Episode 353: 01-28-16
On this week’s show, Lauren Book shares her child-centric agenda for 2016’s Florida Legislative Session, Dr. Bradford Lee talks advances in oculofacial plastic surgery, Sanjay Kuttemperoor discusses how to build your brand with WikiRealty, and Jim gives an update on finding a living kidney donor for his wife and how it’s working.
Protecting Children in 2016
Lauren Book, founder and CEO at Lauren’s Kids, was a victim of childhood sexual abuse for six years at the hands of her nanny. Armed with the knowledge that 95 percent of sexual abuse is preventable through education, Lauren has worked to turn her horrific personal experience into a vehicle to prevent childhood sexual abuse and heal survivors by starting Lauren’s Kids. Lauren’s Kids encourages victims to “shine a light in dark places” and “shed the shame.”
Lauren is a PEOPLE Magazine All Star Among Us and published author. She is also a teacher and educator in South Florida. Her Mission: To prevent sexual abuse through awareness and education, and to help survivors heal with guidance and support.
We discuss her child-centric agenda for the 2016 Florida Legislative Session and the educational conference for teachers she is running in February.
Advances in Oculofacial Plastic Surgery
Our Special UHealth guest, Dr. Bradford W. Lee, is an assistant professor of clinical ophthalmology specializing in oculofacial plastic and reconstructive surgery.
Dr. Bradford Lee received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Harvard University and a Master of Science degree from the London School of Economics and London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. He earned his doctor of medicine degree at Stanford University School of Medicine and then completed his ophthalmology residency at Bascom Palmer Eye Institute.
Lee is based in UHealth’s Palm Beach Gardens office. Among his specialties, Dr. Bradford Lee uses unique reconstruction techniques for patients who had eye cancer and other ocular conditions, and skin rejuvenation laser technology for trauma patients who have suffered burns and other severe injuries to the eye and face-with very dramatic improvement that has restored their quality of life and confidence.
WikiRealty
Sanjay Kuttemperoor is founder of WikiRealty®. He is a second-generation builder and developer turned tech entrepreneur. WikiRealty® helps Realtors build their personal brand by adding local insight to readily available data.
WikiRealty is emerging as the one-stop resource that connects the dots for consumers and professionals alike. The product is live in South Florida.
We discuss building your brand with WikiRealty®
Jim Finds a Kidney Donor
Jim gives an update on how he and his wife are working to find a living donor for her kidney transplant…and its working!
Episode 353: 01-28-16 (To download, right-click and select “Save Link As”. Right-click on names to download individual interviews.)
Transcription:
Jim Fried: We’re coming on strong today on Fried On Business. What a surprise. We got a great show for you today. We are going to have Lauren Book talking about her legislative agenda and what she’s teaching her teachers. We’re going to talk to Sanjay Kuttemperoor about Wiki real estate. We’re going to talk to the UHealth doctors great stuff about cosmetic surgery for your eyes and in the fourth quarter I am going to talk about what happened last week and what’s going on now with my wife’s kidney transplant. Bring up the music. We’ll be back after this.
[commercial break]
Jim Fried: We’re back. We’re having a great time. We’re doing all kinds of celebrations, we didn’t even played ”Fireball” because we’re all mixed up here today. But have got the godmother, the guardian angel of all of our children everywhere, Lauren Book, welcome back to the show.
Lauren Book: Jim, how are you?
Jim Fried: I’m doing great. Have you heard the news?
Lauren Book: Which news?
Jim Fried: You’re going to have to listen to the fourth quarter but text me. We found out about Vivian’s donor earlier today and we’re going to talk about it in the fourth quarter so make sure you listen on the internet later on today. But it’s pretty good news, you can share that with Uncle Ron. That’s right. So tell me a little bit about what the legislative caring for kids agenda is this year up in the legislature?
Lauren Book: We are so excited this year about some pieces of legislation that are really going to be protecting kids all throughout the state of Florida. We have such incredible legislative champion and some of the pieces of legislation will be announced later this week. And so we will have to come back and let you know little bit more about that. But it is going to be a great year for children in the state of Florida.
Jim Fried: Yes it is. It’s a great year for Vivian and I as well.
Lauren Book: I was teasing it just like you. You have to wait for the fourth quarter.
Jim Fried: That’s correct. You’re the best Lauren. Now tell me, I know you’ve got a whole bunch of programs specifically in the schools themselves. Can you tell me a little bit about that? Maybe the kind of stuff you’re sharing with teachers?
Lauren Book: We are so excited. In two weeks is our safer smarter school conference where we will be releasing the first ever pre-K through grade 12 evidence based abuse preventing curriculum. The conference will be in Orlando, Florida from February 16th to through the 18th and we have a wonderful keynote address from Mat Sandusky Davidson. The adopted son of Jerry Sandusky and we’re excited to have him with us and share his journey through survivorship and now thrivership. And that will actually be Facebook live-streamed and so you guys listening can tune in and get to feel a little bit about that. But we’re in 55,000 classrooms keeping children safe all throughout the state and it is just such a wonderful time here with the foundation. We were working so hard and we couldn’t do it without your support so thank you so much.
Jim Fried: It’s our absolute pleasure. It is our charity of choice. As you know, I was abused as a child, I’m not going to talk about it to anybody else but the point is that the most important thing you can do is guard our children and with just a little education most of them could be saved. Can you give us a couple of quick tips?
Lauren Book: Absolutely. It’s really important to have open and honest dialogue with your children, make sure that you know who they’re hanging out with. Always make sure to have a P L A N before kids leave the house. It’s that you know the places that they’re going, L – you have to know the location, the names and numbers of who they’re going to be with, and always making sure that they are communicating with you. And you’re watching how they interact with the adults around them and if you have adults in your children’s lives who are spending some undertime with your children I would prefer to spend time with them over you, something may be up and you have to listen to that instance. But also if some of those adult children show up with presents or things that you didn’t purchase for them, money, phones, something may not be quite right, you got to look into that.
Jim Fried: That’s called grooming, right?
Lauren Book: Absolutely. Grooming process is one in which a predator and offender will try and build a trusting relationship with your child and actually, you as a parent to gain access to your children and really begin that abuse process. It’s really important to be keen into that, to watch how your children interact with those adults but also how those adults interact with the children.
Jim Fried: I’ve watched you do some magical things during your presentations, I’ve seen the kids come up quietly afterwards and share their stories with you. And I know you’ve talked to different ages of children differently. What would you say to a really young child that really you can’t say the word ”sexual” or any of that, you can’t talk to them about look out for cellphones, what should a parent with a small child, a very vulnerable person, do?
Lauren Book: I think it’s really important to talk about boundaries and what’s safe and unsafe and we always use those terms. A safe secret or unsafe secret. A safe touch and an unsafe touch. Unsafe secrets and unsafe touches make us feel sickly, confused and not quite right. And any time that you got a secret that’s not safe or not quite right or you got a touch that makes you feel unsafe, you have to go to a grown-up buddy, somebody in your trusted triangle which is three or more grown-up buddies that you can talk to about anything, whether it’s a fight with a friend, a bad dream or touch that makes us feel not quite right. So it’s so important to constantly use that ”safe” versus ”unsafe” language in your family.
Jim Fried: Now let’s pretend that now that we’ve spoken to the younger child, let’s step up to more of the middle tier, what would you say to a middle school child?
Lauren Book: I think again it goes back to having that open an honest dialogue as developmentally appropriate to let them know that if there’s anything going on that makes them feel uncomfortable or not quite right, they can talk to you, that you’re there to help them. But also, kind of plan and brainstorm with those children a safety network. There can be different people that they can talk to whether it’s a teacher or a family friend. If something is not quite right and maybe they don’t feel comfortable talking to you about it, at least they have other trusted adult in their life that they can access for help.
Jim Fried: Now I want to talk about the group that it happened to when it was me. I was 14, my parents dropped me off to the job site, they left me alone with the person and he groomed me then he hurt me. So it happens to teenagers too. What should a parent of a teenager look for?
Lauren Book: Again, I think it’s always watching and noticing how your children interact no matter what age they are. Later in life, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, you notice behaviors. So they were once really excited to go to work or to a job site or to an activity and then they become maybe withdrawn, nervous or they don’t want to attend, something may not be quite right. Ask them ”What’s going on? You used to be so excited to go to work or you used to be so excited to volunteer. What’s going on? You know that if there’s ever anything that makes you feel uncomfortable you can come and talk”. Also, one of the things we talk about is popping into the locations that your children are no matter how old they are. So it’s so important to check it out. Don’t hide. Bring all your friends. So that you notice how the children are interacting with the adults.
Jim Fried: Yes. It was for me, it was the most horrible thing that happened to me. It was basically torture until I broke. It was horrible. So Lauren, we’ve only got a couple of minutes left. So I know that if somebody, for instance, thinks that there’s abuse going on, there’s things that they’re required to do that they can’t do. Tell us some of the things you’ve been able to accomplish over the last couple of years that have changed our environment in the state of Florida to help our kids stay safe? Couple of minutes left.
Lauren Book: Absolutely. The most important thing for listeners to know is that we are the only truly mandatory recording state in the country. And that is if you suspect that child is being harmed, that’s anyone under the age of 18 that you not only have a moral obligation to report that abuse but a legal obligation to report that. If you don’t it’s actually a third degree felony. So you must call if you suspect that a child is being harmed the DCF hotline and that is 1 800 96 ABUSE and that’s 22 ABUSE 3 and you have to make sure that you make that call and make that report so it’s fully anonymous but make sure that you do that because it’s just a phone call that for the child is everything. And I know it’s so important.
Jim Fried: You got stepped on and we’ve got one minute left. I know you and the coach are big sports fans so I’m going to say it to you this way, could you please repeat the phone number slowly for the Jets fans that are listeners?
Lauren Book: Absolutely. It’s 1 800 96 ABUSE.
Jim Fried: You know, Lauren, I want to just say this. It’s the things that and coach, that’s what we call Rambo Cordad, do for the kids that are here in our community and statewide, nationwide and I’m going to say this Mrs. Loreal woman of worth internationally, I want to just thank you for all of the people that have been abused, all the kids that are out there at risk and I’m going to say it this way: all the kids you’ll never meet who you stopped the abuse from even happening. High five to you for being an American hero, Lauren Book.
Lauren Book: Thank you so much and I am tuning in to hear what the good news is in the fourth quarter.
Jim Fried: We love you. Go to laurenskids.org, laurenskids.org has all this stuff, right?
Lauren Book: That’s right. You can check us at laurenskids.org, follow us on Facebook to make sure that you can see all of the great exciting things happening at the teacher of conference in the next two weeks.
Jim Fried: I’m looking to boost you likes and views, Lauren. Thank you so much. You clear the whole team. Tell all our friends out there we love you Lauren Book. We’re going to be back after this with Wiki real estate. Brand yourself with Wiki real estate. B A C K after this. AC, it is yours.
[commercial break]
Jim Fried: I am all psyched about the next segment. We’re going to talk about branding yourself with WikiRealty, you go ”What the heck is that?”. I first met Sanjay Kuttemperoor when he was working on a deal over in South-West Florida on the last cycle. Earth to Sanjay, are you out there?
Sanjay Kuttemperoor: I am. How are you Jim? Hello from sunny Santa Monica.
Jim Fried: Yes, well it ain’t sunny here. We’ve got the liquid version today. Sanjay, I gave a little bit of taste of all this when I talked about how I first met you but why don’t we go real quickly through your background?
Sanjay Kuttemperoor: Sure, thanks Jim. As you and I talked about for the last 20 years, I like to say I was a reformed real estate developer and lawyer. Our family development company has developed a lot of real estate from Wisconsin all the way down to Florida and that was my life for 20 years. And one thing that always troubled me about the industry was that it was really hard to get local information online and that was sort of the start of my vision for WikiRealty.
Jim Fried: You had the vision, you started WikiRealty, I guess that there’s a story behind the concept, an ”ah-huh” moment. Tell me.
Sanjay Kuttemperoor: Sure. Real estate has been this closed environment for a really long time. The information you get is based on who you know and who you talk to which I thought was really funny given the importance of the real estate decision process in everybody’s life. And I started seeing that change around 2010 when Realtors were really leaving the charge. They were putting some great hybrid local content online, trying to share their local knowledge with their consumers and I thought that’s really interesting but once again, they were using platforms like Facebook and Twitter which in essence are also closed environments because that information really only goes out to your friends and followers and connections.
Jim Fried: And on a very limited basis. People don’t realize it and whole lot of people don’t see that. You post it but only 10 or 15 people usually see it.
Sanjay Kuttemperoor: That’s right. With the Realtors leading this I thought, as a developer and lawyer, what about the rest of the professionals in the real estate verticals, the guys like me, the developers, lawyers, bankers, tied insurance architects. I predicted that our industry as a whole would look for ways to establish a digital footprint online as a way of connecting with potential customers and clients because that’s the age we’re in, we’re in the information age.
Jim Fried: 100%. Now I went to go to your website, I logged on, I went to the link that you provided me and landed on something that was related to the Miami Board of Realtors. What’s up with that?
Sanjay Kuttemperoor: With the Miami Board of Realtors, so Miami was one of the first markets that we launched in back in 2014. I was based in Naples at the time. We launched the Naples and soon after we went to Miami and hats off to the leadership over at the Miami association of Realtors, Teresa Kinney, the CEO and Deborah Valledor, the CMO. Recognized very early on, we are global industry, there were buyers coming from all over the world but these form buyers and also folks that lived in Miami had no real way of getting really local information down to the neighborhood level. So I approached Miami association and showed them what we were doing and they immediately saw the vision and we formed a partnership and the Miami association and WikiRealty have now partnered for almost two years in getting WikiRealty out to their members as a platform for their members to share hyper local information.
Jim Fried: We touched on a little earlier where people were using Facebook and Twitter and other social platforms that weren’t necessarily a real rifle shot to the people that they wanted to talk to. I went on the site for just a few minutes as we were prepping for the show and I immediately realized, I’ll be honest, I’ll tell it right here on the show, I said ”Sanjay, how do I get content down your site?”, I said ”This looks like a great place to get eyeballs”.
Sanjay Kuttemperoor: Thank you. Getting content on WikiRealty is easy. As a professional, as a consumer, if you have local knowledge, you can share it, it’s free to create a profile, it’s free to contribute content. Professionals want to contribute that content because we help that professionals build a digital footprint around their area of expertise. As they do that they become the neighborhood expert and that ultimately leads to new business and clients for them. So it’s very easy to do. As a consumer, we help connect the dots and by bringing all these professionals together and giving you one place to look for important information across all real estate aspects really helps consumers make smarter decisions about where they live and work.
Jim Fried: Let’s say that I put a content up on your site. Is it searchable? Is it helping my SEO?
Sanjay Kuttemperoor: Absolutely. Not only is the content on WikiRealty but if you think about it, there’s a reason why any time you do a search on Google, Wikipedia often times shows up as one of the top results. So think of WikiRealty as a Wikipedia for real estate in that we want to be that body of knowledge for all things real estate. So as people are contributing content on WikiRealty, that content gets indexed by Google and over time, your content, your specific keywords and subject lines that you’re using to write your content, over time surface to the top of Google searches. And as you know, that’s how everyone is searching for information these days, especially real estate. So as your content surfaces on top of Google searches and other organic searches you are found and that leads to business to you.
Jim Fried: So then somebody like me could take my content, I could put it on WikiRealty which I would repurpose some of my content that I have and then it would start helping me with SEO. It sounds like a great thing to do. Why didn’t Will hit me with the baseball bat when he first told me about this? Will is the guy that works in my office that reintroduced Sanjay. Sanjay, we only have four minutes left so how do you monetize this site and are you in the capital raise? Where are you in the business end of this?
Sanjay Kuttemperoor: It’s a great question. We raised a capital around the country with Angel Investors. Our family has invested quite a bit of capital in it and we are actually in our last round of capital for 2016. In terms of how you raise money, how you monetize WikiRealty, if you think about the real estate I believe was one of the largest online advertisers across all industries. And they’re projecting that to go to almost $20 billion this year. And advertising another lead generating mechanisms in real estate so far has been more of the opposite of a rifle shot, a shot gun. You put the money out there and it sort of gets spread out. With WikiRealty and our ability to brand you online as a local expert, it’s really more of a rifle shot approach. We created tools, we created branded apps that allow you to get your content out, become the expert and with these tools that ultimately leads to a new business for you. So lot of different tools like branded apps and advertising are ways that we’re going to start monetizing, we’ve got a lot of different ideas and products in the pipeline so lot of exciting things over the next few months.
Jim Fried: I’m officially volunteering to be one of your betas, I’m hoping that we can talk Friday or Monday or over the weekend and come up with something really exciting and some kind of demo relationship for a couple of months. I want you to come back. We’ll do a snapshot of my metrics now, we’ll take another look in a couple of months and let’s talk about the impact that your side had on driving traffic at me.
Sanjay Kuttemperoor: Absolutely. And before I leave, real quick, we are actually live across the country, we have partnerships with the California association of Realtors and Chicago and the Miami association of Realtors has put together an association and association so to speak, called RE Altitude with now 165,000 members across the country. And we are one of the first vendors to be approved on that list. So our footprint is spreading really quickly and we’re very excited to see the number of new member sign ups and traffic coming to the site so I would love for you to participate.
Jim Fried: 100%. I’m the king of the early adopters. I can’t wait to do it. If people want to find you, Sanjay, and they want to find your site, I know it’s rudimentary, but let’s tell them were to finds you because it’s important that I’m giving the long roll out so people get their pencils, then I ask you to go slow because we’ve got a lot of New York Jets fans that listen. And since you’re from Santa Monica, we also got a lot of 49er fans that listen.
Sanjay Kuttemperoor: So the site is wikirealty.com, pretty easy. And if anyone wants to find me, they can find me at sanjay@wikirealty.com.
Jim Fried: Listen. When I first met you, you were working to save the family and to save that beautiful piece of real estate that you guys had. Your family has been successful with everything it’s done before. I know they’re proud of what you’re doing and I know even more so that’s going to be successful. I look forward to participating with you on the site. High five again to Will for getting us involved and Will, I know you’re listening, it’s up to you get me and Sanjay together. Send the emails out now. I am fired up, everybody to look for this. We’re going to make it happen. Sanjay, thanks for joining us.
Sanjay Kuttemperoor: Thank you very much, Jim. This was a lot fun. I really appreciate your support.
Jim Fried: It’s my pleasure. If it ain’t fun, we don’t do it on Fried On Business. We’ll be back after this. We’re going to talk about facial reconstruction with Dr. Bradford Lee. He is unbelievable. When you read his stuff, this guy is the real deal. We’ll be back after this. And don’t forget, fourth quarter, Vivian’s story coming up.
[commercial break]
Jim Fried: That’s my cue. When the guys says ”I feel nice like sugar and spice” we come back with some awesome content. This time is I’ve been touting for the last 20 minutes. We have got absolutely one of the superstars at the University of Miami Health System. We have got Bradford W. Lee, MDMSC, I’m not sure what all the letters stand for but I’ll tell you this: he did go to Harvard, he did go to London School of Economics, he did go to Stanford, and Doctor, they put it on your resume, I got to just sort it out there, welcome to the show.
Bradford Lee: Thanks so much, Jim. It’s a pleasure to be on the show.
Jim Fried: It’s my pleasure. They set the bar high for you so you better be good today, I’m telling you.
Bradford Lee: I’ll try my best.
Jim Fried: All right. Now here we go. And I didn’t even say it yet, the Doctor is an ophthalmologist, he specializes in oculofacial plastic surgery, it’s like the first time I’ve ever got the specialty right, at the University of Miami’s Bascom Palmer Eye Institute and at UHeatlh. He’s based out at the institute, Palm Beach Gardens office. Here’s the softball, what is the field of oculofacial plastic surgery? I’m going to keep saying it, I love that word.
Bradford Lee: That’s a great question. I find myself answering this all the time because my friends and family don’t know that it’s eye there but it’s basically a subspecialty of ophthalmology and we have dual expertise in both ophthalmology as well as plastic surgery around the eyes and the face. And what this allows us to do is really have specialized expertise and problems that involved eye lids, the eye socket, the eyebrows, the cheeks and basically the whole face.
Jim Fried: People might say ”Does anybody ever need this?” and I would just respond ”When I was a little kid playing little league, one of the guys of my team who is old man forgot to untie the cleat, when they pulled the boat out, you can imagine where that landed and boy it wasn’t pretty poor guy”. So it sounds to me like there’s opportunities all day long for you to see people.
Bradford Lee: Absolutely. There’s numerous conditions how we treat it, it’s a very wide spectrum from trauma to cancer, aesthetic and cosmetic surgeries. So it’s very diverse.
Jim Fried: I got to admit, I stay up late at night and I read this stuff. I read that one of your specialties is thyroid eye disease. Now I’ve had a bunch of friends that have had different problems with thyroid from my wife who has kidney problem to a friend of mine who fell on the ground and got paralyzed with the thyroid thing. So tell me, what’s thyroid eye disease?
Bradford Lee: Thyroid eye disease, you’ve probably seen people that you know in everyday life where their eyes are very bulging out of their sockets and it almost looks like they’re staring but they’re not trying to stare at you. But what happens is that in people with grave disease, that’s a thyroid disease. Very often times it can affect the eyes and eyes bulge, the lids retract and show all the whiteness of their eyes and it’s a very disfiguring condition for a lot of patients. It’s very said because patients, they look in the mirror and they just don’t even recognize themselves anymore.
Jim Fried: That’s really horrible. That’s something that needs to be addressed. I got to just say is that I just got a text from one of our listeners. They want to see you when they turn 60 to get their eyes done. Do you do that too?
Bradford Lee: Yes. I do a lot of cosmetic facial surgery. Like I said, it’s very nice that we have a very diverse field so while I do a lot of cosmetic eyelid surgeries, we also do eyelid surgeries that are for just drooping, covering people’s vision or trauma or reconstruction after skin cancers are removed from the eyelids. So yes, to answer your question, we do a lot of cosmetic as well as re-constructive and medical eyelid surgery as well.
Jim Fried: Just got another tweet. Maybe people can hear my phone popping in the background, I don’t know. But this time it was from my wife. Apparently, and I haven’t signed a HIPAA notice here. Apparently, she’s seen you. When I went to Bascom Palmer, the guy was thrilled because I got good vision and it was like a vacation for him. But let’s talk about this for a minute, you use a laser for skin resurfacing that helps with eyelid and facial scarring and I know a lot of people have that. I got a little black beauty mark here where the ladies in the 60s used to put the beauty pencil. So my wife is always freaking me out about getting that taken off. What do you do with that stuff?
Bradford Lee: Actually, this is something that I’ve done a lot of work on and we’ve presented at our national meetings at the Academy of Ophthalmology but here at Bascom Palmer we’re very blessed to have some of state of the art technology for laser resurfacing for aesthetic purposes. And we were the first to report the treatment of scarring around the eyelids whether due to burns or due to surgery or trauma. And de-scarring around the eyelids can be very debilitating because the eyelids are very dynamic structures. So if you can imagine the eyelids becoming scarred and tethered, this prevents our eyes from closing, it causes your lids to slip outwards and it can be very disfiguring as well. What we did is we actually applied cosmetic lasers that are typically used for tightening the skin and getting rid of wrinkles. And we applied these to the scarred tissue around the eyes and had some really dramatic results that are not achievable with the traditional approach which is surgery and skin grafting. So we’re writing up a paper right now to share our findings with the rest of the world.
Jim Fried: How long have you been in Bascom Palmer?
Bradford Lee: I actually was fortunate to get one of the covenant residency spots Bascom Palmer. So I did my residency there from 2010 to 2014. I left to do my fellowship training with my mentor Duncan Keller and Bobby Korn in San Diego. And then Bascom Palmer gave me a call out of the blue and asked if I would consider coming back to join the faculty so I’ve actually been on the faculty now since September.
Jim Fried: I bet that was a big surprise given your expertize. I know that Dr. Goldschmidt likes to collect the best of the best and it looks like that’s you. We only have a minute left so real quickly, what happened in San Diego and what number can people call for information to get to see you?
Bradford Lee: The Bascom Palmer has a centralized scheduling line. And the number is 305 326 6000. Again, that’s 305 326 6000. And you just have to ask for, if you’d like to make an appointment, you can ask and make an appointment with Dr Bradford Lee. We do have five Dr Lees at Bascom Palmer so you have to specify Dr Bradford Lee. I’d be happy to see you. I have clinic and I operate in Palm Beach Gardens and I also operate in Miami from time to time.
Jim Fried: Dr Bradford Lee, a blessing on our community. A lot of people are going to have a lot of long term issues that would’ve really given them some real problems addressed by you. I want to thank Dr. Goldschmidt and his team for bringing you to town.
Bradford Lee: Thank you so much, Jim.
Jim Fried: It’s our pleasure. Hopefully we’ll have you back again. I can have my wife on, the two of you can kibitz live, it’d be absolutely awesome.
Bradford Lee: Sounds great. It’d be my pleasure.
Jim Fried: Listen. I just mentioned my wife. That’s a great tie-end in the fourth quarter. Everybody by now knows. We’ve been looking for a kidney donor. I’m going to tell you what’s been happening in the next segment. Stick with us. You’re going to want to make sure you stick with us because we’ve got some beautiful things coming next. We’re playing this one for the doctor.
[commercial break]
Jim Fried: It’s time for me to tell what’s going on and I’m just going to come clean. We had identified through Twitter a couple of weeks ago a young lady who is absolutely a gift from God. She’s a holy person as far as I’m concerned. This young lady has offered to come here form Austin and donate her kidney to my wife and today we learned that she’s a match. There are a couple of more tests that need to be done. Turn up the darn music. That’s right. She’s a match. So I’m truly humbled by this experience. I want to give a high five to this woman who came with her family from out of town last week and got tested in that stinking rainstorm on Friday. This woman is a true hero, an American hero, somebody that we need to get more of in our lives. She is unbelievable. I got pictures of them bonding at dialysis. It was the most beautiful thing in the world. The two of them, each individually to me represent super woman. These people are amazing. And not only did the young lady come, she brought her beautiful family, her lovely husband who is so beautiful and supportive, strong, silent, beautiful guy. And with her they’re bringing up these two gorgeous kids. They came with them too. That’s right.
I took them for sandwiches in Wynwood while their mom was getting tested. The kids are so beautiful. I’m not going to publish any pictures. I’m not going to say any names but I am going to say high five to the gifts from God that have entered into our lives. Where are we today? We’re cautiously optimistic, a lot of people I tell them to remember a last year Superbowl. I’m in a climate controlled environment, I’m on one yard line, I got all my downs, I got plenty of time and I got a great team. But you never know what could happen. So to the young lady who is my personal hero, I got to say it this way: right after my wife I got to say high five to you miss. I just cannot believe it. So what’s next you say? What’s next is first we got to get confirmation. Then it’s on to logistics. We’re going to plan on where and when the operation is going to take place. Then we’re going to get everybody in town and we’re going to make it happen.
It’s going to take a little while to move to docks, get everybody positioned on the beach head if you will. And then we’re going to move. We’re going to reach out to the community, we’re going to talk to people just like you because this is something that you can participate in. This is a miracle. You too can be one of the people that’s like a prophet. I forgot to say, so I go to the airport and I’m waiting to pick up the lady. There’s an elderly man running up and down looking for a car. He’s calling and calling. Finally the car comes and picks him up. It blocks my view of the gate that I’m waiting for. And I’m looking at the license plate. What’s it say? It says ”THNXGD”. Then when the guy moved his car, there were the people right behind them. This thing gets even better. It gets even better. When I told the person at the port that she was coming in he said ”You know what? I’m going to get tested too”. We have the record for the number of people that have gotten tested at the Miami Transplant Institute. This job is not done.
There’re lots of people out there that need alive donor. Somebody is going to be able to live a lot longer and a lot better life if they get a living donor. When you read about somebody’s on the list, it’s because they’re waiting for a cadaver, a dead person to give life to them. And yes, it’s a blessing. But still, you got to have a tragedy for that to happen. Instead, we are being merged, we are being blended, we are being grafted, placed perfectly with a new beautiful family, people that in each way bring special love to my wife and I. They make our toes tingle. That’s a tip of the hat to Jim Mandich and they give me goosebumps. You could see them right there. We need more people like this. Maybe you’re one of these people. If you’re motivated, stand up now and call the Miami Transplant Institute or any hospital near you. Go on mine and find out where you can volunteer to be a living donor because you can make a miracle happen too.
AC, how much time do I have left? I’ve got a lifetime is what the man said. And you’re right. And now my wife does too thanks to this beautiful person who’s got a name that’s indicative of how wonderful she is. But because of personal situation of reasons we want to keep this private. So watch Facebook, look in LinkedIn, follow me on Twitter because that’s how I found this beautiful person and you’ll be able to keep up on what’s going on in our lives and I hope that you’ll join me in the celebration also. Make a look for that on Youtube, it’ll be up probably tomorrow. Now I’m going to go through the close of the show. I got the community calendars. Thanks AC. I’m remembering at this point. Join me at the 6th annual banking financial institutional special assets forum on real estate CNI and SBA loans, IMN is sponsoring it. It’s going to be held in Fort Lauderdale on February 4th and 5th.
Go to www.imn.org/bankersfllfl16. I make money at that conference every year. Another conference I make money on is the University of Florida Center for Real Estates Trending Strategies Conference. It’s going to be awesome. I’m the sponsorship chairman so call me if you want to donate. It’s going to be Thursday, February 25th and Friday, February 26th. We’re going to have international finance guys, really cool discussions about the politics it’s going on in Florida. It’s going to be right before the Florida Primary. So join me there too. For that one, you can go to The University of Florida Bergstorm Center for Real Estate Studies on their website and hit the ”Register now” and register. I’m going to start saying my thank you’s. Who do you think is at the top of the list?
AC: The beautiful donor.
Jim Fried: That’s correct. So first of all, thank you to our beautiful angel and her beautiful family because the family has got to support her in this and they do. I want to thank KIND Snacks, South Florida Business and Wealth Magazine, the CCIMs, UHealth, Warren Henry Automotive, the Miami Marlins, the NFL Alumni Association, Social Media 305, of course Lauren’s Kids, you heard her, Aztec Group, the Bergstorm Center for Real Estate Studies and I want to thank Magnum Energy Solutions. I want to thank CCIM and TenX, I want to thank Xpresso Marketing, I want to thank Engineered Tax Services. I got new sponsors next week. I’ll tell you who they are next week. So remember, go to our Facebook page and like our show and tell your friends. Okay it’s the related group and people like that. High five to us. . Join our community, give us feedback and comments, tell us who you want to hear from @Jim Fried, @Fried on Business, Facebook, LinkedIn, Youtube. All of this stuff about my wife is all over social media. The website is getting all kinds of it. If you missed today’s show it’s going to be up on our webpage www.friedonbusiness.com. Real fast: this is Jim Fried for Fried on Business, look for us on 880 AM Thursday at 6:00. Why? Because I love this. Remember this is not a rehearsal, this is your life. The person who wants to do something finds a way – look what I just did – the other finds an excuse. Now go out there and make it happen. Thank you again, donor.
