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Trading News
News Trading News
3 Grounded Airline Stocks Ready to Fly
By Timothy Smith
Airline stocks have flown into severe broader market turbulence in December, but the "fasten seatbelt" sign may be about to be turned off heading into 2019.
According to the International Air Transport Association (IATA), net income across the airline industry should jump 10% in the year ahead thanks to reduced jet-fuel costs and continued modest global economic growth. "We had expected rising costs would weaken profitability in 2019, but the sharp fall in oil prices and solid gross domestic product (GDP) growth projections have provided a buffer," Alexandre de Juniac, the association's CEO, told Bloomberg. Although upbeat, the IATA warned that trade wars and Brexit chaos could limit growth.
Those who want to trade airline stocks should consider these three industry leaders that appear to have landed at crucial support levels. All three are among the top five holdings in the 34-stock portfolio of U.S. Global Jets ETF (JETS). The exchange-traded fund has lost 15% this year, against the 7.68% drop in the S&P 500 index.
Delta Air Lines, Inc. (DAL)
Founded in 1924, Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines, Inc. (DAL) provides air transportation for passengers and cargo in the United States and internationally using a fleet of over 800 aircraft. Deutsche Bank upgraded the airline's stock from hold to buy after the company topped analysts' third-quarter earnings and revenue expectations. Trading at $50.41, with a market capitalization of $34.45 billion and offering a 2.92% forward dividend yield, Delta stock is down 12.06% year to date (YTD), outperforming the industry average return by nearly 7.5% over the same period as of Dec. 27, 2018.
Delta's share price has traded within a 20-point range throughout most of 2018, making clear swing highs and swing lows in the process. After selling off in tandem with the broader market this month, the stock printed a reversal candlestick in Wednesday's trading session at the $48 level – finding key support from the February and July swing lows. Traders who go long could place a stop-loss order beneath yesterday's low and aim to take profits between $54 and $56, where the price may find resistance from the 200-day and 50-day simple moving averages (SMAs) and horizontal line price action.
United Continental Holdings, Inc. (UAL)
United Continental Holdings, Inc. (UAL), with a market cap of $22.83 billion, operates more than 4,000 flights per day to five continents through its fleet of 1,262 aircraft. The Star Alliance member airline's third quarter profit grew by nearly 30%, despite rising fuel costs. As of Dec. 27, 2018, United stock has provided a soaring 24.33% YTD return, outperforming the S&P 500 by more than 30% over the same period.
United's chart shows three clear pullbacks in 2018 as its share price trended higher. December's current retracement of 13.34% found a confluence of support from a horizontal line that connects the January swing high and October swing low as well as the rising 200-day SMA. Those looking to trade the stock could set a profit target at the Dec. 3 high of $97.85 and place a stop below the $79 support area. Consider moving the stop to the breakeven point if the price rises to the 50-day SMA.
American Airlines Group Inc. (AAL)
Headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas, American Airlines Group Inc. (AAL) offers passenger and cargo air transportation services. The company, with a $14.87 billion market cap, operates a fleet of roughly 950 aircraft that services 350 destinations in approximately 50 countries. Although attractively valued with a forward price-to-earnings ratio of just 6.2, American Airlines stock has underperformed other major airlines stocks this year, falling over 40% YTD as of Dec. 27, 2018.
American Airlines shares have trended lower throughout most of 2018 but staged an 8.65% reversal Wednesday to close above October's swing low. Swing traders who open a long position at the current price should aim to book profits on a retracement to the $40 level, where the price finds resistance from a 10-month downtrend line and the 200-day SMA. Stops could sit under yesterday's bullish engulfing candlestick.
Who Are Delta Air Lines' Main Competitors? (DAL)
Sectors & Industries Analysis
Is the Airline Industry an Oligopoly?
Analyzing Southwest Airlines' Market Share (LUV)
3 Best Airline ETFs for 2019
Who Are American Airlines' Main Competitors? (DE, JBLU)
5 Iconic Airlines That No Longer Exist
Trumponomics describes the economic policies of U.S. President Donald Trump, who won the November 8, 2016, presidential election on the back of bold economic promises to cut personal and corporate taxes, restructure trade deals and introduce large fiscal stimulus measures focused on infrastructure and defense.
Ground-Rent Arrangement
A ground-rent arrangement is a situation in which someone must make monthly rental payments specifically for the land underlying a building they own.
What Is Ground-Up Loss?
Ground-up loss is the total amount of loss covered by an insurance policy. It is an important number to know when choosing plans.
What Is a Ground Lease?
Learn more about the ground lease, an agreement that allows tenants to develop leased land while the landlord typically assumes ownership.
Retirement Readiness is the state and/or degree of being ready for retirement.


Our sister brand BuddyBoss has been helping our client build an E-learning platform that allows individuals and organizations to launch their own online school. The platform is built on a WordPress Multisite setup, and uses the popular Social Learner Theme.
Our client was excited to hear that we could provide him with a mobile app that works in sync with his platform. We have delivered a high quality native iOS and Android mobile app that is synchronized with the multisite platform.
A key feature Editsu's mobile app is that, when users login, the app automatically detects which subsite they are a member of, or if they're a member of multiple subsites (or schools). The App then loads the content of that schools and allows them to switch between schools if they are members of more than one school.
Editsu is an E-learning platform with a purpose of making education accessible to populations in developing countries and remote areas. The platform allows anyone to create an online school at zero or very little cost.
Instructors can use the platform to teach students everywhere in the world. The online schools come with courses, quizzes, discussion forums, student profiles, gamification, certificates and more.
Editsu's goal is to be Earth's favourite place to teach and learn. We are educators not technologists.
AppBoss and its sister company BuddyBoss have been the perfect technology partners for us. From day 1 they took the time to really understand our goals and aspirations. Others focussed on the technology and the jargon and just created confusion. The Boss team focussed on our outcomes and aspirations and the best way to use technology to achieve those – their partnership approach and effort to build trust with us was a refreshing change. It became very clear to us very early in the process that they shared our passion for creating the best possible learning experience for the end user and guided us every step of the way to ensure we made good decisions – their advice saved us tons of time and money and avoided pitfalls along the way. Most importantly they deliver on what they promise and only promise what they can deliver.
What the team have created for us will mean millions of underserved children around the world will get the opportunity to learn and in turn help to create a better world.
Even though we were located on the other side of the planet their constant and fluid communication made the experience feel like we were all in the same office- we really think of them as an extention of our team – they care about our mission as much as we do and their enthusiasm shows in the work they do and their attention to every line of code and every pixel in our apps.
– Founder, CEO – Raqech M.
Since the purpose of the platform is to make education more accessible in developing countries, having a mobile application was a must. Today, the majority of the population in developing countries owns a smartphone, but not everyone owns a computer. A mobile app, and particularly the Android app is a key factor for the platform to accomplish its mission.
The platform is built on a multi-site WordPress installation with an advanced AWS setup done by BuddyBoss. The app needed to work seamlessly with the multi-site setup.
Since the instructors are able to add their own branding to their school (or subsite) on the web platform, the client needed a way for their instructors to retain the branding in the mobile app.
The client needed a way for their instructors to have the ability to translate their app in other languages, from the web interface.
They also needed a way for instructors to configure the mobile app navigation and reorganize their app's homepage, from their web dashboard.
We have used our six step process to go from the initial on-boarding call to the live iOS and Android Apps, while ensuring a smooth experience for our client.
Our design team helped create a custom learnerApp rebranding, App icon and launch screen. The team also helped put together the screenshots and feature graphic for the app stores.
Our QA team tested the app thoroughly with the multisite setup, to ensure a smooth experience for the platform's users.
Our team continues to maintain the Editsu App and make new feature and compatibility updates.
Our development team worked on configuring the website together with the app and implementing the new designs. There were a number of challenges related to the multi-site setup and to the specific client's needs.
When a user logs into the app, we are detecting which subsite they are a member of. Using this information, we pull the courses and other data from that subsite.
To allow teachers to retain their branding on the app, we have built a branding options screen on the client's backend to allow them to customize the look and feel of their school's app. When a user logs in, we pull information about the school's branding, depending on which school they are a member of.
Teachers can translate their app from their dashboard. The translation information is also being loaded when the user logs in.
Teachers have access to an area where they can customize their school app's navigation and home page. This information is also loaded, when the user logs in.


Background: A parental cancer diagnosis is a stressful life event, potentially leading to increased risks of mental and physical problems among children. This study aimed to investigate the associations of parental cancer with IQ, stress resilience, and physical fitness of the affected men during early adulthood.
Materials and methods: In this Swedish population-based study, we included 465,249 men born during 1973–1983 who underwent the military conscription examination around the age of 18 years. We identified cancer diagnoses among the parents of these men from the Cancer Register. IQ, stress resilience, and physical fitness of the men were assessed at the time of conscription and categorized into three levels: low, moderate, and high (reference category). We used multinomial logistic regression to assess the studied associations.
Results: Overall, parental cancer was associated with higher risks of low stress resilience (relative risk ratio [RRR]: 1.09 [95% confidence interval (CI) 1.04–1.15]) and low physical fitness (RRR: 1.12 [95% CI 1.05–1.19]). Stronger associations were observed for parental cancer with a poor expected prognosis (low stress resilience: RRR: 1.59 [95% CI 1.31–1.94]; low physical fitness: RRR: 1.45 [95% CI 1.14–1.85]) and for parental death after cancer diagnosis (low stress resilience: RRR: 1.29 [95% CI 1.16–1.43]; low physical fitness: RRR: 1.40 [95% CI 1.23–1.59]). Although there was no overall association between parental cancer and IQ, parental death after cancer diagnosis was associated with a higher risk of low IQ (RRR: 1.11 [95% CI 1.01–1.24]).
Conclusion: Parental cancer, particularly severe and fatal type, is associated with higher risks of low stress resilience and low physical fitness among men during early adulthood. Men who experienced parental death after cancer diagnosis also have a higher risk of low IQ.


This time of year can be busy for everyone involved in education: for the kids, the parents, acedemic staff, and everyone in between. It's time to get into a new groove after the summer season and jump into that new semester on the right foot. Battling stress at this time of year is a fight you may have to wage on many fronts, and experts and physicians agree that it is always important to focus on physical activity and maintaining satisfactory physical health in the pursuit of positive mental health.
We asked some of our local wellness and fitness experts to suggest a few ways to beat the stress of the season through a wellness routine.
Scott Emmerson, owner of Sandbox Fitness in Oakville, says "People need to metaphorically have the finger on the pulse of their stress and exercise within their boundaries. A harsh, aggressive workout may not necessarily resolve that stress inside us, but when we exercise to rise to the standards we have of ourselves, that's when we truly see the stress reduction." Emmerson believes that the back-to-school season is an ideal time to begin an exercise regime and include fitness within your routine. It feels like it is the beginning of a new season, and – once you get into that flow – you can ensure your wellness routine continues all the way into July. In other words, if you get into the groove now it will help alleviate your stress throughout the school year.
Dr. Jacqueline Colello, naturopathic doctor at Nex Wellness in Burlington, says "The body is constantly trying to balance itself, and while acute stress can encourage resilience, chronic stress can be incapacitating." This is where naturopathic medicine comes into the picture, approaching the effects of stress on the body from a holistic standpoint. In a meeting with a naturopathic doctor, the impacts of stress on health will be discussed – whether it's more on the physical side or you are experiencing mental and emotional symptoms. A naturopathic doctor will assist you with a variety of patient-centered treatment options to meet individual needs. These can include a combination of clinical nutrition recommendations, nutrient and herbal support, and lifestyle changes. The goal will always be to encourage your body to combat stress, allowing you to feel your best!
Melinda Walker, owner and instructor at 7th Wave Yoga in Burlington, specializes in yoga for those suffering from trauma, grief, and PTSD. She also teaches yoga to teens and children, so dealing with stress is something she encounters often. Walker believes that this time of year can be hectic for both parents and children/teens, due to a number of factors including a change in routine, new schools, new schedules, less sunlight and the change of season. Those that are leaving home and heading to university or college for the first time may be especially at risk. Conforming to a new busy schedule can leave people forgetting to stretch, to get a breath of fresh air, or to take a break and have something nutritious to eat. This can result in the brain suppressing and ignoring the body's signals, contributing to anxiety and stress.
Do you have an action plan to alleviate your stress during this hectic season? By incorporating some of these ideas, everyone in your household can head into the new school year with focus, feeling good and with more confidence.
Farm Women of Halton – Make hay while the sun shines!


The year 2016 was full of innovations and emergence of new ideas. It proved to be successful for most of the online businesses. During this year, we stepped into the world of content marketing and published some great content to build, educate and help our audience.
This is a review article about what we did in the last year and a good opportunity for you to learn from our experiences.
We tried to work on several ideas and to be honest, we didn't succeed with all. Some of the ideas worked well, some didn't work for us.
Behind the success of every online business, there is always an inspiration of a third party. So to get started with our content marketing process we started with the content marketing handbook. The story of priceonomics, how they built a business turning data into content.
The second idea was to compete by implementing technical seo. We got this idea after Hubspot published an article about how they increased organic traffic by over 50% using technical seo.
Below is an overview of what content strategies we followed and what really worked for us.
You would all agree with the fact that to get appeared on the web, your website must be optimized for search engines. Before we started optimizing our website, we first analyzed our site to see which areas needed to be optimized. Below is the list of things we thought quite necessary to work on the first step.
The first thing we noted, our site was not optimized for the right keywords.There were some random keywords related to our industry which were quite difficult to rank. Thanks to some great online tools that helped us dig some specific keywords we could rank for.
We already had some content published on our blog page which was generating enough organic traffic. To maintain and improve organic ranking, we had to optimize older content. Adding keywords in the title and wherever it fits in the body, especially at the beginning.
Our old content had no header images, so we created some relevant images using canva and reshared our old content on social sites.
Previously, we were only focused on few targeted keywords and we published posts targeting those specific keywords. Ever since we determined our audience interests, we stretched out to target more keywords.
After analyzing our audience we found that most of them are related to content marketing and digital marketing. So, we decided to cover that niche as well, which in return boosted our site traffic by 23%. Here are some great content we published related to content marketing.
Since we created our business site we published articles randomly, often we used to publish a single post in a year. Once we found the trick to rank on search engines, we started to write more and publish content consistently.
This helped us maintain our site with fresh and updated content and hence showing google bots a positive impression.
The next challenging step for us was to expand our social presence and to be known around the web. We started reaching out all online communities aiming to help other members by answering their questions.
This was fairly a good idea to recognize our self among huge audiences and promote our content links.
After answering different types of questions on several social communities, we created a separate faq page on our site. This page was created to answer the most critical & aching questions of community members.
Below are two popular posts from our faq page.
The best way to beat your competitors is by improving your overall site SEO. We already did much to improve site SEO, but here we added meta tags to our site to help google bots better crawl and identify our content.
One of our solid reason for writing content is to educate our audience. That's the reason we started writing how-to tutorials which include installing google analytics on different CMS platforms.
So far, our content was just straight without any attraction and shareable content. To improve one step further we followed the market trend and created a few infographics. The purpose was to get more social shares and in return get more traffic.
To get more social shares and improve website traffic, we approached people in the same industry to review and share our content. To do this, we analyzed our twitter followers and every time we published an article, we contacted 30 of our followers who work in the same niche to give us feedback.
We practiced this technique for almost 2 months but we didn't get any positive feedback.
One of our content marketing purposes was to be able to generate leads. To start this process we created ebooks for tutorial type and technical articles. This was our first step to getting visitor's information. We are still running this process and so far we haven't got any positive outcome.
Up to this time, we also tried to use a tool to capture visitor email. To get the email address, we tested the tool by allowing it to appear on different areas. Although our website has enough daily visitors but this idea still seemed to be non-beneficial for us.
Are you Curious about MarketLytics?


Sure, we post a lot of our own music. But we thought we'd also like to post some of the music that we've been listening to recently. So we're going to take turns showcasing some songs that we like.
The first playlist is Mark's music picks to date.
Yeah it says "top 10", but he snuck one extra song in there.
Enjoy the music, and while you're at it why not subscribe to our YouTube channel.


Cross Creek NJROTC edged out Lubbock NJROTC 1053 to 1041 last week in the National Air Rifle League. With the win, Cross Creek NJROTC is in second place in their Division with a 1 - 0 record. Cross Creek NJROTC was led by Nicki Rowe who shot a 273. The remaining contributing members were Nina Rhodes, Marvin Pell, and Ilea Smalley. Cross Creek NJROTC is from Augusta, GA, and is coached by Jonathan Shaw.
Lubbock NJROTC dropped to 0 - 1 on the season. They are currently in sixth place in their Division. Lubbock NJROTC was led by Marc Gomez who shot a 271. The remaining contributing members were Jacob Bocanegra, Zachary Bartlett, and Faus Palting. Lubbock NJROTC is from Lubbock, TX, and is coached by CMDCM Mark Hayes.
Next up Cross Creek NJROTC will compete against Ramona NJROTC from Ramona, CA. Ramona NJROTC currently has a 0 - 1 record. Lubbock NJROTC will compete against Zion Benton NJROTC from Zion, IL. Zion Benton NJROTC currently has a 1 - 0 record.


This is a recording of the live-streamed plenary talk from Dr. William Chappell, Director of the DARPA Microsystems Technology Office, from the 2018 IEEE International Conference on Rebooting Computing (ICRC).
Title: "The upcoming era of specialization and the research needed to make it work for our country"
Abstract: Since the initial paper describing the future of integrated circuits by Gordon moore, there has been unprecedented growth of the electronics industry. The past 53 years have been good for both the economics and security of our country. However we find ourself in a "complexity bind" that makes this a very unique moment in time for the broader electronics community. A mix of changing underlying physics, foreign investment, and growing cyber concerns challenges the industry and the research community. DARPA has kicked off the electronics resurgence initiative, or ERI, in response. The talk will review the status of the US semiconductor market, and the opportunities that exist that allow the US to lead in this next era.
About the speaker: Dr. Chappell is leading the new Electronics Research Initiative (ERI), which aims to ensure far-reaching improvements in electronics performance well beyond the limits of traditional scaling. The ERI plans to forge forward-looking collaborations among the commercial electronics community, defense industrial base, university researchers, and the DoD. Before joining DARPA, Dr. Chappell served as a professor in the ECE Department of Purdue University, where he led the Integrated Design of Electromagnetically-Applied Systems (IDEAS) Laboratory. Dr. Chappell received his BS, MS, and PhD degrees in Electrical Engineering, all from the University of Michigan.


The Urtak Project's declared mission is to find out what the world is thinking and to share that knowledge with the world.
A grand vision to have and Urtak is well on the way to realizing it, having recently passed their 10,000,000th response milestone, after over 50,000 questions asked.
Two Harvard Alumni, who were roommates at Mather House, founded Urtak a year after graduation in 2008. Aaron Gibraltar (CTO), a physics major with a penchant for squash and Marc Lizoain (CEO) a staunch Canadian who definitely doesn't suffer from pogonophobia.
They work out of an office space in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. The office is littered with books like "The Black Hole War" by Leonard Susskind, Fernand Braudel's "The Perspective of the World" and "The Short Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald." Aaron types code at his desk whilst techno music blares from his headphones and Marc sits opposite, stroking his beard and purveying possible marketing strategies.
"Urtak" (an Icelandic word that means statistical sample) has come along way in three years. It took the New York startup 17 months to collect their first three million responses in July 2009 and their growth began to gather pace, in just 11 months they doubled their responses to 6 million. Their database recorded nine million responses in the next seven and a half months, three years to the month since the launch.
Questions on an Urtak come in the form of Yes/No/Don't Care so that answering and making comparisons with other polls is straightforward. Urtak's question-serving algorithm ensures that participants are asked high-quality questions, and also limits poll result manipulation.
10,000,000 responses is an impressive achievement and definitely shows that people care about the mission of this company. Urtak challenges traditional polls and surveys where results tend to be skewed when questions come from one source only. This is where Urtak enters with its collaborative web polls, the biggest leap forward in polling techniques since George Gallup first sent out his researchers to meet the people way back in 1936.
The world has moved on since Gallup asked his first question and ticked the box on the questionnaire. Now anyone can create an Urtak, and anyone who takes part can pitch in with his or her own questions as well, the crucial innovation that gives Urtak its edge.
Embedding an Urtak poll allows site owners to quickly gain information about their audience, with the added value of responses to questions posed by their users. All the information gathered in all the polls is publicly available for analysis and the searchable database of that information grows ever more extensive.
The Urtak Project and its 10,000,000 response highlight a continuing trend of growth and success in the New York tech startup scene. A sharp increase in seed investors and micro venture capitalists has come as a direct result of innovative startups that are changing the world, just like Urtak.
So, I strongly urge all readers to create their own Urtak to find out what both their community and the world are thinking!


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What is Dong Ding Oolong
It's one of the most popular Taiwanese teas. It's a classic for good reason - Dong Ding Oolong is a tea that retains the mellow green flavors of a high-mountain oolong along with rich, sweet notes due to oxidation and roasting. It's well-balanced and makes a perfect tea to enjoy throughout the day.
The tea originally hails from Dong Ding mountain in central Taiwan. More specifically, it is from Lugu, in Nantou county. This tea gets its name from the mountain it hails from, Dong Ding Shan (Dong Ding mountain). Dong Ding translates to 'frozen summit' or 'icy peak'. It doesn't get this name because it's particularly icy (it's not that high as far as Taiwanese mountains go, at 800-1000 meters), but because it has the tendency for heavy rains, which caused farmers to carefully navigate slippery roads while working on the mountain.
Dong ding was originally made with the Qingxin cultivar. Qingxin translates to "Green Heart" or "Clear Heart". The name Qingxin may look familiar to you, as it is the most popular tea cultivar used for high-mountain tea in Taiwan.
We currently carry four iterations of Dong Ding Oolong.
Other names For Dong Ding: Frozen Summit, Tung Ting, Formosa Oolong
The Qingxin cultivar was brought from Wuyi, China to Dong Ding Mountain about 150 years ago. It is reported that the scholar Ling Fong Chi went to Fujian to study and returned to Lugu with tea plants as souvenirs for his relatives. The weather conditions on Dong Ding proved to be perfect for growing tea, with its sunny days and misty afternoons. The tea quickly became famous in Taiwan.
Similar to a Darjeeling or Puerh tea, the name Dong Ding was an appellation- indicating that the tea was produced only on Dong Ding mountain. But as this tea became more popular, growers started producing the tea in other areas of Taiwan but processed it in the same style as Dong Ding. So, it's possible to have a Dong Ding that does not come from the namesake mountain. Just be sure to pay attention to the packaging labels, to see where the tea was grown.
What Does Dong Ding Look like?
Dong Ding has the traditional ball-shape like many other Taiwanese oolongs. It is a dark, army-green color with slight hints of brown from the oxidation. The steeped leaves will be green in the center, with reddish brown around the edges. The tea liquor is a beautiful bright golden hue, pleasing to the eye and the palate.
It has a plucking of 3-4 leaves and may be picked by hand or machine. After plucking, the leaves undergo a withering process which is typically outdoors under the sun. After withering, the leaves are brought indoors for oxidation. They are then tossed and bruised on bamboo baskets intermittently to agitate the tea leaves, therefore enhance the oxidation process. After the oxidation, the leaves go through the final heating step to kill the enzyme and halt the oxidation, typically somewhere between 15%-30%. The teas are then rolled into its classic ball-shape then dehydrated slowly.
In summary, traditional Dong Ding oolong is roasted, typically to medium roast via charcoal or electric roasting process.
(Dong Ding Tea dry leaves, steeped leaf and liquor)
Dong Ding Flavor
The light to medium oxidation imparts nutty notes to the tea, along with a smooth caramel-like flavor. It retains a delicate, medium body, with very little astringency. As we mentioned earlier, Dong Ding often has a final heating over charcoal, which imparts a pleasant roasty finish to the tea.
A good Dong Ding should have a subtle toasty flavor, nothing too overpowering. The roast makes it a lovely tea to enjoy in the fall and winter months. But its medium body is appropriate to enjoy all year round.
Since Dong Ding comes from the camellia sinensis plant, it contains caffeine (as does all pure teas). Because this tea is rolled into a ball shape, the caffeine infuses slowly into the brew as the leaves unfurl.
The amount of caffeine in the tea has more to do with the brewing method (long vs. short steeps, for example), the processing style of the tea, and the cultivar used. Please refer to our tea and caffeine blog post for more information on this topic.
Brewing Dong Ding Oolong
Dong Ding Oolong: 6 grams
Water: 237ml/8 oz, heated to 212°F (boiling)
Add one heaping teaspoon of Dong Ding Oolong to your brewing vessel. Pour boiling water and steep for 1-2 minutes.
This tea can be steeped many times, until the leaves fully unfurl. Be sure to take a moment to observe the aroma and color of the brew and the leaves. This is an aromatic tea worthy of your attention.
You may use a gaiwan or small clay teapot to brew this tea. For more information on how to brew tea check out our tea brewing guides.
Te Staff

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Werner has over 40 years experience in both business and operations in the chemical industries with DuPont, Herberts / Stolllack (Hoechst), JVs, Reichhold Chemicals. Werner excels in Know How transfer and the systematic improvement of competitiveness and SHEQ.
As Industrial Consultant since 2005, Werner has been working with clients in Austria, Czechia, Denmark, Germany, India, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Poland, Russia, Slovakia, South Africa, and has delivered solutions for a variety of industry sectors including cellulose, constructions, copper mining, gas, grain terminal, oil, paints, petrochemicals, pharmacy, plastics, platinum mining, resins, steel, tobacco, wind energy.
Werner specializes in pioneering, trouble shooting and improving performances in business and operations. His industry experience is complimented by his savvy awareness of the cultural differences of every working environment. He has combined these skills to create customised programs for many organisations to lead them on their own unique journey to business and operations excellence.
One of the most challenging assignment for Werner as the Plant Manager for DuPont Performance Coatings in Changchun, China, certainly was the Safety, Health, Environment and Quality (SHEQ) upgrading, simultaneously done with revamping the whole site, transfer of latest technologies, implementation of ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning system) and the latest Quality Standard required for the automotive industry TS16949.
In 1999 – after the acquisition of Herberts (a 100% Hoechst subsidiary) by DuPont - Werner participated in the SHE Integration in Germany (Wuppertal, Cologne, Landshut) and France (Le Mans) and set up a new system of quarterly Synergy Audits: safety audits combined with quality process audits at the OEM manufacturing sites at Wuppertal. Later on, Werner was requested to do Synergy Audits at other DuPont sites, such as Tlalnepantla in Mexico, Guarulhos in Brazil and Chiba in Japan. Werner also concluded two Green Belt Six Sigma projects, and mastered the GFQ Quality Auditor certificate in 1999.
During his tenures with Reichhold Chemicals, Stolllack / Herberts and DuPont, Werner dedicated his work throughout his professional career on 3 key areas which are the improvement of the performances in SHE, Quality and Productivity. Stolllack was the Austrian subsidary of the Herberts group and very active in the paint licence market in Middle East and Asia. After successfully executing a licence project in Baghdad, Werner negotiated and executed mutually beneficially licence projects in China (Beijing Red Lion, Changchun Paint Factory).
Werner was granted two Austrian patents, one for a phenolic binder for post formable hardboards, and one for UV - curing pigmented paints.
Being on the roster of the UNIDO, Vienna, Werner was on 3 UNDP missions to Mongolia (1985, 86, 88) on a project testing local natural iron oxide deposits (PM: Prof.Stefan Gustkovicz from Warszaw) for usage in building paints.
When Werner was with Reichhold Vienna, he succeeded in aligning technical resins selected for the European Market from the US Reichhold technology pool to the local plant conditions at Vienna, supporting the expansion and integrity of reactors and utilities, as well as implementing a kill system for potential run-away reactions.
Scope: revamping the whole plant from planning to commissioning and ramp up while continuing production.
Scope: planning, commissioning, ramping up a new paint factory for automotive and industrial coating systems, and simultaneously implementing business with key customers.
Introduction the single supplier and cost per unit system for the local car manufacturers.
1983 – 1990 Project Manager - Licence Projects (Automotive Coatings) Europe, Middle East, China.
Scope: Know How transfer, customer services, expansion of the resin plant from planning – commissioning to ramp up.
Languages: German, English. Turkish (very basic), Mandarin (operation's key words only).
exhobbymarathoni (53rd finished April 2009 in Vienna, 1st HM at Goa, India in 2011). Keeping fit for travel by jogging and work by permanent upgrading competencies .
Consultancy company (tax number: ATU 62897878) founded 2005 after retirement from DuPont.


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The BDR-2 is expected to be available online and in stores next month. Blu-ray may not have a terribly long future (because of the increasing availability of HD downloads), so buying a BDR-2 for less than other Blu-ray burners cost may be a smart move. JOHN BIGGS, THE NEW YORK TIMES
Laptop lite can go in purse, or even pocket
HEWLETT-PACKARD MINI 1000 MINIATURE NOTEBOOK COMPUTER ($379): Hewlett-Packard is getting small. A gaggle of miniaturized notebooks, announced this week and collectively called the Mini 1000, will be available in various configurations that begin at $379.
The group is described as less capable than full-fledged laptops, but ideal for using the Internet on the go.
Most models operate with Windows XP, including a $399 version available this week, fitted out with an 8.9-inch screen and an 8-gigabyte solid-state drive. For $50 more, buyers can get a 10.2-inch screen without increasing the case size (10.3 by 6.6 by 0.99 inches). Other variations include larger-capacity solid-state and revolving hard drives.
A Linux version with mobile applications will be $379 when it ships in January. All have Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth is an option. A cellular-data version is due out in December. MARTY KATZ, THE NEW YORK TIMES
Turn old slides, negatives into digital images
BROOKSTONE ICONVERT SLIDE AND NEGATIVE SCANNER ($130): Preserving digitally made memories is easy and inexpensive. The same cannot be said about that pile of slides and negatives from your 1984 Halloween party. The iConvert Slide and Negative Scanner from Brookstone is a welcome alternative to paying a professional. Plug the 35-millimeter scanner into your computer's USB port, hit scan, and the iConvert will use its 5-megapixel sensor and 3,600-dots-per-inch enhancement to save images to your desktop.
The converter works with Windows XP and Vista and comes with its own photo-editing software. NEW YORK TIMES
What are Daniel Lugo's hopes for Queens University?
Here are renderings for the new Lowe's tech hub
Bank of America's profits jump to $7.3 billion despite looming interest rate cuts
By Danielle Chemtob
Bank of America, which has its headquarters in Charlotte, NC, surpassed analysts' profit expectations. But banks face oncoming headwinds from potentially lower interest rates and slower economic growth.
'Way across the line.' UNC system board to examine redevelopment program.


These four pictures have something in common. Scroll through them one by one, and tell me the connection. If you get it before you've looked at all four, there'll be more points.
If you get it from the first one alone, you've probably cheated!


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by Rodney Flowers | Jan 5, 2021 | Podcasts | 0 comments
There are companies that are actually thriving in this environment and here's the discriminator: they have really resilient employees. But building a resilient company culture goes beyond talent. It touches on deeper things that we need to weather challenges in connecting, collaborating and being in harmony with the other players in the team as we all try to do our best in a virtual environment. Rodney Flowers devotes this episode to unpack this broad topic with Eric Thomas, a world-renowned entrepreneur, keynote speaker, author, educator, and pastor who has over 25 years of ministerial experience. This conversation is an eye-opener for organizations that in these trying times, it is not enough to focus on the bottom line; it is high time organizations think about how all their team players – from the C-suite right down to the rank and file – are managing and what should be done to empower them to collaborate towards success.
I have a very interesting individual with me. Mr. Eric Thomas is here with me. He is a consultant, a keynote speaker and a strategist. He is a highly influential entrepreneur with more than fifteen years of business experience as a life and business coach. In addition, Eric is a fervent pastor and keynote speaker with more than 25 years of ministerial experience. These multiple characteristics have opened doors to perform roles as a radio and TV host and special contributor for various articles. Eric has also served as the faith branding evangelist. We're going to get into what that means but first, please help me welcome, Mr. Eric Thomas. Welcome to the show, Eric.
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I'm glad to have you on the show. We're in this virtual environment. It seems that connectivity has been more of a challenge now with the internet and with platforms like Zoom being overloaded with consumers, doing their thing on the internet. Nevertheless, we're here. Thank you for being here. Thank you for helping us deal with some of these challenges. I'm happy to have you on the show. We were talking about some of the things that are going on in the world as it relates to COVID, as it relates to an election year, all things included. As a consultant and a strategist, what is your perspective about some of these things that are going on in the world right now?
You alluded to it and you talked about some of the connectivity challenges. I realized from the perspective of a man who is very spiritual that I feel like that's it. I feel like we were having challenges with being more connected, not through the internet, but connected as people. We're disconnected even from spears and aspects of ourselves. When I do host shows myself, I was playing this word game. What are the words you never want to hear again? There are these narratives that are given to us. If we hear it a couple of times, we start saying it. We start disconnecting from the essence of who we truly are and our sense of purpose. We move into this ambiguity and bewilderment. It's doing everything we know how to do. Our challenge now is to remain connected.
People are having a hard time with that right now more than ever. I was invited to speak for this company. I was doing a consultation with them to understand what they were looking for and address some of the challenges they were having. It was hard because I can't go into the office. I can't physically touch people. I see them over Zoom or virtual platform, but I can't be with them. That's hard for me. It's challenging for me. My kids are going back to school. They're in a virtual environment and they're not there. Even that is challenging.
We live in a world where collaboration is key. Coming together is key to our progress forward and yet we're faced with a situation where connecting is challenging. I was bringing out some of the necessary skillsets in order to move forward. I'm highlighting what's required. You have to be a person that has the ability to connect with someone even when you're not standing right next to them through some type of platform. You've got to have the skillset in order to reach them these days.
What you're talking about is the number one skill everyone needs is people skills, and everyone's a leader, John Maxwell says. We're seeing breakthroughs in technology, finance and FinTech. We're seeing these mergers of industries. It still seems like we're starting to lose touch with individuality, cooperation and collaboration from a holistic perspective. As I said, there is someone in the consultation that they were talking about their culture. You create culture in the organizations and you put the right people in first. The second is to steward that. You have to work hard on establishing your culture. You have to work hard in developing people who know how to engage, interact, show empathy and sympathy, and all those things that contribute to the whole big picture of what we call success.
Let's talk about that a little bit because companies are revamping and restructuring, not just from a physical standpoint. The culture that we had before may have been broken down and it may not even work in this environment just because of the physicality. The way that the structure has changed from a geographic standpoint or the footprint has changed. How do corporations incorporate cultures that work in nowaday's environment?
Resilient Employees: Organizations suffer from organizational health issues not so much because of bad strategy, but because the people and the culture are not well.
I don't want to sound cliche, but it does start with clear and defined core values. We're not human doings, we're human beings. How we show up in life is how we show up in business. We all have to look introspected to see and evaluate to get into, "What are my core values?" When I go into the public square or to the marketplace, or when I'm working with an organization, whether as a consultant, as an employee, as a CEO or whatever capacity, if it's a sports team or playing a part in a movie, it has to be a marriage. It has to be there.
I said this to one of my daughters who's dating and considering the next step with this gentleman that when you start to bring two lives together, it has to be for a cause. That's in that sacred text twice. If you don't have a cause or your core values aren't coming together, I promise it's always going to be friction and fighting. The same is true in the corporate and business world, in medicine and technology. You start bringing people into these entities or these organizations. If those core values don't line up, that culture is going to be toxic and dysfunctional.
It's funny you say that because I've been talking about this ever since COVID hit. You mentioned sports when you're in a game and the defense does something to you that knock you off your game. Your game plan isn't working. What do you do? I believe you always go back to the basics and the basics are what you're talking about. It's your core values. It's the essence of who you are. I'm excited that you brought that up for two reasons. One is for the purposes of developing culture in an organization but also, we're dealing with a pandemic. The question is, how do we overcome this?
I want to address your response about core values because I believe that when you're dealing with a challenge in life and we get developing culture, there are two things here. When you're developing culture, you need to go, "That culture needs to be built with your core values." We're dealing with a pandemic here. A lot of people are asking, "How do we get over this? How do we overcome this?" I believe like in sports when your game plan isn't working or the defense knocks you off course, what do you do? You go back to the basics. That's what we or the corporations need to do now. That's the starting point with everything as it relates to overcoming a challenge such as the one that's in our environment.
In organizational strategy, it is not so much your tactics that you're trying to employ that keeps the business from contracting and expanding. It is looking at the personality of the business. The business takes on the personalities of the top tier leadership, mid-tier management, and those who support that organization. We constantly need to have those self-awareness dialogues. There's an organizational coaching now. We're going through a self-awareness campaign. One of my roles is to evaluate the staff. Before I offer my evaluation, I allow them to evaluate themselves.
It is amazing that is such a challenge for a lot of people to stop for a moment and look beyond talent, and start to look at the essence of, why do I do what I do? Why do I say and think the way that I think and behave the way I behave? It starts to expose on a very transparent level what were the other dysfunctions in the organization, government, ministry, family or community. It requires a lot of pulling back the layers and being transparent and being honest with one's self.
Talent isn't always the key to success. You want resilient employees. Click To Tweet
How does this help the organization? I don't see, at least for me, organizations where they have taken on this practice and dealing with these types of things. You have your leadership training and your leadership development. You have all those courses and trainings that you have to go to, but they don't address awareness. They don't address identity. All the things that are left to address on a personal level, not so much within the business. Based on what you're saying, first of all, how does that help an organization move forward? How can organizations begin to implement these types of trainings or seminars or self-awareness activities to their employees without their employees feeling like this flighty or foo-foo, soft type of activities that they are pressing down our throats?
All healing, reconstruction and repair start with questions. There's a dear friend in my life who says that people in the public square were asking, "How are you doing," and keep walking without waiting to see, "You asked me how I'm doing. Let me tell you how I'm doing." I think those are some questions that we should offer in the organization. That's touchy for organizations especially the whirly ones because they're in how we continue to grow, the bottom line. We're looking at a profit instead of asking how is the CEO doing and how is the janitor doing? When I'm saying, "How you doing," I mean physically, mentally, psychologically and spiritually, how are you?
Wherever your scope of faith is, asking those types of questions, and then pausing and allowing people to get that out. Why a lot of companies don't do that is because it's time-consuming. It takes away from those huddle meetings that are about quotas, sales, and budgets we need to be meeting. We start to see organizations suffer from organizational health issues because it's not the bad strategy that they had. These people in the culture are not well. Wellness and self-awareness are necessary.
I'm doing a study. I've been doing a lot of research on resilience. I've been studying companies that are thriving in this environment. There are companies that are thriving in this environment. Here's the discriminator. They have resilient employees. That's what I'm gleaning from the research that I'm doing. It's funny that the companies that don't spend time focusing on resilience within their employees to include all the things you mentioned, spirituality, wellbeing and all of those things.
Resilient Employees: Performing in a dynamic, adverse climate that is continuously changing requires a level of adaptability and agility.
Even when they're meeting their quotas, it appears that they're on top of their game and peak performance. The problem is when the defense strikes when the company gets knocked off balance, they have a very hard time to recover. The employees don't know how to do that. As long as things are tracking towards the plan. We're doing things in accordance with what we laid out and we're meeting the objectives. As long as they're walking that rope, but when life happens, they fold and they can't rebound. We're seeing it. It's not many companies that are thriving right now. There are only a few that you can see if you do the research is because they have resilient employees.
I feel like this and maybe I'm wrong. Over time, I've seen this scenario that success reveals talent and skill, but challenges and chaos reveal character. When these corporations are doing well and again, they've done a great job and using their head hunters to attract top-tier talent, peak performers as you call them. When challenges come, especially those that are unexpected. There was no forecast for this. It shows up. It starts to reveal at the essence, the core of who you truly are. That's not just in corporation. That's in family, marriages and relationships, but we are talking about it as it relates to the marketplace. That's the theme. It goes back to what I said. It's time-consuming to make these kinds of investments. It's also very expensive to take a time out and say, "Let's have a retreat," and pay for it. Let's bring in those people who can speak to individuals in a holistic capacity. What is the investment? It's an investment. Either you see it as an investment or you see it as a cost necessarily. Small businesses were starting to make these kinds of investments because they get hit the hardest when things like what's happening in the globe right now. Small businesses are trying to grit it out and grit it through but they're looking beyond what's my marketing strategy.
I believe that talent isn't always the answer to success. We're living in a new era and talent isn't the solution. You want resilient employees. You want individuals who can pretty much handle whatever is thrown at them, and provide some level of progress. It may not be "success" as it is defined now, but you're looking for some level of progress. You're looking for progress across the team. You look for everyone to provide that level of progress. In my definition, when you have a team of individuals and these individuals within the team are all progressing, that's a success. You have a team and you got 3 or 4 star players, that's not success because first of all, you leaving people behind. It's not a holistic approach because we have to rely on collaboration and teamwork these days.
The risk is about a few years ago and they were trying to buy a team. You can't buy solutions anymore. You can't just hire a bunch of players because you feel they're talented. They look good on paper and now you're expecting for them to go and win the Super Bowl for you. That doesn't work anymore because there is so much going on. On the field of adversity, there's much opposition nowadays. It's unpredictable that if you rely on my talent or a person's talent, their skillset may not be the theme for the complete duration of your life cycle that is going to get you there.
There are going to be ebbs and flows. There are going to be different things that are thrown at you. If you're relying on talent alone and not the adaptability, agility and the ability of this person to overcome and maybe perform at a high level in areas where he's not so talented or unfamiliar. That requires a level of determination, grit, bounce-back ability and resilience. You're bound to fail if you don't have any in my opinion or your success is going to be limited.
It's not just here in the West, but globally. The world is competitive. If you're in a sales organization, you're going to be awarded. You're going to be brought upfront. Your name is going to be on the wall. You're going to get that plaque for producing and having the most sales. In the entertainment industry, you have to be the best artist, producer and writer. In sports, you've got to run the fastest. You got to hit more balls out of the park. There aren't any awards for wellness. There's no one coming to the stage for that because that's not always as equal.
I'm not saying one's over the other. I'm saying, you said it. Mark Sanborn has a book called Talent is Not Enough. It is not enough. When we're there and we're only measuring performance, we have to compete against each other versus collaborate. We bring that because the metrics are important, the benchmarks. We want the organization to perform, but we also need these people to drop the culture, remove the culture to be at their optimal best. We don't award mental health and wellbeing. Organizations need to consider that. I'm not in psychology, but I've been a pastor. When I used to say this as a lead pastor, I never said it to be an insult. I used to say this often is that most churches don't need upright pews. They need the couches that layout. There are many smart, intelligent and gifted people who are broken in here. I was one of them. I was a broken leader. I worked hard at my skillset and anything that I was in, in ministry and business. In here, I was so broken and dysfunctional. I've learned to become functional in my dysfunction. More and more people are like that. That doesn't turn out well. It never does.
I feel companies have a hard time measuring wellbeing. That's an interesting question. How do you measure wellbeing? How do you determine progress?
I wish I could answer that. I'm willing to be the Guinea pig. You have another show with a psychologist. We have not laid out those metrics. We'd have to be careful even in that because we could become competitive. Where you are doing well, I might not be doing well, but that doesn't mean that you're better than me holistically. It has to start to be where when we measure it out, we see where people are. We have things like DISC assessments and other assessments out there, but we need deeper. Things get even deeper down to the core. What it will say to me is wherever I am, wherever my capacity lacks, wherever I'm insufficient, your strength taps in. Wherever you are lacking and I'm talking from that mental health position. It will strengthen and support you. That's where cooperation and teamwork comes in.
That's the data that's missing. I feel like with that type of analysis, we will understand even more how to put people together and create high performing teams. If you have that level of data, for every person's weakness or measure, you wouldn't know where they need to be relative to someone else. His personality traits as well. Understanding who can work well with whom, and understanding the personality traits as it relates to different activities, different functions, and different levels of leadership. You don't create organizations based on that type of data.
We're looking at resumes, past experiences, and education levels. That has taken us a long way, but in the environment that we're in now and where it looks like we're going, that no longer is going to work. What you look like on paper is no longer sufficient. It's how you perform in a dynamic and adverse climate that is continuously changing with different levels of opposition that could be attacking you at various times. That requires a level of adaptability and agility. A person that's able to perform at a high level in that type of environment, that's what I would classify in this environment as a star player.
That person may not have an education. They may not have "the degrees" and all of those things, but there's something about them. It could be their past experience or the way they were brought up or what they've been exposed to. Maybe a level of awareness that they have. For me, it's putting myself in that environment to gain that level of awareness or having an experience that forced me into that. To continue to pursue training and continuously raise my awareness. That doesn't show up on paper. It's not going to show up in my resume.
I was in a meeting. I had the opportunity to sit in on a coaching session in Idaho earlier in 2020 before the lockdown happened. You're saying this and I'm thinking, small businesses and family businesses get this down. Looking at where the business was hurting in the analysis, they lack strategy, finesse and a lot of execution. We're talking about a business that has been around well over 50 years, born into the second generation, getting ready to go into the third iteration. I was chatting with a coach like, "Let's look at this."
We talked to the owner of the business and he kept saying, "I want to take care of my people." That's all he kept saying. I said, "Yeah, but this is business." We had a suggestion to him that, "You might want to get rid of your family." He's like, "I want to see how I can invest in my people as I'm investing in the strategy and incorporate that." That coaching session, there was a template for that. When we went in our huddle to look at that, we thought, "Maybe someone needs to implement that. Maybe there's an opportunity here in the marketplace to fill that gap with those things." Small businesses are going to do well. They fear being eaten by the bigger guys, but one thing they do is they take care of their people. They don't mind investing in their people. They'll invest in their people before they invest in corporate strategy. They'll do that first. They're equally important.
I do as well and there should be more emphasis on the people. That is evident in where we are because we all have a challenge in front of us. A lot of innovation and creativity can come from employees who do the work. I'm baffled how in a crisis like this, the leaders of organizations will get into the room and they'll try to figure things out. They're not the people that are doing the work on the front lines every single day. You're not getting any input from those people, but they are excluded because they're not "leaders." They haven't raised into the level to sit at the table and be in the room. However, they're the ones that are doing the job every day. I feel that at times, especially if we invest in our people, that's where the juice is. That's where the answers and the solutions lie.
Every single day they know what gripes, what angles aren't working, what is uncomfortable, where we could do this bigger, better or faster. If we don't hear from them, if there's not like bottoms-up communication vehicle, then we lose out on a lot of possible solutions and ways to do it better. In this environment, those are the people we need to ask especially. If we're going to move fast, if we're going to talk about speed, when I get to a solution quickly, I would say, "Your job is you have to do it every single day." In an environment where there's less connectivity and there are these platforms that we have to use. What do you know? What are some of your thoughts about how we could get to a place where we're as efficient and productive, even if not more productive? What can we do?
You need to hear from them. If we had that setup and we were taking that approach more often, we can get to a place where we could have been utilizing this telework, this some type of environment that we're in. We could have gotten to this place a whole lot sooner. It took a crisis in order for us to realize it. There are many people right now, they're sitting at home saying, "We could have done this a long time ago." I've been telling them. I've been having these same feelings. I could have done my job in this type of environment years ago, but the company will not. They were restricted. They didn't think it was possible to work in this type of environment.
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There's some benefit to being in this environment. There are some challenges to being in this environment. A lot of corporations are seeing a dip in their costs for overhead because employees aren't coming into work, but yet they're still productive. Now, they're evaluating that. What do we want to do going forward? Is this something we want to maintain? What are our costs to do business in this environment? Is it cheaper? Are we as productive? I feel like you're hearing from someone who's on the front line and you're working every day.
It's important to have that communication open because a lot of information about how we operate on a daily basis can come forward that would make companies more efficient, and open to new ideas and new innovation. It doesn't always have to start from the top down. The leaders thought of this new innovative process and we're going to push it down. That's good at times, but you need to hear what's going on at the bottom. Have we thought this through and checked in with the people that do the work every day?
Resilient Employees: If we don't hear from the people who are in the front lines every day, we are missing out on a lot of possible solutions and ways to do better.
I am not one for much television especially reality television as I feel like most of it is scripted garbage. Undercover Boss had a theme to it that was awesome. They would allow these CEOs or presidents of C-Suites to come down into their organizations, and not just see what was dysfunctional in the processes and your systems. Let's see what was going on in the lives of those people. You'll remember, they'll come and see, go undercover and go into their business. They're looking at how things are working, but on those break times, having those opportunities to ask what's going on in your life. You start to peel that onion back again and see what's going on in the individual lives of these people who are working in their business.
In the end, there's this miraculous transformation, this before and after, but then these C-Suite officers would make these investments. I don't know why that show went off. You can only do so many undercovers series before people start wondering. You don't even have to go undercover. CEOs and presidents should have to go undercover. They should come in, make evaluations and allow people to peel back the onion. In most cases, the individual wouldn't say the systems stink from a perspective of an associate, a cashier, and a customer service rep. The technology that you think is banging, isn't all that anyway.
You're looking at me as a human, as a person. I've got things that's going on in life. I can't say it enough. How you show up in life is how you show up in business. It's true wherever you are in the organization, whether you're the founder, the CEO, you're Jeff Bezos or Warren Buffett, or you're the no-name janitor walking around with a bunch of keys on the side of your hip and scraping scum off the sidewalk. How they show up in life is how they show up in business. We need to start building out these health and wellness offices and suites in our organizations to embrace the challenges because it's not all about fixing them.
I don't know what we're going to do, Rodney. We go and start trying to make an investment and making sure you're on your path to health, whether that's having a chaplain on the site. I know some companies have made investments in mental health programs where if you feel depressed or you feel suicidal, you could pick up the phone and call somebody. It's always important to have somebody on site that's coming through or come on those non-pay weeks to check the temperature and the pulse of your people. You're checking the health and wellness of the organization.
What are your thoughts about making health and wellness programs part of the mandatory training for organizations because you don't see that at all? It's not mandatory.
It's magical. That's where the magic is going to be. That's where we're going to see organizations not just thrive in P&L, but even at a humanitarian, philanthropic level, which many organizations fail at. I'm not thinking you throw cash that you think of $1 million and that's good. That's significant. I'm talking about getting in the trenches with these people. If you're building it out, it's going to be some trial and error. You won't get it right the first time. What we'll start to see is health. The health of the organization in the organization will become an organism. It will last through times like these.
Do you think there's a fear that if organizations invested in those types of programs, that people will see how wonderful they are and they would want to go pursue other things? They then have to start over with the next person.
I have a teaching that I call Overcoming Your BS. That BS is your Blind Spots. It's hard to find those blind spots. You said it, Rodney, there are some people that don't want their key players or influencers, or even support staff have their eyes open to what their true potentials are, who they are as a person, and what they can accomplish in the public square. The possibilities maybe is they may go seek for greener pastures and that's not always wrong.
That is a fear. My thought about that is for every person that the organization needs if they decided to do something like this, they would have 4 or 5 other people knocking at their door to get in to gain that level of training because it's not available anywhere. It's very limited. People will want to come work for the organization, not only for monetary gain, a paycheck but to get the training. You're going to have some people that pursue higher levels of work. There will be those people that stay that understand what the objective of the training is. They're going to be willing to support and keep the organization going and private for those individuals to come in and be a part of it.
A CEO said this to me a few years ago and while he was okay with people leaving the organization, he says, "The way that we are designed, when people leave, it's for 1 or 2 reasons. They've outgrown us and we want them to go, or we've outgrown them. It's no longer a good fit." When we start talking about core values, a piece to personal core values is loyalty. John Maxwell says, "People will always remember how you made them feel." "You make me feel valuable. You make me feel like I'm making a contribution." There is going to be that equal contribution, "You invested into me, I'm going to give back to you."
It's the Law of Exchange. It doesn't have to be monetary always. They're not going to always go seek greener pastures because there's money. It's either they've outgrown the organization or the organization had outgrown them. Those people will feel like, "I'm going to grow with this organization. I'm in it to win it, ups, downs, good and bad. I'm invested." They're going to continue to give you 100% of who they are, their talent and their skills.
Corporations look at the cost to train a person, get that person to a state of wellbeing where we say, "This is the type of person we want to create and build in the organization, and that return on investment." It goes back to what we talked about before. That's the data that's missing. What is the ROI on that type of training? A lot of CEOs believe that it's very low.
I've been in HR for a while and it's more expensive to recruit than it is to retain. The investment should be there. For a top-tier organization at minimum, it costs about $2,000 to recruit someone. I'm not even talking top talent, CEO or manager. I'm just saying to bring in somebody with blood pressure and who's breathing. You have a revolving door, where they're coming in the front door going right back out the back door because you can't retain them in 2 to 3 years or 3 to 6 months. You're going to be spending on that. Making that one-time investment and doing something like the treat, their mental wellness check-ins, creating those templates. Adding those into your technologies, ROI is going to be greater on the retention than it will be in the recruitment.
I want to get to some of the questions that you and I were discussing. You had mentioned your story, which I thought was interesting, but we didn't dive into too much. This is an election year. I noticed that you had aspired to be the president of the United States at one time, but you found it more effective to become a businessman. What's the thought behind that was?
Let me tell you why I made that transition and he passed away in 2019, it was Ross Perot. He ran in the year of Daddy Bush and Bill Clinton. In the middle of that was Ross Perot. Back then, I was into politics. Anything political, I was glued to the television. I had a newspaper. I saw this businessman who seems to be more coherent than any of these. I've got friends in politics. I lived in Tallahassee, our state capital for a long time. That is no pun on politicians. They are very brilliant people. He didn't win the election. One of the reasons I aspired to be president is because as a child, you always want to find the highest paid job.
I remember my dearly departed mother asked me about that. She is like, "Why do you want to be president?" I said, "The president has to be the richest person in the world." They're grossly underpaid. When I would look in magazines like Time Magazine and they would name their most influential person of the year. It wasn't always the president of any nation or the king of any kingdom. It was usually some influencer in business or entertainment. I thought, "That's where the power lies." I wanted to get in to learn business, make an influence and make an impact on the public square.
I'm glad you've made that choice. It's a good segue to tell people about how they can find you in your business.
Our organization is Influence Me Institute. For those who may know something about me, it was formerly called iGroup, which meant impact. The key figures in the organization and I, at the end of 2019, we started looking at that word impact. We saw that it was becoming a buzzword. We thought, which one has more legacy impact or influence? We thought, "You can encounter me and make an impact on my life but if I'm influencing you, I'll leave a legacy." That's the most important. We want to that. We want to leave a legacy. Influence-Me.org is the website. You'll receive a free consultation. We give those consultations for about 30 minutes. I find that in my consultations, I usually go about 45 minutes to 1 hour, and not invoice people. I'm good at building rapport and trying to cover your needs. That's where we are.
Resilient Employees: It is more costly to recruit than to retain. Organizations need to invest in the training and wellbeing of every employee in their teams.
Eric, I want to say thank you for coming to the show. It's been a good conversation. It's one that's going to progress and continue to be discussed. We're moving into a new era in business, corporate business and entrepreneurship. These are all shifting. A lot of the ways of doing business, a lot of the strategies and the thought patterns around how we put plans in place, how we hire your people, the type of people that we're looking for, how we evaluate people, all of that is changing as well. How do we do these things going forward? To think about it is you and I play a big role in that. CEOs of corporations are looking for answers and solutions. Now is the time for a lot of innovation and creativity, and voicing your thoughts and opinions about how we can do things better. What's working and what's not working. It's a vital time right now.
We are the storytellers. We get to create our own narrative. Part of what we do is helping people find their voice and be confident in speaking it, expressing it, allowing people to experience it, and stop letting people give you the narrative and show your voice and own it.
We always ask our guests how can we consistently bounce back from adversity, dominate our challenges and win in the game of life. We want to hear your thoughts about that.
Adversity is a university. Click To Tweet
This would be my favorite part of the interview and I've enjoyed our time together. Embrace the challenges. Losses have lessons, learn from them and be willing to be available for the challenges and chaos. In a time like this, I would love to say that everything remained intact in my life, but it didn't. I dealt with a lot of uncertainty, but I have gained so much more knowledge and wisdom from it. Embrace those challenges. When the challenges come, do not complain and whine. Be human, deal with your emotions, but turn those losses into lessons. Let life be your university.
Thanks again, Mr. Eric Thomas, for coming on the show.
There you have it, another successful episode of the show. Let life be your university. Isn't that a thought? Is life your university? What are you learning from life? Are you pushing back on your class or course? Are you pushing back on your homework? You don't want to get your homework done. Life will be teaching you a lesson. Life is a university. It is. We have to graduate. We all have the responsibility and the privilege to go through and get a good score, get a good grade. That's something to think about. Until next time, peace and love.
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About Mr. Eric Thomas
Eric Thomas is a highly influential Pastor, Keynote Speaker, and Financial Markets Instructor with over 25 years of ministerial and business experience.
Eric has conducted Financial Trainings all over the country and performed roles such as Radio/TV Host & Special Contributor as well as Brand Evangelist/Spokesperson.
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Tags: adversity, Company Culture, Employee Wellbeing, Remote Work, Resilient Employees, Thriving Companies


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Should airline passengers be allowed to prevent others' seats from reclining?
September 2, 2014 | 2:59 pm by Crain's New York Business
The grounding of a flight in late August after a dispute over a reclining seat gave new meaning to the phrase "in-flight entertainment" and set off a national discussion on the rights of passengers in cramped airplanes. While almost all seats are manufactured to recline, some passengers, especially tall ones, have taken to using devices like the Knee Defender to prevent seat backs of persons in front of them from reclining. The Federal Aviation Administration has said the Knee Defender does not violate any rules. Some airlines have banned them—in Australia.
Should airlines allow passengers to use the Knee Defender and similar devices to prevent seats from reclining?
Yes. The space that comes with a seat belongs to the passenger who bought that seat.
No. Seats are sold with the expectation that the reclining function will work as advertised.
This entry was posted in Transportation and tagged airplanes, Federal Aviation, Knee Defender, passengers, reclining, seats. Bookmark the permalink.
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Sudarshan K says:
Be Considerate..Everyone.
Jerrytpt says:
On flights up to 3 hours, seats should not recline. On longer flights, there should be ample room to recline.
Wally Ballou says:
I'm 6'5″, and I buy front row seats because I expect there to be no room in the regular seats. Plan ahead.
David P says:
No. A good solution to a problem should not create a new problem. A solution to the legroom problem cannot be solved by infringing on the adjacent passenger's ability to recline. The knee defender is an absurd product and should be banned by airlines. Allowing such a product creates an impossible situation for airlines, i.e., having to justify 2 contradicting issues – justifying both the legroom issue and justifying why the knee defender has not been banned.
Michael Gold says:
Mutual respect and courtesy should be exercised at all time by all passengers
Richard R. says:
Wally's got it right. Plan ahead.
When you buy tix and select seats online, the seat map shows you which seats recline and which don't. If a seat was purchased with the expectation it would recline, the purchaser should not be denied that option after the fact.
It would appear there may be a market to be made in allowing those who want to pay more for seat that doesn't allow for the seat ahead to recline, and those who would pay less to have a seat that doesn't recline.
The airlines are at fault for cramming in too many seats on their planes. I am 5′ 9″ with long legs and not overweight (150 lbs) and I find the seats confining. The lack of adequate space is ridiculous.
There should be regulations requiring a reasonable and more realistic amount of space.
The airlines need to better plan the seats, not try to cram them. except in a short filght (2 hour or less) it is ok if the seat cannot recline but beyond that everyone needs to stretch.
Knee Defenders should be completely banned.


Old riverfront village now with viability for a touristic resort comprising of Hotel, Log cabins and a full range of support building such as Restaurants, Water Sports facilities, Dry Ski Slope, Observatory etc. Although there is no final project in place, the Silves council is also very eager for this old village to be given a new life and to boost the local economy. E.U. Rural Tourism Grants are available for this type of project and can be applied for at the Ministry of Tourism Investment Lisbon.