Doing The Unthinkable

[Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] thank you hi everyone welcome back to liftoff I’m Jeannie Weldon your host here on liftoff we’re going to have fun with a purpose we’ll bring you resources to guide you towards Financial Freedom betterment of your mental health a healthier lifestyle and something I like to call Air overall authentic inspirational and relatable content each guest in conversation we have is carefully designed to make every part of your life better so if you need a lift and you’re a professional or your personal life you are in the right place let’s start the show with one of my passions women empowerment in business CEO and founder of hug Randy Zuckerberg joins us to share why now is the perfect time for women to pursue a digital career welcome to liftoff Randy thank you and uh Happy women’s History Month International women’s day we are just celebrating women today and uh excited I feel really energized when I hear you talk about all of the opportunities there are for women to step up in Tech Industries Why do you think there’s such a big divide when it comes to women in the digital Workforce it’s something that I’ve been struggling to understand for 20 years quite frankly when I started my own career in Tech and found myself the only woman in every room that I was in it’s gotten a little better but still nowhere near where we need to be I think the pandemic set us back unfortunately with a lot of women stepping out of the workforce but there are some really exciting opportunities right now uh huge explosion in Cutting Edge Industries around space cyber security artificial intelligence blockchain you name it and those will provide countless opportunities for women to get in on the ground floor and not be left behind and what can we do to close this Gap what educational opportunities are available to women right now who are looking to get started or thinking about making a career change I love this question first of all we need to put the myth out of our head that you have to be a coder or an engineer to have a tech job that is not true you can have an incredibly meaningful career in Tech without having any of those technical skill sets I think it’s very important to pursue lifelong education and upskilling I’m delighted today to be teaming up with DeVry University they have an incredible program the women in Tech Scholars Program where women are surrounded by other women mentors professional experiences credentials to kick-start a career in Tech or up level yourself in Tech and I would definitely say to surround yourself with a strong peer network is something that’s incredibly important for women stepping into a male-dominated industry and who’s hearing you and thinking about making a move into a digital career what should they be considering yes well first of all whatever your passion is there’s a Tech Career around that passion so I I just I definitely want to encourage women to not feel like they have to be working in traditional Tech or be a coder uh whatever your passion is there’s a tech job out there for that uh Second education and upskilling is so important the careers that will be hot a few years from now don’t even exist yet today so the best thing that you can do is just keep learning with programs like devise women and Tech Scholars Program even just reading podcasts uh I can’t I try to spend time every day learning and growing well thanks so much Randy for the empowering information likewise thank you don’t go away we’ll be right back with more after the break foreign Rubinstein is an award-winning board certified plastic surgeon well regarded for his outstanding work and cutting-edge non-invasive and surgical plastic surgery procedures for women and men Dr Rubenstein joins us now with tips and information to guide us and the public about the ever-growing topic of plastic surgery thanks so much for being on the show Doctor it’s my pleasure thanks a lot for having me so doctor we can’t scroll through social media without seeing the ubiquity that is plastic surgery today why do you think these procedures have become so popular well I suppose everybody wants to look and feel their best and you know with social media it’s become so mainstream everybody is talking about different procedures you know what’s hot what’s not and also talking about things that have gone wrong and problems that people have had so it’s just become front and center so everyone’s aware of it it’s more accessible than ever before and and it’s popular and it seems like no matter where you turn you’re seeing different types of stories some positive some negative all plastic surgery and surgeons for that matter are not created equal so tell me about your practice and your voice as a patient advocate I think it’s important as a board-certified plastic surgeon myself to be outspoken and trying to educate people because it’s not easy to know what the the best choice might be it’s not easy to know what is a real plastic surgeon because especially now as we’re talking with social media everybody stands up and calls himself a cosmetic surgeon or even a plastic surgeon and not everybody who takes these names is properly trained and board certified and you know really qualified to do this kind of stuff is one of the reasons we see so many problems in uh in having certain procedures done so you know my role I think besides just taking care of my patients is to try and educate people in general I think I’d like to see everyone have all the information they need to make their best choices and that’s one of the big things that I try and do a real transparency in the world of plastic surgery and I don’t want to scare everybody but I know that some bad things can happen when you choose the wrong doctor or you choose the wrong facility to go to what have you seen go wrong if you don’t pay attention to these fundamentals well uh I’ve seen way too much frankly but I mean the typical things are infections and bleeding and I mean all the way up to very serious things that can be life-threatening and cause death and we’ve seen that in South Florida we have way too many of those popping up in the news uh you uh you know I was on the the lifetime show my killer body hosted by K Michelle and that whole show was dedicated to people that had really lousy outcomes and big problems that changed their life from cosmetic surgery and I had the the privilege to try and help a few of them and get them to a better place I mean it’s a it’s such a big problem we’ve got TV shows dedicated to it for those people that haven’t visited your social media yet tell us about those and what you set out to accomplish with them well with everything that I do I’m trying to just trying to let people know the information they need to like interviews like this are great you know getting the word out and so thank you for that uh social media like in uh my Ig at plastic surgery truths or my main one at Dr Rubenstein a lot of times I try and do these things with a little bit of humor because I think it’s more palatable it’s easy to kind of take in if we try and make something funny and these are not very funny topics I mean serious stuff but the way that we make fun of it people get the idea things like uh there was drive through Botox going on during the pandemic I mean really I’m serious this sounds like something you’d see on a Bad episode of a comedy you know yeah it really does it raises the issue in a fun way just to make people think and really understand hey this is not fluff this is not you know it’s not just lipo it’s not just uh you know a breast augmentation these are important things it’s not all the same this was such a fascinating conversation thanks so much for being on the show thanks so much for having me I hope I hope someone’s learned something well stay with us because if you love this segment You’re Gonna Love what’s up next we’ll be right back [Music] our next guest is author Amy LaBelle an award-winning winemaker entrepreneur and author of wine weddings The Ultimate Guide to crafting the wine themed wedding of your dreams so she’s here today to join us and share information on why 2023 has been declared the year of wine weddings Amy thank you so much for being on the show thank you for having me I’m thrilled to be here exciting times and I am super intrigued with year 2023 being the year wine wedding so why is that what does that mean well I’m a winemaker by Craft by trade that’s what I do but I also love to host events and especially weddings and at my two wineries we host over 100 events a year and we’ve hosted at this point over the last decade about a thousand weddings and what I was seeing was a theme emerging I see couples constantly stressed overwhelmed really burdened really freaked out about their upcoming big day instead of just enjoying and so I wanted to write a book to kind of guide them you know with all of the experience me and my team have we’ve done so much of this it’s so enjoyable to us and I said gosh this has got to be easier I’ve got to make this easier for these poor couples so we wrote a guide to uh helping folks plan a wedding through the lens of wine and wine being the central Core theme of The Wedding what’s unique about what you do I mean you’re one of the first women wine makers and I know it’s a small percentage why do you love what you do so much oh gosh I love love making wine it’s such a creative field where you can really make a difference and really make an impression and many of our events are focused on educational uh things so you can come to the winery and learn if you want to and let folks know especially in New England which is not kind of a normal place to have a winery right right I especially wanted to break open that market in New England and get folks on board with great food great wine and great learning opportunities such a fabulous idea and what are some of the specific some of the tips that you’ve learned about creating the best wine wedding the best wine related event whether it’s a wedding or whether it’s just a party a dinner party you want to throw at home so my idea of course is to theme it in the lens of wine and I think that’s a great choice for us but any theme will do this for you it will help you focus your decision making and have help you have less choices sometimes less choices is good and that’s what’s going to actually make things a little streamlined and a little easier for you and in the case of wine weddings you simply take your wedding and say okay I want to have a wine themed wedding and that goes from everything from your your Venue choices perhaps to your color schemes you know think of a gorgeous color of Chardonnay and the gorgeous color of grape leaves perhaps that’s the theme you want to lean into to your Decor so maybe some cork accents cork boutonnieres for the gentleman cork decor ideas for the ladies what a fun conversation you know what would be even better right now to end this conversation a taste of this amazing wine let’s have them yes okay for you a little bit of white perfect this is our save all Blanc um fun fact is that you can grow grapes in New Hampshire uh if even though it’s a little bit cold in the winter this is save oblong it is good to um but sometimes in my Vineyard we get down to negative 18 degrees and so it’ll it’ll survive that and since we’re going to drink it out of your genie coffee mug yeah Cheers Cheers all right Amy thanks so much for being on the show this is thank you for having me it’s so good it’s so good it’s so good everyone should have this after the break we’re gonna take this wine and we’re gonna keep chatting about more supporting of small businesses like Amy’s and boosting our communication strategies so stay with us [Music] welcome back to lift up our next guest Alan Levy is a Serial entrepreneur who believes in building and supporting businesses that improve the way people communicate Alan’s also the CEO of an incredibly powerful and awesome company called Alchemy Works they’re an agency of experts in engagement Who deliver efficient data-driven CRM support for both email and SMS and if you are a small business owner or a large business owner you probably need their help or at least some of their tips today so we’re going to get that Alan welcome to the show thank you great to be here Jeannie and I appreciate the this conversation absolutely Alan so as businesses and consumers are both struggling to keep up with Rising prices changes in the market tell me from all of your expertise and advice what’s the most powerful way that people have to communicate today how can they take advantage of a communication path to make the most of these crazy times so in today’s Times your existing customers are your best form of Revenue it’s getting more and more expensive to acquire new customers so email which is your most efficient channel to communicate and have a conversation with your existing customers and SMS has come into the marketplace as even to augment that and add to it and being good and efficient about those two channels can really bring a lot of money to your bottom line so you are suggesting that businesses can improve their results if they have better engagement with their customers and I’m sure in many cases customers would love that but for the average customer what’s the benefit for them they’re not receiving a thousand messages a day and being happy about it but I feel like you have a secret about messages that they do received there is so for every business or every industry to survive there has to be a dual benefit right there has to be a benefit to the business but there has to be a benefit to the people who are using that the recipient of email and how often have you gone and just you know remembered that you you need something and you quickly just do a search of your inbox and there it is an email from three or four days ago with a discount a promotion both the product that you that you need so if you didn’t have that email in your inbox you may not be able to get access to that at that pricing on that product that’s awesome that’s awesome last week for someone’s birthday I was just like oh my gosh I need to order them flowers I know 1-800 Flowers sent me a coupon and I went back to my inbox so the power of search of email right it’s amazing it’s really it’s really amazing and it’s something that’s so consistent and simple for business is to take advantage of and you’ve been doing this a long time 20 years your company has helped other companies maximize their revenue potential engage with customers improve that audience engagement but how are you adapting to all the new technology out there chat GPT is like the hottest conversation right now especially when it comes to subject line writing and other email copywriting what’s your company doing to take advantage of that so first yes we do we have over 120 active brands that we work with today and multiple historically we are jumping into chat GPT we think it’s phenomenal we’ve integrated it into our proprietary tools subject line Pro that ranks subject lines and now you can get your suggestions from subject line Pro through chat GPT and so we’re embracing new technology we’re even looking at check GPT to do some of our analytics work on the back end write code yes it’s it’s we jump in you know feed forward to every new technology that’s great it’s great to know people can rely on an agency like yours to help them but a question last question for you Sr SMS or email which one is the winner in the Battle of communication great question one plus one equals three so there is a CO there is a be smart right so the the real key to why companies hire us is so that they can be smarter about what they’re doing typically companies generate 70 80 or 100 more Revenue when they hire us because we find the opportunity when should we be talking to you with SMS when should we be talking to you with email when should we pull back when should we engage more and what most importantly what messages should we speak to you about versus your husband your family everybody should be getting a different message from a company that resonates with them much Alan for being on the show thank you it’s my pleasure when we come back we put our best face forward inside and out wondering what I mean don’t go away foreign Brody is the co-owner of legend of the spa Maureen and her sister is a natural body care product line is dedicated to their father who taught them the legendary healing aspects of nature Learned From the Farmer lifestyle they combined this with result-oriented advanced technology of a modern individual and I can’t wait to tell you more about it because Maureen also does makeup on the set so I look beautiful because of her welcome to the show Maureen thank you and I’m so excited to be here and to be on camera I know you’re usually behind the scenes and running around with brushes this is amazing but your product line is so incredible I wanted everybody to hear about it so I know a bit of your back story and why you created this line but I think our viewers would really appreciate understanding your philosophy on skin care what inspired you to create this line and why truly detoxifying our Roti routines is so beneficial absolutely so I come from a Day Spa and Wellness Center with along with my business partners and we specialize in natural skin care so in 2018 I was diagnosed with breast cancer and through going through that process actually detoxified my whole lifestyle so coming that came through as far as food that I was eating or products using to clean my home everything like that and I think the part that most people when they’re detoxifying their lifestyle tend to forget about the skin care and your skin is the largest organ on your body so you’re absorbing everything into your body that you put on your skin so when I was diagnosed with breast cancer going through radiation you need to constantly hydrate your skin so the doctors were recommending products that actually contained many chemicals and having the knowledge of skin care through my background of over 20 years I couldn’t wrap my head around putting toxic chemicals on my body while going through that process and that treatment and I did what any true entrepreneur does is develop their own cream so that is the pink Lotus radiation recovery cream that I developed for myself through that process and it ended up being the only product that actually soothes my skin during that time and not only in the treated area but actually all over my body that’s so awesome it’s really fascinating to hear your story and understand a bit of a background and I know what many people might not know yet is that in addition to these products you’re also responsible for making all of us look amazing on camera including all of our guests and myself and the part of that is practicing mindfulness which we go through when we get on set each day so how do you bring mindfulness into your skincare routine yes so often we hear that people do not incorporate mindfulness because of a lack of time so I thought it was a cool idea to incorporate it into your skincare and we developed a skincare meditation and it works something like this so um in the beginning of the day you cleanse your skin and you cleanse off any worries that you may have anything any thoughts in your mind that do not serve you and then so you do that with your cleanser and then as you spray your toner which is the next best step in skincare you can actually set an intention for the day or step into Joy if you want to feel more joy through the day whatever it is that you’re looking for in your life and then as you set your moisturizer you can help to visualize that intention so you can incorporate that into your skincare routine it saves time and the aromatherapy actually helps you to breathe deeper and to slow down the mind I am obsessed with everything that you’re doing thank you so much for being on the show today thank you for having me April’s Autism Awareness Month and if you or someone you know is struggling with autism support you’re not going to want to miss our next guest Karen Thomas is coming on so don’t go away foreign Thomas is a resource for families who may be overwhelmed after an Autism diagnosis and looking for assistance she was a guest on our podcast liftoff Journeys a few weeks ago and the response was so powerful that we couldn’t help but invite her to be a guest on today’s show especially because it’s Autism Awareness Month Karen joins us now to discuss her program and help for those touched by autism in their daily lives welcome to liftoff Karen hi Jeannie thank you so much I appreciate being here I love the value I have to share so it’s great that we can reach more people with it absolutely so Karen let’s tell the viewers how did you learn that it was possible to actually recover from the symptoms of autism what inspired you to do your own research right well most people here have never heard that before or they don’t believe it’s true but when my son was diagnosed with autism 17 years ago now I was told to drug him and try behavioral therapies and that there was really nothing else that we could do for him and you know basically good luck just manages symptoms the rest of his life but he was really uncomfortable his anxiousness sensory overload inability to sleep without issues health issues I mean the list goes on and I thought I’ve got to figure out a way to find out what the causes are not just mask symptoms and I wanted to be able to work with his body and get him to just live a happier a healthier and more fulfilling life and my background fortunately as a craniosacral therapist studying the brain let me know that the brain can and does heal but I didn’t know that much about autism specifically so my holistic background had me dive in quickly to anything natural all the resources how we can work with the causes what might be going on and this took me a decade of trial and error and implementation but today my son’s symptoms of autism are gone and so I thought after all of this I’ve I’ve got to be able to share this with other people um because now he’s a college graduate living independently on his own with friends you know his life is much different today than it would have been had I not done the work that I did for him you realize that so many other parents were just searching for a way they were going through the same challenges that you had and they were looking for any type of support I know that’s true with family members that I have who have children with autism tell us more about your desire to give a bigger impact and access to everybody out there that knows somebody or is Afflicted with autism yeah absolutely I mean really as I just mentioned once I I saw the success I had for my own son and people started approaching me on the schoolyard asking me for information for their own children because they had seen how much my son had changed and I thought there is no way I can’t share all that I’ve learned and because it took so much of my own time and expense that I’d already expended and now I had the the clear path because a lot of parents have that commitment but they are jumping around from practitioner to practitioner and supplement a supplement and they are struggling and searching for the resources but don’t have a plan and so knowing the challenges I decided that I had to create a unique program which I have done to walk parents through the steps in a sequential order because that’s very important also and step by step and it had to be a to z and complete because so many programs out there things are incomplete they’re just a little bit of diet and detoxification or they’re they’re jump around they really don’t have a plan to follow and it’s usually not a thorough plan so they fall short of results in their child plateaus on the autism recovery process so whether your child has whether you’ve been on the journey for a really long time in a plateaued or you’re brand new to the journey then I can help definitely it’s so great and you mentioned that there are steps and stages and they have to be done in a certain order can you share some of the necessary stages for natural autism recovery and the optimum results absolutely I mean without a plan or a blueprint you you’re just jumping around and you definitely do fall short of those results so what I call it is the four stage process because first you’ve got to do everything to heal the gut the gut controls the brain and there’s a lot more to this and diet is a huge huge piece of it and I do have a resource I can share for that but diet is a huge piece of it but it’s not everything and that’s what parents think often is that that diet is is all they really need to do but you’ve got to support detox Pathways and get the diet right diet going the right one and then natural and safe heavy metal detoxification is second and then the third are clearing the co-infections of autism that actually mimic many of the symptoms of autism that are used in the diagnostic statistical manual to diagnose things like mold biotoxins Lyme disease parasite infections and something called pans that’s an autoimmune issue that actually attacks the brain so these are all factors and then and once you’ve cleared all of the inflammation and the toxins and pathogens from the body then the fourth is brain support and repair so natural things that you can do to help support where your child is at that point because who they are today and who they’ll be at that point is very very different so if you’re spending money on therapies Etc now I would say do a lot of this work first because you’re going to get much more out of it once your child has gone through this and they don’t have the inflammation and the toxic overload that on their brain that is preventing them from doing the things that they normally would be capable of doing because these children are brilliant and they need to be able to share these gifts with the world and they want to and so this is enables them to do that amazing thank you so much Karen thanks for coming on the show thanks for all the dedication and work that you’ve done to find a natural cure for autism and congratulations on all of it I hope every parent that has a child Afflicted with autism anybody that knows somebody that’s Afflicted with autism will go to your website and look at the resources yes thank you so much Genie I appreciate it now so incredible Cinnaholic matajan came back to the show and they brought us a Syndicate which they know is my favorite and the baby buns which they know is the cruise favorite behind the scenes thank you thank you thank you so much cenaholic Metuchen for filling our sweet tooth once again stay tuned for future episodes and follow us on social media at liftoff with Jeannie thanks so much and until next time I’m Jeannie Malden the proceeding was sponsored by liftoff Enterprises LLC