in person to kind of really get the energy of what people, what people are working on and get everything in alignment and make sure that everybody's on the same page. At least that was my experience, but I was actually going to ask, but again, I didn't want to interrupt. We have so many social media experts. Do you feel as though the increase of prevalence of social media is causing a decline in the level of social intelligence amongst people?

I do. I think that people, when we— relied on meeting in person or even the phone, but primarily in person, we had to ponder things a little bit more and think about them, and we had more filters, I think. And I think sometimes we are too quick to hit send, enter, without taking that breath or even that extra, hey, can you look at this before I shoot this off to somebody?

Thing.

It's just remembering our manners. I think we've gotten a little sloppy with our manners. And I'm big on manners, and I've taught manners, and my kids have had to learn them and endure bedtime stories of manners. But I think that's what's happened. I think there's a lot of sloppiness. It isn't just in our casual attire. Yes, it started with the downfall of Casual Friday, but it's progressed since then. We act as we dress. When we don't have to dress up anymore and we're at our desks in our pajamas, our attitude does change. I remember in school when we would have a dance and the teachers loved formal dances and it wasn't that they wanted us to go through the expense but we acted differently than we would at a pajama-themed or even a Sadie Hawkins-themed. You act differently and so when you take that time to give yourself that respect and you sit up a little bit straighter and we keep our manners in check, I think we do better. That's the only downfall I see. I see the reach is huge. I see the audience is huge, and we can have more of an impact very quickly. But with that comes caution.

Can I say something? As a mom, as a mom, I'm seeing one thing that I won't allow my kids to walk and text, no electronics at the table, and they know mom makes a living online. They know I get paid to tweet, I get paid to post on Facebook, etc. But we do, I'm with you on that one certainly. And by the way, I do my makeup at home even if I'm not going to have a Hangout. But I feel that it is important not to put makeup on but to do whatever you need to do to feel good about yourself and be respectful of other people. And that is very important, especially for the kids.

That is you though, my Latina hermana. That is something that— it is something. My mom never left her bedroom or bathroom until she was put together.

Oh yes, oh yes.

And my aunties, all the aunties are the same way, you know, that's what you did.

Well, I'm not saying— and again, I'm not saying that everybody has to do that, that's my style. But for the kids, it's more like Gavin was saying, it's more that I need them to say please and thank you, let people, you know, go in front of them, older people or whatever, and you know, we have dinner together, no electronics at dinner. But then I go to a conference, of course I'm tweeting my fingers off while I'm— but that's what we do because I make a living doing that.

One of the aspects that I was thinking of is that when you're standing in front of someone the actual words spoken are a very small amount of the communication that is conveyed to someone else and between people. A lot of it is mannerisms, it's looks, it's how people are responding, body language. There's all these other things that are wrapped up and what's verbally being communicated actually ends up being a very small percentage of the total communication that's occurring. When you take that and then as you guys were saying, then you're fast to hit enter, you're not thinking about it, and then you confine the amount of letters that people are allowed to type, so you're taking something that's already a smaller amount of context in full communication paradigm and you're making it even smaller and you're trying to get it into 140 characters, and then you start seeing people, it's like, you know, and they start writing on the whiteboard, you know, how the letter R, U.

Well, you know what, I'm becoming more and more— also I'm an editor and a writer by profession, so I edit myself. Now I can hear myself. Remember what you said before? Now I can hear myself. Oh, let's see. Yes. Yay! Thank you. So no, I edit myself before I send a tweet or a Facebook message or a Google, whatever, you know, it's something where I'm aware more and more of how could I come across to the other person. And especially being not politically correct because I'm, you know, Hispanic, or, you know, we have a different way of saying things. Some people might take offense where I'm trying to be nice and give them a compliment, and they might take it the wrong way. And I do edit myself before, or I try anyway.

I think for me that's where the Hangouts have been a game changer, a total game changer, because I am seeing people face to face. I might be saying a few words, but they're seeing my expression, I'm seeing their expression. David Amerland talks a lot, has talked a lot about that, I forget what he calls it, but it is, it's a real thing that you're talking about, Gavin, and that was always was the thing that felt inauthentic to me about social media and why I never resonated with social media. Then I came over to Google+ and got into Hangouts and I was like, holy moly, this is so different.

I know, I never got social media until Google+ and I thought it was just me that I was not cut out for it. I've been trying to go more on Twitter but I only do it because of business, because you need to do it for business. If you told me I didn't have to go on it and nothing would change and I could still get business, I would probably stop using Twitter. Facebook, I have been posting more just my life in Florida. I never used to really post on there, but since we've been down here, then I'll post pictures of what I'm doing. It's just stupid, irrelevant stuff for the most part. I'll post when I'm doing shows or something, but I just post that I'm at the Polynesian, I'm at the beach, I'm doing this. Never anything with real sustenance or that says, defines who I am. But on Google+, I try to be more of a specific person with a passion and with ideas and connect with people and really engage with people because it just seems very natural here.

It does. I'm with you, Chef, because same thing, it's a lot of it because we're supposed to, because I need to. For a lot of those venues and the things that should be out there, and I do it for my clients and have had plans for them for a dozen years doing the same thing. But coming over here, suddenly it's become my conference center, my afternoon coffee, the water cooler, the conference room. It's become all of that, and suddenly it brought the human side of it back in. That was the missing piece.

Yeah, put social back into social.

It did, and it made it more of a connection relationship thing, whereas before it was a task and it was a splatter shot and a check-in and a compliment and it was all the politeness. It just wasn't the same. So I wake up giddy, excited, and I've said this before, showing up and getting to connect, having the privilege to spend time with, to have the privilege to collaborate with. How blessed. I can't get over my life. It isn't Google+ is my life, but it's helped to put me in a better mindset most of the time and helped to keep me in check and really brought in the missing pieces that especially entrepreneurs, solo business owners have been facing, that isolation of true human relationships. So blessed.

David Amerland was one that brought up about your competitor can be your best friend if you give them an opportunity. In some instances, Google+ has done that for us because maybe you're a competitor in a different city, so you don't see it really as being a competitor. Even in the same town you live in, you've all got the same goals, you've all got the same ideas, you've got the same agenda. There's enough business out there to share. You're not really hurting each other, but you could both become so much better than you are individually together.

I think too, on that note, Chef, is people pay for perspective. I wish I came up with that, but I didn't. I heard that from Brendon Burchard at one of his conferences that I went to, and it's so true. He talks about this thing of competition, there is no such thing, like you guys are saying. There's there's plenty of people, there's plenty of, you know, that's a mindset thing. But also we each have our own perspective on it within our specialty. And if you look at how many books you have, like Lorraine, you have on your back wall right there, I mean, I'm sure there's more than one that's on whatever, personal development, spiritual, whatever your thing is, you know, people pay for perspective. They want to hear it. Perspective brings knowledge and understanding, a fuller understanding of something because there's so many different views that we can take of one thing. So yeah.

Cool beans. Well, Gavin, you asked a good question there, and I was wondering if you'd like to play another song for us to send us out for the day.

Oh, I'd love to. Hold on just a moment. Let me switch back over to studio mode.

No problem.

All right, do it. Does it sound different to you guys when I go into studio mode?

Yes, better.

Better.

Okay, very nice.

You know, I kind of wish that, um, that sometimes we can do covers and stuff here in Google. We're going to be doing an open mic here in Google+ using Hangouts. And that's coming up, sponsored by My Music Hangout. And I'm contributing to that and helping run and organize that. But we're going to be allowing covers. And historically, the issues with covers is that YouTube and Google will automatically flag things that have copyright violations. So this— what we're going to be, um, trying it out and seeing what we're allowed to get away with and what we're not, and encouraging people in this open mic to, um, to, to play their covers or originals, whatever they want. But we can play those. Sometimes playing songs that people already know is kind of fun. And if you have original content and and nobody's heard it, yeah, it could be fun. It could be kind of interesting, but I think it's kind of— it's cool to be able to mix it up with songs that other people know and they can kind of recognize, but you're doing it in your own way, in your own twist. But Google doesn't seem to like that very much, so I'm going to do another original just so I don't get Chef's account flagged and banned from YouTube. Okay, sorry, I had to get my pic. I'm back.

There it is, the bed on this again. I seek you out as my best friend. Flywood Burrows of darkness, Kelvin, faithfully. Hear the demons as they made and played. You can taste the game of Condor. You take it in. You'll see your wishes on delay.

My wife was dancing.

Dancing.

And, uh, sorry, I should get a second camera and turn. It's a serious song. Sorry, it's a serious song. Can't make me laugh. Now I'm in one of those laughing moods where I just can't stop laughing. Okay, serious, serious, serious. Knowledge plundered— now I'm getting all emo.

Oh God. Knowledge plundered, pillaged, evil, do entwine, slithering through looking barrels, face the great Cautious is courageous, and the jade coward falls. Climb behind the curtains after her long-awaited hauls. Fly with pearls of darkness, Kelvin, faithfully. Hear the demons as they mate and play. You can taste the game of carnal beauty. See your wishes on delay. who blanked nothing. Learn from those who lay the land. Stop your waiting, start your baiting. Your master waits. Fly with pearls of darkness, get Faithfully. Hear the demons as they mate and play. You can taste the game of gondor beauty. See your wishes on delay.

Thank you.

You fake me out.

Your wife is cracking me up.

She left because she didn't— she felt bad, I think, making me laugh. But, um, yeah, she was doing some, um, really, really awesome dancing.

Well, next time you need to have her on the side. She can be your go-go dancer.

That's the kind of dancing.

Yeah.

Oh, oh, okay. She came back. She just said she was dancing the lyrics to remind me what they were.

See, everybody didn't know in the green room Gavin was missing some of his lyrics and was just kind of making them up as he went, so he decided to put them in front of him so he wouldn't forget his own words.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm kind of known for, uh, I just start thinking about other things and before I know it I'm like, oh yeah, sorry, I'm performing. And all of a sudden it's like, I gotta remember what comes next. So now what I do is there's a trick. When you're singing the lyrics, you're supposed to remember the next lyrics and then you're always a line or a sentence head in what you're remembering. And that helps me a lot, but that's a lot to think about. It's just— sometimes it's just easier just to forget them and start singing random things. They're original songs. It's not like anyone's heard them before anyway. It's not like I'm, you know, doing a cover that everybody in the world knows because I'm all famous and everything. It's, you know, maybe one or two people might know them or might remember them, but for the most part, they're original. No one would even know if I was messing them up, unless I was singing about them.

Well, on that note, can we get your original songs anywhere? Where can we find them?

Yes, so check out the, um, the website gavinwolfmusic.com, and, uh, you will see a list of my original songs there. And from there you can get to my other social media pages, which I don't really use anymore aside from Google+ because Google+ is the bomb. And bomb is a good thing, by the way. That's like the new lingo the kids tell me, I think, right? Bomb, good.

Okay, good. Retro.

Is bomb already retro?

Oh yeah.

You missed that one.

Now they say something is sick and I'm like, what, somebody's sick? And they're like, no, that's a good thing.

Wow. Okay, I got to remember that one. Sick is good. Yeah. Bomb is old now. And anything else? Yeah. Okay. So if you go to gavinwolfmusic.com, there's also— you'll find a place where you can click on subscribe or you can put your email address up in the top. This is a new thing that I'm— actually, it would be the other side for you. It's on the left top. No, the right top, my left, your, your, your—

you're good, you're good.

Okay, it would be up there, right?

Yes, yeah, your name is there.

Awesome. So there's a place where you can sign up now. Right now it's a, it's a fairly new mailing list. I had it up for a few weeks now, but it's completely empty. There's nobody who signed up to it yet. But if you do sign up to it, you get a couple free songs, um, and I'll send you some stuff, and I'll send out songs as they become ready and whatnot, let you know of new releases and Hangouts, events, live shows, everything that I'm doing. I promise I won't spam you, but please, it's getting lonely in there. If you guys can join me, that would be freaking awesome.

Can you leave the link for us in the, uh, in the comments section?

Yes.

Great.

I already did.

Okay, good. And you have, uh, when's your next live show coming up?

I think it is on the 17th. We're doing an open mic.

Okay.

We may have so many performers though that I might not perform because there's other people out there that I want to give a chance to, but we'll see. We'll see how it goes. But that's going to be a 2-hour show and we're going to be basically just depending on how many people show up, just letting people play. And it will be a really good opportunity to hear a bunch of independent musicians here in Google that are going to get up there and play a couple songs, and you can follow them from there. You can meet them. They can get some information about themselves out, and it will be awesome. Open mics are awesome.

That's like—

And I have a Hangout on the first Wednesday of every month, and if you follow me and you let me know that you want to be on my special invite list. I'll put you there and you'll always be invited.

Excellent. Looking forward to it.

Thank you so much, Jeff.

Oh, it was a pleasure. Thanks so much for being on. I hope to have you on again in the near future. So we'll find some time. Okay, Lisa, what do you have coming up for us? Anything special? You have your shows. When are they?

Yeah, you can catch my shows. I have Hangouts with Visionary Leaders is on Tuesdays at noon Pacific time. The Power of Practice is on Thursdays at noon Pacific time. And the best way to get in touch with me is just by going to www— I think it's underneath me— innerstatecoaching.com, and you can pick up a free report while you're there, a 5-step practice for creating radical breakthroughs. Breakthroughs in your health, wealth, and happiness.

Pretty cool.

Yeah.

And Lorraine, where, what do you have coming up, or where can everyone find you?

Well, underneath me if I did it right as well. I see it backwards, but I suppose that's normal. At www.lorrainezieladisch.com, you can see everything I'm doing, and I'm going to be at a conference speaking about social media soon. But you know, you guys have turned me on to Google+ after today, so It's a wonderful thing.

Susan, you got your Binkathon coming up, anything else?

Got the Binkathon and every Monday morning at 10 AM right here on Google+ Geek Speak Guides with Yvonne Hyman. She and I do basic tips and rants and things to help everybody be a little smarter without feeling stupid. That's what we do every Monday at 10 AM Pacific and you can find me at SusanFinch.com.

Very good. And thank you all for joining us today. It's a wonderful day, always a great day when you get to spend them with your friends. So it's a good day on Google+. And I hope to see you all soon. Have a wonderful weekend and take care.