Levi’s Faces Global Backlash Over ‘Anti-American’ Sentiment

Levi's warns that anti American sentiment abroad is hurting its brand. A hot mic catches Xi and Putin casually chatting about living forever. Waymo's driverless cars face a tougher test in New York than Uber did in San Francisco. Propranolol, a decades old beta blocker, suddenly becomes the influencer approved pill for speeches and first dates. Oh, boy. And Florida moves to end all vaccine mandates for school children, challenging decades of public health progress. It is going to be a fun day right here on Filtered with TJ Walker. Welcome to Filtered with TJ Walker. Hi, and welcome back. This is day two, essentially episode two of Filtered with TJ Walker, where we look each day at the top business stories, technology stories, and culture stories of the day, filtered through the lens of communication and personal development skills. Issue 1 Levi's faces global backlash. According to Newsweek, Levi Strauss has warned that, quote, rising anti Americanism sparked by US Tariffs and foreign policy could hurt its global sales. With more than 3,000 stores worldwide, Levi's is deeply exposed to international consumer sentiment. The filing came in the United Kingdom's National Business Registry and noted that foreign buyers may increasingly avoid US Brands. Even the quintessential symbol of America, buy blue jeans, may not escape the fallout of global politics. So what's the real message here? The idea that the United States can just say, we're the big guys on the block, take everything the way we want it, take it or leave it, and there's nothing you can do is simply wrong. Consumers around the world vote with our pocketbooks every day and a lot more people are saying we don't like America and we don't have to aspire to American brands any longer. Let's dig a little deeper here. With any action, especially at a huge policy level, a government level, a national, international level, there are always unintended consequences. There's always the second stream, third stream, downstream effects that so many policy officers fail to really think about. That's certainly the case with the most recent round of tariffs, punitive measures. This idea that America is somehow bullied upon by the rest of America, of the rest of the world is absolute nonsense. It's absolute insanity. For decades Since World War II, America has been what so many people around the world look up to. We want American genes, we want American music, we want to work in American technology companies. It's no coincidence that the the CEOs of Microsoft, of Google, of a lot of the top tech companies in the world all grew up in India. They grew up seeing United States as the aspirational place to be they studied hard so they could come here, move to America, be a part of American culture. All that is being thrown in the trash can with our recent tariff policies, with our recent bashing of anyone who doesn't look and sound just like us. I, well remember the days in, in the 70s and 80s when I would hear about friends of friends, friends of families going over somehow to Eastern Europe, smuggling an extra three pairs of Levi jeans and selling them for 10, 20 times what they cost in the United States. I mean, when I was a teenager, I could buy Levi jeans, I'm pretty sure for about $18 and people were getting $200 when they went behind the Iron Curtain, what we used to call the Soviet Union controlled states in Eastern Europe and in Russia itself, people would pay a huge, huge premium to get a piece of that American pie. Well, you can dismiss a commentator at MSNBC or CNN. You can dismiss a talking head out of Washington D.C. who is a so called political strategist, which often just means an unemployed campaign worker. But you can't really ignore financial statements from a publicly traded company because Levi Strauss is putting out warnings to its investors in United Kingdom that hey, they got a problem. You know, companies don't like to have to say bad things about themselves, but they're legally required to. So there's an extra degree of credibility when a company says, hey, bad things are going to happen to us. You investors need to realize that before you take more money out of your pocket and give it to us or buy, buy our stock. You need to realize where we are vulnerable. So it's all well and good for you to dismiss a columnist for the New York Times or a pundit on msnbc, a Rachel Maddow. But you can't really easily dismiss the investor relations team, the CFO of Levi Strauss, when they are warning their investors, hey, you're going to see a drop in sales. People don't like America, they don't like American brands. And Levi Strauss, for better or for worse, is closely identified with the United States American company. It's associated with the Gold rush in California in 1849. Its imagery is all over the United States. Its ads are based on gold miners and these jeans. I just stayed across from the Levi Strauss football stadium in Santa Clara, California just last week out in Santa Clara and working in Silicon Valley. So they're very much an American brand. And these are some of the unintended consequences when you just blindly state, well, you know, the rest of the world is unfair. You know what, it's kind of like I tell my daughter, my daughter likes to complain if she doesn't get an extra dessert or get something her way. It's unfair. It's unfair. As I tell her, yes, life is unfair in your favor. My daughter has it pretty good, and I kind of feel the same way about the United States now. Yeah, life is unfair. Life is very unfair in our favor. If you are a member of the United States, if you do business in the United States, if you're a business person in the United States, life is unfair to your advantage. If you own a publicly traded company, if you own stock in a publicly traded company in America, certainly if it's a part of the the nasdaq, certainly if it's a part of the Magnificent Seven, life is unfair in your favor. If you look at the vast, vast majority of growth of the stock markets worldwide in the last decade, the last two decades, it's disproportionately been companies domiciled in the United States. And that's because investors around the world give the United States an unfair advantage. Now, traditionally, it's because they placed faith in our rule of law. We'll see how much longer that lasts. Traditionally, it's because they placed faith in the transparency of our communication of financial data. Things like unemployment, inflation, interest rates. We'll see how much longer that lasts. It's because there was belief that the marketplace was fair and there wasn't a lot of insider trading, and that if you bought a stock at a certain price, that was the fair market price. That has all benefited United States companies relative to publicly traded companies in other countries. So, yeah, life is unfair in our favor. So my message to, and I apologize, I know this must sound condescending, but my message to a lot of Americans is the same message I have to my frankly privileged, pampered daughter, which is stop complaining about life being unfair when it's vastly unfair in your favor. And Levi Strauss as a publicly traded company can put a spotlight on this in a way where you can dismiss me. You can say, oh, TJ Has a bias, or he's not ahead of a huge publicly traded company, or he's not. There's all sorts of things you can do to dismiss me or any other pundit or commentator talking head on CNBC or msnbc. But when you're looking at publicly traded companies, what they're putting out to investors, knowing they have to say the truth, or they can be fined massively, they can be put in jail for financial fraud if they don't give accurate information, they are telling the world that the that the United States brand is under attack. And it's because consumers around the world don't like us. It's not because there's some unfair tariff against us. It's not because boo hoo hoo people aren't playing fair and they're taxing us too much. No, it's because of our own actions by our government are making consumers around the world saying, you know what? We don't see America as the role model anymore. We don't see that as the ultimate aspiration. We don't see America as the dream anymore. America has become the nightmare.

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Welcome back. Lots more to come in today's show. Xi and Putin's Hot Mic Moment the New York Times reports that Chinese state media accidentally, oops. Aired a private exchange between President Xi and Vladimir Putin. She mused that people may soon live to 150, while Putin suggested organ transplants could allow immortality. Both men are 72 years old and have taken steps to extend their political rule. Hot mic blunders have embarrassed leaders before. From President Biden's vulgar comment about a reporter to Britain's Gordon Brown calling a voter bigoted. For Xi and Putin, the slip revealed more than bad manners. It showed how longevity and political power have become intertwined. Okay, so what's the real message here? If you are a politician, a CEO, anyone where there's spotlight on you, just assume. Unless you're in the privacy of your own bedroom, somebody's listening, somebody's recording. You've got to be careful what you say at all times, because if you say something wildly embarrassing, that's going to get the spotlight of the day, not your official message. Okay, let's dig a little bit deeper here. Was there anything really horribly embarrassing that came out about this with Putin and Xi with their hot mic moment. No, nothing that's going to dominate the news coverage for a week or a month. But it is something that anyone can relate to. And these days it doesn't even have to be a famous person. I know that, embarrassingly, I've done trainings before, all day long in front of groups, had a wireless microphone on and oops, went to the bathroom. It's happened to a lot of people. It may happen to you. And these days where everyone is surrounded by microphones and cameras, it can really happen to anyone. You can think you hang up talking to a close friend or relative and then you're talking to someone else. Yeah, I can't believe it took so long to get off the phone with this blow hard, they go on and on. Then you look and see it's still on. So it is increasingly something that can affect anyone. My advice to you is if you do get caught in a hot mic and it's obvious you said something, admit it and just apologize. That diffuses tensions usually the fastest. If you deny it and deny it and deny it, and then people are saying, well, the person says this and here we have on Mike and it's clearly does not look or sound like doctored video, then the controversy continues and creates a second issue. One is the thing you said itself. Whatever, whatever controversy that was, the second issue is, now you appear to be a liar. And now we've got a whole side issue, people debating on how big a liar you are. So my recommendation is if you do get caught saying something embarrassing, own up to it. Now, of course, these days anyone can use a digital clone AI to manufacture your voice to make it sound like you're saying anything. But sometimes you know you were caught, everyone else knows you were caught, so you might as well fess up. My other big tip to you is just be very conscious anytime there is a camera around or a microphone on. I can remember 35 years ago, early in my career, where people I worked with had their entire careers destroyed because a reporter walked in with a camera operator. The camera operator had had the camera down below and didn't have the light on, wasn't holding the microphone up, and they started saying all sorts of things, assuming it was off the record conversation. Here's a good general rule of thumb. If you see a reporter within half a mile of you, just assume anything you say, anything you do is on the record. Now, if you're an experienced politician, generally you know that. But if you are a startup founder, you could be 19 years old, your first time in business and you're judging, you're basing your relationship with the media based on something you saw in an old movie. Well, let me tell you, it's not the movies. In the movies and TV shows, sometimes reporters will hear somebody say something inflammatory and say, hey, hey, is that on the record? Can I use that? And the person says, no, that's not on the record. That's not how it works. Unless you explicitly have an agreement, a verbal or written agreement from a reporter in advance, then the rules are everything you say and do is on the record and can be used any way the reporter wants to. That is the norm. That is the standard with most mainstream media everywhere in the world, unless you are in an authoritarian regime, in which case reporters realize, oh, I better get permission or I'll get my head chopped off or I'll be sent to prison. So yeah, it can be a little different in a place like China, but in China, if it's a live feed, it's already out there. It's very hard to deny something that has already been out there. So I do want you to give real thought to that because you may be a student today, or you may be a 31 year old junior account executive in your firm and never giving speeches, never talking to the media. But five years from now, let's start thinking about the future. You will be in a position where maybe not the entire world media and every TV network is focused on you, but maybe some of the top podcasters in your industry have come to a conference and just heard you speak and want to ask some follow up questions. Assume everything is on the record. Speak in a way so that you would not be embarrassed if everyone in your industry, if everyone in your company heard every word you say, that's generally the better way of going about it. Now let's get to the meat of what they actually said. Both of these men are 72. Putin certainly prides himself in appearing to be quite vigorous physically exercising, horsebacking, horseback riding without a shirt on, looking like the tough guy, young, beautiful mistresses showing his how virile he is. So it does raise the question of, wow, what if these guys, I mean, certainly you have to assume they're going to get the absolute best medical attention and the absolute best technology and medical devices that their countries can offer. It does make you wonder, what if both of these guys are actually governing for another 78 years, which is how long it would be until they're 150 years old. Does make you worry about how rigid and frozen cultures could be when one leader consolidates power for that long. And it may be giving other people, I don't even want to mention the name, the great Orange one, ideas on how long they can live too, and how long they can rule and govern. Because here is the thing about power. It's all well and good to make fun of Joe Biden wanting to cling to power past his expiration date, but in general, very few leaders want to give up power. Certainly in Russia, when they went from a Soviet dictatorship to at least short term a democracy, it seemed like they were going to kind of play by the rules of democracies, which is you can be a ruler, but then you step aside. And Putin stepped aside, at least on paper for a while. But now he's like, ah, to heck with that, I'm just going to be president forever. There were term limits in China too, and Xi sort of pushed that aside. So if you can push aside the reality of biology and mortality and live forever, and maybe it's just their brains uploaded into a computer or super sitting in a a vat of liquid hooked up to cables, if they can control power, not have to give it up, that may be the biggest challenge we citizens of the world face. So we'll keep you updated on that. I'm TJ Walker. This is Filtered with TJ Walker, where every day we look at top business stories, technology stories and culture stories filtered through the lens of communication and personal development skills. If you have any questions or comments, you can always post them right here. If you're one of my students on any of the online platforms I'm on, including the Media Training Worldwide 1 or Udemy. If you post your questions or want to talk to me live, you can do so at the end of every show. So we have that interactive part. If you're watching this on demand, please do me a favor and subscribe. Wherever you are watching this podcast or listening to it, we just officially launched worldwide yesterday. We're on every major podcasting platform. If you have started consuming this podcast in an audio format, whether it's iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, music, please leave a review, follow or subscribe. Whichever terminology they use, please leave a review. It is extremely helpful as we just begin our journey on this podcast. I was watching someone, Patrick Bet David talk about his own podcast journey and he is a wildly successful podcaster. He happens to have a lot of political views and Ayn Randian views that I find abhorrent, but he's a skilled podcaster and very successful and has millions and millions of millions of subscribers and views every day. But he has a great video out on how to be a podcaster and he says very clearly don't start a podcast unless it's a real passion for fun because you're not going to make any money, typically for years. He said he did a podcast every day for two years and had 2,000 subscribers. Now he has millions and millions, but it takes a long, long time. So I'm in this for the long haul. I appreciate you if you're watching me today. Getting in on the ground floor. Lots more to come, lot more fun topics. Stay tuned.

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Welcome back. Waymo versus New York's transit reality according to the New York Times, Waymo has started test driving cars in New York York City Unlike San Francisco or Austin, nearly half of New Yorkers rely on public transit. Cheap rides could lure people off subways and buses, creating unmanageable gridlock. The city learned this lesson the hard way in the mid 2010s when Uber and Lyft flooded the streets, nearly destroying the taxi industry. Officials eventually capped four hire vehicles, imposed minimum driver pay and added congestion surcharges. Experts now warn New York must set rules before Waymo expands, proving that technology should adapt to the city, not the other way around. Okay, so what's the bottom line here? You cannot stop technology when it gives great value to a tremendous number of people. Autonomous driving cars are extremely valuable. They save lives and they save money. You put those two things together and they will not be stopped. Let's dig a little bit deeper. I'm sympathetic to anyone losing a job. I've lost jobs before now, not because I was laid off from technology. I was just fired because the boss thought I was horrible and it was not a good fit. But I'm sympathetic to anyone losing a job. But I'll go back to the example that I give frequently on this show, which is if you really think that we should not let technology eliminate someone's job because a job is more important, then we got to go back to 1960 and rehire the 400,000 live telephone operators the United States had at a time when every long distance phone call, meaning if you had to call someone more than 10 miles away, you had to pay $50. Do you really want to go back to those days? Because that's what it used to be. Plug this in, plug that in. And it was wildly expensive. Technology did get rid of the telephone operators and they all found other jobs. Is it always neat, efficient, clean? No. But the history of capitalism, the history of technology so far, and it could change at any moment. The history has always been when technology puts one group of people out of work, ultimately the pie of the entire job base expands. But yes, short term, there can be some people who lose. There's no doubt about it. I have a lot of sympathy for people who drive taxis for a living, drive trucks for a living. I personally can't stand to drive. So I'm always happy when someone else is willing to drive for me and I can pay them. But I can tell you I experienced a Waymo one year ago this very week, and it was a fantastic experience for me. I was out in Phoenix. The car picked me up. At first, it's a little bit disconcerting because you're in this car and all of a sudden you just, there's no one up front and there's a steering wheel moving and I'm kind of feeling like this a little bit. But I calmed down after a while. I realized I was being irrational. Because when you look at the actual data points, the facts, human beings are awful drivers. 1.2 million people a year die in car crashes around the world. So pretty much anything, putting a monkey, putting a dog with gloves on paws would be better and safer than a lot of human drivers. And I, I say that not to be disrespectful to cab drivers, because it is. It's especially a way where a lot of immigrants and first generation people have started the quest for middle class and upper class success in America. But it's just a fact that humans driving cars is a dangerous thing. Is Waymo perfect yet? Is, is Elon Musk, Tesla's automated driving perfect yet? No. Are there sometimes death? Yes, but it's proportionally it's so much safer than human drivers. So purely on the basis of respecting human life, I think we have to err continually in favor of using automation and technology for transporting people. Let's look at some of the facts. Waymo is testing cars in New York City. New York is different in that 48% of workers rely on mass transit. Very different from the rest of America. So the point of this columnist in the New York Times today is because New York City is so different, we really do not want to be encouraging people to stop using mass transit. If everyone can get an automated car, an autonomous driving car, for very little money, then why use a subway? I understand that concern, but at that point, a subway is going to get you from point A to point B faster than a car, because if everyone's in a car, the cars are going to move, you know, one mile per two hours and you could walk faster. So there are some self correcting aspects to this in the marketplace that solve the problem. Now again, I'm going to say some things that are going to upset a lot of people, but I'll go ahead and say it. If Waymo and companies like Waymo put every single Uber driver out of business and every single cab driver out of business, that's bad for the drivers. There's no doubt about it. It's bad for their families, but it might actually be a really good thing for all of New York and all of society. And bad for care for, for grave diggers and funeral directors, because there's going to be fewer deaths and we're going to have to come to grips with the idea that technology is going to put an artificial intelligence, because that's what's powering these cars, is going to put people out of business. And to the extent that it saves other people a lot of money and saves lives, it's going to be a net good thing. The question is, what do we do with these people who no longer have jobs? Now I'm not like a lot of these tech gurus who just say, well all government's bad. Let's have a libertarian utopia and let's worry about those people later. No, I think we should worry about them now. I'm very much in favor of doing more of what happens in Europe where there's extensive retraining programs for people who want to learn new skills, where training programs, trade schools and yes, even college can be free or very low cost so people can learn new skills that can be valued in the marketplace. So I am not one of these. And it's mostly left of center types who are saying, hey, you know, we got a really ixnay on the waymo, let's not do that. We don't want more competition for cabbies and Uber drivers. Again, I'm going to upset some of my friends on the left of center side of things. You can have all sorts of quibbles with the founder of Uber, Travis Galnek. Gallinek is by all accounts a jerk. Let's just put it that way. You can say Uber has broken all sorts of laws and done horrible things, but they have massively, massively created a tremendous experience for people all over the world. I well remember the time when I would be flying in from a training in some other part of the world, perhaps flying into LaGuardia, getting in at let's say 7pm on a Friday night and it's raining. And before there was Uber, I would have to wait in a line sometimes for two hours. Away from my family, away from comfort. It's a cold rainy night in November. I'm stand, I'm bone tired. I'm standing outside, having to wait for a camp one at a time in a linear way. It was slow, it was very efficient, inefficient and it was exhausting. And it was still expensive. And only a few years later, I stroll off the plane, I push a button. By the time I'm outside rolling my bag, there's my car, I'm home two hours earlier. It's the same amount of money, or often less. You simply can't say that's. That's a apples to apples comparison of this driver's is robbing this driver's money because it's a completely different experience, saving two hours of my life, getting to my family home, not starting off a whole weekend tired, exhausted. That's a different, that's a profoundly different experience. And as much fun as it is to bash Uber and as many awful things as they do, and they do plenty of awful things, I don't think it negates the fact that it has created a fundamentally different experience in life for anyone traveling. And I'm now at the point pretty much anytime I travel anywhere in the world, I use some ride sharing service and disclosure. It is typically Uber and disclosure. I don't own any stock directly in Uber, so I'm not pumping them up. But it's a profoundly different experience. So I for one applaud Waymo trying to enter New York City. And I do think that the marketplace, the market doesn't solve all problems. The market doesn't solve the problem of if half our country becomes unemployed. It doesn't solve the problem of if there are no environmental regulations, we destroy the environment. So I'm not one of these who says the market solves every problem. But when it comes to transportation in New York City, I do think the marketplace will solve a lot of problems. If all of a sudden there's 200,000 Waymo autonomous vehicles and another hundred thousand ubers and another 10,000 taxi cabs, everyone will just decide to walk or bike everywhere. Which by the way, is how I like to get around when I'm in New York City. I have a rule. If I'm in New York City, if I can walk someplace in 30 minutes or less, I do not take a car, I do not take a cab, I do not take a subway, I do not take an Uber. I walk. And guess how many bad things have happened to me because of that? Absolutely nothing. So I'm hoping Waymo gets the green light to really roll out as much as possible. And for my friends driving Uber, I've met a lot of nice people, well meaning people, quite often people transitioning out of one job or been laid off or perhaps they've been a stay at home parent re entering the workforce, I give credit to people willing to do it. But I also think that we're here in the year 2025. If you are trying to make a living using the same skill that a 15 year old with a second grade education in 191925 in New York City did, which is what a driver had Back then, you've got to realize that you're living on borrowed time. You're going to have to work your way up the skill ladder and do something that delivers higher level value that a simple machine can't do. And you can say, well, tj, careful what you're saying. We're going to have AI bots and clones doing your job hosting podcast. Maybe, maybe I won't be needed. But it's also why I have my own clone who is ready to talk to you right away in case something happens to me. So all. No, none of us should be too cocky. All of us need to realize technology is coming and it's our job to figure out how to work our way up the food chain of value to constantly be generating more value. And my one experience with Waymo, it was fantastic. It showed up on time. It was smooth. It. It used turn indicators at the right place. It didn't jerk anything. It was aware of everything around it. 360 degrees. And after the first ride, by the second ride, I realized, wow, this feels so much safer than if there's a human driver. It certainly feels safer than if I'm driving, because I know I'm. I'm a human. I can be distracted by someone in the backseat yelling at me something interesting over here on the street trying to find the right podcast. There's so many distractions that humans can get messed up with driving that a Waymo or any autonomous car can't. Are there going to be deaths from it? Yes. But the question is always what reduces the number of human deaths the most? Which. What preserves the most amount of human life? And I don't think any serious person would suggest that our current pattern of having 1.2 million people a year die in car crashes around the world with human drivers is the best way to go because it is clearly, clearly imperfect.

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If there's a little notification option where you are now, go ahead and turn it on. It helps you stay in the loop. Welcome back. Issue 4. Propanolol becomes the calm pill. According to today's Wall Street Journal, propanolol, a decades old beta blocker, is suddenly in vogue as a quick fix for performance anxiety. Prescriptions are up 28% since 2020. The drug slows heart rate and lowers blood pressure, easing jitters, but not curing Anxiety itself. Celebrities From Robert Downey Jr. To Rachel Sennott have praised it, and podcasts like Giggly Squad have glamorized its use. Telehealth platforms now make prescriptions available with little oversight. Doctors warn of risks. Propranolol can dangerously lower blood pressure and worsen conditions like Raynaud's or asthma. Some experts caution that confidence borrowed from a pill may become dependence. Okay, so what's the real message here? When it comes to using beta blockers because you're nervous about going out on a date or giving a speech or an acceptance presentation, it's a horrible idea. I've had clients of mine use this before going on CNBC because they were nervous, and it did calm them down inside what they felt during the interview. But outwardly, to the rest of the world, Hi, I'm TJ Walker. I'm very calm today, and I realize I look like a zombie. That's the problem. You look and sound like a zombie to other people. If you are nervous, the number one solution is to practice whatever you want to say on video until you like what you see and hear. Okay, let's dig a little deeper here, because this is an issue where there's a lot of controversy, and I've gotten a lot of hate mail over the year, but I'm going to continue giving it to you straight. If you are nervous, giving a speech, a presentation, a new business pitch, a job interview, that is your body telling you something. It's telling you, hey, you might not actually be prepared. You might be boring, you might sound stupid, you might not make any sense. Well, the solution is not to feel better about how poorly you prepared. The solution is to prepare. I know it sounds crazy. I mean, imagine if you're taking a driver's test and you've never studied how to drive. You've never gone to driver's ed. Would you want a drug to just make you feel more relaxed during the driver's ed test? Meanwhile, you never learned what the gas pedal is, the clutch, the brake, or would you actually want to learn how those things work and to do it in advance and to think about it and to practice it in a safe situation? I think you'd want to practice in a safe situation before you're out on the highway, wouldn't you? So this is something that's come up in my practice in decades and decades of working with billionaire fund managers, some of them who've taken beta blockers, Ms. Universes, presidents of countries who, believe it or not, still get nervous. They're looking for that edge. And this is seductive. It seems like an edge, but it really isn't. It makes you feel better, but it's going to make you look worse to other people. So imagine if I come to you and you are my production assistant and I'm about to go on the air and I say, hey, Bill, I'm about to go on the air. There's no mirror around. How do I look? And you say, hey, boss, you look great. You're going to knock them dead. You're going to look wonderful and fantastic. On Today's Filter with T.J. walker. And I feel good. Is that really a good thing? Now, those of you listening on the podcast, I've turned my collar upside down. I look absolutely ridiculous. Now, does it really help me to feel good about how I look now? No. I look like an idiot because my collar's all upside down and twisted and I look stupid. What I need is, is an actual mirror to see how I look so I can see okay, my collar is straight. I look the way I want. Now. I have confidence. So here's the tricky part, and this is what plays on my expertise of having worked with literally millions of people around the world at 12 million student enrollments from every country in the world except for North Korea. And I've worked with tens of thousands of people in person, face to face. So I'm telling you, this actually works. The number one way to completely get rid of your nerves does not involve meditation. Although I'm not against meditation. I meditate every day. It doesn't involve drinking green tea. I'm not against green tea. I drink green tea every day. It does not involve visualizing your audience in their underwear. Horrible advice. Depending on your audience, it's either too disgusting or too exciting. None of those things work. There's one thing that I have found works every single time when it comes to reducing your nerves about giving a speech, a presentation, an acceptance speech, a job interview. And here it is. And listen to me carefully, because most people only hear part part of it. You need to rehearse what you're going to say on video. Now, when I started out in this line of work in 1984, it was difficult. We had to hire a local network TV reporter, camera operator to come bring in a big 60 pound camera. Set it up. It was a big, expensive production. These days, everyone is surrounded by video cameras. Every cell phone, every iPad, most laptops. You need to practice whatever it is you want to say on video. Look at it, figure out what you like and don't like, now, timeout. One second. A lot of you are going to say, all right, T.J. i heard that. Good to go. Thanks for the tip. Nope, that's not the tip. In fact, if you stop right there, you can make yourself worse. You could actually reduce your confidence. This is going to sound a little bit contradictory and weird until you listen to me for the next couple of minutes, so bear with me. If you practice on video once and note what you like and don't like about your speech, your presentation, your job interview, and you intellectually say, well, I like this and I like that, and I didn't like that, and that's all you do. You're going to go into the next speech, the next interview in real life, with lower confidence because intellectually, you'll know what you did, right? But in. But emotionally, you're still going to remember the things you didn't like. Oh, I don't like what I said there. I don't like that. I don't like how I moved my hands this way or I froze. You're going to remember that emotionally. So that's not the trick. The trick is. And the hard part, and by hard, I don't mean it requires money or really much time or technology. The hard part is you need to practice again. Look at it, evaluate it, figure out what you like, don't like, do more of what you like, do less of what you don't like. Do it again, review it. Do it again, review it, keep doing it as many times as it takes until you can look at the video of yourself giving that speech, giving that presentation, doing that job interview, and saying, wow, if I can be half as good as he is, half as good as she is, half as good as they are, I'm going to be the best speaker of the day. I'm going to get the job. I'm going to come across the best I can. Once you do that, it becomes virtually impossible to be nervous. So you're not going to want to take this drug. And please note, the FDA has not approved this for anxiety, certain other diseases, Raynaud's disease, it makes it worse. It can create more risk for people, for fainting. It can make asthma worse. So just because celebrities do it, just because certain influencers are talking about these beta blockers, I do not recommend that you do it. Now, I've talked about this before on other YouTube videos and other social media posts. Invariably, I have angry people saying, tj, you don't know what you're talking about. I've used it and it works. And I'm here to tell you I'm coming at this from a different perspective, and I mean this with love. I don't care what works for you. Hear me out. I care what works for your audience. When you're giving a speech, there's an audience. If you're giving a presentation, there's an audience. If you're doing a job interview, there's the audience of that one potential boss hiring you. I care about how you come across to the people you're speaking to or if you're going on TV or a podcast. I care about the audience because ultimately, that's what you want. I mean, I really do care about you and I want you to come across your best. It doesn't do any good for you to feel completely comfortable if everyone else is taking away a negative reaction. I'm coming to you today from Florida. It's hot and humid. I'd be more comfortable in a bathing suit and a tank top, sitting back with a margarita in my hand. But if I did this whole show in a tank top, in a bathing suit, flip flops, holding a margarita, I might not come across as. As compelling to you or as believable or as credible to you. So I'm taking the time to try to come across credible for you. So a part of it is not. Is not being quite as selfish and thinking about me, me, me, me, oh, I feel good. This drug is making me feel good. I want you to feel good about being interesting and captivating and compelling to your audience. And that's why I think the beta blockers or horrible idea. So here's the question I will those of you thinking about attacking me or putting nasty comments saying, all these beta blockers did a great job for you, ask yourself, have you tried the one solution I recommend that does not require a doctor's prescription, does not require money, does not require pharmacological responses, does not have any risk of making Renault's disease, asthma, or fainting worse. And it is the simple practice of practice, whatever you want to say on video, multiple times, again and again and again and again in a set format where you focus on what you like doing more, what you don't like doing less, one at a time, to the point where you like what you see. I've asked that question to people for decades. No one's ever said they were willing to do, oh, I can't do that. You're a liar. You can do it. You might not want to do it, but if you say you cannot practice your speech and watch yourself on video and listen to your own voice. I'm sorry, you are a liar. I can tell my wife, oh, I'm not good at cleaning the garage. I really can't do that. I'm lying. What I really mean is I don't want to clean my garage. I don't like cleaning my garage. But anyone can clean a garage. You pick things up, you take them outside, you look at it, you say, have I used it in the last year? Do I need it? Am I going to use it? If not, throw it away, give it away, sell it, donate it and then put it back in a proper place. Anyone can clean a garage in the same way. Any, absolutely anyone can go into a presentation, a speech, a talk, a new business pitch and a job interview with confidence if you follow that procedure. So I urge you, give it a try. You don't have to hire me to do it. You can do it for free.

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Okay, we are back for segment five today. Florida and Vaccine Mandates According to the New York Times, Florida plans to become the first state to scrap all vaccine mandates. Congratulations. My state. You're really distinguishing yourself. This is including for school children. Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo called mandates wrong and likened them to get this slavery, while Governor Ron DeSantis praised the move. Public health experts warn this undermines decades of progress. When vaccines became widespread after World War II, US life expectancy jumped by over a decade. Decade and globally. The World Health Organization credits immunization with adding 20 years of life expectancy in just 70 years. Let me state that again. According to the World Health Organization, vaccines have improved life expectancy by two decades, 20 years. Critics warn Florida could face measles or mumps outbreaks threatening children, cancer patients and the elderly. Okay, so what's really going on here? The dark web filled with conspiracy nuts and nincompoops have infected a lot of brains in this country, and they've really infected Florida brains in the political world. The idea that we're not going to have vaccines anymore for school children in Florida is absolute insanity. Why don't we repeal the idea that people need to follow any speed laws? Why not just drive 150 miles an hour? And if you drive into a school bus and kill everyone, hey, that's the price of freedom, right? Let's dig a little deeper here because this is a real sickness permeating our society for generation after generation. Certainly in the United States and a lot of the western world, life expectancy has gone up. Certainly since the advent of germ theory and antibiotics and vaccines. We've seen life expectancy almost double from 30, 35 to 70 or more than 70. It's not an accident. And these days, it's not even for better nutrition. It is from vaccines and antibiotics. And now we've had these right wing extremists, right wing nuts, who think, well, if the government says I should do it, then the opposite must be true. Well, the government says gravity is real. So why don't you start jumping off of bridges and jumping off of buildings to prove them, to prove the deep state? They're wrong. Gravity is just a theory, okay? You know, measles is not a theory. Smallpox, not a theory. Po not a theory. Children dying at a mass level, not a theory. It used to happen all the time. I mean, it used to be if you had 10 children and you get two of them to adulthood, you were doing pretty well. And that's why people had 10 children. It's not like that anymore, thanks to vaccines. Now people say, well, I should have the right to do whatever I want. Okay. If you're in a crowded movie theater, you don't have the right to, to scream fire because it's jeopardizing other lives. If you're in a busy traffic street in your town, you don't have the right to ignore stop signs and stoplights because people would die. If you're in a residential neighborhood with children playing and the speed limit's 35, you don't have the right to go 200 miles an hour, even though it might be fun, because you're jeopardizing other lives. And that's the problem with not having vaccines, is you're jeopardizing the life of every other kid in the class, every other kid in the school, other people in the community. And it is really sending a message from society that screw the rest of the world. Don't care about anyone else but yourself, and don't even care about yourself. The government can't do everything. The government cannot come to your home and tell you, don't eat that breakfast cereal. Instead, just eat oatmeal and nuts. You can't do that. You shouldn't do that. I don't know of anyone right of center or left of center recommending that. But when it comes to really big obvious things that will kill you. Yes, we as a society have determined we want government doing that. We want government putting some guardrail. We don't want someone setting up a business saying, here's my pharmacy, here's this pill for $1,000 that will cure you of cancer, and it's really radioactive dog poop. We, we want some government regulation. We don't want your next door neighbor to be able to dump every kind of pollution imaginable into their backyard and it leaks into your well and you and your kids drink it and you die. We want some regulation of what you can dump in the environment. If you have just spent $2 million building your dream home, Most people like the fact that there's some government regulation so that your next door neighbor can't just create a whorehouse, a prostitution, whatever the politically correct term is these days, a, a service center for sexual services. As a commercial business, you don't necessarily want your next door neighbor to set up a crack house. You know, not being able to sell crack is government regulation. It's government intervention. It's government telling people what to do, what they can't do with their lives. But most people who just built a two million dollar house don't want someone setting up a crack house next to them. All of a sudden they're very much in favor of government regulation. So don't tell me you're so pure and high and mighty that you know, the government can never tell us what to do. We have government telling us what to do all the time. And that's what we as a society want it to do. And I think this is going to end with a lot of death. I'll make one prediction. When there are deaths, when there are massive measles outbreaks, polio outbreaks, others, the people who were promoting this are not going to be responsible. They're not going to hold themselves responsible because they're not my fault. Who knew? Prayers, you know, thoughts and prayers is what they will say. Well, there was a time when you came down with tuberculosis, polio, measles, where prayer is the first thing most people went to. And then they died. And then we turned to science and science solved the problem. And now society is sending a very clear cut message that we don't believe in science anymore. We don't believe in rational thought. This is a real challenge for medical communicators and for healthcare communicators. There was a lot of criticism about how they talked about things like masks during the COVID situation. Masks aren't needed. Masks aren't needed. Masks aren't needed. There was a lot of confusion and some criticism was valid. But here's the thing about science. It doesn't pretend to know all the answers perfectly today. It does the best it can. It puts out a theory, it tests it with empirical evidence and then it changes. It adapts to new information. And the latest information we have from every serious medical expert is that vaccines save millions of lives around the world and it would be absolutely crazy to end it my own state of Florida. Okay. I'm T.J. walker. I'm vaccinated. Sorry if that offends you. I appreciate you joining me today. If you get any value out of this show, please leave a comment. Please subscribe. It's brand new this week. This is the second official version ever of filtered with TJ Walker. So I'm hoping you like it. Please subscribe on one of the many podcast platforms, whether it's Spotify, iTunes, Google, YouTube, music. Please subscribe. Please leave a message. Please tell your friends and please, please come back tomorrow. Thanks.