Good Day Google+ - They Call me Mellow Ello

Hey everyone, I'm Chef Dennis Littley and welcome to Good Day Google+. It's always a good day when you get to spend some time with your friends talking about life and whatever else happens to come up on the screen. So right now we're actually waiting for a few other people to join us and hopefully they will. Unfortunately, Anna Hoffman forgot that she was going away with her husband to Sonoma, so she won't be with us today. Shame on her for forgetting that. So I'm happy she's out and enjoying a great day, and we will have her next week. So for those of you coming on for her, and we're still waiting for Stacy Line to join us, and hopefully she will because she's the whoo-hoo-licious lady. And we'll be talking to her if she does join us, and Mia Voss may be jumping in too. And you never know who might show up on, on today's show. But for now, I've got two wonderful guests. And I have Melissa Gault. How you doing, Melissa?

I'm doing great, Chef. How are you?

Oh, I am so happy you could make it on here. And Melissa, where are you at?

I'm in Atlanta, Georgia.

Ah, Hotlanta. That's right.

Mm-hmm.

Well, I'm not that far from you then, down in Orlando. So just a hop, skip, and a jump. I know when I hit the border of Florida when we were moving down, my wife says, "Oh, we're almost there." And I looked up and she says, "No, we have 5 hours." We're actually closer to Atlanta at that point than we were to Orlando. Yeah, it's pretty cool. How's the weather there today? Holding up?

It's gorgeous. It's absolutely gorgeous. If I could be doing this outside, I would.

I'm about the same way right now. I'm getting ready for that too because the weather has changed here. It's not that ungodly hot, and it's really— even 90 yesterday felt pretty cool because there was no humidity.

Yeah, we're in the same position, but we're in the 80s.

Yeah, well, it's in the high 80s today, so I'll take whatever they give me as long as there's no humidity and I can sit outside. And then of course we have Andy Lyons here today. Andy, so nice to see you.

Hi everyone! Mwah, mwah, mwah!

Your picture is amazing.

Hey, really? Thank you. Wow, must be that new camera. Thank you, Susan Finch. Shout out! Hey, and great lighting doesn't hurt either, folks, especially after a certain age. Hello, I'm so happy to see all my Google+ friends out there today and new friends. I'm so excited to connect with here on Chef Dennis' show, or as Mia Foss calls him, Cheffy. I'm hailing from Boston, Boston. It's a gorgeous day. This is our time of year as far as the foliage goes. Every time you step out, you gasp. Rainy or sunny, it's like, oh my God, my eyes! It's just beautiful eye candy everywhere as the leaves turn.

I know, that was the one thing. I was up north a couple weeks ago, and I really don't— I hate to say I don't miss Philadelphia at all, but when I got past it and I was going up towards Bethlehem and I saw the pumpkins and I saw the cornfields, and I just— then I started to get a little nostalgic for the area. But you know, other than that, I'll just take our orange groves for the most part. You guys are buried in snow. So here's my sister Thelma.

Brother Maurice!

Good to see you again.

You too. Last week I was able to poke you when you're sitting next to me.

And you did poke me quite often. You thought I was a Pillsbury Doughboy there for a while. Just trying to make you giggle.

Hey ladies!

Hey Mia!

There she is. Look at that hot number. And that other hot number, look at that.

Oh, Atlanta goddess there, Mia.

Good to see you.

We're having a love-a-thon and I did see some of your show with Sarah Hill. Sarah is so inspirational.

I can't even take it. She just— I'm still basking. You see me? I've got like the vapors.

Either of you ladies know Sarah Hill or have you seen her work?

Yes, I have. She's wonderful and I love the work she does with the veterans. Oh my gosh, thank you for having her on, Mia. I'm going to watch it later.

She really— I'll tell you what's great. We talked about Hangouts a lot and Shefi, a lot of the things that we covered and the semantics of it, but really the practical application she's using it for Veterans United is off the chain. I had a lot of goosebump moments.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's nice to see the veterans getting the support and the attention that they deserve. You know, coming from a family where, you know, like I said, both of my parents were veterans, both combat veterans, with my mother, you know, I know she didn't carry a weapon often, but there were times that, you know, she had a pistol strapped to her side. You know, you usually don't have a medical professional doing that, but things would get crazy every now and then. My father, of course, well, he always had one, but, you know, we don't support the war, we still need to support our soldiers.

Yeah, we need to support the folks at home trying to reenter in a way that works, especially after what they've been through, and to give them love hugs because they don't get paid enough, in my opinion, for their reentry and coming back in after being exposed to combat. And yes, I come from a long line of veterans, including American Revolutionary War veterans who funded, financed an entire outfit. And my father, Iwo Jima, World War II. My brother, 2 tours in Vietnam as a helicopter pilot. So I really appreciate what happens emotionally, Mia, and that's what she was really focusing on. I've seen her focus on before with the veterans group that she works with. Amazing.

Right, the e-commerce, the human media part of it, of connecting people. The hero tours thing, really got to me too. She pulled out the task of like, hey, let's get a lot of these current war memorials built now because they didn't build the Second World War one until way after some of these folks were in their 70s, 80s, and it's hard for them to travel. So how cool is that, that she's getting them, you know, the beaches of Normandy or the different experiences. And then they're also just the people who can travel, they're taking them. They just got back from a trip of taking, I think, 70 or 71 Vietnam veterans to DC.

I'd love to put them in touch with my dad at the age of 92, shooting golf 3 days a week.

Hello.

I want to hang out with you, Dad. It's great. Thanks for doing that, Mia.

Oh yeah, I told them the way I started thinking about that, we were watching a lot of AMC over 4th of July weekend because of The Walking Dead. Hello.. And they kept showing all these different ads for Wounded Warrior Project and all this, and I started thinking, man, I know Sarah Hill's doing some stuff in that. I'm like, let's get her on here. And, you know, she's been around with Hangouts since the very beginning and then took that and went to Veterans United.

Cool.

When we were in LA, we saw someone working veterans with animals too, wasn't it? Was that the—

Yeah, that was the Nordic Naturals. They were donating a portion of that to having the the dogs for people that are having the PTSD, the PTSD, the post-traumatic stress disorder. And for Nicholas Cardozzo, can I just say woo-rah? Apparently I was saying it wrong. Woo-rah.

Yeah, he's a Marine.

Well, the Army says it differently too.

No, he said that woo-rah is the Marines. We should just get him on here and have him do it, or he can spell it for next week.

You can just say simplify and we'll all be fine.

Yeah, how about that?

Well, Nicholas was an infantryman, though. He wasn't a Marine. I mentioned my father was most proud. I mean, my father had 8 Purple Hearts.

You did?

Wow. A chest full of ribbons that was amazing. But the only thing he prized was his infantryman's badge. It was like a blue background with a silver rifle, I think I remember. He wore that proudly. Anyway, let's get into why we're here today. We're here to talk and learn a little bit about our friends. So Melissa, I'm going to start with you if you'd like, because you've been a little quiet there. Let's talk about what you do off the Plus and what you like to do on the Plus, or whatever you have you'd like to talk about.

Well, I've been quiet because I unfortunately don't have anything to contribute to any service stories. I have no one in my family that has been in the military, oddly. So I'm not sure how we managed to step out of that, but we did. Hence the quietness. I work with small business owners and occasionally executives who are wanting to leave corporate America to develop their businesses in a way that serves and supports the whole of their life instead of swallowing them whole. Because I think that as Entrepreneurs, we tend to dive in feet first, leading with our hearts, get so excited about our big passion, and maybe 5 years in we start to go, wait, what happened to my life? So I look at redesigning or designing it to a place where it really is serving and supporting, fueling and feeding the whole of your life. And I don't see there being a work-life balance. I see it more as a work-life fusion, especially today with all of the social networks and everybody being connected in many ways and disconnected in other ways, oddly. In not just work hours but all our off hours too. We spend a lot of time online. A lot of my time online is more in my off hours than in my on hours when I'm physically with clients or virtually with clients and speaking and workshops and trainings and things like that. So that's kind of the work piece of my story.

Well, that's quite a bit, and I would think it would keep you pretty busy.

It does, it does, but there's still plenty of time for the rest of the story. And I love to joke with people because I've done a lot of extreme sports. I've bungee jumped, I've tandem hang glided, I've skydived, I've parasailed. The word is, I will do any sport that requires no training. The only exception to that has been scuba diving. I did go and get certified, and I went for one week. From the beginning of the week knowing nothing about it to the end of the week being fully certified, that's kind of how I do things. I'm not one who's going to train for long periods of time. I'm never going to run a marathon. Not going to happen. What it does is puts me in that place of enough physical danger that it forces me out of my stuck zones. And it may not work for everybody, but it's worked really well for me. I have not done BASE jumping yet. Next up on my list is rock climbing, possibly indoors for safety's sake. And I did consider wingsuiting, but I think that requires a lot of training. So not quite on the list yet. We'll see.

Well, I'm always afraid with bungee jumping that I would be the be the guy that they hadn't quite measured it right. I think, is it Bill Engvall or one of those comedians talks about how who's the first guy that tests it and when he doesn't quite test correctly, give his girlfriend a t-shirt.

Exactly. I blacked out for the first 7 seconds. It was the bounce up and remembering to get into a seated position or the force of the jump could put push my eyeballs out of my head that had me quite focused on what I was doing. It was 440 feet in New Zealand at the original site. It was quite an adventure. I wouldn't do it again, not because of the fear factor because I blacked out so I really wasn't afraid, but because the force to my body was so intense. This was back almost 15 years ago when I was just a wee bit you know, more naive and younger, I felt like I'd been run over by a Mack truck the next day. And it honestly took a physical therapist at the hotel to put me back together because I was in so much pain. I was just—

I hurt.

Every part of my body just had been jerked out of place.

That's got to be— you've got to have been a chiropractor's dream at that point.

Yes, yes. I would have been. I would have been.

I always say that when I plan to go to an amusement park, I'm like, and I've got to make an appointment for the chiropractor. The next day because I look like I've been kicked down the stairs.

Definitely.

I know, I'm past those days, I think. I look at the Tower of Terror and go, no, we did that enough. I can't go on anything that's going to separate, that's going to hurt, I think, with my back in the condition it is. Although if I went on some, I think I would want to wear a neck brace first just to keep it kind of in place. I don't know if the ride people would frown.

I was going to say, I don't know if they'd be like, no.

If you were on the ride, pull that out at the last minute before they could remove you from the ride, you'd probably be able to pull that off.

And then when we land and go, oh, talk to my attorney, do we cheat them and how?

What a cool analogy though, Melissa, I love that, that's how you're getting out of your comfort levels. You're like, ah, let me go do something that's going to make me want to crap my pants, right? But it does seem like it probably gets your mindset going.

It does, it does. And I, you know, I don't have a fear of heights, so that's a big bonus for me because I do have friends who are terrified of heights and they could never do any of those things. It's just what kind of, you know, works for me. Not saying it's for everybody, right?

Don't try this at home.

No, no, definitely not.

I asked my dad once if he had ever had ever jumped out of a plane, you know, parachuted. He said, well, they dropped him out of a plane with a machine gun and a pair of skis once. You want to know if that counted?

Wow.

That was—

yeah.

And I said I wanted to skydive. He goes, never jump out of a perfectly good plane unless you have to.

Skydiving is actually not scary. It's pretty cool because I had somebody on my back, obviously 250-pound man who had just gotten his own jump site. His girlfriend had packed his chute. They weren't having any issues. I was safe on that one. It's pretty cool for the first 90 seconds when you have that rush, and then you're drifting down. The challenge we had was we had bad weather that morning, so they were packing a lot of us into a short period of time, and he had to spin us down. That's not a good feeling on a tummy that's just eaten lunch at 2 o'clock in the afternoon. I don't recommend being spun down. Drifting lazily along was more what I had in mind. Maybe next time.

I did do skydiving. My experience was like what you were talking about, which was great. But I will tell you, I mean, you think you're not afraid of heights until you get up there and you're in this tiny little plane. And it was cool because we were along the Front Range of Colorado, so you get this beautiful view of the mountains, and it was great. But yeah, there's— I don't know, that part where you're crab walking to the door. The guys behind you. I will say, I didn't take their advice. I needed more training. He said, "Don't hold your head down." I held my head down, and then when the thing hit, I popped that guy's chin with my head.

I have a very knobby head.

I look like one of those cartoon characters, with the birds flying around it. I will tell you, the float down, I definitely was like, "Ah, who cares? I'll deal with it later." I felt bad for his face, though.

I'm sure you're not the first who's done that to them. You know, I got tickled because I had a video of the whole experience, and they actually said for everybody who'd gone down that day, I had the best form. And I wasn't even thinking about it. I was just like, this is the only way I know how to put my body where it's not going to hurt, and it feels like I'm flying, so I'm going for it. Yeah, it's, it's a, it's a pretty cool rush. It definitely is.

Next life, next life. Well, we'll have to leave it for that. Oh my God. Well, that's a pretty good story then. Let's move on. I want to say hi to Thomas first. Thomas has joined us. Hey Thomas, how you doing? Oh, I can't hear you. I think, I don't know, I don't see you're muted, but you might check your sound.

I don't see his little dots coming.

I know, I don't see it.

Am I, is that better?

Yes, it's staying on.

There you go. See, Mia, I just got that Blue Yeti, so this is the first time I'm using it now. I know that's the microphone you use, so I didn't realize that it had the, uh, this little crazy—

right, you plug it in and then it's blinking at you. Oh, that's faked me out many a time, brother.

But Melissa, I have to tell you, because I'm listening to your skydiving story, my brother, my sister, and I, we went skydiving a number of years ago in Arizona. And when we went, this was with my grandmother alive, she was 82 at the time. We talked her into going as well. So my grandmother jumped out of a plane when she was 82 years old and had a great little skydive. And so of course, you know, we had the guy next to her. That was an incredible little exciting experience.

That's awesome! That really is awesome!

Thomas's grandmother needs to hang out with Andy's grandpa.

Here's Kim Baltman, just kind of sums it up for me, "I would rather fly the plane." Okay, thanks Kim. Oh Lord. Well, let's move down to Andy now and let's have a little chat with Andy. Andy, you've kind of changed directions with your show, no boa today.

No boa, but you know, I— for those of you who don't know me, I'm Andy Lyons and I've been unemployable since 1992. I fell off the wagon a couple of times and got hired, but they quickly fired me. So I just want you to know that ever since joining EA, Entrepreneurs Anonymous, I've had enough excitement in my life, and I've been staying true to my entrepreneurial adventurer spirit ever since.

Well, that's good.

Preach it, sister.

I thought we were getting a whole other show here when you said you fell off the wagon.

I'm going, what?

Well, you know, I'm one of those entrepreneurs who occasionally has a misstep where someone will say, "Hey, come on board, join us, we'd love to have you." I go, "Okay." And it doesn't take long, either I fire myself or they fire me.

I always say I make a terrible employee.

I do.

I know, I hear you on that. I was never a very good employee. I was always that— too much to say for my own good.

Exactly, exactly. Well, I did change directions. I get so many calls. I have 4 businesses under my tiara, and from venture capital-backed $8 million to $250,000 in angel funding to charming personality, I started a lot of businesses, and I've worked with folks closely who have started businesses. And what happened was I was getting so many phone calls. Andy, could you help me with this? Could you help me with that? And I was constantly saying, oh yeah, sure, because I love to help people. But then one day I hung up the phone and said, "You know, this is the last time I'm going to do that for free." And it was really clear it was time for me to go into what really speaks to me all the time and always has forever, which is the whole entrepreneurial journey. So now I help folks who are launching, branding, and building their businesses not spend a fortune and have a lot more time.

So is that what you're doing now on Possibility Partners?

Absolutely, yeah. So I have my weekly show Possibility Partners here on Google+. Waving to all the fine folks who tune in. Thank you, thank you. That's Tuesdays at 1:00. I have a podcast every Thursday and I have the new Andi Licious Advice, which is a minute of wonderful advice for entrepreneurial adventurers to keep them empowered their journey.

And now you know why Andy's coming on my show next week.

Both lines on this one, Andy's line and Stacy's line, but Stacy evidently is having some issues too.

Oh, my hoo-hoo sister.

I know, I had my big sign, I heart hoo-hoos, ready.

You know what I could have done, Chef? You know, I use this, I got this from TEDx and they said yay, so I put in wine. And I think I can just use little things like yay coffee, yay hoo-hoos, right?

Right, absolutely.

Yay hoo-hoos coming from you though would be like you're batting for the other team.

Well, I would just say I own one, so I just cheer for it.

There you go.

Thomas, he's like, what did I just walk into?

You should have seen it last week, Thomas. You don't even want to talk about it. They were trying to see if they could make me blush, and I'm like, I'm old, I didn't get to be this old without hair and all this stuff. You're gonna have to work a lot harder than that.

That's right.

I feel like I'm skydiving again, so there we go, it's good.

That's all good, it's all good. Well, Thomas, since you were so kind enough to join us, why don't you talk to us a little bit about what you've been doing?

Well, I'm over at blogphoto.tv, and that's been— that actually launched July, very beginning of July. So that's been an exciting journey though, and the whole thing with that is I was a blogger in a theology niche prior to that, and I started getting similar to, I guess, what Andy was talking about. I started getting all these emails from people asking me to help them with their blog and their own blogging questions. And so initially I launched Blog Photo TV as a way of just providing those resources and that, that sort of discussion so that people could have the tools and techniques and the things they needed to do to be able to position their content in ways that get noticed. And over the past 3 months, it's just sort of taken on a life of its own and really taken off in some exciting directions. So that's where I've been focusing my time, and that's been, that's been very exciting.

So that is exciting. It's amazing how we get called to do different things, especially as an entrepreneur. I mean, I had a food manufacturing business and Had I known after I launched it that I was going to do that, I just would have gone right to the Betty Ford Clinic and checked myself then. I had no business doing food manufacturing. But you know, we get called to do things, and I think it's so important that we listen and that we go toward it and embrace it. So congratulations, Thomas.

And there's a neat timing to things as well, because it was 2010 where I first started blogging. I killed a couple of blogs of my own on that whole journey of discovery. But it takes a while to kind of get your feet under you, and that opens new directions that you can begin exploring and pursuing that is part of what I think makes life exciting.

It really does. I tell a lot of entrepreneurs, look, it is the journey. I know that sounds very cliché, but what you're doing now may lead to something or uncover a core genius that you have that you never knew you had. And that's the beauty of just doing it.

Yeah.

So congrats.

So that's been exciting.

Yeah, sometimes that's enough excitement, jumping out of a plane. I don't know, my life feels edgy enough already. But I admire folks like you, Melissa, and Mia, who are willing to embrace those adventures that require a different level of courage and faith and certainly tenacity to hold on and just go for it. I really, really admire you for that.

And sometimes an adult diaper.

That is definitely necessary every now and then.

Just to keep it real. To kind of go back to what you're saying as far as Andy even like talking about doing these different jobs and trying these things out in the food industry, you know, a lot of times people are like, you'd be really good at this, right? Thomas, I'm sure we've all heard it, Melissa, Shethi, like people get these inspirations for you, right? And you feel so, "Oh gosh, I should honor that. I should listen to it." And we do get a little distracted. Like, "Okay, well, they said I should be good at this." And you go doing like, "I hate this. This is not my strength." So really, there's a lot that we can do, but it may not be where our greatest strength is. And then that's where you do kind of have to nut up. Right.

Or like with Bring Back Desire, it was so hard for me to monetize that. I helped thousands of people and continue today. I mean, the site gets 1,500 visitors a day, 50% unique, staying 4, 5, 6, 7 minutes.

It's remarkable.

I get incredible feedback all the time. But could I make a living with it? I couldn't. Someone else could. So these are the journeys that you try and serve yourself, serve your family. Serve the world, but they don't always necessarily work out, and you find yourself saying next. And look at Chef, I mean, look how he has transitioned over the last year, right?

Oh yeah, you know, and I've actually gotten back into the kitchen. I wasn't real thrilled with it, but I did get kind of conned into going back into the kitchen. So you do what you need to do, you do what feels right for you at the time. And you try and embrace it and enjoy what you're doing. I think that's the big thing. Like we were talking, I don't think I ever want to go back to cook again. People ask me to do demos, they ask me to come in, they say, "Oh, you can do this," but it's just not something I want to do anymore. I enjoy social media, I enjoy— I would love to teach more chefs how to use social media, and I think that's really where my next calling is, or hopefully, you know, if I can get motivated to write that book I'm supposed to write.

Maybe you don't actually have to write the book, Chef. Maybe all you've got to do is get the transcriptions from all slew of your Hangouts and have somebody else put it together as a book. Certainly the chefs need your help out there. I actually used to work with a lot of chefs because I was a purchasing agent in hotels for 5 years in my corporate experience before I launched into my own entrepreneurial adventure 2 years after Andy did. But, but yeah, I mean, if writing is not something that you necessarily love but it's just a must-do, you're already sharing the wisdom. And certainly with an advent of a movie like Chef, that was so phenomenal. What they were able to show is possible in the world of food service and restaurants, and certainly the food trucks, which are known for leveraging Twitter and social media, but there's so much more that can be done for restaurants and even hotels. Absolutely.

Yeah, I just, I need a little, you know, I enjoy writing, I like to write, but I don't ever think of myself as a really good writer. I mean, I need someone to proofread it and do the correct English part of it. You know, that's where I think one of the biggest eye-openers was I had sent a a post someone had asked me to write for them, they were paying me, and they gave it to an undergrad English student to correct it, and it came back— I never had one of my papers in school marked up so many times. God, I must really suck at this.

So you just need a sous-chef of writing.

There you go.

Nicely said, Melissa. I love that. And you know, ebooks today are so easy. Andy Grant was on my show earlier this week, and. He has a great template that folks can use. You can pop up a 20-30 page yummy something on Amazon very easily and download, if you want, the software to format it or hop onto eLance and get someone for $50 to format it for you. Your friends can edit it. Chef, I remember hearing Guy Kawasaki saying, "I had 20 editors review my books, then 20 of my top friends who are very particular." and I'd still send it to print and there'd still be a typo. It always happens. Just do it.

Just do it.

The key is to be human and to be yourself and to make sure that your voice comes through so that it's not overcorrected to the place where it removes your personality, because that's what people want.

That was the big thing. I sat through a writing workshop and at the end of it I I was looking at myself, you know, with some of the biggest names in the country for food writing. I'm looking at myself going, oh my God, I do everything wrong. How does anybody ever read me? But then when I started looking at some of the changes that they wanted me to make, it says my voice is gone now.

Yeah, you don't want to lose that.

That's too important. And Shev, when it comes down to writing, if you look at a lot of writers, they start off with knowing sort of what these rules are, and then they make themselves in the way that they deviate from them. So most of your, most of your better-known writers in any genre, you can go through and find all over the place where they violate their grammatical rules consistently, consistently. So getting hung up on on grammar, it will actually prevent you from being able to present the stuff that you're trying to present.

Well, and I think Thomas said he's perfect for your line of work because Chef speaks extemporaneously really well, and that's a gift. And I think it's really a brain function. Either you're out there being able to share it like this, or you're, you know, great at typing it up. I think you would be doing great service and you just get it transcribed, Chef. You do a vlog and get it transcribed and there you go.

That might be the best way.

That's what I do too. I love that. I know Chef and I are both looking up extemporaneously.

I live with a smarty pants who has the book, The Superior Person's Dictionary, and so a lot of times if he's saying something to me, I have to look it up. Like one time he says, "That was a vituperous sentence." I went, "Wait a minute." Looked it up, I said, "Snake-like and venomous? Why I oughta—" And for us it would be like 5 minutes later, like, "Oh, I took offense to that." I tell everybody that when I'm having a hard time falling asleep, I ask him about his day, and nobody believes me, but he just published on LinkedIn a while wonderful. He just published a white paper for a company but did a post on LinkedIn and I sent it to everybody saying, see what I mean? It was about combustion turbines and storage capacity. Oh dear.

Flux capacitors. Like I was Superman's flux capacitor or something like that. I can't remember.

You know there's people out there that are reading and going, oh my God, oh my God. They are.

They're fired up. Well, it's renewable energy and it's very exciting work that's going on out there in the world in our solar and wind power and our energy storage. It's phenomenal and there's so much passion behind Elon Musk's initiative to get off fossil fuel. And so folks are coming up with ways that are more affordable every single day and I just look forward to the day that Harley-Davidson comes out with an electric motorcycle that people buy. Have you ever heard that? As they go by. Oh, I know.

That will probably cause a big fight, but I'm with you on that. I love the Tesla thing, the renewable energy. Plus, he's just cool as hell.

He's just doing cool stuff. Yeah, and that Tesla, what a smart thing to do to come out with such a sexy automobile, high-end. Brilliant marketing and branding. Get it functioning with folks who can afford it and then start doing the trickle down. Start manufacturing ones that are more affordable, but you've already created this wonderful brand that's right up there with Porsche, BMW, Mercedes.

And he's completely transparent with what he's doing. From day one they've always had their plans out there. So go ahead. Absolutely. If we could get more people doing this, it would make them happy. It was not about— I mean, yeah, the guy's bazillionaire. But it wasn't necessarily about just being the only one in the market.

They're like, yeah. They just opened up their whole battery technology to everybody to help lift everyone up. And I tell lots of entrepreneurs, watch the documentary on Netflix, I think, about Elon Musk, because you talk about some death-defying moments with his business, with SpaceX, SolarCity, and Tesla. Oh my gosh, it's a nail-biter. You have no idea that all of that's been going on for him over the years.

Yeah, right, I love me some Netflix and I love me some documentaries, so that's perfect.

It's very inspirational for entrepreneurs, seriously. It's kind of like that, you know, his buddy that he founded PayPal with. You know, I failed my first business, like a grand failure. My second business really failed quite well. My third business failed but not as bad. My fourth business almost failed and then I had PayPal.

Is he the same guy, PayPal, the Tesla?

Well yes, I believe he's— yeah, Elon co-founded it with Mark, is that his name? Melissa, you probably know. Hold on.

That was genius. Now here's David Pipe put in, how do you spell extemporaneous?

I don't even know how to spell it until we get up. We have to do that. Google. Write like you talk.

Yeah, see, there you go.

Write like you talk. Exactly. That's the number one key. That's the essence.

Now I feel the need to dance along with Wordcraft by Wordit. I think they could make those motorcycles quieter. They don't choose to.

No, no, they don't choose to at all. The whole point is the vroom vroom, you know, so you can actually hear it coming miles away. That's the whole macho factor.

Yeah, and also safety for some people. I get that too, but boy, if you live on the beach, ah, you know, and they all come by, about 20 of them, it's like, ah!

They do that in the mountains too. Yeah, dragon tail, looking for those mountain drives.

That would be a very odd experience, I think, to see, to sit there and see like a crew of electric motorcycles drive by, and it's like quiet, and here you are with a line of your bikers, right?

And they're like, "What?" You guys probably notice when you fly into LA, all the cabs are Prius, right? They're all electric. I mean, LAX has a wonderful initiative We just saw it, absolutely.

And I didn't notice that. Yeah, I just noticed it driving around. But can I tell you, on a motorcycle thing, because I actually, I did have a motorcycle till about 2 years ago, and not the loud ones, but I will say that was the most fun thing is that you pull up next to something and you're like, "Vroom vroom." I can picture you, Mia. And I had a pink helmet too.

Well, I remember being little at Mattel, I had on my bicycle and it did the vroom vroom, you like, it mounted on your bike handlebars and you could turn it to make it sound like it was a motorcycle.

Google Effects needs to have that, Mia, for you.

They do, actually that's my, that's the phone ring for Greg, he still has that on there for me. I'll tell you a funny story about how I was not cool enough. I didn't realize there was this sign language and these gestures that you make when I first got a bike. So I'm in Colorado and I'd be driving and I'd be like, "Wave," and they would just get this look, right? Everybody's ignoring me. Well, then I finally realized I was making these cardinal mistakes. If you're on the bike, you either do this. What's that? Very imperceptible. Or your hands are on the thing and you just do this. What's that? Or if you have your hands down, you have your hand down to the side and you just open your hand up like— that's it. There's no waving. This? I look like an idiot to them. So after about, I don't know, a couple weeks, I'm like, what's with the snobby writers? And then somebody's finally like, don't. I saw somebody else do it. I'm like, ooh, there's a code. I didn't realize that.

It's not just about the leather.

Uh-huh. I love the hand one though. You just have your hand down like this. I should have worn the glove. I should have worn the Mickey Mouse glove.

You'd have made a lot more friends. Speaking of the glove, look what Lisa bought for me.

Aww, fabulous. Oh, shit.

That's excellent.

Fabulous.

Oh, I wish you would have had that when we were there. I would have made you wear it the whole time.

Oh, I'm sure you would have, so it's good I didn't have it.

It does interestingly coordinate with your outfit today too.

I know, that's funny. She came home with that last night. She went to Epcot with a friend of hers and says, "Oh, I got you something." Says, "Okay, this ought to be good." But that was actually a very nice surprise. I like the ears. I may have to I don't know if I'll wear it out.

It really works on you, I gotta tell you. It's a good fit. It's a good one for you. It's a good fit.

It's a good look for me. Well, you know, we were going to talk a little about— Anna Hoffman's not here today, but we were going to talk a little bit about ELO, and I know a few of you are on ELO, and I was wondering if anybody had any thoughts on that.

I sure do. Okay. I call it the Birkenstock of social media.

Ouch, ouch.

Listen, clearly I am a bling accessories gal. I got to have color and features and yumminess. That's all I have to say. Did anybody see the Ellen interview where she had the guy from Facebook apologize to all the drag queens who Facebook wasn't letting on? I mean, this is what—

I didn't see that.

Yeah, that's what started this whole thing for Ella, which is the anti-Facebook.

Yeah, that was one of the things that really launched their, uh, the exodus to Ella was— and I think it was Facebook requiring real names, wasn't it? Because people that are drag queens and, uh, or like that, that really face a lot of persecution don't want to use their real names because that opens them up to all sorts of stuff in real life.

Well, certain authors, you know, nom de plume or whatever it's called— oh wait, sorry, fake name. That one I knew. It's the same thing, you know, especially for the erotic romance authors. I mean, they don't want their children knowing this is what they do to make their money. So it was a good shift. Have you had anybody else had any experience? I mean, I've Certainly been part of the early run over there. I think Mark Traphagen is leading the way over there in ELO land.

I would just point to this video that Eli Finnell did, and I posted it on my wall yesterday, and it was just this meme of like Hitler finding out about ELO and like this whole thing, and it is, I will tell you, I mean, I hate to say there's something funny that involves Hitler, but they did such a brilliant It's a spoof. I love spoofs, so that was just me. It's just like, oh, you know, that just— he's like, well, you know, he hated Instagram too, and now he's on it every 5 minutes, you know, that kind of thing. I have not dabbled as much in it, though. But I just typed in the Birkenstock of social media. That's classic.

That's awesome. I've enjoyed elotuning. I haven't been super active on it. But there were two things about it that I thought were interesting. First of all, I think you're pretty much dead on with that, Andy. It took me a while to figure out when I got on it how to post. Because you type in there, and like the submit button is this light gray arrow on a white background, and you don't even see it unless you happen to hover over it and it turns black. You go, oh, OK, that's what it is. I actually had to look up Mark's user guide to figure out how to post my first post on Elllo. But when you're floating around there for a little bit, there's two things that I noticed. One is that it's almost predominantly made up of this early adopter crowd who are trying to figure it out and figure out how it works and how to connect it in with other things, how they can leverage it, so they tend to be active on it. And there's not that many people on it, which means that when you start interacting with some of those rather well-known early adopters, adopters, you get engagement because they don't have a million people that are trying to interact with them on there, and that's where they're being active right now because they're trying to figure it out. So that was one thing that I thought was real beneficial about it at this stage. And the other was actually even just to sit back and watch how people that are used to being able to leverage this early adopter thing are making such incredible use of it. You brought up a minute ago Mark Traphagen. He has just been phenomenal to observe how he's been making use of this. As soon as this thing launched, you see all these articles that are coming up examining ELO and looking at, you know, what all the problems are with it and the challenges that people are facing. And Mark comes along and identifies the challenges that everybody's facing and creates the first user guide that answers all the problems that all these articles are talking about. Right? And so now that thing's just blowing up, like blowing up. I think he showed something where he had like 8 of the top 10 results on Google search for like how to use Elo or Elo user guide or something that were all his guide. Like he dominated that. And his thing has had something— I think he said yesterday it's had 65,000 views since it's been published. So seeing how people are leveraging that early introduction has been really interesting just to sit back and learn from as well.

Well, and you brought up a great point about observing. For those of us who want to again engage with someone we may not have been able to connect with on other platforms, that's great. But also to see someone like Mark in action, I get to see him once a month, I get to hip hurl with him here in the New England Google+ meetup. He's just so remarkable. And when people say to me, especially folks who aren't on any social media, that it's the young kids, I've got to ask my teenagers what to do, it is the biggest fallacy out there. Mark is out there rocking it. So are a lot of people over 40 rocking it on social media, making a difference. And there he is, an initial user leading the way, a leader helping bringing people along, seeing the opportunity, and I'm sure Ella was very smart as well to reach out to him and engage him to spearhead their project and their launch. I love that.

What do we see the differences on Ella? Why should we be on there?

That was one of the smooth points, was like, okay, I'm talking to those same people over here too. Yeah. Right, and so I get that. That's what happens when Every single new platform comes up. I'm just trying to figure out what's different about that. Instagram obviously got me to take pictures of mimosas, sunsets, and my cat, which is awesome, and share that with people. I mean, Facebook has the personal, but yeah, I'm trying to figure out what is the biggest difference.

Yeah, and I think it's just going to, again, like all the social media platforms, you're going to find one that appeals to you more. And you know, the Birkenstock crowd will be going over there. It's very simple. Everything about it. I have yet to feel the engagement interaction doesn't really speak to me yet. I like to be able to feel like I'm having a back and forth conversation with people and I'm just not feeling the notifications come in, things like that. It's just a little odd. But I do, as a branding expert, I love how they branded it.

Love, love, love it. It's a little ugly. I mean, really, when you look at it—

Well, depends on the eyes of the person. What does it look like, a Birkenstock?

Yeah, I wasn't— its aesthetic was not something that I was particularly impressed by, particularly when it was marketed as being created by a group of designers. I was kind of— I'm with you a little bit on that, Jeff. That kind of threw me off on there. I do think that engaging with it. And, and, and Andy's point is dead on. The, the way that all of their notifications are set up currently make it really difficult to follow what's going on. And, and the, and the interface is not very intuitive. I mean, you're not like clicking on something to change your screen. You have to remember Shift+5 does this, and, you know, Shift+0 changes What is being on here? And so there are these other little things that you're like, that's not intuitive at all. And so I think if that's going to take off in any way where it's going to become a real force down the road, they're going to have to address a lot of that. The thing at this point in the game that I've been enjoying is the fact that, as Mia was saying, if you engage with people over here, you're also engaging with them over here. So relationships that I have that ability connect with over here, that because of that smaller base, can actually then transcend social platforms. So even if Elllo does not stay around, there's an element of the investment at this point that you can carry, carry with you. But they are going to have to adjust a lot of things for it to be an intuitive social experience as opposed to a mechanical experience.

I'm going to pipe in real quick and then I got to go. But you know what, on that point, Thomas, I think what is good— I mean, we are saying yes, we're connecting with all the same people. But in honesty, it's not true because I have some crossover between Facebook, Twitter, and the Plus, which are my main platforms. And again, I have Instagram too. But Google+ is probably the best example for me. There's people I just would have never found because of the way that the platform runs. And so yes, I have some that are over here. So there's probably like 3 circles, like what's that called, the Venn diagram or whatever, you know, it's like the 3 circles. But really they all serve their purpose for me. So it's just choosing the ones that just, you know, that do it for you. Andi likes that.

Yes, I do. But also the thing is I remember when Pinterest came out and I didn't get on social media until June of 2011. I hadn't posted, tweeted, I had done nothing. Then what, 16, 18 months later Pinterest launched. I was like, oh please, I barely nailed down Facebook, Twitter. Is there now a new one? I will wait till the experts come out and tell me how to best use that platform. I know for Pinterest when they came out with how to brand for a business, I was like thank you. I set up my Pinterest account and I flew with it. Same thing with Instagram. Let everybody figure it all out. In my opinion, let the Markz and everybody get it together, then I'll come in and I'll set it up and use it in a way that works best for me, my business, and my social branding experience that I need.

So you guys, I always say if it makes me feel like this, then I'm going to wait.

It's just so scary.

That's the Marcia Squeezie Head. That's how I get like—

That's an interesting handheld device. That's how I feel.

My eyeballs are popping out, my ears are popping out. Got to go until somebody else can figure it out, right?

Absolutely. Let somebody else figure out, do all the hard stuff of seeing how it works, and then we'll come on and use it. But I love Instagram now. I mean, I didn't at first, but then again, I don't really use it for work as much. Like, I see people posting these amazing amazing photographs of their food. I'm going, "I know you didn't take that with your phone." It's just they're uploading them and then putting them on. Every now and then I do one of those, but for the most part, it's what I'm eating. It's at the table. It's where I'm at. I'm just chronicling my life as it goes by.

I did it to you last week. I was like, "Wait, Chef. Don't eat yet. We got to take a picture of it." I end up—

my stomach is constantly growling as I flow through my Instagram, I see what Chef's eating, and it's like, oh my God, so much for my steamed white chicken, right? Only kidding. I have to go, guys.

That was awesome.

Thanks a lot for stopping by, Mia. You bet. Good to see you.

Thank you, Pieroguitis. I'll see you next week. Bye, sweetie.

But yeah, each social media has its purpose, or each has its its nuances of why we want to use them. So I enjoy Instagram because it's fun, and I kind of like things that are fun. I mean, even Facebook, I never really used Facebook until we moved to Florida, and then I started using it really pretty much just to chronicle what I was doing or where I was at or what was going on. You know, I still post my posts when I do it, but it's still more just for my friends that are on there.

Well, I have an S4 Galaxy, and frankly, I'm not fond of the photos it takes. Its quality is not that good. I know I need to upgrade to the S5. I don't have an iPhone. I know. But so I actually, if I'm going to get photos that I've taken with my good Nikon, which is really how I explore the world, I have to put them onto my laptop hook the USB port from my phone, you know, or email myself and download it that way. It becomes a little cumbersome, so I do have a little bit of the photo envy of those folks who have a beautiful phone that can take great photos.

Well, I'm surprised just how much the apps that you have can fix your photo up a little bit. You can really do some interesting things with it. I actually have an HDR app for taking some pictures on it, but you gotta hold really, really still, you know, and they come out really, really good when they come out good.

Share the app link, would you please? That's awesome.

I'll put it in the link section. But yeah, that has been good. And then lately Instagram actually opened up more section on their photos with a way to to work on them right there because I used to have to send them somewhere else, and for the most part you don't anymore.

I have an iPhone 4 too. I like Repost, the app, so that I can now share Chef's amazing restaurant visits and food adventures. I can just do the reposting, and that's fun.

I'm having fun with that one. We're coming close to the end of the show, and I just want to go by everyone, and if you have any calls to action or anything you'd like to talk about, leave us with before we go. Melissa, any new things coming up?

Yeah, well, I get torn on all the social media because I've done a lot of trainings in it. I've taught retailers and business people and corporates to use it, but I get stuck because I want to be in the moment, not busy photographing it. And that's really where I feel a strong disconnect. I think I have one image up on Instagram, and I probably shouldn't even say state that one out loud. I'm obviously active on Twitter and Facebook and LinkedIn, but I have been reading about, hearing about— I have not looked at Ello yet, and normally I'm an early adopter, but I just kind of made the decision I'm just going to wait and see what happens. See how this all shakes out instead of getting one more time zapper in there that I'm not sure is going to be here in another 6 months or 9 months. You know, it's, it's really about choosing the right vehicles for you, for your business, for your style of interaction, and not forgetting the moments even without all the networking, you know, just enjoying the moment. So that's, that's my contribution.

Well, that's good. And you have— do you have anything coming up on that you're having shows on? Are you going to be anywhere or doing anything?

I actually am rolling out my Your Prosperity Acceleration, which is a self-assessment that gives people insights into their business as well as a boatload of free goodies and a chance to talk with me directly so that I can look at your business and apply some simple strategies to move you forward. I keep running into people who are so scattered in their focus and they're so torn and they feel like it's going to take a boatload of money to get them there, and none of that's true. It really is all about finding a focus singularly, so sticking with it, doing the steps, gaining traction before you pick up focus number 2, 3, 4, 5, 12, and 25. And Andy, you know that plays well with your clients as well.

Sure do, Melissa.

I'm a huge fan of Melissa Galt. I've been following her for years.

Well, you're way ahead of me on all this technology stuff. Definitely on the G+ Hangouts. I need to follow your and Chef's example. Create my own hangout. We hurled, Chef.

We hurled, we hip hurled hangout in person as well as hangout in real life at a recent event just 3 weeks ago here in Boston. It was wonderful to snuggle up.

Yeah, that was a lot of fun, a lot of fun. Just didn't have enough time.

Exactly. Never enough time. I know I got to do some hurling with folks in LA and that was really nice to meet up with some people. Face-to-face and actually put that to them. So I was with Maggie on Zweitag. I was so excited to meet Maggie. I was so excited to meet Dr. Gene Layton, and of course Mia. Mia was the first one. But I'm telling you, meeting Mia, while it was a big deal, was like just another breath in the day because we spend so much time together. It wasn't that real big event. It was just like another part part of our lives moving forward. So that was kind of cool. So Andy and what do you have coming up for us?

Well, first I just want to say to everybody, focus on being social, not how to do social. And be social where you love to be social. I always love to be social at the bar. I'm sorry, Twitter. Twitter, that's what I meant to say. That's where you'll find me. It's kind of like an episode of Cheers for me over there at Twitter. But what I've got coming up, of course you can always find me here hanging out on Tuesdays at 1 PM Eastern where I love sharing Andi-licious advice for entrepreneurial adventurers. You can also go visit AndiLions.com and grab my freebie, 7 Essential Strategies for Early Stage Entrepreneurs. And these are my 7 core pillars, pieces of advice, tips, whatever you want to call them that will help you succeed at your business. And I just love being connected with all of you, so whatever platform feels great for you, I love doing social, so please reach out and connect.

Well, thank you. And Thomas, anything you'd like to leave us with or what you're doing?

Yeah, I, I love having these type of conversations with folks. Social media and blogging is really all about building building a community rather than building an audience, and I love the way that people can integrate on that. I did, in fact, I announced today I launched— I'm launching a new course that's going to be 4 days, and I'm— there's 4 days that I'll be doing those courses. You can pick one of them, but there's a limited number of people that I'm going to be allowing to do that with. It's a Launch Your Blog course on how to get a blog to gain traction and start getting visibility. And I have a post about that on my own profile. But that's what we have coming up, and I'm very excited about that. And it was fantastic being able— I know, Chef, I had a blast when I got to meet you a few weeks ago at the blogging conference here in Florida. But I love being able to actually sit down now and chat a little bit with Andy and Melissa and Mia, even though I know she had to head out. Those type of connections are things that are always always look forward to. So thank you for inviting me on here and giving me the opportunity to converse and connect with all you folks.

Oh, it's my pleasure, Tom. I'm glad you could jump in kind of last minute there. It was nice meeting you in person, like I said, and that conference was wonderful. In fact, thanks to the conference, you know, I've met some more people and I've begun some initiatives. I'm actually going to start my first office hours tomorrow at a local bakery in Celebrations, Sweet Escape. So I'll be there from 9 AM to 12 PM. If anyone has questions about Google+, I'm there, it's free. If no one shows up, maybe I'll start writing my ebook. It'll give me a— yeah, I'm really thrilled with being there. And Bess Auer is just the bomb. She is amazing and she has hooked me up with more local people. I'm really happy to be doing that for her. I think we're doing a webinar, Greg Trullio and Carolyn Caperna are doing one Wednesday and they asked me to join them on that for our local bloggers. That will be fun on Google+.

Oh, great, I didn't know about that.

Yep, so look for that. But yeah, thank you all for being on today and we had a great time and the best part of this day is just getting to meet meet new people and I introduce my friends to each other if they don't already know each other and you come away with some wonderful people. And there is Stacy and us, we're signing off. Isn't that perfect timing? Perfect timing, but we will have you on another time for sure.

Alright, well this is Pacific time, didn't quite catch on to that one but anyway I hope you guys had a great great chat.

We did, and we missed having you there, but we'll have you back on again. So guys, thanks so much for coming on Good Day Google Plus.

Thanks, Chef. Thanks for having us, Chef. It was great