Speaker 1: It's Night Side with Dan Ray on WBZ, Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much, Nicole. As we head to midnight,
Speaker 2: my name is Dan Ray. Here for the next four hours,
Speaker 2: Dan is in the other. Dan with this pro with
Speaker 2: this program is in the the production booth in the
Speaker 2: control room back at Broadcast Central, as we call it.
Speaker 2: Dan Cantano is back there, and I'm here. You're where
Speaker 2: you are, and we're all set to go. By the way,
Speaker 2: let me remind you we will be giving away two
Speaker 2: tickets tonight right after nine o'clock or after the nine
Speaker 2: o'clock news, so please don't call him now after the
Speaker 2: nine o'clock news to Celtic Thunder at the Premiere Theater
Speaker 2: at Foxwood's on November seventh. Please don't get these tickets
Speaker 2: unless you are going to utilize them. Set off on
Speaker 2: a musical journey with the Irish music sensations. Celtic Thunder Live.
Speaker 2: Complete show info and tickets available at Foxwoods dot com.
Speaker 2: We'll have two tickets available right after the nine o'clock news.
Speaker 2: Of course, in our first hour there are no phone calls.
Speaker 2: We have four guests lined up on a variety of topics.
Speaker 2: I think that you will find the topics interesting. I
Speaker 2: know we always find the guests interesting as well. I'm
Speaker 2: going to talk how to get your college applicant student
Speaker 2: ready for the big process that you will go through
Speaker 2: with your student, I'm sure your high school junior, a
Speaker 2: high school senior. We'll talk about the air quality alert
Speaker 2: here in parts of Massachusetts because of all of the
Speaker 2: ongoing brush fires. We'll also talk about what gen extras
Speaker 2: are doing as they approach retirement. Yeah, believe it or not,
Speaker 2: and only the boomers in retirement phase, but the gen
Speaker 2: extras people born after nineteen sixty five to nineteen eighty,
Speaker 2: people who now are I don't know, you'd probably say
Speaker 2: sixty or so. We'll get to all of that as
Speaker 2: well as a conversation about haunted else But first like
Speaker 2: to introduce Greg Kaplan. He's a college admissions expert on
Speaker 2: how to prepare your children for a competitive and changing
Speaker 2: world and what parents must do now. I hope that
Speaker 2: children make the most of college and beyond. First of all, Greg,
Speaker 2: I'm not sure college is for everyone. How are you tonight? Welcome?
Speaker 3: Thank you, Thank you so much for having me today, Dan,
Speaker 3: And you know I'm going to agree with you it's
Speaker 3: it's not for everyone. And if it is for you,
Speaker 3: or you think it is for your kid, the most
Speaker 3: important thing is is making this process work for you.
Speaker 3: You don't have to go to Harvard or m to
Speaker 3: be successful in this world or to be happy, and
Speaker 3: so it's at about making this process work for your family.
Speaker 2: Okay, Now, the name Kaplin, that's a pretty good big name.
Speaker 2: I've been through this with two kids, so I'm very
Speaker 2: familiar with I assume you're from the Kaplan clan.
Speaker 4: That so now I am not from the Kaplin clan.
Speaker 5: If I was, I will not.
Speaker 4: Be working this hard. But I do have a great
Speaker 4: loss for education. Yeah, that's the test prep company, and
Speaker 4: we're in my company, which is much smaller than that.
Speaker 4: Kaplan uh International is just purely focused on helping students
Speaker 4: navigate the process with figuring out what schools to apply to,
Speaker 4: what major's interests, on career paths, and then actually, you know,
Speaker 4: coming up with recommendations for experiences and support on those
Speaker 4: dreaded college essays that people are submitting right now.
Speaker 2: So this is the service that that you provide to
Speaker 2: students and their families across the country, because, believe it
Speaker 2: or not, in many cases this is a family effort,
Speaker 2: I mean looking for Yeah, I'm sure you understand what
Speaker 2: I mean. I what I discovered as my kids went
Speaker 2: through this process more than a few years ago, is
Speaker 2: there some great colleges around the country that no one's
Speaker 2: ever heard of, Meaning people in the Northeast. We think
Speaker 2: about Harvard and Princeton, Yale, Mi T, Boston College, Boston
Speaker 2: University where I went to law school a long time ago,
Speaker 2: and we think about places like Smith and Amherst and Williams.
Speaker 2: But we don't think about Panoma. We don't think about Elon.
Speaker 2: We don't think about some great colleges around the country
Speaker 2: that are that are available for applications as well. How
Speaker 2: important is it to look a little more broadly than
Speaker 2: just locally.
Speaker 3: I think, you know, it depends on the student's preference.
Speaker 3: If you have someone that wants to stay close to home, great,
Speaker 3: stay close to it. That's where they're going to be happy.
Speaker 3: But there are twenty two hundred four year universities in
Speaker 3: the United States, and I think the most important thing
Speaker 3: is is to, you know, ask ourselves, what do we
Speaker 3: want long term out of this education? What makes sense financially?
Speaker 3: There are great schools outside of one's you know, you
Speaker 3: know neck of the woods that could you know, enormous
Speaker 3: merit scholarships that can make going out of state actually
Speaker 3: more attractive than staying. So I think it's important to
Speaker 3: keep an open mind because that's what allows you to,
Speaker 3: you know, really find schools at architects.
Speaker 2: How do students and by the way, the the the
Speaker 2: academic advisors in different high schools they run they arranged
Speaker 2: the gamut. I'm sure there are great academic advisors. There
Speaker 2: are some that are maybe not so great. How do
Speaker 2: parents who are looking to get some financial aid? How
Speaker 2: do they find the sources for financial aid? This is like,
Speaker 2: this is amaze for for parents. Do you help provide
Speaker 2: parents with information about scholarships that are available? And what
Speaker 2: do they call it? Is that the fast application that
Speaker 2: the federal government runs that that now is you have
Speaker 2: to you have to complete that form in noted to
Speaker 2: be eligible for any form of federal aid?
Speaker 5: Is that?
Speaker 2: Am I quoting that? I'm a little dated here on this,
Speaker 2: but so help me out.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, No, you're you're you're you're you're in on
Speaker 3: the money. So did I The thing is is there's
Speaker 3: a new process for applying for need based financial aid,
Speaker 3: which is based on your ability to pay, and those
Speaker 3: I would say thresholds for who qualifies for need based
Speaker 3: financial aid are pretty consistent for private universities and pretty
Speaker 3: consistent for public universities. Applying for need based financial aid,
Speaker 3: it's become a streamline process where you will be entering
Speaker 3: line items from last year's tax returns. Now, for folks
Speaker 3: that make more than call it for public schools, sixty
Speaker 3: to seventy thousand dollars per year, more than one hundred
Speaker 3: to one hundred and fifty thousand dollars year for private universities,
Speaker 3: it's quite hard to get need based financial aid. And
Speaker 3: you may say, gosh that at those income levels, twenty
Speaker 3: to thirty k year for room and board or one
Speaker 3: hundred k all in for a private university don't make sense.
Speaker 3: I can't afford that. That's why merit scholarships, which are
Speaker 3: based on the strength of an application, so important, because
Speaker 3: those are the ones that you can control and it
Speaker 3: you know through online. You know, this is something we
Speaker 3: work with on students. And I was a conversations just
Speaker 3: having before I hopped on to this show with a family,
Speaker 3: is what are those types of schools. We do provide
Speaker 3: that kind of support for families and say, hey, what
Speaker 3: are we looking for Because once you you know, understand
Speaker 3: what an applicants GPA or you know, grades are in
Speaker 3: a test score if they have one, we can you know,
Speaker 3: lean in and see where students getting scholarships with similar stats.
Speaker 3: I'll use an example that's far from Boston in Massachusetts,
Speaker 3: but the University of Arizona in Tucson. If a student
Speaker 3: scores a fourteen hundred or higher on the SAT, they
Speaker 3: automatically qualified for a twenty eight thousand dollars per year scholarship. Now,
Speaker 3: out of state tuition for the u of A is
Speaker 3: thirty one thousand dollars. So if you do the math, which,
Speaker 3: as a former lawyer like you, no one likes to
Speaker 3: do that, that's three thousands.
Speaker 2: Lawyer's lawyer, by the way, lawyer.
Speaker 3: Oh you're still okay, Well you can recover, I guess
Speaker 3: in a later not.
Speaker 2: A recovery lawyer. No, no, no, no, no.
Speaker 4: I'm sorry you, Multira.
Speaker 2: That's a great piece of advice if you're talking about
Speaker 2: a school that that charge is thirty one k in
Speaker 2: University of Arizona down in Tucson, that's beautiful city. Been there.
Speaker 2: You do the math on that, or an out of
Speaker 2: state student fourteen hundred combined to the college Board, you're
Speaker 2: talking about a tuition of three thousand dollars for an
Speaker 2: out of state student. Wow, that's that is a great
Speaker 2: tip if somebody likes you know, likes the Sun Valley exactly.
Speaker 3: And so it's about finding those schools. There's similar scholarships
Speaker 3: at Loyola Chicago, Loyola New Orleans, and so it's about
Speaker 3: finding the right fit and having an open mind because
Speaker 3: you may say, oh, like, I don't want my child
Speaker 3: to go that far from home, but at that price,
Speaker 3: you're like, okay, Like I can go see him when
Speaker 3: I want to and get out the cold.
Speaker 5: In the winter.
Speaker 2: I also found out something that was interesting. We think
Speaker 2: about the National Merit scholarships and we think about Harvard, Deale,
Speaker 2: Princeton and all that. I was addressed to find out,
Speaker 2: at least a few years ago that the top ten
Speaker 2: universities around the country who were able to attract National
Speaker 2: Merit finalists, which I think it's about fifty. I think
Speaker 2: the pools about fifteen thousand, or at least it was
Speaker 2: at the time. Harvard was there, Yale was there, Princeton
Speaker 2: was there. But in that top ten also included the
Speaker 2: University of Arizona and the University of Oklahoma, and I
Speaker 2: suspect that they probably are still in that top ten
Speaker 2: or so again, those of us in the Northeast sometimes
Speaker 2: we look down our noses at some of the land
Speaker 2: grand universities in the Midwest and the Southwest and the
Speaker 2: far West, and those schools are attracting great.
Speaker 3: School Well, yeah, and I'm from I was born in
Speaker 3: Tucson at the u A Hospital. But as there's no
Speaker 3: bias here when I say this, The University of Arizona
Speaker 3: is all honors college produces more roads than Fulbright scholars
Speaker 3: than the entire Ivy League put together, and so, and
Speaker 3: the honors colleges exist there, you are going to get
Speaker 3: the type of experience that I had at Penn, small classes,
Speaker 3: intimate conversations with professors for a fraction on the price
Speaker 3: of It's about being flexible. It's about being open minded
Speaker 3: and asking yourself what we want out of college, because
Speaker 3: it's not you know, we're not investing in any brand.
Speaker 3: We're investing in an experience and an education, a skill set,
Speaker 3: and that's why I think it's so important to be
Speaker 3: open minded, especially when some of these schools that are
Speaker 3: so coveted that are you know, in the Northeast, that
Speaker 3: are some of the most prestigious universities in the country,
Speaker 3: in the world. It's when they a five percent acceptance rate.
Speaker 3: You can do everything right, so not get in. And
Speaker 3: that's why it's so important to cast a wide net
Speaker 3: and be open minded and make this process work for
Speaker 3: you rather than life is over if I don't get
Speaker 3: into Harbor with our Princeton because it's you know, a
Speaker 3: non recruited athlete or you know, someone who doesn't have
Speaker 3: a building named after their family has about a one
Speaker 3: percent chance of getting in. So that's why it's just
Speaker 3: we need to be open minded.
Speaker 2: Well, Greg a lot of great advice. How could folks
Speaker 2: get in touch with you. I know that you have
Speaker 2: a book that has just come out. We can start
Speaker 2: off with that, The Journey How to Prepare Kids for
Speaker 2: a competitive and Changing World, available Amazon and great bookstores everywhere.
Speaker 2: How do folks get in touch with you if they
Speaker 2: are looking for some personal counseling or some personal assistance.
Speaker 3: Yeah, just to go to our website. It's kaplan educationalgroup
Speaker 3: dot com and we if you shoot us a message
Speaker 3: through a website, we will get you scheduled with a
Speaker 3: chance to you know, understand how to make the most
Speaker 3: of this process.
Speaker 2: Sounds great.
Speaker 5: Great.
Speaker 2: Kaplan really enjoyed the conversation and congratulations on graduating for
Speaker 2: a great school in the Southwest, the University of Arizona
Speaker 2: at Tucson. Kaplan Educationgroup dot com. Pleasure. Thanks very much. Greg.
Speaker 2: When we get back, when we get a little closer
Speaker 2: to home and talk about the air quality alert that
Speaker 2: now exists in parts of Massachusetts with Glenn Keith. He's
Speaker 2: with the Massachusetts Department Environmental Protection Division. He's the director
Speaker 2: of the Division of Air and Climate Programs. Coming back
Speaker 2: on night Side.
Speaker 1: Now back to Dan ray My from the Window World
Speaker 1: night Side Studios on wb Z NewsRadio.
Speaker 2: Delighted to be joined by Glenn Keith. Glenn is the
Speaker 2: director of the Division of Air and Climate Programs at
Speaker 2: the Massachusetts Department of environment Mental Protection. Glenn, welcome. I
Speaker 2: know that you know what we're going to ask you about,
Speaker 2: and that is what is the quality the air quality
Speaker 2: in Massachusetts. I know it differs, but we've got a
Speaker 2: lot of fires in different parts of the state. What's
Speaker 2: going on and what is the prospect of this air
Speaker 2: quality perps getting a little better in the next few days.
Speaker 6: Hey, Dan, thanks for having me on. Happy to be here. Yeah,
Speaker 6: so we've had some recent brush fires, wildfires here in
Speaker 6: Massachusetts that have created some smoke if some of you
Speaker 6: have probably seen that on the news and pictures. But
Speaker 6: in general, you know, Massachusetts has very good air quality.
Speaker 6: We monitor air quality across the state at twenty four
Speaker 6: monitoring stations in nineteen communities. We also have grant programs
Speaker 6: to give away air sensors that you know, people can
Speaker 6: put in their homes or business can put them in,
Speaker 6: and these all can look at air quality in near
Speaker 6: real time and it's displayed on dp's website as well
Speaker 6: as some EPA website And generally we meet all of
Speaker 6: the national ambient air quality standards statewide. But when there
Speaker 6: is a fire, there is smoke, and so we saw
Speaker 6: that today the fire up in Middleton, and there's one
Speaker 6: near Salem that's generated a lot of smoke and that's
Speaker 6: definitely a health concern for folks that are nearby. So
Speaker 6: you don't want to be breathing smoke, for sure.
Speaker 2: We were talking about with the State Fire Marshal last night,
Speaker 2: John Gavin, and he told us there I think reports
Speaker 2: us of last night forty seven fires. Now I'm sure
Speaker 2: none of not all of them as big as the
Speaker 2: fire in Middleborough, Middleton, not Middlebroo. Correct. I may have misspoken.
Speaker 6: Yeah, Middleton, I believe.
Speaker 2: Right, and of course Salem. But this is a problem.
Speaker 2: Is there a is there any light at the end
Speaker 2: of the tunnel here I should say, is there any
Speaker 2: darkness at the end of the tunnel that with the
Speaker 2: weather cool it off for a couple of days, maybe
Speaker 2: a little bit of rain tonight, it's going to get
Speaker 2: tamp down a little bit.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think. I think. You know, we're seeing so
Speaker 6: many fires right now do to the dry conditions, and
Speaker 6: so just a little spark can start a fire. So
Speaker 6: oftentimes fires, especially in Massachusetts, are very weather dependent, so
Speaker 6: it's really dry, so that's why we're seeing these. But
Speaker 6: hopefully as the as you mentioned, as the weather gets
Speaker 6: cooler and we get some more rain, which we usually
Speaker 6: do in the fall, that should help the situation a lot.
Speaker 2: You mentioned the availability of air sensors. Is that something
Speaker 2: that individuals can get for their homes or was that
Speaker 2: for you know, commercial use.
Speaker 6: Yeah, no, we so et monitors. We have monitoring stations,
Speaker 6: as I mentioned, twenty four monitoring stations throughout the state.
Speaker 6: And these are you know, high quality, lab grade equipment costs,
Speaker 6: you know, thousands and thousands of dollars, but increasingly you
Speaker 6: can buy lower cost sensors that you know, even a
Speaker 6: homeowner could use or a business. One that's pretty popular
Speaker 6: is it's called the Purple Air sensor. And if you
Speaker 6: go to purpleair dot com you can see that and
Speaker 6: they have a map on their website that shows all
Speaker 6: the sensors that have been put out throughout the United
Speaker 6: States and including Massachusetts. And so what dB did in
Speaker 6: twenty twenty one, we had a grant program where we
Speaker 6: offered up to ten of these Purple Air sensors for
Speaker 6: free to municipalities, and we distributed over two hundred censors,
Speaker 6: and then the municipalities worked with their residents or businesses
Speaker 6: to have them, you know installed. They do need electricity
Speaker 6: and you do need Wi Fi. But if you look
Speaker 6: at purpleair dot com and you look at the map,
Speaker 6: you see the readings from these sensors displayed and then
Speaker 6: they're you know, color coded in terms of the quality
Speaker 6: of the air. And then we just did another round
Speaker 6: of grants that we distributed sensors in September again over
Speaker 6: two hundred additional purple Air sensors. These sensors cost about
Speaker 6: two hundred and fifty dollars.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm misinterpreted. I thought that that was something that
Speaker 2: individual homeowners could either apply for or get like through
Speaker 2: the some of the national group programs where people can
Speaker 2: get insulation for their homes at discounted rates. I wasn't sure.
Speaker 2: I just wanted to make sure that So these are yeah.
Speaker 6: No, yeah, we yeah, we offered them to municipalities, community organizations,
Speaker 6: and nonprofits, but then they work with individual residents. So
Speaker 6: if you're you know, town applied or if you know
Speaker 6: about the sensor grant, you can ask your town to
Speaker 6: apply and you can get one. And some individuals actually
Speaker 6: just purchased one on their own because they're not so expensive.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you said they're called purple air. Is that it?
Speaker 6: Yeah, purple air all one word, and their sensors and
Speaker 6: they measure fine particulate matter, So wildfire smoke generates particles,
Speaker 6: and in particular, the health concern is with fine particular matter,
Speaker 6: and those are particles that measure across less than two
Speaker 6: point five microns, so they're very tiny. You can breathe
Speaker 6: them in, they can go deep into the lung, and
Speaker 6: they can certainly aggravate any symptoms you have, your health symptoms,
Speaker 6: and long term they can contribute to disease and even
Speaker 6: premature death.
Speaker 2: All right, well, Glenn, thank you very much. Great to
Speaker 2: finally make your acquaintance. I'd love to have you back
Speaker 2: periodically on the program. But good information, particularly for people
Speaker 2: who will live near those communities, and actually some people
Speaker 2: who live a little distance from those communities because, as
Speaker 2: they say, with as small fire, but also where there's fire,
Speaker 2: there's smoke, and that smoke now has drifted over a
Speaker 2: lot of communities in Massachusetts. Really appreciate you joining us tonight. Glynn.
Speaker 6: Thank you, so yeah, sure, no problem.
Speaker 2: All right, when we get back, we're going to right
Speaker 2: after the news going to talk about plans by some
Speaker 2: gen xers. Believe it or not, Baby boomers are kind
Speaker 2: of moved well into the retirement category. I think you
Speaker 2: understand that. But the generation behind the boomers, gen X,
Speaker 2: those folks now have some retirement plans that involve businesses, well,
Speaker 2: we'll talk with an expert business strategist right after the
Speaker 2: news at the bottom of the hour.
Speaker 1: It's Night Side with Boston's News Radio.
Speaker 2: Well, jen xers are people who were born beginning in
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty five. So if you're at the first edge
Speaker 2: of gen X, you now are are fifty four or
Speaker 2: fifty let me see thirty five plus twenty fifty nine
Speaker 2: years old, you're really approaching retirement. And with us now
Speaker 2: is GiB Olander. He's the business strategist. He's the CPO
Speaker 2: and business strategy at strategist at Northwest. He's a Northwest
Speaker 2: registered agent. Not exactly sure what that is. So my
Speaker 2: first question, GiB, after having welcome you Tonight's side, is
Speaker 2: is what does CBO stand for? And what is a
Speaker 2: business strategist at Northwest registered agent mean? That looks to
Speaker 2: me to be an awkward phrase.
Speaker 5: Thanks, well, nice to meet you.
Speaker 2: Dan.
Speaker 5: You know the first part GPO part of my title,
Speaker 5: which is chief Product Officers, So help us organize how
Speaker 5: we build make products from the products we bring to
Speaker 5: the market across our team of about a thousand people
Speaker 5: in the company, and then business strategists is just that
Speaker 5: trying to help both are business and other businesses are
Speaker 5: the very strategyly successful. And then registered agent is a
Speaker 5: northwestent change. It's a brand of our company and registered
Speaker 5: agent in the service that you could that every business
Speaker 5: that gets UH incorporated and started has to have a
Speaker 5: registered agent that's in place to actually accept any service
Speaker 5: of profits, the process or legal documents at your building.
Speaker 2: Good. First of all, are you on a speakerphone by
Speaker 2: any chance?
Speaker 5: Or now?
Speaker 7: Oh, actually, okay, you got in trouble with like an
Speaker 7: action little it's a little over modulated, so you can
Speaker 7: back off the mic a little bit so we could
Speaker 7: probably hear you a little bit more clearly.
Speaker 2: I want to talk about what gen xers are doing.
Speaker 2: Gen Xers are not only thinking about retirement, but some
Speaker 2: of them are thinking about retirement and in retirement starting
Speaker 2: their own businesses. Is this a new trend that you
Speaker 2: guys are picking up?
Speaker 5: Yeah, absolutely true. You're interesting. You know a lot of
Speaker 5: the gen xers today, myself included, find itself in this
Speaker 5: somewhat thing that we call like the Sandwich years, where
Speaker 5: we may still be taking care of our kids as
Speaker 5: they're getting you know, ready for college, or they're still
Speaker 5: at home with us, or we're taking care of our
Speaker 5: parents as well, and with that comes some need for
Speaker 5: both added income and added flexibility, and so a lot
Speaker 5: of Gen xers we're finding are actually in the business
Speaker 5: of starting a business. There's some interesting stats that we've seen.
Speaker 5: Since twenty nineteen, we saw really an average about three
Speaker 5: point five million businesses a year being started, and now
Speaker 5: as we get into since twenty twenty, it's been the
Speaker 5: pre steady five million businesses a year, and we see
Speaker 5: a lot of that as coming from this Generation X
Speaker 5: that is starting new types of businesses.
Speaker 2: No, let me ask you did the preceding generation, the
Speaker 2: baby boomers, the folks who were born from nineteen forty
Speaker 2: six until nineteen sixty five or so, post war babies,
Speaker 2: were they as active in starting businesses or as are
Speaker 2: the gen xer is actually setting new standards for the
Speaker 2: starting of small new businesses.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think we're seeing a new standard being set again.
Speaker 5: We've seen almost a fifty percent increase from twenty nineteen
Speaker 5: to twenty in too recently, and so there's a host
Speaker 5: of factors that go into that. Some of that is
Speaker 5: just the accessibility to the tools and services that are
Speaker 5: out there that have made it significantly easier and less
Speaker 5: friction for you know, everyday you know, average shows like
Speaker 5: you and me to get into the realm of actually
Speaker 5: starting a business. And it used to be that you
Speaker 5: had to find you know, a heavy hit or lawyer,
Speaker 5: and you had really hard ways to get through that.
Speaker 5: And now with technology, it's opened the door to make
Speaker 5: it easier than it's ever been before.
Speaker 2: What are some of the businesses? I think to myself, Okay,
Speaker 2: if somebody is on the cusp of retire and they
Speaker 2: want to start something new, are they folks who are
Speaker 2: buying franchises, you know, stand old franchises, new franchises, or
Speaker 2: are they just starting a wide swath a wide variety
Speaker 2: of businesses, you know, everything from a you know, golf,
Speaker 2: driving ranges, bowling alleys. What are they? What it's sort
Speaker 2: of businesses are they? Are they engaged now? Find do
Speaker 2: they find themselves engaged in? Yeah?
Speaker 5: I love those I love those visuals of you know,
Speaker 5: started the driving range and you know, it sounds like,
Speaker 5: you know, it sounds like a great idea to me.
Speaker 5: I saw the movie turned out. It seems like it
Speaker 5: worked out all right for that guy. But uh, you know,
Speaker 5: maybe it's not all about driving ranges. But I think
Speaker 5: some of the areas that we're seeing things in is
Speaker 5: there's a lot of consulting services getting started. Gen xers
Speaker 5: have a deep professional knowledge and they've actually had the
Speaker 5: experience of both you know, providing the digital and non
Speaker 5: digital landscape. Right that we grew up at a time
Speaker 5: before everything was run with computers, but yet we still
Speaker 5: have the ability to build to be you know, somewhat
Speaker 5: digitally native. And so we see a lot of consulting
Speaker 5: services that that people bringing their expertise of you know,
Speaker 5: years of experience they have in the industry and maybe
Speaker 5: they gather the client list and they're able to kind
Speaker 5: of pull that off to their self use a lot
Speaker 5: of these new uh low code, no code platforms and
Speaker 5: technologies to actually get themselves in a position to be
Speaker 5: up and running. We see people in gen X you know,
Speaker 5: launching technology solutions, e commerce stores, some of them becoming
Speaker 5: you know, creators and influencers. Uh. We see them jumping
Speaker 5: into real estate, and then we're even seeing you know
Speaker 5: a lot of health and moments where uh, they are
Speaker 5: finding that it's time to invest in their own health
Speaker 5: and wellness and they are able to you know, lead
Speaker 5: others and make a living doing that.
Speaker 2: The thing that's interesting about gen xers is not only uh,
Speaker 2: they probably more technologically proficient than their predecessors, my generation
Speaker 2: of baby boomers, but they also knew how to dial
Speaker 2: a row to refhone, and they knew what a landline was,
Speaker 2: and they probably could distinguish a typewriter from a computer.
Speaker 2: So they had experiences in two technical worlds, you know,
Speaker 2: the in the sixties and seventies and then in the
Speaker 2: eighties and nineties. So yeah, they bring a lot of
Speaker 2: real life experience. Which which is I think is going
Speaker 2: to serve them.
Speaker 5: Well, yeah, I think that's absolutely right. Heck, I remember
Speaker 5: my day back on a farm where we had a
Speaker 5: party line. Still I don't know if that if anybody
Speaker 5: even knows who that is, but the landline that was
Speaker 5: shared by multiple families on the same road. So the
Speaker 5: fact that today we carry a pocket phone with us
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Speaker 5: is pretty neat still to this day. But yet we
Speaker 5: still have our feet on the ground and understand how
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Speaker 2: I got to tell you, I'm not old enough or
Speaker 2: was not in a situation where they had party lines,
Speaker 2: But I can remember picking up the phone and being
Speaker 2: able to talk to an operator and sometimes the operator
Speaker 2: would help you place the call as a as a
Speaker 2: young child, believe it or not, in the city of Boston.
Speaker 2: So I might be dreaming here, but that was some
Speaker 2: of my first experiences, and telephones were I thought amazing
Speaker 2: contraptions that you could pick up a telephone and talk
Speaker 2: to people on other parts of the country and other
Speaker 2: parts of the world. And of course now we have
Speaker 2: gone far beyond that. How can folks get in touch
Speaker 2: with you if they're a gen xer or from any
Speaker 2: generation and I'll look into to deal with the business strategist.
Speaker 2: How's easy to what's the easiest way to find.
Speaker 5: You, GiB Yeah, you know, the best way is always
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Speaker 2: Yeah, if I have a come up with a company,
Speaker 2: it's going to be Widgets Are Me. That would be
Speaker 2: the name of my company. So if you ever see that,
Speaker 2: would let me know. Hey, give really enjoyed the conversation.
Speaker 2: I'd never talked with a business strategist from your group before.
Speaker 2: You a great guest. Thank you so much.
Speaker 5: You have a wonderful afternoon. EDI, thank you.
Speaker 2: You bet you all right. Now, Halloween's a couple of
Speaker 2: nights away, and so we're going to bring back doctor
Speaker 2: Lee Richardson. She's a licensed professional counselor found with the
Speaker 2: Brain Performance, and we're going to talk about haunted houses
Speaker 2: and scary movies and what sort of an impact they
Speaker 2: have on our mental health. I'm assuming it's not necessarily good,
Speaker 2: but we'll find out from doctor Lee Richardson right after
Speaker 2: this Prey God Night's Side.
Speaker 1: Now back to Dan Ray live from the Window World
Speaker 1: Night Side Studios on WBZ News Radio.
Speaker 2: Well, Halloween is less than forty eight hours away today
Speaker 2: being Ontober twenty ninth. Delighted to welcome back doctor Lee Richardson,
Speaker 2: a PhD licensed professional counselor found for the Brain Performance Center.
Speaker 2: How do haunted houses and scary movies impact our mental health?
Speaker 2: I'm assuming the answer is not great. I could be wrong,
Speaker 2: doctor Richardson, How are you tonight?
Speaker 8: I'm great and Happy Halloween.
Speaker 2: You know, Halloween my favorite holiday, but not my favorite holiday,
Speaker 2: but but that's okay. Happy Halloween to you. So tell
Speaker 2: us about haunted houses and scary movies off either, to
Speaker 2: be honest with you.
Speaker 8: Well, personally, I don't enjoy either either. But there are
Speaker 8: some people that really enjoy, you know, their thrill seekers.
Speaker 8: They want to see how much fear they can tolerate,
Speaker 8: and they'll sit there and I can remember growing up
Speaker 8: with kids, you know, they'd watch these horrible, scary movies
Speaker 8: and at the end of it, they were so proud
Speaker 8: of themselves because they made it all the way through.
Speaker 8: And I'm looking at them going I'm good. I am good.
Speaker 8: So I mean it affects us all differently. Is what
Speaker 8: are we looking for? I mean, so many people I
Speaker 8: can remember as a little kid, we need candy, that's
Speaker 8: part of Halloween, and now as an adult, I think, well,
Speaker 8: you know, an ounce of dark chocolate every day can
Speaker 8: reduce your cardio vacuum, your cardiovascular disease and blah blah blah,
Speaker 8: so we all rational off the holiday.
Speaker 2: I'm definitely into dark chocolate. Trust me, if you've given
Speaker 2: out dark chocolate at your house, I'm coming by. Trust
Speaker 2: me on that. But yeah, I just think of some
Speaker 2: of the really good, you know, scary movies that that
Speaker 2: were that were well done. But I think of some
Speaker 2: of the cheap knockoffs where it's it's violence for the
Speaker 2: sake of violence. And I don't know, if what what
Speaker 2: are the scary movies that you would suggest people might
Speaker 2: want to watch Halloween? You know that that isn't just
Speaker 2: golory for the sake of gorge. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: It's like, you know, some of the horror on Elm
Speaker 2: Street type movies I'm interested, Like Hannibal Lecter. I liked
Speaker 2: that movie with Yeah, yeah, I did. I mean, it
Speaker 2: wasn't a pleasant movie, but but there was actually a
Speaker 2: plot to it, you know. I mean, okay, I love
Speaker 2: the final scene he's got taking the guy to dinner.
Speaker 2: You're going to have them for dinner. So well, Kate,
Speaker 2: I thought that was a little more highbrow than some
Speaker 2: of the you know, murder on Elm Street type movies. Maybe.
Speaker 8: Okay, so I'm going to go I'm going to go
Speaker 8: so old school on you because as a kid, those
Speaker 8: scary movies they scared me to death. But I can
Speaker 8: remember a book that was in our house growing up,
Speaker 8: the Positive Power of Negative Thinking, and I'll never forget.
Speaker 8: My mom shared with me that there was one study
Speaker 8: that found that walking through a graveyard made people forty
Speaker 8: percent more likely to help the stranger than walking down
Speaker 8: the street. And another study found that visualizing death could
Speaker 8: lead us to become more grateful for the things that
Speaker 8: we have in life. So that was the Halloween message
Speaker 8: in my house.
Speaker 2: It wasn't great Halloween message. Your mom was a wise
Speaker 2: Your mom was a wise woman there. I mean, it
Speaker 2: tells you to appreciate things. I mean, I I guess
Speaker 2: the distinction I was trying to draw was the the
Speaker 2: movies like again the Hannibal Lectro movie, which obviously was scary,
Speaker 2: but it was it was well done. I'm not a
Speaker 2: movie officionado as opposed to some of the stuff. What's it,
Speaker 2: you know, Freddy on ELM Street. I don't even watch
Speaker 2: that what I considered to be really garbage, you know.
Speaker 2: I mean that the stuff that is just gore and
Speaker 2: all of that. Haunted houses strike me interestingly. I was
Speaker 2: with a friend of mine a couple of weekends ago
Speaker 2: who's a big, tough guy, and he was a college
Speaker 2: basketball player about six seven, so you don't mess with
Speaker 2: uh with my friend, and he was telling me that
Speaker 2: the house that he grew up in Connecticut, he was
Speaker 2: convinced it was haunted and and he remember told me
Speaker 2: the story if he walked down the backstairs one day
Speaker 2: and he was convinced he saw a you know, a
Speaker 2: shadowy figure that when he really focused, it disappeared. So
Speaker 2: I don't know if you've got to believe in haunted
Speaker 2: houses or don't believe in haunt but I think I
Speaker 2: think that there are presence that exists within houses. Now,
Speaker 2: I don't know if you as a professional, you know, psychologist,
Speaker 2: can you professional counselor can buy into that that idea
Speaker 2: or or do you think that's just you know, old
Speaker 2: school thinking that that is not long out of date.
Speaker 8: Well, what I do buy into is that fear is
Speaker 8: an emotion and it's what you feel, and it's either
Speaker 8: what you perceive to be a threat or danger. If
Speaker 8: you're walking down the back of that house and you
Speaker 8: perceive a threat or danger, that ebolt set behavioral response.
Speaker 8: That's what throws you into the fight, flight or freeze mode.
Speaker 8: So perception is reality.
Speaker 2: Yeah, in that situation, in his reality because in talking
Speaker 2: to my friend, he was explaining it to me and
Speaker 2: he said, he said, Dan, there there have been rumors
Speaker 2: about people. You know, you have houses. We're going to
Speaker 2: talk later this week, I think with a realtor who
Speaker 2: is going to talk about how do you sell a
Speaker 2: house in which tragically some horrible event had occurred? And
Speaker 2: there are laws in states which require real estate agents
Speaker 2: to disclose to people buyers before they even look at
Speaker 2: the house that a murder might have occurred there or
Speaker 2: something like that. And so there's a lot of that
Speaker 2: stuff that you know, around Halloween that we start to
Speaker 2: think about. And I think there's more to it than
Speaker 2: meets the eye. I don't know if you're a literalist
Speaker 2: or if you would agree with me that there's probably
Speaker 2: a lot of stuff out there that we don't even
Speaker 2: understand what it is.
Speaker 8: Well, I do agree with you, but I also think
Speaker 8: about our brain. And our brain their job is to
Speaker 8: take good care of us, and they sense what's going
Speaker 8: on around us. And there's a difference between a safe fright.
Speaker 8: When I'm sitting on my sofa with my puppies watching
Speaker 8: you know something that alarms me, that's very safe. When
Speaker 8: I come out of a restaurant at eleven o'clock at
Speaker 8: night by myself after having dinner with a girlfriend and
Speaker 8: I sent somebody's behind me, that's a real fright. And
Speaker 8: our brain gives us the ability to quickly evaluate the
Speaker 8: situation and tell us ooh you're in danger, danger will smith,
Speaker 8: or it's safe. So I think that that plays into
Speaker 8: what we perceive. But there are a lot of us
Speaker 8: that were thrill seekers. We're looking for that control fear
Speaker 8: and suspense, and there's some of us that just want
Speaker 8: to see how much fear we can tolerate.
Speaker 2: I remember being in Disney Disney World down in Florida
Speaker 2: a few years ago, and there was this house that
Speaker 2: they brought you up in an elevator and they opened
Speaker 2: the door. They showed it the distance and you felt
Speaker 2: like you were at the top of the Empire State Building.
Speaker 2: Then they closed the elevator and they dropped. I forget
Speaker 2: someone out. They will know what it was like, you know,
Speaker 2: the House of Doing or something. And it scared the
Speaker 2: hell out of me. And I knew the Tower of Terror.
Speaker 2: Uh Dan, the producer, tales it was it we caught.
Speaker 2: We put the Boston accident on as we call it,
Speaker 2: the Tower of Terra, but it's pronounced properly, the Tower
Speaker 2: of Terror. And I'm telling you, I did it once
Speaker 2: and that was enough of me. I'm done. I'm done.
Speaker 2: My kids wanted to go back, and they were really young,
Speaker 2: Doctor Richardson. As always, I so enjoy our conversation. I
Speaker 2: for some reason, I feel I have to tell you
Speaker 2: stuff that that that clears me out of my head.
Speaker 2: I haven't told that Tower of Terror story in decades.
Speaker 2: Have you ever been on the Tower of Terror, Doctor
Speaker 2: Richardson a Disney World.
Speaker 8: No, I haven't. But there's something at the state here
Speaker 8: of Texas that you go round and round, the bottom
Speaker 8: pop falls out, and it affected me when you were
Speaker 8: telling me that story. My heartstir boom, no. I felt
Speaker 8: that that law below me.
Speaker 2: Oh that's great. If folks want to get in touch
Speaker 2: with you, what's the easiest way for them to get
Speaker 2: in touch with you, Doctor Lee Richardson.
Speaker 8: So you can find me on LinkedIn, or you can
Speaker 8: find the good old fashioned website, the Brain Performance Center
Speaker 8: dot com.
Speaker 2: Perfect the Brain Performance Center dot com. Doctor Lee Richardson
Speaker 2: has always enjoying you very much, fun, Thank you so.
Speaker 8: Much, thank you, thank you suving me happy, j very welcome.
Speaker 2: When we come back, we're going to talk about question
Speaker 2: four here in Massachusetts, the question of whether or not
Speaker 2: psychedelics should become legalized under some you know, controlled circumstances.
Speaker 2: We're going to talk to a graduate of West Point
Speaker 2: serve time the military, and he is an advocate. He
Speaker 2: votes yes on question four, and we'll have a conversation
Speaker 2: between both points of view on this issue on Friday night.
Speaker 2: I'll explain it all coming back on night Side