Speaker 1: It's night Side with Dan Ray on WBS, Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much to Paul Davis. Just a moment,
Speaker 2: you and I will be chatting about an issue of us,
Speaker 2: some importance that you've already reported on today. First of all,
Speaker 2: I'm Dan Ray, the host of the show, and we
Speaker 2: have Rob Brooks and an assistant new trainee Dan, Dan.
Speaker 2: What's your last name? I want to give you a
Speaker 2: proper introduction, Tantano. Dan Tantano is in studio in the
Speaker 2: control room tonight, Dan tan Tanno. All right, this is
Speaker 2: sort of his first Is this the first time you're
Speaker 2: flying the plane?
Speaker 3: Dad?
Speaker 2: All right, Well, I want you to know this is
Speaker 2: my three thousandth nine hundredth thirty nine hundredth edition of Nightside,
Speaker 2: So we're kind of, you know, the ying and the
Speaker 2: yang of Nightside here, my friend, and I know you're
Speaker 2: going to do a great job, and sure by fifty
Speaker 2: nine twelve to fifty eight tonight, you'll have this thing
Speaker 2: down absolutely perfectly. We in our first hour tonight, we'll
Speaker 2: be talking with four guests, no phone calls. Beginning after
Speaker 2: nine o'clock we will be taking phone calls, and at
Speaker 2: that time we are going to go back and look
Speaker 2: at the Stewart health care crisis here in Massachusetts. Going
Speaker 2: to be talking with John McDonough, a professor of the
Speaker 2: practice of Public health at the Harvard chan School of
Speaker 2: Public Health. John McDonald, a former state representative, knows this
Speaker 2: story inside and out, and we are going to trace
Speaker 2: the history here how did we get to this disastrous situation.
Speaker 2: And then later on tonight, we're going to talk about
Speaker 2: a Boston Globe former editor and now a commentator, columnist,
Speaker 2: whatever you will, with Boston old Brian McGrory. We won't
Speaker 2: talk with Brian because Brian likes to say that his
Speaker 2: writing stands alone. But we're going to talk about a
Speaker 2: very interesting article that he wrote yesterday about bike lanes
Speaker 2: on Boylston Street in Boston and maybe maybe the city
Speaker 2: at some point needs to back off putting bike lanes
Speaker 2: on every street and particularly every major thoroughfare in Boston.
Speaker 2: But first off, we are going to bring back for
Speaker 2: a curtain call here WBZ News Radio anger Nicole Davis.
Speaker 1: Nicole, fancy seeing you here.
Speaker 2: Hi?
Speaker 1: Are you well? As of a you know, it's been
Speaker 1: about two minutes and I had some coffee, so I
Speaker 1: think I'm doing better. Now, how are you perfect?
Speaker 2: Yes? Perfect, you always do perfectly. Anyway, Look, you've been
Speaker 2: reporting today, I guess on a survey of TSA complaints
Speaker 2: at US airports, and Logan Airport is not on the
Speaker 2: top of the list, but it's pretty close. Tell us
Speaker 2: about I.
Speaker 1: Mean around here, we like to say we're number one
Speaker 1: right now. It's just kind of a New England thing
Speaker 1: and this is something that we do not want to
Speaker 1: say we are number one, but we're number seven, so woo.
Speaker 1: This is a survey from a company called Upgraded Points.
Speaker 1: They're based in Austin, Texas, and what they did was
Speaker 1: they dug through through all the TSA complaint data that
Speaker 1: they get in from twenty fifteen through last year, so
Speaker 1: they had a good amount of data here. And what
Speaker 1: they did was they tried to see where travelers have
Speaker 1: been filing the most complaints against TSA. So again, we're
Speaker 1: not number one. We can give that title to Newark,
Speaker 1: New Jersey. Surprise or not, that is the worst airport
Speaker 1: in the country with the most complaints according to this survey.
Speaker 1: But we are again number seven. They say that just
Speaker 1: about five out of every one hundred thousand passengers that
Speaker 1: went through Logan Airport in that time filed some kind
Speaker 1: of complaint about their TSA experience, and you could call
Speaker 1: it experience. I suppose it's good or bad. It's an
Speaker 1: experience regardless.
Speaker 2: Well, you all of us want security when we were
Speaker 2: on that airplane, so we're going to make sure that
Speaker 2: everyone has been checked on the airplane and that anybody
Speaker 2: gets on the airplane who hasn't been checked. We're very
Speaker 2: concerned about that.
Speaker 3: Ye.
Speaker 2: At the same time, we all all of us were
Speaker 2: in a little bit of an anxious situation going through security,
Speaker 2: and we don't want to have our bags looked deeply into.
Speaker 2: But they have a job to do. I don't have
Speaker 2: any beef with the TSA people at Logan Airport. I
Speaker 2: found them all to be pretty cooperative. Any idea as
Speaker 2: to what sort of complaints people have. I mean, the
Speaker 2: TSA people really avia to protect the safety of the passengers.
Speaker 2: I like seeing TSA.
Speaker 1: Pans, sure of course. I mean being safe is important,
Speaker 1: and I don't think anybody's arguing that. But when it
Speaker 1: comes to these complaints, I've got the list up in
Speaker 1: front of me. It kind of goes all over the map.
Speaker 1: You've got complaints about mishandling of passenger property, maybe losing
Speaker 1: some stuff, and there's breaking locks on suitcases or going
Speaker 1: through people's going through people's suitcases. Of course, you know,
Speaker 1: you pack it just right, especially if it's carry on.
Speaker 1: People complaining about the TSA going through their suitcases and
Speaker 1: damaging property. Then there's some you know, complaints about people
Speaker 1: getting padded down aggressively or potentially being taken out of
Speaker 1: the line for no good reason. People also complaining about
Speaker 1: just the screening process in general. There's all sorts of
Speaker 1: different complaints on here. And then also people who have disabilities.
Speaker 1: Some have complained that TSA doesn't properly work with their
Speaker 1: medical supplies, their wheelchairs, some one and so forth, or
Speaker 1: just doesn't let them go through in an efficient manner
Speaker 1: and maybe they miss their flight.
Speaker 2: Sounds to me like the TSA folks at all of
Speaker 2: these airports are probably tasked with a bankless.
Speaker 1: Job, oh my gosh, of course, and.
Speaker 2: They are dealing with dozens hundreds of people during the shift.
Speaker 2: And I'm sure that within one hundred thousand people, there's
Speaker 2: probably a few people who are having a bad day themselves. Actually,
Speaker 2: I think these numbers are pretty low.
Speaker 1: With you at the end of the day, it could
Speaker 1: be worse. I don't five out of every one hundred
Speaker 1: thousands not the worst ratio world.
Speaker 2: Well, that would be when you think about it at
Speaker 2: Fenway Park. But there's about thirty five thousand people to
Speaker 2: go to a game. And if there were only a
Speaker 2: couple of people for every baseball game who complained of
Speaker 2: an experience, I think TSA's doing pretty well with these
Speaker 2: statistics here, to be really honest, without.
Speaker 1: I would love to see the TSA play baseball, but
Speaker 1: I can't get what I want. But you're right, You're right.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's all about looking at the bigger picture.
Speaker 1: Of course.
Speaker 2: My only problem I just flew back in on Sunday
Speaker 2: afternoon and I get a real problem. And I don't
Speaker 2: know whether it's with the airline it was Ita, or
Speaker 2: whether it was with the baggage handlers down below. Do
Speaker 2: you know how long it took us to get out
Speaker 2: luggage from the time we landed and we went right
Speaker 2: through security. The security people at Logan Airport could not
Speaker 2: have been easier. They were very thorough. If I had
Speaker 2: a good experience with TSA, both going out and coming back,
Speaker 2: guess how long you would expect from the time you
Speaker 2: land until you actually get your luggage.
Speaker 1: I mean normally anywhere from ten to twenty minutes. I
Speaker 1: suppose that the most the longest on an international flight.
Speaker 1: I've had to worry about it, but I'm assuming it's
Speaker 1: a lot longer than that an hour and a half.
Speaker 2: What was the issue? I don't think that whoever is
Speaker 2: in charge down below that. I kind of imagine they
Speaker 2: had a sufficient number of baggage handlers at the assigned
Speaker 2: to the international terminal. Now again, I don't know if
Speaker 2: the baggage handlers or employees of the airline or that
Speaker 2: they are employees of logan inport. But an hour and
Speaker 2: a half to get your luggage, Now, this is after
Speaker 2: a nine hour flight from Rome, and before that a
Speaker 2: three am wake up call, had to go through the
Speaker 2: airport at Naples, Italy, which was a zoo, and to
Speaker 2: wait an hour and a half for the luggage to
Speaker 2: come up. And it came up sporadically a couple of bags.
Speaker 2: Then we wait a few minutes. So I have a
Speaker 2: lot more complaints with whoever got the luggage off the
Speaker 2: plane into the cart, into the building, onto the conveyor
Speaker 2: belt with the TSA is.
Speaker 1: That is fair and look traveling, especially internationally, it is exhausting.
Speaker 1: It is exhausting for all of us. Nobody wants to
Speaker 1: be standing in these lines. It's a rough experience all around.
Speaker 2: So the seats get smaller every year.
Speaker 1: That really did, or I'm getting bigger. It's probably a
Speaker 1: combo of both.
Speaker 2: Seat. I was in row by the way, I was said,
Speaker 2: the last row of the plane. Oh no, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: no the loo right, no, there were no, the lows
Speaker 2: were more in the middle. We were bound by the
Speaker 2: galley at which was you know, you could at least
Speaker 2: stand up.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: And also they have cruise seating in the back of
Speaker 2: these international flights, which I had never seen before. Did
Speaker 2: you know that they have crew seating in these flights.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've seen that once or twice, but I haven't
Speaker 1: seen it that often.
Speaker 2: They have a big curtain that encircles about I don't know,
Speaker 2: looks like twenty or so seats.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: Big oh, comfortable seats. Wow, that were like ten feet
Speaker 2: from where most for I was squenched in.
Speaker 1: Well, to be fair, they're also working the flight, so
Speaker 1: they probably deserve a little rest. But that would be
Speaker 1: so nice six hours into a flight seeing that going
Speaker 1: Wait a minute, I'm.
Speaker 2: Going to try to put on a flight attended uniform.
Speaker 1: Now I'd pay to see that.
Speaker 2: No, no, no, no, no, male flight attendant uniform.
Speaker 1: Okay, begs Nicole, anytime, my friend.
Speaker 2: Talk to you soon. Yea, the great Nicole Davis talking
Speaker 2: about uh I think not a huge number of TSA
Speaker 2: can place, but Logan airport number seven in the country.
Speaker 2: All right, we get back. We're going to talk about
Speaker 2: membership sharing. This is something that probably all of us
Speaker 2: at some point have done, but it's going to become
Speaker 2: more difficult to do, and we will explain we get back.
Speaker 2: By the way, if you are not able to listen
Speaker 2: to us on your radio, you can always listen to
Speaker 2: WBZ News Radio on the iHeartRadio app. Lots of ways
Speaker 2: to pick up WBZ in nightside, both at your home,
Speaker 2: in your car, and on the internet. My name is
Speaker 2: Dan Ray. This is WVZ in Boston. Will be back
Speaker 2: right after these few messages. Now back to Dan Ray,
Speaker 2: Mine from the Window.
Speaker 1: World night Side Studios on WBZ the News Radio one.
Speaker 2: And welcome my next guest, Marbou Brown. She's a customer
Speaker 2: experience executive and founder of the customer obsession advantage. Man,
Speaker 2: that's a long name, the customer obsession advantage. Tell us
Speaker 2: first of all, Marbo, what is the customer obsession advantage?
Speaker 4: Well, first of all, and Dan, it's it's a heat,
Speaker 4: not a she, but hey, the customer obsession advantage is
Speaker 4: the basically what companies get when they adopt customer obsessions
Speaker 4: as a pillar of their business strategy.
Speaker 5: All of the.
Speaker 4: Companies who have who have done that have extraordinary business results.
Speaker 4: And you know, some of the companies that are known
Speaker 4: for customer obsession include companies like Amazon, Apple, Costco, Chewy,
Speaker 4: Chick fil A, every one of these companies that I
Speaker 4: just named, If you look at what their business results
Speaker 4: look like, they are off the chart as compared with
Speaker 4: their peers. And so that's the advantage that people get
Speaker 4: by adopting customer obsession as a pillar of their business strategy.
Speaker 2: Well, that that clarifies things now. A lot of companies,
Speaker 2: I guess have decided that they want to tighten up
Speaker 2: and not allow members to share access to their product
Speaker 2: or services with non members. It's called I guess, membership
Speaker 2: sharing for lack of a better word. How much of
Speaker 2: that was going on and why is it getting shop
Speaker 2: right now?
Speaker 4: Well, look, let me tell you that, at least for
Speaker 4: a company like Costco. I know that much has been
Speaker 4: made about, you know, Costco enforcing their their policy of
Speaker 4: not allowing people to share memberships. But that's not a
Speaker 4: new thing, right, They've just found a better way to
Speaker 4: do it, long before the pandemic, long before you know,
Speaker 4: the spike and inflation and all of these kinds of
Speaker 4: things that are are causing causing people to tighten up.
Speaker 4: I have been told in Costco, let's say I was
Speaker 4: presenting my my wife's card to checkout and they didn't
Speaker 4: see her inside. I've been told that I couldn't you know,
Speaker 4: shop with with her card without her being in the store. Right,
Speaker 4: So you know that's that's not necessarily amusing. What is
Speaker 4: new is that they have more effective ways now to
Speaker 4: enforce you know, that policy around not allowing people to
Speaker 4: share memberships. And you know they do this for good reason. Look,
Speaker 4: it's the Costco faithful know that their membership fees allows
Speaker 4: Costco to do some very special things, right. It allows
Speaker 4: Costco to have this very exceptionally generous returns policy. It
Speaker 4: allows Costco to have these screaming deals that they have
Speaker 4: in the store that are surprises. But you come in
Speaker 4: and you know there's a home improvement deal that you
Speaker 4: just can't pass up because it's it's so great, And
Speaker 4: and they're doing these kinds of things all the time,
Speaker 4: and and the faithful know that their membership fees enable
Speaker 4: Costco to do this. So I doubt very much that
Speaker 4: you know, those people are going to have a lot
Speaker 4: of concerns about you know, Costco enforcing.
Speaker 2: So what you say to me, just to understand it,
Speaker 2: is if if I'm a member of one of these
Speaker 2: these business whether it's Costco or someone else, and I
Speaker 2: know my brother or my sister in law needs to
Speaker 2: go and buy a big product, if I say, hey,
Speaker 2: take my card, you'll get a little bit of a break.
Speaker 2: This somehow going to be able to figure out that
Speaker 2: that's not me when my brother or my sister in
Speaker 2: law shows.
Speaker 4: The card, right, well, well, you know, yes, they will
Speaker 4: be able to figure that out with the new methodologies
Speaker 4: that are in place these days. Because you know, if
Speaker 4: you scan your card on going into the store instead
Speaker 4: of just kind of showing it to somebody when you
Speaker 4: enter the door, well, if you scan your card. You know,
Speaker 4: then they'll be able to tell whether it's you or
Speaker 4: somebody else.
Speaker 2: How do they do that? Meaning it was if I
Speaker 2: have a card, if I guess if I got a
Speaker 2: picture on my card or someone driver's license, that's easy.
Speaker 2: But how do they know if my car has doesn't
Speaker 2: have a picture on it. How are they able to
Speaker 2: figure out it's me or my brother walking in the door?
Speaker 5: Well? Costco cards have pictures.
Speaker 2: Okay, that's true. Enough, Okay, enough, Okay, that's what they
Speaker 2: do and they have been Basically they're now going to
Speaker 2: enforce that and there's been no change in the car.
Speaker 2: They're just going to enforce it a little bit more strictly.
Speaker 4: I guess they're going to enforce it a little bit
Speaker 4: more strictly. But also with the technologies that we have now,
Speaker 4: it's a little bit easier to do that type of enforcement, right.
Speaker 4: I mean, for example, if you let's say that you're
Speaker 4: using your app to enter the store, Well, the app
Speaker 4: on your phone, your pictures associated with it. You scan that.
Speaker 4: You know, whoever's checking cars out the door sees your picture,
Speaker 4: they can tell whether it's you or it's not you.
Speaker 4: I mean, you know, before you know folks would look
Speaker 4: at your card at to check out, for example, they
Speaker 4: would see that and they could tell it wasn't you.
Speaker 4: And you know, they could say, hey, this this isn't you. Now,
Speaker 4: some folks at the the checkout would.
Speaker 5: Would enforce it. Other folks wouldn't. But so.
Speaker 2: The right Let me ask you about another example. You've
Speaker 2: made that very clear. What about Netflix. I'm sitting at
Speaker 2: home and I want to watch a movie, and uh,
Speaker 2: you know, somehow I'm able. You know, we have Netflix,
Speaker 2: So I don't even know how it works. I assume
Speaker 2: that I'm sitting here, uh, and you know, and I
Speaker 2: go to a baseball game and my brother says, I
Speaker 2: want to go over and watch the basketball game. How
Speaker 2: do they know when my brother's on my TV looking
Speaker 2: for Netflix, that it's that it's him, not me. I
Speaker 2: don't get that.
Speaker 4: Well, if your brother's on your TV, yeah, and there's
Speaker 4: no problem. The question is is your brother on his TV?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 4: And and there in lies the problem. Look, let me
Speaker 4: tell you this is the kind of thing that a
Speaker 4: company like like Netflix go They allowed to go on
Speaker 4: for an extended period of time without really doing any
Speaker 4: kind of enforcement. But but there's a lot of ways
Speaker 4: that that they could do this very simply. Look, they
Speaker 4: could set it up so that if you have one membership,
Speaker 4: you cannot be logged in in two places at the
Speaker 4: same time. The moment you log in at one place
Speaker 4: to laug you out of the other place, right. And
Speaker 4: so if I'm at home and I'm using my Netflix
Speaker 4: and somebody tries to use my Netflix in another place,
Speaker 4: it would either automatically log me off from where I'm
Speaker 4: at home, or it could it could, you know, put
Speaker 4: up a pop up and say, you know, is this
Speaker 4: you you logging in from some other place. I mean,
Speaker 4: there's ways that they can do that sort of thing.
Speaker 4: It's not that difficult the problem, you know, And let
Speaker 4: me just kind of give you a little bit of
Speaker 4: this distinction here between what has happened with Costs.
Speaker 2: About thirty seconds left them coming up on a newscast.
Speaker 4: You go right ahead, Well, all I'm going to say
Speaker 4: is that Netflix allowed this to kind of go on
Speaker 4: for an extended period of time of how trying to
Speaker 4: do any kind of enforcement and COSTCOO has always had
Speaker 4: some level of enforcement, right, and so customers are going
Speaker 4: to respond to the two things very differently. You know,
Speaker 4: when you know there's a little bit of a stricter enforcement.
Speaker 2: Gotcha, gotcha, marbo It's interesting, really interesting. It's funny how
Speaker 2: technology can help us, but sometimes technology can hurt us. Anyway,
Speaker 2: I really appreciate your time. Marbo Brown, a customer experience
Speaker 2: executive and founder of the Customer Obsession advantage. Appreciate your time.
Speaker 2: My friend will talk again.
Speaker 4: Okay, well, thank you much, and if people want to
Speaker 4: continue the conversation, they can check me out at customer
Speaker 4: Obsession dot net.
Speaker 2: Sounds great. Appreciate it, Marboo, thank you so much. When
Speaker 2: we get back, we're going to talk about how to
Speaker 2: increase your odds to become a super ager super ager.
Speaker 2: We'll explain what that means, and I think it's something
Speaker 2: a lot of people might aspire to. Coming back on
Speaker 2: Nightside right after the news at the bottom of the
Speaker 2: hour on Nightside, you're on night Side with Dan Ray
Speaker 2: on wz Boston's news radio. Okay, the super aged guest.
Speaker 2: We hope get to get a little bit as the
Speaker 2: next guest. We had that out of order. So we're
Speaker 2: going to talk about this is a political year. I
Speaker 2: think all of us know that by now. It's a
Speaker 2: presidential election year. So the question is should brands stay
Speaker 2: a political in an election year with US as Scott Barredell,
Speaker 2: I think Scott has been with US before. He's an
Speaker 2: expert on branding and trust. Is there a consensus Scott
Speaker 2: that people if they sell widgets, they should just sell
Speaker 2: widgets and be happy to sell widgets to everyone. Or
Speaker 2: do companies sometimes venture into the political arena successfully? How
Speaker 2: are you tonight?
Speaker 5: Good?
Speaker 3: Good?
Speaker 5: It's a good question. I think that you know, traditionally
Speaker 5: brands have stayed out of polic I think that over
Speaker 5: the last decade, particularly during the Trump administration, you saw
Speaker 5: that change quite a bit, with you know, it becoming
Speaker 5: more common for brands to do things like you know,
Speaker 5: Major League Baseball or Delta Airlines coming out in a
Speaker 5: that was.
Speaker 2: A huge mistake for Major League Baseball. You mean taking
Speaker 2: an All Star Game out of Atlanta.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was the Major.
Speaker 2: League Baseball And by the way, I believe that the
Speaker 2: All Star Game is going into Atlanta next summer.
Speaker 5: Not only that, but you know this past year it
Speaker 5: was in Arlington, Texas, where the Texas Rangers play. And
Speaker 5: this it was brought up that the Texas Rangers are
Speaker 5: the only Major League team that did not have a
Speaker 5: Pride Night, and so it was brought up as an
Speaker 5: issue of hey, should Major League Baseball not allow the
Speaker 5: Rangers to have the Allstar Game because of that, and
Speaker 5: the commission and said no, it's one of many reasons
Speaker 5: we consider. I think the reality is, if you go
Speaker 5: back a couple of years, I think Major League Baseball
Speaker 5: wouldn't have taken the game out of Atlanta because of
Speaker 5: the voting legislation that was passed by by the Republican
Speaker 5: legislature in Georgia. I think it's, you know this ebbs
Speaker 5: and flows, but I think it's gone back in the
Speaker 5: direction of brands trying to be a little more careful
Speaker 5: about wading into those waters.
Speaker 2: Turned out by the way that the vote turnout and
Speaker 2: that in that election was bigger than any any year
Speaker 2: in Georgia's history.
Speaker 5: So yeah, I think it was turned into a bigger issue.
Speaker 2: It was.
Speaker 5: There was a lot of hyperple involved, it was.
Speaker 2: It was the one brand that really got into some
Speaker 2: trouble was Budweiser.
Speaker 5: Absolutely, yeah, Yeah, bud Lighte aligned with a transgender activist,
Speaker 5: someone who wasn't just a social media influencer, happened to
Speaker 5: be trans He was someone who had met with Joe Biden.
Speaker 5: He was someone who had, you know, a political alignment,
Speaker 5: and I think that was part of what blew up
Speaker 5: in bud Light's face.
Speaker 2: And recovered at this point, Scott or are they are
Speaker 2: they creeping back to where they were?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 5: Actually they I think it was kind of the last turr.
Speaker 5: They were already struggling with with younger uh beer drinkers
Speaker 5: as a brand, and you know, they're owned by Anheyser Bush,
Speaker 5: which also owns Mikelo Ultra, which is light beer that
Speaker 5: is more popular with younger people. And I think, uh,
Speaker 5: after that blew up in their faces, they said, no,
Speaker 5: maybe let's just hold onto the customers we had and
Speaker 5: not worry about trying to to expand into younger demographics
Speaker 5: and leave that to the Ultra.
Speaker 2: Younger beer drinkers tend to go for I P A
Speaker 2: s and stuff like that.
Speaker 5: I mean, that's true, that's true. But am but yeah,
Speaker 5: I was. I said, they've been among among the aner
Speaker 5: Bush products, you know, Mikel Ultra. Uh, they focus on
Speaker 5: uh it being lower lowering carbs and they so they
Speaker 5: try to have a health angle to to to their product,
Speaker 5: which appeals to younger people, So that's the angle they're taking.
Speaker 2: No problem does does does budwise also have Modello in
Speaker 2: their in their chain of beers?
Speaker 5: Modello, yes, I believe so, but yeah, Modello is uh,
Speaker 5: that's that's also one of the most popular beers today.
Speaker 5: So so Inneiser Busch has uh you know, you can
Speaker 5: you can take a swipe at at bud Light. But
Speaker 5: really that's just a brand owned by a big conglomerate
Speaker 5: that's making money no matter which ber you buy.
Speaker 2: That's I guess that's the point. A lot of people
Speaker 2: probably they knew who owns bud Light, that they might
Speaker 2: not know who that who owns some of these other
Speaker 2: beers that don't have bud associated with it. Michael Jordan
Speaker 2: once said, and I forget the context of the question,
Speaker 2: but I know someone was asking Michael. I think they're
Speaker 2: asking Michael Jordan why he wasn't more active politically, and
Speaker 2: I think he said, well, Republicans buy sneakers too, by right.
Speaker 5: Well, that's exactly right. He was. He was asked to
Speaker 5: endorse a Democratic African American candidate for the Senate in
Speaker 5: North Carolina and he chose not to, and that was
Speaker 5: the reason he gave. Now today things are a little different.
Speaker 5: I mean, the most popular basketball players Lebron James, and
Speaker 5: he's not shy about sharing his politics. So I think
Speaker 5: to an extent, people want, especially when it's a person
Speaker 5: rather than say a brand, want people to be real
Speaker 5: about who they are and not try to hide it.
Speaker 5: So I think things have changed a little bit, but
Speaker 5: still there's no you know, better safe than sorry for
Speaker 5: most brands.
Speaker 2: So, Ludias Scott, what did they teaching at business schools
Speaker 2: these days on the very subject we're talking about here?
Speaker 2: What are they telling, you know, future business owners and
Speaker 2: corporate executives. Are they suggesting that it is time to
Speaker 2: back away and stay neutral or are they saying, hey,
Speaker 2: depending upon the issue, you may and may not want
Speaker 2: to get involved.
Speaker 5: Well, I think a couple of things. One is that
Speaker 5: there's a difference between values and politics. So you can
Speaker 5: be a brand that supports sustainability, and you can do
Speaker 5: that without dipping your toe into climate change discussions. You
Speaker 5: can value diversity and really support that in your hiring
Speaker 5: practices and other things without aligning that with DEI, which
Speaker 5: has become kind of a toxic to a lot of people.
Speaker 5: It's a political hot but there are ways to have
Speaker 5: values as a as a brand without you know, you know,
Speaker 5: shooting yourself in the foot by by stepping into a
Speaker 5: political controversy. And I think that's part of what's taught.
Speaker 5: The other thing that's taught is do your research. In
Speaker 5: other words, you know, in the case of bud Light,
Speaker 5: they made a huge mistake by aligning with an influencer
Speaker 5: that did not you know, it was not a good
Speaker 5: alignment with their customers. The same month. A lot of
Speaker 5: people don't realize that Nike uh did uh a promotion
Speaker 5: of sports spras with the same influencer, Dylan mulvaney.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 5: No blowback to Nike, because Nike did its research. They
Speaker 5: have a different customer base. They aligned with Colin Kaepernick.
Speaker 5: That wouldn't have worked for a lot of brands, but
Speaker 5: it works for a Nike. So know your customer and
Speaker 5: you're going to be there's less chance that something bad
Speaker 5: is gonna happen.
Speaker 2: Very good advice, Scott. How can folks get in touch
Speaker 2: with you, uh if if they'd like to get some,
Speaker 2: you know, more personal advice. You're an expert on branding
Speaker 2: and trust you know what you're talking about you. You
Speaker 2: you handled questions, none of them. None of these interviews
Speaker 2: are are scripted, uh with at this hour, None of
Speaker 2: my interviews are scripted. And I threw a lot of
Speaker 2: questions at you that some other guests might not have
Speaker 2: been on a handle. You did a really great job.
Speaker 2: Is there a way folks and businesses can get in
Speaker 2: touch with you if they're they're looking to get some advice?
Speaker 5: Thanks saying that I've got a book out called Trust Signals,
Speaker 5: and so if you google Trust Signals and Amazon, it'll
Speaker 5: come up that talks about a lot of issues like this.
Speaker 5: I've also got a business called Idea Grove, soideagrowth dot com.
Speaker 5: You can find my firm there.
Speaker 2: So it's called Idea Grow.
Speaker 5: Or grove like an orange grove, so.
Speaker 2: The Idea of Grove. Okay, I just want to make
Speaker 2: sure that we got it id E A g R
Speaker 2: o ve e dot com.
Speaker 5: Correct.
Speaker 2: God. I appreciate you, freciate you joining us tonight very much.
Speaker 2: We will talk soon.
Speaker 5: Okay, thank you so much.
Speaker 2: All Right, we get back. We have a fourth guest schedule,
Speaker 2: and hopefully they're going to find doctor Patrick Porter on
Speaker 2: how you can increase your odds it is becoming a
Speaker 2: super ager, which means somebody who lives well into their
Speaker 2: eighties and maybe even into their nineties and beyond. We
Speaker 2: will get back on Nightside. My name is Dan Ray.
Speaker 2: Right after these brief messages.
Speaker 1: Now back to Dan Ray line from the Window World.
Speaker 2: Night six Studios on WBZ News Radio. Well, we are
Speaker 2: welcoming Dtor Patrick Porter, who is a PhD doctor an
Speaker 2: expert in brain health on how to increase your odds
Speaker 2: of becoming a super ager. Doctor Patrick Porter, welcome to Nightside.
Speaker 2: How are you, sir?
Speaker 3: It's good to be here. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2: Great to have you, that's for sure. We got our
Speaker 2: signals crossed a little bit, no problem. Thanks so much
Speaker 2: for being here. First of all, let's start off with
Speaker 2: what exactly is a super ager.
Speaker 3: Well, it's somebody who can age gracefully that you're not
Speaker 3: just old, you know, in an age, but you're young
Speaker 3: in mind and physically fit with your body.
Speaker 2: Okay, And is there a point in time? Could you
Speaker 2: be a super ager in your sixties or your seventies
Speaker 2: or is it more restricted to folks who have moved
Speaker 2: into their eighth or ninth decade.
Speaker 3: Oh no, I think you can do that at any age,
Speaker 3: and there's actually a competition now people actually can measure
Speaker 3: their book their bodies age and they actually show if
Speaker 3: their age being slower than the calendar. There's actually a
Speaker 3: competition for that. How do you do that?
Speaker 2: Biometrics, your question of their weight and all of that,
Speaker 2: their body fat, things like that, what is it?
Speaker 3: Everything? Yeah, a lot of things go into it, but
Speaker 3: it really has to do with They usually measure telomeres,
Speaker 3: which is one of our measurements of aging, and if
Speaker 3: you can slow that down relative to people your age,
Speaker 3: they will say that you are slowing at an earlier rate.
Speaker 3: But the real thing about a superager is you might
Speaker 3: meet somebody and they might even say they have staying power.
Speaker 3: You know, you meet somebody and you go, I can't
Speaker 3: believe you're sixty, I can't believe you're seventy whatever. You know, Like,
Speaker 3: there's somebody by the name mccathy smith who's an exercise
Speaker 3: physiologist and she's pretty famous out there. She's seventy four
Speaker 3: and if you met her, you would probably think she's fifty.
Speaker 3: Maybe she's in great shape and looks really good still,
Speaker 3: So there are people out there that are taking care
Speaker 3: of themselves.
Speaker 2: You use the term that I'm not familiar with. I
Speaker 2: think it was telemeters. Tele meters, Was.
Speaker 3: That the word there's Yeah, if you think of telomeres
Speaker 3: and the end of every DNA strand there's they they're
Speaker 3: like if you look at the caps on your shoelaces.
Speaker 3: When we're young, that cap is very solid and it
Speaker 3: doesn't fray. But at the age that that that kind
Speaker 3: of unravels. And that's why there's a point in time
Speaker 3: where it's like people will stay the same look for
Speaker 3: twenty thirty years and then something happens PAM and then
Speaker 3: they age rather quickly, and strats has a lot to
Speaker 3: do with that. If you look at the presidents of
Speaker 3: the United States, doesn't matter who who's in the office,
Speaker 3: four years later, they look like they aged, you know,
Speaker 3: thirty years instead of four years because of the stress
Speaker 3: they're under.
Speaker 2: So is that sort of test and again you using
Speaker 2: the word, did you say tell a years or telemeters,
Speaker 2: tell a mears, tellometers?
Speaker 3: Okay?
Speaker 2: Is that something that the next time people go to
Speaker 2: their PCP, their personal care physician, they can ask for
Speaker 2: that test. They can test with just about everything else.
Speaker 2: I think is that test readily.
Speaker 3: Available now, I think you've got to go to specialty
Speaker 3: places for that. I know have three different labs that
Speaker 3: do it. But I know it's not something that's commonplace
Speaker 3: in the world that we're in now. There's they call
Speaker 3: it help optimization or bio hacking, where people are are
Speaker 3: hacking their health is to retard the aging process. And
Speaker 3: you know they're they're showing up five to six years
Speaker 3: younger than they really are, things like that, and you
Speaker 3: can measure that, but it's not something that's common knowledge.
Speaker 2: Okay, so let's talk about what people can do. I
Speaker 2: assume that probably diet and obviously diet and I assume
Speaker 2: exercise helps people stay more fit and in better shape.
Speaker 2: What if is that true? Number one? And then what
Speaker 2: else can other people do?
Speaker 3: Well? Sure? One thing too is it's also what you're avoiding.
Speaker 3: You know, you don't eat a lot of high sugar,
Speaker 3: you don't eat a lot of bad fats. You know,
Speaker 3: you're basically eating in moderation. You don't have to be
Speaker 3: a health food nut, but you have to at least
Speaker 3: eat in moderation and avoid those foods. That's number one.
Speaker 3: Number two is, yeah, you've got to get your body
Speaker 3: moving and breathing when they say twenty minutes of sitting
Speaker 3: as equivals smoking a cigarette. So these superagers are active.
Speaker 3: They're not just sitting down. They don't just watch their
Speaker 3: garden girl. They're out there working in their garden. Maybe
Speaker 3: they're walking, they're they're out socializing. This is a key
Speaker 3: for our human existence. We are social animals, so if
Speaker 3: we're not out there. They have actually in the blue
Speaker 3: zone studies which show people who age gracefully, they show
Speaker 3: that social being social is one of the key ingredients
Speaker 3: of somebody having a long in good life. Not just
Speaker 3: a long life. You know, you can be sick for
Speaker 3: thirty years and that's I wouldn't call that quality of life,
Speaker 3: you know. So but number three, you've got to do
Speaker 3: things that are going to challenge your imagination, your mind.
Speaker 3: Do things like what we do is, you know, if
Speaker 3: brain tap as, we train people's brains to stay in
Speaker 3: certain frequencies. We have five core frequencies in our brain,
Speaker 3: and if any of those get out of balance, we
Speaker 3: will start to accelerate our aging. And when the brain
Speaker 3: is out of balance right and left hemisphere, you'll start
Speaker 3: to you'll start to develop things like Alzheimer's or dementia,
Speaker 3: because the brain has to be balanced in the way
Speaker 3: that it operates, and then there are activities you can
Speaker 3: do physically, mentally, and emotionally to do that.
Speaker 2: Okay, first of all, I tell that the brain being
Speaker 2: in balance, I'm not sure I understand what that means.
Speaker 2: Perhaps you could just clarify that a little bit.
Speaker 3: Our brain has a voltage. Every cell of our body
Speaker 3: holds voltage, and that's how it operates. If you think
Speaker 3: of our brain both hemispheres. They have a right hemisphere
Speaker 3: that they would say controls creativity and left hemistry that
Speaker 3: controls logical although that's not actually true. It's both hemispheres
Speaker 3: can do everything, but when those brains should be communicating,
Speaker 3: So think of voltage like a Wi Fi network, and
Speaker 3: then communicating together. As long as they're matched. Our brains
Speaker 3: when we're younger is about eighteen point one volts right
Speaker 3: hemisphere and left hemisphere. They're matched. As we age, they
Speaker 3: will vary in frequency and voltage, and when it gets
Speaker 3: too great, like let's say we had somebody in the
Speaker 3: office the other day at a research lab. There was
Speaker 3: two point seven volts in one of their hemispheres in
Speaker 3: three point two in the other Well, that's their whole problem,
Speaker 3: and they're not communicating. So think of it like they're
Speaker 3: not on the same wavelength. They're not able to communicate.
Speaker 3: And when you have a memory, like if I ask
Speaker 3: you to remember your favorite vacation, you're actually lighting up
Speaker 3: eight to ten regions of the brain, not just one region.
Speaker 3: So when you have slower voltage, the brain will create
Speaker 3: what's called moral pruning. It will actually disconnect those memories
Speaker 3: because it couldn't find them right away. So that's why
Speaker 3: challenging your mind doing things that in socializing does that.
Speaker 3: When you're having a conversation with somebody, you're listening to
Speaker 3: what they have to say, you have to come back
Speaker 3: with the response. You know, maybe you're doing some kind
Speaker 3: of game and things. These are all really great things
Speaker 3: for the brain to keep those neuropathways slowing.
Speaker 2: Okay, so socialization, that's good. We understand that. What about
Speaker 2: I liked it at the end of the day to
Speaker 2: slow down and I'm off the air at midnight. At night,
Speaker 2: I sometimes will take the newspaper and try to finish
Speaker 2: the crossword puzzle in the newspaper, and it sort of
Speaker 2: tires me out. Relaxes me and eventually, either I finish
Speaker 2: most of it, or if I finish half of it
Speaker 2: and I'm really tired, I just go right to sleep.
Speaker 2: Good idea, A bad idea.
Speaker 3: Well, I think it's good for you. I mean some
Speaker 3: people would find that stressfully then, and they would some
Speaker 3: people would be like a dog with a bow and
Speaker 3: they wouldn't go to sleep till they finished it. So congratulations,
Speaker 3: you can do That's not me. Yeah, so I think doctor,
Speaker 3: I think that if you yeah.
Speaker 2: No, it's just gonna say I'm flat out of time.
Speaker 2: They shouldn't have asked you such an open ended question.
Speaker 2: But doctor Patrick Porter, how can folks get in touch
Speaker 2: with you or what have you? You have a book
Speaker 2: that that that you could reference us to refer us to.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I've written a book called five and Overdrive to
Speaker 3: Navigate your overloaded lifestyle. Okay, And they can go to
Speaker 3: brain tap dot com for more information. There's actually a
Speaker 3: free link if they want to do some brain fitness exercises.
Speaker 3: They're not quite they're a little easier to do than
Speaker 3: Crossford puzzles, but people can get on there and they
Speaker 3: just download the app and they can use that before
Speaker 3: they go to bed as well.
Speaker 2: Excellent, excellent, I'm going to be on it them. Get
Speaker 2: on there myself, doctor Patrick Polte. Appreciate your time. Thank
Speaker 2: you so much. I'd love to have you back. A
Speaker 2: fascinating guest.
Speaker 3: Thank you, sir, already, thank you bye.
Speaker 2: All right, we're coming back right after the nine o'clock news.
Speaker 2: We are going to dive back into the whole question
Speaker 2: of this Steward health crisis here in Massachusetts, Stewart Hospital
Speaker 2: health crisis in Massachusetts. We'll be talking with John McDonough,
Speaker 2: who's a professor at the chan Harvard School of Public Health.
Speaker 2: He understands this. I spoke with him today. He's going
Speaker 2: to answer questions and take your calls. Coming back right
Speaker 2: after the nine o'clock news.