NBA Gambling Scandal Rocks League Integrity

The NBA is rocked by a mafia linked gambling scandal involving players, coaches and insider bets. Elon Musk delivers a trillion dollar ultimatum to Tesla investors. Pay up or risk losing him. A hundred million dollar Louvre heist turns into a viral ad campaign for a German elevator company. Pretty shrewd. Google's new quantum computer makes a 13,000 fold leap toward reshaping science and medicine. And a British journalist warns that Donald Trump may have no plans to ever leave the White House. All that and more today on Filtered. Welcome to Filtered with TJ Walker Foreign okay, let's dive right in today. Thanks so much for joining me. This is the Friday edition, the October 24th edition of Filtered. This is the show where we look at the top business stories of the day, technology, culture stories, sometimes sports stories, and analyze it through the lens of communication skills and personal development skills, all with the goal of helping you not only learn more about the world but but to become more successful yourself, your professional life as well as your personal life. So let's dive right in. The NBA's integrity crisis goes federal. Federal prosecutors unsealed two indictments naming more than 30 people, including Portland Trailblazer head coach Chauncey Billups and Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier in what they describe as organized gambling and rigged high stakes poker tied to mafia families. Here's what prosecutors say happened. Terry Roshier allegedly told a friend before a March 23rd game that he'd exit early with quote, foot discomfort bets, then poured in on his unders. Chauncey Billups is accused of helping attract wealthy marks into poker rooms that according to the indictment, were secretly stacked against doctored shufflers and hidden signals. This is happening in the modern NBA and elsewhere with this poker, where legal sports gambling is woven into the product. The league takes advertising dollars from sportsbooks, partners with betting apps and actively promotes prop bets, tiny bets on a single player stat line. The FBI compared this to insider trading. The NBA has put rosier envelopes on leave and says, quote, the integrity of our game remains our top priority. Yeah, right. But this is exactly the nightmare scenario. Inside information about injuries and rotations being sold, wagered on and weaponized. The NBA didn't just flirt with gambling money, it married it. Now the honeymoon's over. When the league cashes checks from sportsbooks, it also buys their scandals. Prosecutors say Rosier leaked that he'd leave a 2023 game early and this led associates bet hundreds of thousands of dollars on his so called unders. So this is a huge, huge problem. What's the real message here? The NBA is shocked, shocked that gambling is taking place under its noses. Yeah, right. The NBA is, is just drowning in betting money, gambling money. It's everywhere. Ads, partnerships, deals, part ownerships. It's like putting a TV screen in every single room in your house, including the bathroom, and then being shocked, shocked that your teenage kids wants to watch screens. This is too rich. Let's dig a little bit deeper here. Other analogies spring to mind. I mean, it's kind of like saying, okay, going to have a boys school, a boys school for thirteen and fourteen year old boys and we're going to put it in the middle of a whorehouse, a prostitution house, whatever term you like to use, and we're going to have free tokens that buy all the services you want. And every day these 13 and 14 year old boys are going to have to go to school inside a whorehouse and they're not supposed to sample the goods, but by the way, there are free tokens everywhere. And then being shocked, shocked that they actually wanted to indulge in the services of the enterprise. Now forgive me if anyone finds that insensitive, but I think It's a bit apt. When you look at the NBA and all the different ways it's making money off of gambling and then to somehow act surprised and to come out with these statements that, oh, our integrity is number one, come on, please. This is, this is just absurd. I just can't imagine anything really sillier than this. This was inevitable. If you get in bed with big gambling organizations, whether they're run by the mafia or so called legitimate gambling organizations, don't be surprised when everyone wants a piece of the pie. Here's the other bizarre thing about this. You had Cash Patel, the head of the FBI, you had what looked like normal law enforcement press conference going after people who are ripping off people, distorting markets, causing fraud. And I was thinking to myself, wow, something's really strange here. It's almost a sense of deja vu. Like I used to see things like this. What's different? And then it occurred to me, this is the first time I've seen the FBI this year actually go after real criminals and real crime as opposed to just being henchmen doing retribution against a political enemy of Donald Trump. As far as I know, these basketball players and coaches ripping off people were not enemies of Donald Trump. So at least we can celebrate that. It did feel good to see our Federal Bureau of Investigation, our various law enforcement officials, arms of the Department of Justice for the first time that I can remember this Year, actually seemingly spending their time, energy and resources attempting to go after real crime as opposed to punishing political enemies of this. So that's nice, I guess we have to call that a win. So NBA's $76 billion broadcast deal launches under a cloud of corruption. So they have a new deal. They have gambling partners. FanDuel, who called the incidents, are the indictments deeply disturbing? Yeah, I'm sure. FanDuel, a gambling company, they like to be called gaming. They're gambling. I'm sure they're deeply disturbed at anything that might hurt their bottom line. But when you actively encourage people, and let's be clear, it's young men and middle aged men primarily, yes, some women gamble on sports. I get it. Thankfully, in my family, the men and the women do not gamble on sports. We like to occasionally watch sports and enjoy it for that, not have to make money off of everything. So I'm hoping, I'm hoping this leaves a real black guy with not only the NBA but with all major sports leagues that want to get into bed with gambling. Because, let's be honest, gambling is about lying to people and tantalizing them and say, hey, you're going to get rich quick for doing nothing. That's what gambling is. Am I saying it should be illegal to place a sports bet? No. I mean, I think there should be age restrictions, which ostensibly there are. But I also don't think it's noble to try to get money out of people and encourage people to do highly irrational activities that could ultimately bankrupt them. Take their house away, take their car away, take food off their children's plates. I don't think it's particularly honorable or ethical to be in that business. And that's what FanDuel and all these sporting apps and websites are doing. They're trying to play to your emotion. They're communicating to you, hey, you're smarter than most people because you don't win bets unless you're betting on the other side of what most people do. So all of these ads, all of These partnerships with FanDuel and other sports gaming, it's really gambling companies. It's all about lying to you. It's trying to trick you into thinking you are smarter than most people who read the very same sporting news you do, watch the very same sporting coverage you do, and that you can somehow beat the odds. Well, you can in any one game. You might in a weekend, but in the long run, you're not going to. That's why these companies have all this money to spend on flashy ads on NBA games and all the other sports leagues. So I'm hoping that this is a wake up call to major sporting leagues, major TV networks, and think, you know what? Just because we can take the money, maybe we shouldn't. Maybe it sends such a horrific message to our fans, our customers, our advertisers, our stakeholders. Maybe we shouldn't take the money just because we can. I realize that's a shocking attitude to have in our current environment. We have a White House now that's about to write itself a check from the Department of Justice for a quarter billion dollars because it claims it's owed payment for all its legal fees that it had to spend defending all the massive crimes committed in the last eight years. Because they can. They can essentially order the government to pay the leader in the White House a quarter billion dollars because he can't. And the NBA is not the White House. They have power, obviously, but they don't have unlimited power. They don't have unitary power. So I'm hoping they get a real black eye from this. I'm hoping they lose advertisers, I'm hoping they lose sponsors, I'm hoping they lose fans because they deserve to. Because when you're constantly telling people, not only bet on the season, who's going to win the whole championship, bet on every game, not only bet on every game, bet on every quarter, not only bet on every quarter, bet on every player and how many minutes he played out all this nonsense where you slice and dice every possible way of manipulating someone into behaving irrational, and then you're just surprised that people in house want to do the same thing. And I'm not excusing the behavior of the players or the coaches involved with this, but you got to ask yourself if, you know, if a player is saying, why are all my friends and family getting rich gambling off the game? And I can't get a piece of that, it is, in fact, inevitable. I hope there's more investigations and I hope more leagues decide they need to wash their hands. It's a filthy business. Now, is every business pure? No. Is my business pure? I'm sure at some point YouTube and TikTok and Facebook run ads for products I think are helping people. And I do, by the way, I do place restrictions. Most of these social media platforms that I'm on and we broadcast on about a dozen platforms a day and another 30 or 40 podcasting platforms, a lot of them let you opt out of advertising in certain categories. I opt out of any advertising that relates to Gambling, or as they like to call it, gaming. Am I perfect and pure? No. But some things are just so corrosive, they're eating away at our culture. It's such a detailed way. I think it goes beyond just the normal finger wagging. And we live in a culture where more and more people, especially young men, are sold this idea that, hey, you don't need to actually learn a new skill, build social skills, build technical skills, build expertise, build, build a career. That's all for suckers. Just place bets on the game and you'll get rich. Place bets on crypto, you'll get rich. Place bets on who you can beat in a video game. This hard work, this building a career, this getting a real education, that's all for suckers. This is playing into that. And it's having an extraordinarily corrosive effect on our society. Again, I'm not saying all gambling should be illegal. I have played blackjack before at a casino. Not in the last 20 years, but I have done it. I'm not holier than thou. But there's a big difference between occasionally doing some kind of gambling where you got to drive to it or there's some big barrier and having it on your cell phone. Ads coming to you every second of the day by people you like, respect, admire, telling you bet, bet, bet. Now, now, now. One click, one click bet. There's just a huge, huge difference there. I'm TJ Walker. This is Filtered. We have a lot going on today for this show. You're not going to want to miss out. So thanks so much for joining me. We'll be back after this commercial. Word Filtered is brought to you by the following. Get the deeper takes. I don't post anywhere else. Subscribe now@substack.com jwalkersuccess and stay in the loop. For years people have asked how they could get one on one coaching from me inexpensively. Well, now you can, anytime, anywhere with the TJ Walker AI clone. It's like having me in your pocket ready to help you prep for a speech, polish a pitch or calm your nerves before a big meeting. You talk to it. It responds like I would based on my real world coaching of thousands of leaders and communicators. Check it out at tjwalker AI it's not just smart, it's personal. Want to support the show? Skip the ads and buy me a coffee. That's buymeacoffee.com tjwalker. Welcome back to Filtered issue to Elon Musk. Trillion Dollar Ultimatum. Tesla's profits plunged 37%. But Elon Musk didn't apologize. According to Dealbook, he used the quarterly earnings call to pressure shareholders into approving a trillion dollar compensation package, calling proxy advisors corporate terrorists for opposing him. The plan could raise Musk Tesla control from 13% to nearly 30%. His justification? Only he can deliver the future of robo taxis, humanoid bots and AI driven factories. Musk says he needs, quote, more control to execute his vision. Critics call it a hostage. Note to investors, reward me or risk losing me. Okay, look, Elon Musk, by all accounts when it comes to business, not necessarily running governments or managing a smooth family life, but when it comes to creating businesses, has had a remarkable string of successes. Not one or two, but numerous successes. So I'm not here telling you Elon Musk is a moron and he should work for free. That's not my message at all. But at some point people have to point out the Emperor's wearing no clothes. At least some of the time. I mean, Elon Musk is running, you know, at one point half a dozen companies, plus the entire federal government. Thankfully, he's no longer running the US federal government. But he doesn't really seem to be giving full attention to Tesla. I mean, I remember seeing when Tesla's first came out, wow, this was like the space age. But when I get into a Tesla today, it feels no different, it looks no different. Its sense of luxury is no different than cars from a dozen years ago. Meanwhile, there are companies that have spun off from his. Former employees of his have started car companies and their cars are much more luxurious. At some point I think the market is going to have a moment of reckoning on the stock price for Tesla because it is. This is not my unique observation, it's an observation by a lot of people that it's essentially a meme stock at this point, there's absolutely no correlation with its revenues and its profits and its earnings to its market cap and its stock price. It's all crazy out of whack because so many people buy into this idea of oh, Elon, you're Tony Stark, you're larger than life, you're this brilliant character, you can do no wrong. Okay, he's done a lot, but he also lies all the time. He also says, you know, in two years we'll have robo taxis, you know, a billion of them everywhere. That's a slight exaggeration, but only slightly. And he was, in saying that for the last dozen years he's constantly over promising and under delivering it now There certainly was a time when Tesla was unique. They were the real trailblazer, there's no doubt about it. But these days, everybody's making electric cars. And here's the dirty little secret Tesla doesn't want you to know. A huge percentage of them are making better cars than Tesla, but they have surpassed the engineering capabilities of Tesla. So look, does Elon Musk deserve a lot of money from creating something from almost nothing? Let's not forget he didn't found Tesla. A lot of people think that, but he certainly turned it into a big player. Does he deserve a lot of money? Sure. I am not one of those, like Bernie Sanders, who says there should be no billionaires in America. I don't think that we should put a cap on what someone earns if they're going to do tremendously risky things. And he is by all accounts someone who has risked his entire net worth tons of times, especially for Tesla. He was willing to risk it all. If you're willing to risk everything you own, yeah, I think you deserve some upside if things work out, and they have worked out for Tesla. But the idea that his board of directors is going to think, well, we better give him a trillion or he won't be adequately compensated, he won't be motivated to work hard, that just seems incredulous. That just seems bizarre to me that any actual independent board would come to that conclusion. Of course it's not an independent board. The problem with so many tech companies, this one included, is the board is stacked with cronies. The board is stacked with henchmen and yes men. And the structure already is he. Musk owns so much, he basically gets what he wants. So he's got to appeal to the board, but he also has to appeal to courts in Delaware to get this payment. And I think at some point, I'm not saying he wears no clothes, he is an emperor, but I would say the emperor is scantily clad quite often, especially when he has to spend seemingly 20 hours a day doing nonsensical tweets, attacking anyone who doesn't agree with him and attacking everyone as a part of a far radical left if they don't instantly agree with him. He really seems like someone who has jumped the shark. He's just gone too far. He's been surrounded by so many people for so long now, saying, hey boss, you're the biggest genius in the world, you're the richest man in the world, you're the smartest man in the world, you can do no wrong. Anyone who opposes you is an idiot. That is essentially where we are today with Elon Musk. And yeah, is he a smart guy? Sure. Is he smarter than I am? Okay, sure. But he's not infallible and he doesn't deserve all the money and all the profits and all the ownership of every single company he touches. That is the bottom line. What do you think? I'd love to hear from you. We do this show live every day. It's live on podcasting platforms through the Podbean app. You can find us there. We are live on TikTok right now. So thanks to my TikTok friends for joining us. I appreciate you doing that. Please leave your comments, your questions. I've changed my camera TikTok so I'm a little closer to you and I can see that Nana just joined us and Paula has joined us. Cozy Michaels has joined us. If you have questions, comments you want to fact check me, let me know. I could get facts wrong, as all people do from time to time. We're also Streaming live on YouTube now, on Facebook, on Twitch, on Rumble, on Instagram X and a handful of other places. The show's also available on demand on most of these platforms as well as on virtually all podcasting platforms. So our own research shows that most of the people listening to this show on podcast don't actually subscribe. And for that matter, people who watch on YouTube don't subscribe. So please either hit the follow button or the subscribe button button reminder. It doesn't cost you anything. Sometimes people see the word subscribe, they think, ah, I'm going to have $9.95 charged in my account for the next 20 years. And then I. I won't even have realized it. Too risky to subscribe. Well, there's no risk in subscribing to Filtered with TJ Walker on any podcast or social media platform. So please take a moment to do that. Leave comments, sign up for notifications and leave reviews more in just a moment. We'll be right back after this break. Want more? Grab my Five Book Success Library for $9.95 at tjwalker.com books. It's the fastest way to level up your communication. Imagine being the most confident person in the room, whether you're on Zoom or on stage. That's what thousands of professionals are learning to do right now through my online communication courses at Media Training Worldwide. You can access my complete training library on demand. Affordable and actually effective. Whether you're preparing for media interviews, client presentations or TED style talks, I've got you covered. Check it out. Mediatrainingworldwide.com youm'll never wing it again. Want to advertise here? You better be legit. No crypto, no junk food, no supplements. Go to tjwalker.com advertise hi, and welcome back to Filtered. Let's go to the next issue. This is a funny one and I think a sign of our times. The Louvre heist turned marketing masterpiece. That's right. You've heard about this story. Armed thieves used a stolen Boker Aglio lift truck to scale the Louvre, break through a window and steal jewels worth More than $100 million. You saw that story in the last week. We reported it here as well. They fled on scooters. Now the shock in France turned to disbelief when the German company that built the lift used this crime for an ad campaign, which I think is absolutely brilliant. They made an ad and posted it on Instagram and other places. Bakker's viral post read, when you're in a hurry, the Bakker Aglio carries your heavy treasures. No one was injured and the CEO admitted the lift itself had been stolen years earlier. But the Internet loved the audacity. Francis, Furious. Germany's calling it marketing genius. I do think this is genius. When I was growing up, and even as recently as 10 or 20 years ago, when you talked about marketing genius, you talked about things like Apple's 1984 commercial, that they played it one time and it was in 1984, and it was the woman walking in swinging the hammer and shattering the screen of Big Brother. And they spent, you know, months, if not a year making that ad. It got tremendous publicity and aired nationwide. That was what was considered marketing, Gene. And it was at the time. But we live in a different world now. It's about speed. And quite often it's about having the most interesting thing to say. In the old days, if you're a big corporation, which Apple was even then, you could take money, you could just write checks for millions, multiple millions of dollars for TV time, a million or two to make the ad, and you could force that into the conversation. Not so easy to do that anymore. The number one way to do it is to say something interesting. And that is in fact what this Lyft company did. Apparently the CEO and his. His spouse, also a colleague, saw the story about how the news footage released by the police of their lift and how the criminal got on the lift, went up to the second floor, got the jewels and left. And they asked themselves, should we try to capitalize on this? The first thing they wanted to know is, was anyone hurt or injured? Obviously, if there had been a shootout and someone murdered, it would have seemed crass to try to capitalize and make money when people are dead. Well, that didn't happen. I think the next question was anyone seriously injured? Well, that didn't happen. So here they were, where their own product was a part of not just a regional story, a national story, but an international story. I mean, this story got so much play around the globe, and they correctly deduced, hey, we're in this story, like it or not, number one. Number two, our product is displayed in a way that shows its unique strengths. Look how reliable it is. Look how quickly it helped people steal $100 million. Three, no one was injured. Four, no one would. No one would say they're trying to encourage criminals to. To buy their lifts, to commit acts of thiever. It's a little different than if you're a dynamite company. Someone used your dynamite to rob a bank, and you're saying, hey, our dynamite's so effective, it robbed the First Union Bank. If you want to rob a bank, come get our dynamite. That would clearly cross the line. That would strike people as bizarre, odd, weird, and there'd be a huge backlash. Not so in this case. It struck me as funny. It struck most people as funny. Some of the French officials are not that happy about it, but they got attention. And it's hard to put a dollar value on what happened here, but I would have. I would have to think that it would be north of several million dollars in terms of. If you had to quantify the number of positive mentions, building the name id, the positive mention traffic to the URL of this company and people like me talking about it, it was worth millions and millions of dollars. And it's not because the CEO decided to write a check. It's not because they hired Don Draper of Mad Maiden fame to come up with a brilliant idea in the spur of a moment when he's sitting in a conference room after a hangover. That's not what happened. This was an intelligent person looking at the news, looking at their company, seeing opportunity, and acting quickly. They didn't put this into a committee or ask an ad agency to do research and testing and come back in six months, write a script, spend another six months producing. No, they acted quickly. This is the future of marketing. I mean, this is the reality of marketing today. For people who want to do it well, this is the way to do it. You latch yourself on to something already in the news that's already fascinating. People that is engaging people, that people want to talk about. You then attach yourself to that news story in a way that, where it makes you look good. Again, this is not a dynamite manufacturer saying, use your, Use my dynamite next time you want to blow up a bank. It's not like that. And it's clearly a little bit funny too because we have all these movies showing great heists, all these TV shows about jewel thieves and all the crazy things they do to get in and out in the middle of the night. There's, you know, Tom Cruise dodging lasers and these criminals just backed up a big lift, walked through a window, came out a few minutes later and zoomed right down. So it's, it's humorous, it's visual, which is good for tv. It's topical and it really puts together all the things you need. So these people deserve the positive attention they're getting. Will someone complain? Sure. Will there be some, especially in France, saying you're making light of crime? Yeah, but I don't think that's going to persuade most people. I applaud them for this. And I have no, I say I have no need for a lift. I actually have a lift coming to my house next Wednesday because I have a very heavy table that's being brought. It's too heavy for people to lift, so they're going to have some left. I'm going to look and see if it's the same brand because now I'm even thinking of lifts and that's not something most people do. Okay, so what is the real message here? If you see something in the news and you have a company that relates to that product in some way and you can tastefully have fun and make yourself look good in the process, then do it. Be like this Lyft truck company that was used in the heist at the Louvre. Be a part of the news. That is the number one way of marketing in the modern world. Okay, that was fun. I got to tell you, that was a lot of fun. Not so much fun for the security detail at the Louvre and the directors of the Louvre who do have some egg on their face, but interesting for the rest of us. More in a moment after these commercial words. We'll be right back after this break. Want to advertise here? You better be legit. No crypto, no junk food, no supplements. Go to tjwalker.com advertise Most people can't afford a full time coach. And even if you could, good luck finding one who's available when you need them. That's why I created the TJ Walker AI clone. It's built on my 40 plus years of real world coaching and training. You get my exact advice, style and frameworks instantly. Ask it how to handle a tough question. Get feedback on your elevator pitch. Rehearse your next big talk. This is the next generation of communication coaching. It's smarter than an app, more personal than a call course, and always ready. Start using it today at TJ Walker AI. You'll wonder how you ever did without it. Want to advertise to ambitious, upscale professionals who actually care about communication, success and Results? Go to TJ Walker.com advertise and no, we don't take ads for crypto supplements or junk food. If you've ever struggled with nerves, unclear messaging, or just not being taken seriously, this is for you. I created the T.J. walker Success Library as a crash course in professional level communication. You get five downloadable books for just $9.95 that walk you through public speaking, media training, persuasive communication, confidence building, and daily practice routines. This is the same training I've delivered to presidents, CEOs, and leaders in 45 nations, boiled down and instantly accessible. Go to tjwalker.combooks and download them now. Welcome back to Filtered. Happy you're here with us today. On this wonderful Friday, we're going to dive right in to issue four Google's Quantum Leap According to the New York Times, Google's Quantum Lab near Santa Barbara says it has achieved a new quantum advantage. Its Quantum echoes algorithm ran 13,000 times faster than one of the fastest classical supercomputers on Earth. That's pretty fast. Why it matters A regular computer uses bits, ones or zeros. A quantum computer uses qubits, which could be both 1 and 2 at 1 and 0 at the same time simultaneously. Now that's boggling your mind. It's not just you. I have a hard time grasping it as well. Full disclosure, but this is not a gimmick. It's an exponential explosion of power. The breakthrough could turbocharge, drug discovery, clean energy tech, and advanced materials research. This is the computing revolution that might make artificial intelligence look slow. Okay, so what's the real message here? It's very fashionable to say, oh, AI is all hype and tech hasn't created anything new in years. This quantum computing can be the real deal. It really could be what opens up the world to so many scientific cures, cures to global warming and everything else. So too soon to tell yet. But it's very, very exciting. Let's go a little Bit deeper and look at some of the details here. Again, 13,000 times faster than the world's best supercomputer. They've got tests. They can test simulated molecular behavior relevant to new drugs. And Google's so called Willow chip is producing verifiable results. And according to many experts, this is going to really lead the way in Alzheimer's research, battery development, construction materials, and there's a big race. It's Google versus IBM versus China. There is. China has a 15 billion dollar quantum computing research program. There are still errors in this. It's not really sustainable, apparently. And I'm not holding myself out as the world's greatest expert on quantum physics or quantum computing. Okay, but this is in the news. I think we should pay attention to this. I'm not asking you to make an investment. I'm not saying sell everything you have, sell the farm, liquidate your earnings and buy more of Google stock. That's not what I'm telling you to do. This is not a financial investment advisory program. But it is exciting. And of course, probably the most exciting thing of all is if you can actually have quantum computing available at the same time quantum energy becomes available. Because if we really get energy costs down to almost zero, which is the promise of really understanding, you know, how quantum energy, the dream of quantum energy, it completely changes everything in the world. It would probably solve global warming overnight if you could do anything. And energy costs are almost zero. But please note, I'm not saying that means we shouldn't care about recycling or environmental regulation. Now, it's not a license for that. But it is extraordinarily promising and exciting to live in a world where quantum computing could become a reality. Because the computing that goes on in this brain is. It's the same computer. Those of you listening on the podcast, I just pointed to my own head. It's really no different than how this brain worked hundreds of thousands of years ago. Quantum computing, artificial intelligence is different. Will it help us get to the point of general artificial intelligence where we as humans are going to be subservient to AI? We're going to leave that discussion for another day. But at this point, without seeming like a, just a, a generic cheerleader for Google, if they even have those anymore, it sounds like they're onto something based on these reports this week. And it bears further attention, further scrutiny, because it may be things like this that ultimately have a lot more impact on your world, my world, than whether the east wing of the White House is torn down. And I do think that's an interesting story, too. We've covered it here. I think it's an outrage. But it may be that when we're looking at the history of this period that's not remembered, and quantum computers that somehow come up with a cure for the right drug for Alzheimer's is the most significant thing that happens in our entire area. We're going to switch now to a big story from an other place. I am an American. I don't try to hide that fact. We try to cover news from a completely different perspective here, from a traditional newscast, we're filtering things through the lens of communication skills and personal development skills. But one of the things I teach my students around the globe is look for outside opinions. Don't just go to the same opinions all the time, the same sources. Broaden your reach. Read widely. Listen to podcasts you don't normally listen to. Constantly search for new information that isn't just giving you confirmation by so that's what we're going to do in just a minute with this next topic. So stay tuned. We'll be right back after this break. Want more? Grab my 5 book success library for $9.95 at tjwalker.com it's the fastest way to level up your communication. Imagine being the most confident person in the room, whether you're on Zoom or on stage. That's what thousands of professionals are learning to do right now through my online communication courses at Media Training Worldwide. You can access my complete training library on demand. Affordable and actually effective. Whether you're preparing for media interviews, client presentations or TED style talks, I've got you covered. Check it out mediatrainingworldwide.com. you'll never wing it again. Want to advertise here? You better be legit. No crypto, no junk food, no supplements. Go to tjwalker.com Advertisement okay, you're going to want to pay attention to this. This is provocative, and I'm not saying it's 100% accurate prediction for the future, but I do think it merits attention. Let's dive right in. A British warning Trump isn't planning to leave, meaning the White House Sometimes it takes an outsider to describe what you're living in. In the British newspaper, the Mirror columnist Mikey Smith lays out what he believes Donald Trump will do and that Donald Trump has no intention, no intention of quietly walking out of the White House when his legal term ends. Here's his case, point by point. Not saying I agree with every one of them, but it's well thought out points that all lead to this Conclusion. Donald Trump will never willingly leave the White House. Number one, Trump is already openly talking about 2028, handing out Trump 2028 hats and suggesting he'll stay beyond 2029. That means that he's not simply going to respect the tradition of filling two terms and that's it. So that's one clear thing. The next, he has continually, repeatedly floated this idea that war is a reason to suspend elections. Because Zelensky of Ukraine said, well, that's why we haven't had elections. There's been war and boom, every time that happens, you could see the thought bubble above Trump. He's literally said, oh, so if there's a war, you don't have to have elections. You can see where he's going there because he's declaring wars constantly. So that would be a reason to just not have an election. If there is no election, there's no new president, so why would he ever leave? He's still calling 2020 stolen despite losing in court 60 times. So if he feels that should be overturned, why not overturn any court decision or any election results that he doesn't like, Therefore he can stay. The fact that he's pardoned hundreds of criminals involved with the January 6th insurrection, the rebellious insurrection, where, let's not forget, people died that day and the day after because of this insurrection, giving them pardons is sending a clear cut message that if you're willing to keep me in power, wink, wink, nudge, nudge, nothing bad's going to happen to you, I'll take care of you. So that's very much a sign that he doesn't want to leave office. The next we have turning federal troops into polling place intimidation. This is something I've talked about a lot on this show. I think it deserves more attention. But this columnist for the Mirror points this out as a serious proof point that as to why we should think Trump will never leave. Because let's say for a minute he gets the Supreme Court, which seems to be in his hip pocket these days, to simply say the Constitution banning someone from serving more than two terms doesn't apply to Trump. So let's just say that happens, which is not as used to seem silly to say. That doesn't sound silly anymore. So let's say he actually gets his name on the ballot and let's say the polls show in half a dozen swing states he's going to lose by 4% or 5%. Well, that's not at all shocking or nothing surprising about that. Here's where sending federal troops in if you simply send federal troops into every district that has a lot of Democratic votes and say, hey, we're going to be searching you, we're going to be throwing you to the ground. We're going to be looking to see if your relatives are here legally. Obviously, you could depress voter turnout and you could be highly, highly selective. And this administration has shown it's willing to be highly selective and go pinpoint enemy, pinpoint cities that it perceives as not having sufficient MAGA support. So I have absolutely zero problem buying into the idea that federal troops could be used at so called Democrat cities and so called Democrat voting precincts as a sign of intimidation. Next, we have the sheer fact that he's tearing down the White House, the entire East Wing, and building a gigantic monstrosity, 90,000 square foot ballroom filled with gold, to be even bigger than Mar a Lago and to seem like something you would see in Versailles. That's what kings do. It's not what someone does if they are a temporary renting tenant and know they have to leave in three years. Because that's the attitude most presidents have, is this isn't my house. Yeah, I'll put up a few pictures in the residency, the president's residency, of family and grandchildren, but I'm not going to start tearing down walls to make this look like a presidential palace. Never even occurred to any other president before. And especially if you're 79 and you know you're supposed to be moving in three years, does it really make sense to start this gigantic remodeling project that's going to take years, Quarter of a billion dollars doesn't make sense unless it's your final destination, unless it's your final home. That is the conclusion that Mickey Smith, columnist for the Mirror, makes. And I think it's pretty compelling. I've been maintaining this for quite some time that Donald Trump will never willingly leave the White House. And people say, oh, T.J. you're being extreme. It's hyperbole. Now there are more and more voices calling this out. Because let's make no mistake about it, Donald Trump does occasionally speak the truth. He does occasionally speak his mind. He has said repeatedly his only regret from his first term in office was leaving in his own mind the White House belonged to him. He deserved it. The fact that he got fewer votes in the popular vote and the Electoral College didn't matter. Constitutional niceties like the winner of the Electoral College gets to take the White House didn't mean anything to him. That was the whole point of January 6th. Rules don't matter. Only thing that matters is mine. Gimme, gimme, gimme. I want more stuff, more power, more gold. That is the Trump mantra. And I think it's time more and more Americans take him at his word. In this case, it's always difficult because he lies so frequently. If you just said, okay, 95% of what he says is a lot, you would be accurate. The problem, though, is really figuring out what's the 5% where he actually means it. Invading Panama or Greenland or Canada probably didn't really mean it. But regretting having ever left the White House, I do think he means that. I think he's very sincere in this case because it fits with everything else we know about him. He believes the rules do not apply to him. All the power should go to him. The gold should go to him. The adulation, the adoration and the attention. Well, if you leave the White House, you're not going to get as much attention that we can pretty much guarantee. Although he did a Pretty good job 2001 to 2005. But there's still. There's nothing like being president. If you are a megalomaniac. If you are a narcissistic megalomaniac and you really think that you alone have the answers to the world's problems, let's face it, there's no better job ever than being President of the United States or being King of the United States. Ladies and gentlemen, thanks so much for spending time with me today. This concludes our look at the top five issues of the day as filtered through my lens. But we do typically go through a few more issues. What I like to call the grab bag segment. Other topics that I think don't deserve the full attention of a 10 or 15 minute segment, but I think should be called out. This one grabbed my attention. You recall the aws? The Amazon AWS cloud storage outage a few days ago put a lot of people temporarily out of business. A lot of confusion. So many apps websites didn't work well. It also left a company known as eight Sleep and their customers literally sweating. If you're not familiar with eight Sleep, it is a device that helps people sleep better. You put it on your bed, it allows you to control the temperature so that if you get night sweats you can chill it so that right when you normally get hot, it cools your bed down. It is a smart mattress cover. And when AWS went down, the mattress could not communicate with the cloud and the data and the programming, so the smart beds went dumb. A Lot of users woke up in the middle of the night not able to sleep because they're now sweating. Now, this struck some people as comical, and I got to tell you, I heard it and I thought, that does seem a little bit comeuppance for people who go to that extreme. But before I could really get the chuckle out, I realized, oops, I just bought an eight sleep myself. I just put it on my bed. I don't have the final pieces, and therefore I was not struck by the AWS outage because mine's not fully operational yet. But I have heard so many good things about the eight sleep and doing so much to help people get a great night's sleep. And sleep is a cornerstone to me of health and personal development. With a great night's sleep, you can accomplish almost anything. With a poor night's sleep, you're not going to exercise as much, you're not going to eat as well, you're not going to be as creative. So many things spiral in a negative way. So I've devoted a lot of my life to searching for better tools for sleep. I will report to you, and I'm not a sponsor of theirs, and I paid full fee for the eight sleep. So I'm going to give you an honest evaluation. I hope in the next week or two, once I get mine fully set up. But interesting how the AWS outage did affect a lot of people in different industries. Next, grab bag issue. Trump cuts off trade talks with Canada. Cuts off trade talks. He abruptly ended negotiations. And you'll never guess. Okay, you probably will guess why. He saw something on TV he didn't like. Ontario. The province of Ontario used a commercial with footage of Ronald Reagan, who routinely did give speeches saying he was against tariffs. Now, Reagan also, like most politicians, said one thing and did another. Occasionally. There's never 100% ideological consistency in pretty much any president or prime minister. They have to compromise. So Reagan did have tariffs, but in general, he was known as a free trader. In general, he gave speeches talking about the need of free trade, free free enterprise, capitalism, as opposed to USSR and communism. So here's what outraged Trump. He thought that it's a fake ad. It's a fake ad. Well, the ad was edited, and it was edited in a way where it did deceive the whole context. It did put words that Reagan actually said, but it mixed it up in a way where it wasn't just a pure. Here's 20 seconds of what he said pulled directly from his speech. But the basic sentiment Reagan did say the words he did speak forcefully to the need of having fewer tariffs in the world. There's absolutely no evidence whatsoever that Reagan would have endorsed these extremists tariffs, these historically high tariffs that Trump is endorsing. So now Trump wants to say, okay, all of Canada, you're bad, not going to negotiate, we're not going to trade with you essentially anymore. Or he'll put some ridiculously absurdly high tariffs. And again, it's in part of a TV image hurting his ego because at some level Trump does understand he has enough self awareness to know that in his own party, in the Republican Party, there are many, many, many more people who truly respect Ronald Reagan and his legacy than do respect Donald Trump. I mean, that's just a fact. And at some point it just hurts him. The implication that Ronald Reagan would think he's stupid, the implication that Ronald Reagan would think what he's doing is bad policy, hurt his little feelings. So now he's willing to walk out of negotiations and harm relationships with in some way our most valuable alliance and partnership in the world. Yeah, they're not the biggest economy, I realize that, but Canada is great. I've had a fantastic time in my dealings with Canada going on vacation for work. Although it just occurred to me I was once deported from Canada. I'll. Okay, I'll go ahead and tell you, it's a little embarrassing, but I had been to Canada many times in the past doing media training and public speaking training. Every time I went zoom through customs with my US passport. Why are you here? I'm here on business. They treated me nicely, politely, as Canadians are known to do. Well, I went one time about 10 years ago. I said, why are you here? I said, well, I'm here to do media training. Oh, really? And where's your work permit? What are you talking about? I've never been asked for a work permit. Well, Mr. Walker, you cannot come into our country and work without a work permit. It's a violation of our labor laws. Who are you here to train? I said, well, I'm actually here to train your minister of Labor, Member of Parliament. They said, that's interesting, that's nice. We don't care. You can't come into our country and work without a work permit. No exceptions. Okay? Now the last plane of the day back to New York, where I was living at the time, had already left. They said, okay, here's the deal. Go to your hotel, take a cab, enjoy a night out in the town, go out to dinner, but if you're not back here at the airport at 6am for the first flight out of here, we're going to come get you. Whether it's the Royal Mounted Police, I don't remember, or someone else, but the implication was clearly you could be put in jail. So I took it very seriously. I didn't do the training. The next day I did get to the airport. I left. And they couldn't have been nicer. Everyone was polite, nice, wonderful. But to this day, anytime I go to Canada on vacation, on a cruise with family or just transferring planes, I have to go through extra security and be vetted and be asked, are you here working illegally? So that notwithstanding that Canada is a wonderful country, the people are fantastic. And the old joke is Canada is just like the United States, only the people are a lot nicer and fewer guns. To some level. Some level that is a little bit true. Okay, I that's it. We have a few more grab bag issues, but we're running short on time. We'll have to cover those tomorrow. By the way, mark your calendars. We do come to you live every day, seven days a week. I have so much fun. Many of you have fun with this and like to start your day off with this take on the news. We come every day. I'm going to take a very brief break. When we come back, I'm going to go to our new segment where I take questions from my students and you on various aspects of communication skills and personal development. So stay tuned. We'll be back in just a moment. Want to communicate like a Pro? Go to mediatrainingworldwide.com Millions have already transformed their speaking skills. Why not you? This show doesn't run on a lot of corporate sponsorships or big media backing. It runs on caffeine and your support. If you like what you're hearing and want to say thanks, you can buy me a coffee. Really? Just go to buymeacoffee.com tjwalker it's quick, it's easy and yet yes, it helps cover editing, hosting and staying relatively ad free for as long as possible. Buymeacoffee.com tjwalker your 395 makes a real difference. Welcome back. This is our final segment. This is where I take questions from you and my students. For those of you who don't know me, I have for most of my career and still do this to this day. For the last 40 years, I train people on how to give speeches, presentations and speak to the media. Things like speaking in front of a camera like I'm doing with you. Now I have 12 million enrollments in my online courses and arguably I'm told by some measures, the most popular online communication skills trainer in the world. I do get questions every day. I'm going to share with you some and give you, right here in this course, the same advice I give my clients and students who pay me money for in person trainings or take online courses. So this question comes from Jacob, who's one of my students and in the complete storytelling course of mine, Question how can I learn the fundamentals of storytelling and build confidence in my own stories so that I can engage listeners, make my narratives more vivid and memorable, and communicate messages that truly resonate with people? So, Jacob, thanks so much for the question. I'm glad you're trying to focus on stories. The single biggest difference, in my opinion and in my professional estimation, between great communicators and average ones and awful ones, it's not the ums. It's not the quality of their voice. It's not the eye contact. It boils down to this. Great communicators constantly tell stories. Average speakers, awful speakers say, I'd love to tell stories, but there's no time. I got to go through all the data and they're boring and they're uninteresting and nobody remembers anything they say. So it truly is the biggest differentiator. So I urge you, if you want to really up your game in communication, focus on storytelling. Now here's I want to you focus on something important in your question. Make my narratives more memorable and communicate messages that truly resonate. You don't want to just be telling stories to be telling stories because I could bore people. They go, why is this guy going on about that? I don't care about his kids. A good communicator reads the audience and asks themselves, what is this audience interested in? What's meaningful and useful to them and what am I trying to communicate? How can I bridge the two together and tell a story that makes a point I want to get across and does it in a way that's interesting and memorable to my audience? A story really comes down to just a handful of things. It's you not talking about a fact or a bullet point or an abstraction, only it's fleshing it out with a story. So what is a story? A story involves a human being, you, and possibly someone else. It might involve two other people, not you. But it's easiest when you're telling a story that involves you. It's about a problem. It's about a setting. It has Some emotion, some conflict in how it was resolved. I just told you a story about my dealings in Canada where I was deported. Is it the most interesting, funny story in the world? No, but it made my point about how Canada is really a nice country. But, yeah, it's a different country. They have different rules. We have different rules. And I took the time to describe the problem. My character, what was said to me by the official at the airport, their security person, how I felt nervous about, they're telling me I could go to jail, how it was resolved and what happened. It's just a little story. It only took a minute, but people remember it. Sometimes I bump into people, you know, five years later, hey, tj, you been back to Canada? Or they kicked you out again? So it works because it's remembered and it makes a small point. Is it the most important story in the world? No. Is it a real story? Yes. I didn't have a speechwriter do that. Here's the thing that most people don't realize. I think being a great communicator, a great corporate communicator, is somehow about being extra clever, extra creative, having a speech writing team, when that's not the key. The key is simply plagiarizing not from other people, but from yourself. All of us have conversations with one colleague at a time. One vendor, one customer, one employee at a time. They ask us something, we answer by giving an example. And we'll see their eyes like, oh, now I get it. Now I understand it. What great speakers do is they make a snapshot of that story they told and then they use it again in an actual presentation to make a point that's relevant to that story. I have found all human beings are storytellers. We just are. We're natural born storytellers. One of the things I do with my clients when I fly to another country, whether I'm flying to Taipei or I'm flying to Kiev, and I'm doing presentation skills training, is I always have dinner with clients the night before, and I ask them questions about their biggest challenge and what they do. And invariably, every single time, they have stories to tell. And then the next day, we do the presentation skills training, and I stand up and they're reading bullet points off the slide and I say, well, okay, thanks for sharing the facts. But how do we get these remembered? Can you tell some stories? And they always say, oh, tj, I'm not a natural born storyteller. I don't really tell stories. I'm like, oh, really? I heard about a time when you. And then I tell them the exact story they told me the night before, where I remember the problem they had, the character they had, how they were feeling, the conversation, the setting, the resolution. And they laugh and they smile and they realize they have perfect memory. They're like, well, tj, you must have a good memory. I say, really? I can't tell you a single thing you just said in that PowerPoint presentation because it was bullet points and facts and I've forgotten them all. So they laugh, and then they realize, yeah, they don't need to learn new techniques for storytelling. They just need to do what they do already in normal conversation and bring it to the table. So that's my biggest recommendation to you, Jacob, is listen to yourself and listen to how people respond to you when you do tell stories. And then make a note of it and do it again when you're giving a presentation that relates to business. So that is. And the other thing is, if you are telling a new story for the first time, practice on video. Put up your cell phone, hit record, say it out loud, look at it. If you think it's too long, okay, do it again. If you think it's too boring, okay, shorten it. Keep practicing your story on video until you love it. Once that happens, you're going to be very confident and you're going to be a much stronger communicator. Thanks so much. I'm TJ Walker. This is filtered. Please leave a review, leave comments, leave questions. Fact check me if you think I got something wrong. I'm sure I occasionally. I don't know if I did in this show today, but I occasionally get something wrong. Please fact check me. Thanks so much. See you tomorrow.