Good Day Google+ - Success is measured in our Happiness

Hey everyone, I'm Chef Dennis Littley and welcome to Good Day Google+. It's Friday and I'm in Florida. It's not sunny and it's a little cool, but you know, again, I can't complain because the rest of the country's having some different kind of weather. But I'm here today with some friends and we're gonna talk about what's going on with their lives and with themselves and their businesses and just have a good time relaxing. No hard subjects today, just friends getting together. Talking about life. So if you have questions, please feel free to leave them for us in the comments section and we will do our best to answer them. So right now let me say hi to everybody and we'll get this party started. So I'm going to start with who's on my left, that's Susan. How you doing, Susan?

I'm great, how are you? And you know, I'm on the West Coast, so it's 10 AM, it's sunny, and I feel for all the people in the snow and ice, I really do.

I saw quite a prolific sticker statement yesterday and it was a snowman laying down on a deck and he had knives going through him and it said, "Die, winter, die!" Oh, wow, that's harsh. I was going to message back and say if that was Florida, that would just be a puddle that you put your knives through, but I figured that would have just been mean. Yeah. Well, we're going to have some fun today and talk to you about what you do. So right now let's send it on over and Ron is next to you. So Ron, how are you today? Day, and you're in the great state of Florida. You're not that far from me. You're in Jupiter, or close.

Yeah, down in, down in Jupiter on the East Coast. It's gonna be in the mid-80s today, so again, I feel for those people up in the Northeast and central part of the country. And, but I'm excited about today and being on the show and, and Just having a little chat with everybody.

Should be fun. And you know, I gotta say, when I saw you were from Jupiter and that I started watching American Horror Story or whatever it is, and this year was about circuses, and of course all these circus things were in Jupiter. It was set like, I think, in the '50s or something, but it was set. And I'm going, you know, every time you hear about a convicted felon being caught, it's always in Florida. Yeah, we found them, you know, at I guess, you know, going somewhere where it's warm and sunny is good for everybody no matter what you're doing. But when I saw that, I said, "Don't it figure? They're using Jupiter as the base for this." Oh well. I still love my Florida.

Yeah, I have no reason to move back north.

No, that's the whole thing. After you spend a winter here, that's what you think. No, I don't think so. Alright, so next to you we got a Canadian. Rain, you're Canadian, right?

Yes, I am. I'm Canadian, Chef.

So we have someone from— are you in the Northwest?

I'm in a province. You have states down there in the United States. We have provinces, and I'm from the province of Alberta.

So that is over towards the west, right?

It's on the west side, yeah, close to British Columbia. It's night and it's actually today it's overcast but we have had an absolutely amazing winter. We haven't had hardly any cold snaps. Usually they last like -30 for a good couple weeks, 2 or 3 weeks and we haven't experienced that yet. It doesn't seem to matter what the temperature, we always have tons and tons of sun here. We're pretty lucky there.

Nice.

You gotta love the sun. It's not so much the snow and the cold— well, it is, but it's the gloom. It's the, you know, the one thing about living up in New Jersey was in Philadelphia area was always gray from like November to March. It was just gray. That was it.

I wouldn't survive that. I wouldn't.

Well, that's the one thing about Florida is, you know, usually we have our bad days, but even on bad days, sometimes the sun comes out for a while.

Well, you are the Sunshine State.

Yeah, I know, that's what I have on my license plate too. We had options to get other things and I went, oh no, the Sunshine State works for me. Well, I'm glad you could join us, Rainn, and we'll get back to you too and chat with you more about things, your new site and all that. And now let's say hi to Kate. Kate, how you doing?

I'm doing pretty good. I'm sort of in a mixture, I'm in Idaho and we've had also really mild winter, and today they're calling for snow, and I swear that there's tiny little flurries coming down in the backyard but nothing in the front yard. It's crazy, but we haven't had snow in weeks, and my thing is that I actually grew up in Southern California, and we moved here for the seasons because we wanted the snow, we wanted the fall with the changing of the leaves and everything like that. I mean, you should see me the first fall here out there with the rake raking up all the leaves. I was like a little kid. I think the whole block thought I was crazy.

That gets old real quick though, let me tell you. I'm coming from one who used to rake.

Yeah, it's about 8 years, 9 years into living here, and yeah, I am tired of raking the leaves, but I still love having a white Christmas. And the thing that gets me though is ice. I absolutely hate the, you know, having icy roads. I just, I don't do that well. Or icy sidewalks, you know, you can't go out and get fresh air because you're worried that you're gonna be slipping and sliding.

Yeah, it gets pretty bad, and that's the worst part of the winter is the ice. The snow you don't always mind as much, but when it starts to freeze over, then all bets are off. That was one of the reasons that got us to move, is we were walking the dogs in the ice and just going, this is just crazy. We're both getting too old for this, and it was time to leave that behind, so we did. But, you know, Idaho— you know, I gotta say, every time I hear the word Idaho, I think of My Own Private Idaho by the B-52s. I'm sure you're living in your own private Idaho, but it's a beautiful state. It's not just for potatoes.

No, we actually— yeah, in the southwest area, they grow— we have wine. We have vineyards, we have actually vodkas that are made here in the state from potato and from wheat. We have, you know, here in my town, we live in Southeast Idaho, about 4 hours north of Salt Lake City, so we're close to Jackson Hole, Salt Lake City, 4 hours from Boise. We have an airport here, so I can get down to Vegas real quick, or even to Southern California, Northern California. So it's really nice.

That's pretty good.

Still not moving there.

You know, I had done a little work with the Idaho Potato Council, and unfortunately I gave them one of my new revolutionary ideas. I said, oh, I tweeted them one time, we're at a meeting, I said, I have a commercial for you, I've got such an idea. And they're like, oh, we can't wait to hear it. And I sat them down and I said, this is it. I said, you remember the song Godzilla from The Kinks, right? And I said, here's a blank screen It's going to be a real short commercial and this humongous potato falls from the sky and shakes everything and goes, "Oh no, they come from Idaho, Spudzilla." That is really cute. Did they do it? They didn't do it. I said, "I have it, I don't want to be paid for it, just give me a little credit or something, that's all." They just looked at me like, "Oh." I was like, "Oh, I thought that was great. It's not like the one I sent to spam people. Oh my God." That's a story for another time though. Let's get on with the show. Let me say hi to a few people in here. I see Jamal is here, and thanks so much for showing up. I just talked to him over at Mia's show. Phil Bauer is here. Mel Jones is here. Dave Pipe is here, and he was just over with Mia as well. Debbie Huntington, how you doing? Christine Bowen is here. And we've got a lot— Michael Thomas is in the house. We've got all kinds of people here watching and more, and I will do some other shoutouts later. But let's get the show on the road and get started with some good stuff on Good Day Google+. And as always, guys, feel free to engage with each other, talk to each other, have a good time. This is like Ellen meets The View, so something along those lines. Or at least in my mind it is anyway.. All right, so Susan, we're gonna let you kick it off and talk about, you know, what's going on in your life. What are some of your passions, some of your projects, things that you can share with us today?

Oh my gosh, well, food has always been my passion. And I, you know, I received my certification in food healing, and I'm just having a lot of fun with that. So I did a demo last weekend, I did a presentation at the Los Angeles food and travel show. Actually, it was San Diego, but it was a blast. I talk about all these ingredients, you know, that food is actually information for your body. It's not just something to eat, you know, because it tastes good or whatever. It actually, like, gives instructions to your body. And so I was making a drink recipe and putting ingredients like cordyceps and black sesame seeds and talking about all the things that will help improve your circulation and help stave off gray hair, which, you know, plenty of us can use. So it's just been a lot of fun. Taking fitness nutrition, I finalized my fitness nutrition exams, so that's done. Tomorrow I'm taking a CPR class, so yeah, I'm excited. Yes, you should.

Somebody around you should always know CPR, especially you want to send your significant other out for that class, especially just in case.

Yeah, right, I know.

That should be something more couples do together. So Food healing. I liked how you said that word, and I have been suffering from a lot of other— and someone's calling me into a Hangout.

Really?

They don't know I have a show right now. Somebody I don't even know. Gotta love it.

It's not me calling.

No, no, it's someone that I don't know. Gotta love it. So that's okay. Click that off for now. Anyway, sorry about that, folks. Shows you real TV happening. Food healing, like I started to say, is a really cool thing because I've just gone— I've been gluten-free since October. My doctor, who I like to call Dr. Evil, told me that I was now dairy allergic and also soy allergic. I'm going off of everything, but I'm at the notion that I think the food healing, like getting it out of your system, cleaning your system up, might reverse some of the effects of the allergies you had once you let your body do what it's supposed to do.

Yes, yes. And really, in the Food Healing Program, and in our house, we don't eat soy, we don't eat dairy. For those reasons, a lot of the cows and things at the dairy, you know, they've been injected with antibiotics and hormones and all kinds of stuff. And that gets translated to your body, you know, when you consume those. And then soy is, you know, at one time soy was all the rage. It was like the new hot new health food. And actually now studies show that soy is responsible or at the root of a lot of allergies and beyond. So yeah, the food healing thing is really, it takes fitness, nutrition, and nutrition in general to the next level and takes actual foods and applies it to the body to help either stave off symptoms of disease or reverse symptoms of disease. I studied with a Qi Gong practitioner and Master Food Healer, Jeff Primack, who is now being endorsed by some of the top doctors from Harvard and Yale and things like that. It really is making a difference in people's lives. I I hope that more and more people can come to know a little bit more about how to use foods to actually heal your body, not just to eat for the sake of eating.

That's a big part. Go ahead, Rainn.

I was just going to say it's funny because I sort of started a food journey about 10 or 15 years ago. I grew up in a meat and potatoes type of family. I started by cutting way back on meat, red meat, and then it kind of worked forward from there into all these different things that I started removing from my diet, like dairy and different things like that. It was funny because people have such a funny way of identifying with food, and when I decided— for about 3 years I didn't eat red meat at all. People would say, "Oh, are you a vegetarian?" I would say, "No, no, I'm not a vegetarian. I'm just trying to figure out what my body likes, what my body works optimum on, and I'm seeing how I feel with trying different foods and trying different things into my diet." It's an amazing journey because you really start to notice how much these things do affect your body and how much they can either enhance or— you know, like, you know, they talk about sugar crashes, you know, and things like that. And once you start eating things that make your body feel good, you really— if you do have a chocolate bar, you really notice. You can really tell. It's drastic. Like, you can really tell it in your body. So I applaud you, Chef, for going on that journey.

I'd like to keep journeying for quite a while, so that was one of the reasons. I noticed some really unusual side effects of going gluten-free that I had not counted on. Again, I mention it to people that are gluten-free, like right away I felt like a fog had been lifted off of me. People that are gluten-free go, "Oh yeah, that's what happens." You don't share this knowledge with everyone, that a side effect of gluten is making you feel like you're in a fog most of the time? And they go, yeah, that's grain brain.

Grain brain.

Yeah.

You know what I think I found with this also? Talking— food is so personal with people. And they can be— they can take things, you know, so personally, and you can accidentally offend them. And they can get really upset when you start talking about food, or they just shut down. And so sometimes it's really hard to talk to people because I think you have to be in the right place at the right time to be open to hear a lot of this stuff.

True, absolutely, yeah. And I always say that if food can kill the body, food can heal the body. And my husband and I did our own sort of experiments, like Rainn talking about the red meat. My husband, whenever he would have a steak or something, the next morning he would have pain in his stomach. We don't eat red meat very often at all, but now recently we had some grass-fed beef and then we had some of the non-grass-fed beef. I got to tell you, when he ate the grass-fed beef. He did not have that pain. It was super lean, but it was actually even more flavorful than the non-grass-fed. A lot of people say they can't afford it. Quite frankly, it was only maybe $1 more a pound, maybe $1.50 more a pound. It wasn't that much. If you're eating in proper portion control, which would be maybe 6 to 8 ounces, it's really— it's worth the money. You're not spending that much extra money for your better health. He didn't have any trouble digesting the grass-fed beef.

I found food can make a big difference with pain. Certain foods I eat cause me more pain than other foods.

For sure.

I noticed that with my back right away. I didn't have as much back pain when I started going gluten-free. That's the inflammation that gluten causes. When you're talking about beef, we overeat. Protein has become the major part of the American diet. I think that's something that needs to be reversed a little bit. I used to serve a 22-ounce porterhouse in the restaurant I worked at. I mean, when you think about it—

I could probably eat all of it even though I shouldn't.

It was a really good cut of meat. Most people could, but that's way too much meat for anyone.

Yeah, and I bet it wasn't grass-fed either.

No, it wasn't.

Yeah, and I totally agree with you, Susan. When we switched to— we're really lucky because we have lots of farmers around here that do grass-fed meat, and grass-fed and grass-finished, because that's really important too, because they can be grass-fed but then sent out to those feedlots the last few months of their lives and given who knows what. So we have hamburgers now off of grass-fed, you know, local meat, and when we first started eating it, it was like, okay, this tastes like steak. You know, now we're used to it, and we kind of mix it up with also bison Yeah, but we absolutely— that's the only meat that we eat now. Or we buy actually all of our meat from local farmers, so we're extremely lucky with that. And we also, we do some dairy here. Mainly I do, and it's raw milk though that we have, and it's so good.

Yeah, that's completely different than what most people buy in the store. Yeah.

Even if we're buying organic and natural, and that word natural is something they throw around a lot. It really doesn't mean what it is. I saw a really cute video on that, and I had posted it about the word natural and this agency doing like a— it was hysterical. You've got 1% natural. We can put this label on there. It's like, oh my God. And you're also the Bikini Chef, aren't you, Susan?

Well, I'm the creator of the brand. I, yeah, I created—

I saw some photos of you and you are. Without sounding too weird, you know, I was like, they look pretty darn good.

Oh, well, thank you. You know, it's a funny story. It's a nickname that was given to me years ago because my family We have a lake house on Lake Martin in Alabama, and growing up, and we still do today, we water ski all day and we end up cooking in our bathing suits. And so when I started teaching cooking classes a gazillion years ago, I would just tell these funny stories about catching fish, and then we would, you know, be making fried okra. I know it's not healthy, fried okra is not healthy and all that, but fried okra and catfish and everything in our bathing suits, and I would just tell these funny stories, and people started calling me the Bikini Chef, and the name stuck. But now I'm really— I'm rebranding her so that she can live forever, because I'm probably not going to live forever. So she's going through her own rebranding process. She can wear as many bikinis as she wants. That's her little caricature there on my lower third, I guess we would call it. Yeah, it's been a lot of fun. It's really just more about living a healthy lifestyle and helping educate other people on how they too can live a healthy lifestyle because we're all busy. A lot of people say, "I'm too busy to eat well and I'm too busy to get some exercise in." Phony baloney, you know, I'm busier than a lot of people, or as busy as most everyone, and you just have to make the time to fit it in. So yeah, that's my lecture for the day.

Time management, and it's a good one. Alright, let's jump over to Ron. And Ron, I'm so glad you could come on today, and we're working you on mobile, so we're hopefully going to get people get to hear you. Well, as though the picture's not quite as good as we would have liked because your computer's giving you issues, but I'm glad you're here. And you've got a kind of an interesting story about some of the work you've done, and I saw some of the pictures of your engraving. You know, would you like to tell us a little bit about what you do?

Yeah, I used to demonstrate tools at a woodworking show for companies like DeWalt Tools. And back in the late '90s, early 2000, my back was starting to get worse and I knew I couldn't continue, so I took a course on engraving calligraphy with Ken Brown down in Texas, and I learned how to personalize things. And then I worked in, uh, in stores like Nordstrom, Saks Fifth Avenue, Bloomingdale's. Engraving fragrance bottles at certain times of the year for people, for their customers. They'd come in, they'd buy, you know, their fragrance, and I would engrave a message on whatever they wanted or just put a name on. And so that's how I started doing the engraving. And when I was doing the woodworking shows, I met a man named Dr. Lou Jensen, and he invented He was a retired dentist, but he took a dental tool and invented it and changed it into a straight handpiece, and he calls it a Power Pen, and that's what I use. But I got reacquainted with him, and I didn't know that he was the guy that got Ken Brown started in using that tool to engrave calligraphy. So I got reassociated with, with, with Dr. Lou Jensen, and because I knew him from the woodworking shows, and we've been together ever since, as you know, doing his Hangouts On Air. But he has a network called I&E Network, Inspiration and Encouragement Network, with people who do engraving, sandblasting, airbrushing, and it's all like-minded people who have kind of taken their careers or turned their hobbies into a business. And we like to say that having having a good time is our job. But going back to everything else I did kind of helped me along. And in 1996, I left the workforce where I was— made my living my life, and I turned that around and made my life my living, where I controlled what I was doing and what I wanted to do it. And I try to help other people do the same thing if they you know, need help, I try to give them direction as far as a business plan, where they can get help, where they can get equipment, or if they have a hobby already, how to help them turn it into a part-time business if they want. So that's kind of what I do. I try to inspire and encourage people to do different things.

Well, that's not a bad thing to do, Ron, not at all. You know, and it shows, you know, with you as a role model here showing us that you can be successful at it. And, you know, I'd seen you around for quite a while on leaving comments, and when I did post that ad a couple weeks ago, you answered it. I knew who you were right away because you've always been around the Plus. And is that where you re-met Dr. Jensen?

I met Dr. Lou Jensen at the woodworking shows.

But you reconnected with him on Google+?

Actually, a little bit before then, before Google+. I'm I got in touch with him as soon as I found out that he knew Ken Brown, and after I'd taken Ken's course. And so I got in touch with him then. And it's a funny thing, you know, I took Ken's course and learned how to do the engraving, and he gave me a certification that I was a certified calligraphy engraver. And then I think it was 2011— because of what I have done, Dr. Lou Jensen made me one of his masters and gave me a certificate, and I'm a master engraver in the I&E network. But those two guys are kind of responsible for changing my life.

Wow.

And you do shows with him now too? Don't you do something on Google+ with him? Hangouts?

Yeah, he has a Hangout every Wednesday and Thursday night where he's taking his 30 some years of experience on helping people and what he has done. And he guides and directs and, and, uh, has a marketing part, how to market, how to, how to, you know, increase your brand awareness in, in the art field.

We—

it— he has found out most artists are good at producing art, but they don't know how to sell it. And there's a definite way to market art, and he has figured that out.

That's pretty cool. It's nice of him to share with everyone too. That's what I love about Google+ is everyone's willingness to really share themselves and what they can do and what they can bring to other people. You know, it takes, takes a lot of work to learn things over the years, and you know, if you don't have people that are willing to share some of the time that they've learned. You know, there's some shortcuts there to be made if you only take advantage of them. Very cool.

Well, definitely learning from somebody else on anything shortens the learning curve dramatically. And there's classes that you can take on just about anything. And a lot of people out there, they feel that they can't do something, that they either have a fear of failure fear of rejection, but if they would just try it and just do it one step at a time and don't worry about what everybody else says, they can do whatever they want to do. I'm proof of that.

Here we have a comment here from Lynn Sanders: Love the sentence, make life my living. Wonderful message, Ron. And thank you, Christopher Vogelman. Lynn Sanders: I actually feel better when getting off the ground Rain, he's talking about gluten-free, but vodka is the cleanest of hard liquors. Christopher, thank you for sharing that. When I do drink, which is very, very rare anymore in my older age, it is my alcohol of choice. That's like once every 6 months now. Let's move over to Rain and talk to Rain a little. Rain, you were talking about rebranding and everything. Rebranding yourself and moving into a different area here. You've got a new show, so why don't you talk to us about that? Tell us what's going on.

Oh yes, actually this has just been an amazing day. This morning we had a show with Lynn Sanders and Megan McDonald called Tapping into the Power of Your Story, and Megan is a musician singer, so that was an absolutely fantastic show, really, really enjoyed that. And it's just basically, it's part of— I'm following my love basically right now. I fell in love with doing things for small business owners and entrepreneurs in terms of branding and social media. And then I came upon Hangouts On Air where I was horrified to learn that I couldn't talk other entrepreneurs to actually get behind the camera unless I got behind the camera myself, which I really did not want to do. I was fortunate enough to somehow— and your shows, Chef, were one of the first shows I started watching, so that was, that was one of the greatest things. That's where I saw what an amazing tool this was.. And I thought, well, I better get on this. So I went on Melanie Hall at Melanie Hall's Lights, Camera, HOA show, a place for newbies to practice. And her and Sheila Strover are just amazing. And it's a weekly show where people who are new to G+ and new to Hangouts On Air can come on and dip their toe in the water and see what it's like to be on a show. So what we try to do is make them feel as comfortable as possible and just make it a very warm and welcoming place that they can start off in. So my first time on Melanie's show though, I was just petrified. I could barely talk. It was just something else. And in the green room afterward, Melanie asked if I would like to co-host the show. And I said, yes, yes, I would like to because I thought this will be really, really good practice. Because there are people that are great at public speaking, but this is a different medium when it's in front of— when you're on video. So there's technology mixed with the presentation portion of it. So then I started co-hosting on the show, which is amazing. Then I started practicing. I joined Ronnie Vincent's Hangout Mastery group. Over in the user group, I started practicing every single different type of Hangout and probably did everything wrong, learned how to do some things right. The technical piece was really— I was really getting the hang of it. The technical piece down. So that's been— and I love that part of it, it's amazing. But what I love even more is getting people to the point where they feel comfortable being— sharing their stories or sharing whatever their gifts are via their own video content. So I started thinking about it and I thought, well, what are the things that I didn't have when I started? I really didn't have a clear way, like a step-by-step way on how to go about doing it. So I thought, okay, well, I, I've— because I've been helping people do that here and there along the way, and so I've been learning a lot about the way people learn. And everybody learns differently, everybody communicates differently, and everybody accesses information differently. So I've been learning a lot about the way people learn and showing them different things and that's been absolutely fantastic. It's been great. Arizona Lo has a Thinking Out Loud show and Elaine Nibberding has a laughter yoga show. So all these— Robin Holland and Lynn Sanders has other shows as well. So I've been so fortunate and so blessed that I've been able to go around and do these different things. Been just a great experience meeting wonderful people. And so I thought of Jason T. Weiser, and I decided my logo was going to be a big red button. Yeah, so I decided to make a big red button and create a system of a series of tutorials, video tutorials for people, and as well create a coaching-based session where prior to them actually going live with themselves, they'll have an area where they can be coached, and it'll be for 3 months in length, in duration, so it'll walk them through the technology as well as the presentation piece. And then once they're done with that, their imagination is the limit as to what they want to do with it.

That's great, and it's good to know you're doing this because I have people ask me all the time and honestly I don't want to invest that kind of time in doing it as a business so now I have somewhere to send them so that's excellent. It's always better rather than, well, alright, this is what I have to charge you, rather than saying that, I have a friend that does that, let me send you. I did that last week with a brand, with a client asked me about, they have all these accounts and redoing them and I don't really know how to do it, I could I could probably figure it out but I don't do it. I said, I know a guy, Ronnie Binzer, that does that. Let me just send you to him. You know, when you have someone set up that you're not really as connected with and it is a business, I think it's better for both parties because you're not taking as much for granted and you tend to listen a little bit more when you're paying for something.

Yes.

You're getting some value for your money. So I'm really happy to hear that you're doing that. Excellent. You know, and everybody you mentioned with all the shows, I love it when more new people start having shows. Now people are always going, oh, what are you going to do, there's so much competition. I'm going, it's better for everybody because that means more people are going to start watching. So that's good.

And it all depends on what people are looking for. I mean, there are Hangout shows for authors, Sally Sue Ember has a show for authors, there's a new one called the Death Chicks, and they talk about, you know, death and how we perceive death. I mean, there's so many, aside from the regular shows like Mia's and, you know, every— all these other shows that are, you know, Brian Hanley's, all these other ones that are packed full of amazing content. You know, there's just so much to learn, and everybody has such a really, really good area of expertise. So I think it's fantastic.

It is. We're going to take over the airwaves. You know, it's, it's, uh, We need to become like our own kind of Netflix or something, that's all, with all these HOA shows.

Yeah.

Well, the one thing that I see with Google+, it's— it kind of awakened me to a lot of things personally that people— you have that personal attention that from other people from around the world. You get to learn so much, and it expands your mind, and everybody's having fun, it seems like to me. And that's one of the things that we like to say is, is having a good time is my job. So when doing this and having fun at the same time, what could be better?

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, and I can get in conversations all day long about it and helping people, and time flies because you're having fun. Usually it's almost— it's gone from like when I first started talking to people that I met, it was half an hour. Now it's an hour. Now I see like an hour and a half go by and I'm still on the call with them. So, you know, it just gets more and more, and you really get to bond with people and get to know a lot more about them by doing it this way too. So it's really cool. That's why I enjoy doing it. Now let's move over to last but not least, Kate Bauer. And Kate, you know, this is long overdue. I'm so glad you agreed to come on. So happy to see you today.

Oh, it's completely my pleasure. Believe me, when I got your note asking to be on the show, I was like, I had to run and tell my husband. I'm like, Phil, guess who just asked me to be on his show? So it's a real pleasure. Awesome. So yes.

I saw so much about you in your bio and the film making, and you have a new series coming out just in black and white. So why don't you tell us about your journey and all the different things that you're doing?

Well, I'll start at the beginning. It really happened a little over a year ago where I've flirted with writing on and off for many years. You know, family and life kind of got in the way, and I finally sat down and really asked myself some really hard questions. You know, what's really stopping me at this point from writing? And at that point I realized I was using email as my excuse not to write. I'm an early riser, and that's when I have my creative juices really going. And I would find myself sitting there, you know, going through tons of emails that did absolutely nothing for me. And not do, you know, not focus and get into my creative side. So I actually wrote a book called How I Quit Email and Followed My Dreams. And from there, it really just opened everything up. It's a, it's a journey about how I came to realize that, to how I pushed through and got rid of that Bad Habit and then other bad habits that I saw and really sat down and started living my dream. And from there I was like, well, you know, I would love to do a Hangout, but I wasn't sure how I wanted to do it. I'm always for the different. I always want to do something different. So I came up with The Kate Show, and it's a companion to How I Quit Email. So there's 5 episodes in all. So far there's 2 of them up there. They're just about 5 minutes long. I just took parts of the book that interest me and then I made them more, um, can't really say fiction style, but they're just entertaining little bits to show the book off in certain ways. Um, I know that's probably doesn't help too much, but I hope you come over and look at them. I still have 3 more to go. I ended up stopping doing them over the holidays because I actually wrote a screenplay. Um, so I've gotten really into filmmaking and I wanted to submit my film into a film festival. And this film festival is unique because everybody had to do their movies on a cell phone or like a GoPro. So you cannot— yeah, yeah, so you cannot use— that's fun, right? And so it's, um, it was 10, you know, it had to be 10 minutes or less, and it was open to everybody around the world, and they're going to be showing them in Zurich and London. So we'll see. I mean, the shortlist, if you make it, is supposed to come out in March, but it was a great experience because it really did teach you that you can do anything that you put your mind to.

That's so great.

Yeah, that was a lot of fun.

Now, can you still edit it? Were you allowed to do editing, or did it have to be continuous?

No, you could edit it, and you could edit it with, you know, on your computer, that was fine. It's just the actual filming had to be done on your phone. So you couldn't even, yeah, you couldn't even use, you know, like the DSLR cameras that do video so well. That was not allowed. And they just, they were looking for really original movies, you know, stories. They weren't looking for any, you know, big explosions or aliens coming down.

Potatoes coming down from the sky.

So that's what really drew me in because for me it's always about the story and about being creative. And mixed in with all of that, my husband and I Phil, we actually started a company. So I'm a co-founder of a company called Booze Hound, and it brings artists together with businesses, and we merge the two to create really unique stories for our clients. So that's, that's kind of where I'm at right now.

How did you come up with the name Booze Hound? Because I right away thought it was about alcohol.

Yeah, well, there is a little bit of that involved too, yes. Um, "booze hound" actually came from an episode of M*A*S*H where they— a guy was stumbling through the camp and he happened to say, you know, something to the effect of, you know, "Well, you know, I'm not a booze hound," or something like that. And I turned to Phil and I said, "That's it." That is the name of our company, you know, because we already had the ideas of what we wanted to do with the artists, but we just didn't have the name. And yeah, it's— that's how that came about.

What medium of artists are we talking about, or does it encompass everything?

Everything. Everything from musicians to graphic artists to voiceover people. I really— painters, sculptors, people who sculpt, yeah, we're, we are very open and we love to hear the stories behind the businesses and bring that forth because everybody likes to hear the behind the scenes or they like to hear, hey, how did you come up with that? Or they really want to get that connection. And we also have always been huge fans of artists, and this is a way for artists to actually make a living off of what they love doing and combining them with businesses that can have a unique campaign that they never could before.

That's a great idea.

Yeah.

How long have you had your company?

Booz Hound's only been around for a few months. So the idea's been— yeah, the idea's been around for longer than that, but it was one of those that kind of sat there and percolated with us, and we'd write down ideas, talk to people, and we actually have a partner, and he's a musician, has been one for over 20 years, so Were you watching M*A*S*H reruns or what? Yes, it's one of our favorite shows.

M*A*S*H hasn't been on the air for a long time.

Sometimes those older shows are worth going back.

They are fabulous, yeah, they're good.

We had a comment here and I was going to ask the same question. Love the blackboard in the background, Kay Power. So what is the blackboard? Tell us about the story with that.

It's actually just something I think, you know, long time ago on Pinterest, it was kind of all the rage of doing chalkboard, you know, paints and stuff like that. And I thought, oh, that would be great. And this is actually just a sheet of drywall. So we did it, you know, really inexpensively, got some chalkboard paint and threw it up there. And it's actually where I don't I don't think you can quite see it, but when I realized that email was one of my biggest problems for not sitting down and writing, the name of the book instantly came to me. And I got up and I wrote it on this chalkboard. And behind here is just a few, just my own personal inspirational sayings, just to kind of, you know, I can look over and get myself excited, you know, or if it's been a tough day. So, you know, one of them says, letting go within the joy. So it's just fun things that I can change out whenever I want.

And that's pretty cool. I like it. And you know, it's a shame. My wife's a teacher, and they don't really— they're getting rid of chalkboards. It seems like everything's on whiteboards now on these things they use, and she's having a rough rough time learning the whole technology aspect of it, and half the time the kids have to show her how to use it.

I know.

Great. But, you know, I love chalkboards, and I mean, if they go away, that'll be so sad.

Yeah, they won't go away. Maybe they'll come back.

What are the teachers going to do to the kids that are bad? I remember I always got sent to— had to clap the erasers and clean the chalkboard at the end of the day.

Or write, you know, "I will not do that" 100 times on the board.

100 times, like parts in every episode, right? I love this. We're so good. Some of the things he would write, you know, but there's something special about writing on a chalkboard, especially if you get to use different colored chalk every now and then too. It's just like a magical experience. It's nothing— it's not like something you want to sit down and write all your documents on. It's not going to replace Word, but using it just to put a point down or to write something. Like, I would— I remember being in school, I would go and leave little messages on them, you know, and stuff, and have fun that way. It was just, I don't know, something magical about it for me anyway.

Well, there's always sidewalks, Chef. You can always write.

The only problem with sidewalks is I have to go all the way down there to write it, and at this age, it's a little harder every year to get back.

Ah, you're not that old. Stop it.

I know, my wife says that all the time. I'm not dead yet. No, but getting up and down is not quite the ease. I remember when I was in karate and we meditated all the time and you had to learn to get up without any hands and sit down without any hands, and that was never a problem. I tried that the other day, and boy, that's been a while since I did that. Wasn't quite where it should have been.

Practice makes perfect.

I know, practice makes perfect. Well, we've been having fun here. Oh, wait a minute, Christopher Vogel wants to know, wait, who got the clap? No, Christopher, we weren't talking about that kind of clap. But thank you, Dennis Littley.

That's funny.

We're going to have to have Maggie put you in line, you know, a little bit more. She's going to have to control you now that you guys are married. Did you all know about that? Christopher Vogelman, Dr. Vogelman, and Maggie Unzueta met on Google+ and had an epic love story and got married last Saturday.

Nice! Congratulations!

Congratulations!

Congratulations!

Yep, and two nicer people could not have met each other.

Very fun.

Oh, that's wonderful. Did they do anything on Google+? Did they post anything about it on Google+?

Oh yeah, that's a good idea.

They did, and they had talked about doing a Hangout, and the problem is with all the music they played at the wedding, it would have been shut down pretty quickly because of the problems with copyright and all that. But they have been posting little clips and they have been posting pictures and they've been doing it on Facebook and I see them on Instagram and then different things. They've been having fun sharing it. And Maggie did write a couple posts on her blog about it, about the epic love story and them and everything they met. So yeah, it's really pretty cool. And like I said, really nice people. And now they're living— they're on Coronado Island in San Diego, outside of San Diego.

Oh, not far from me.

Yeah, beautiful, beautiful area. I do have to get over and visit. Sometime, but we'll let them— let the honeymoon period get over for a while. Well, this has been really a fun show. We've talked about a lot of things that are in common. You know, it's a— you guys were rocking today. We're gonna go by everybody and give you a couple minutes to talk about any new projects you have or anything you'd like to share with us, anything you'd like to know about. Please feel free, all of you, when you're done, to leave any links you'd like to in the comment section for people to follow, too. That would be very, very good. Susan, what's on the horizon? Any new projects? Any calls to action you have for us?

The Bikini Chef brand, as I mentioned, I have a group of investors that are interested in that. We're going to be able— Kate, I love what you were talking about with the GoPro, so maybe incorporate some of that into our rebranding. And then I've also been really enjoying— my husband is a real estate— I call him a real estate genius. He's been in real estate for like 26 years, and I got my license to kind of be able to legally, you know, help him in his business, and that's been a lot of fun. So I'm helping him actually create some HOAs, not homeowner association stuff, hangouts on air, so I'll be looking for a tutorial on that so I can become an expert on that to help him with that. And yeah, it's just really exciting. So lots of great stuff happening around here. I'm going to be doing on the food healing side, I'm doing a wine dinner, food healing wine optional dinner with Sophie Tell in Los Angeles and Chef Marius Glenn there. We're going to be doing a series, one a month for the next 3 months starting in April. So yeah, there's lots of fun stuff going on around here, and it's so wonderful to meet everyone. And Ron, I wanted to ask you, I mean, engraving, you gotta have a really steady hand, right, to do that? I just, I'm fascinated by woodworking and engraving. You have a lot of talent for that.

Well, the engraving, believe it or not, you really You don't. You can support your hand and use your other hand if you can. And it really, it's a matter of practice. And just like the calligraphy, I didn't know how to do calligraphy at all before I took this course on how to do it. And it's a matter of not having, you don't have to have good handwriting. To engrave calligraphy or to do calligraphy. It's a matter of basically 13 to 20 strokes, and combining these strokes together make the letters. So it's really easy to learn, except that it takes practice.

It's—

and, uh, but we have people in the network, um, one gentleman had, uh, problems, and they actually— he taped the, the tool to his hand so that he could start practicing. And in 2 years now he's doing motorcycle engraving at different events. So you can, you really can overcome a lot if you want to. And it's really the attitude that makes the difference. And woodworking, I was involved with that. I worked at American Woodworker magazine when we lived in Pennsylvania. Wound up doing the woodworking shows with them, and that's how my career started, with doing the woodworking shows. But again, it boils down to practice and, and whatever you want to do. I'm a firm believer, if you want to do it, you can do it. Just find the right people, get rid of the negativity, don't let people tell you you can't do it, and find the people who will tell you that you can.

That's so great.

Words to live by.

Very good.

So, Ron, while we're on you, anything you'd like to tell us about? Anything you got planned for the future?

Well, I'm kind of kicking myself lately. Dr. Lu's been kicking me. He's been after me for a year now to write a book. I— and actually, I have like 3 book titles too, and I haven't done it, and I have to do it. And that's going to be my immediate project, is doing that along with doing some engraving and sandblasting work that I do. I have to do it from home now, but I do that. But I got to get serious and write my books because I have a lot to tell, and I think I can help a lot of people.

Well, we're going to hold you to it. You said it here live, so we're going to come back and see where you are with it. Okay? Okay, so once it's on film, it kind of makes it a little more permanent.

It does. That's why I said it. It kind of put the heat on. There you go.

The heat is on, and not the Florida heat. Okay, the rain. All right, tell us any calls to action for us or any projects you'd like to share with us or anything we can help you with.

Yeah, sure. Right now I've got an early bird special going on. One, and there's limited seating because I like to really find out what it is, the things that are holding people back in terms of either the technology or the presentation portion. So I like to work with small groups, and there is an application process. So they can go to Expert Video Coaching on Google Google+. I have a page there and they can get some more information there. Aside from building the tutorial material, continuing to build that and getting everything ready, that's what I'm working on. I'll be around the G+. I love it here. It was really nice meeting you, Ron, Susan, and Kate. Really nice seeing you again.

A good day for me because I got to introduce you all to each other where a lot of times some of the guests know each other but not everybody did today so that made my day happier. And Kate, any calls to action, anything you'd like us to know or help you with in terms of sharing links?

Sure, let's see, this year I'm really, really excited because I'm going to finish up the Kate Show with the 3 episodes that are going to be coming out. And also, if you want to learn more about my book, you can go to howiquiteemail.com. It's really great too. Right now, it's— I just have it up on Amazon exclusively. And if you are a Prime member, you can actually get it for free. So that's kind of a fun way to be able to, to get that. This year, I have some really fun things coming up too besides getting the Kate Show done, but I have a documentary that I'm putting together for a rock band, so that's going to be a lot of fun.

Yeah, yeah.

And I also have another nonfiction book that I want to get out there, and it's actually called How I— How I Came to Be a Vegan. Became stupid having kids. And I know that, that sounds really bad in a way, but it's gonna be a really different kind of, if you want to call it, parenting book where it's gonna actually take two sides because now that my kids are grown, we're gonna have my side of things and their side of things. So they've all agreed to be part of the book, so that's gonna be happening. Very nice. Yeah, so just growing Booze Hound and having a lot of fun and just being creative. You can follow me here on G+. I'm on Twitter a lot too under Kate Boyer. So I hope to see everyone around, and it's been really a lot of fun. And I really thank you for bringing us all together.

Oh, it's my pleasure. And like I said, Friday's my happy day because I get to put together in the same room and talk and show everyone the beauty beauty of doing these kind of shows and these kind of Hangouts. Even if you don't want to do them on air, you can do them with your friends privately and still have a great day and get out and say hi to everyone. Thank you for coming. Everyone that watched, thank you so much for being here today and being patient and asking questions and leaving comments. There were a lot of great comments we didn't get to. We'll be back next week with Good Day Google+. Wednesdays I have Around the Kitchen Table., and I'll be cooking up something for you then. Pretty soon we'll be coming back with some other episodes of the Food and Booze Show and On the Road with Chef Dennis. I was at a chocolatier last week setting something up with them, and in a coffee shop yesterday, so we're working out some new shows for those, too. I like going on the road. It's fun. It's challenging. You never know what's really going to go wrong until you're on the road, mobile.

Thank you for having me, Dennis Littley.

It was my pleasure. I'm glad Tom Colton referred you to me, and I'm glad he did.

Yes, yes, he's sweet. Yeah.

Thank you, Chef, for having us on. I really appreciate it.

My pleasure, Ron. We'll have to meet up sometime since we are in the same state, for sure.

Absolutely.

So have a wonderful week, my friends, and we'll see you back real soon. Have a good day.