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Copyright: © Richard Jacobs
It's something that many large employers struggle with: the organized distribution of benefits to thousands of employees. While there may be a benefits strategy in place and hundreds or even thousands of different employee offerings, far too many employers keep these benefits siloed within different administrative systems, with no efficient way to organize or communicate the distribution of them.
This is where YouDecide can help, a consulting technology and voluntary benefits outsourcing firm that organizes and aggregates employer benefit offerings, providing employees with large discounts on a variety of insurances, including auto, pet, legal, accident, life, disability, and long-term care. It's a win-win result: employees save money on high-quality, necessary benefits, and employers gain a level of consistency and streamlined communication in the distribution of high-value benefits.
Peter Marcia is the CEO of YouDecide and joins the podcast to discuss the ins and out of the services they provide, the primary challenges faced by large employers, and how changes in the healthcare space over the past several years have enhanced the growth and success of his firm. Hit play for the full conversation and
visit youdecide.com to learn more
Author Survivor and former chartered physiotherapist
Jane McLelland, physiotherapist, alternative cancer treatment expert, and author of How to Starve Cancer expounds upon the wrong turns that many people, unfortunately, take when they set out to fight their cancer. She provides a thorough and extremely important overview of the steps that anyone can take to dramatically improve their chances for survival when faced with a dire diagnosis.
Cancer survivor, Jane McLelland, talks about her background as a physiotherapist and her diagnosis back in 1994 with cervical cancer. McLelland tried all the traditional cancer treatment drugs and methods but made no significant progress. She recounts that it was not until her mother died of secondary breast cancer just two years later that she began to dig into the science of metabolism and get to the root of what was really keeping cancer alive and thriving. She states that when her own cancer moved to her lungs and she advanced to stage four cancer, that her time was considered to be limited, and thus she accelerated her research to find a solution. And as more chemotherapy was not going to help, she knew it was time to try another approach entirely. She discusses some of her research and many of the cancer-fighting regimens she put into place, such as intravenous vitamin C infusion, which some research has shown to be very effective at blocking glycolysis, the metabolic pathway that cancer cells use to thrive.
McLelland's groundbreaking book, How to Starve Cancer, is an incredible testament to the power of the human spirit. In her book, McLelland breaks down the steps she took to literally starve her cancer of the elements it needed to prosper. McLelland discusses her long journey back to health and the many crucial topics her book covers such as the varying fuel pipelines that must be blocked for each type of cancer. She talks about supplements that can be added to accelerate the cancer fight, and the low-toxicity drugs that exist to fight cancer, many of which have been all but forgotten as researchers tout the newer 'game changers' and put all their eggs in that basket.
McLelland details the nature of cancer and how it exhibits incredible determination to flourish, for example, if cancer cells are no longer able to fuel on sugar, they will literally rewire themselves to survive on alternative fuel sources to create more protein and thus create more daughter cells. By preventing the cancer cells from gathering more fuel, patients can put the brakes on the system. McLelland discusses the sections of her book that provide specific detail on proteins, fats, glucose and the cancer cell's fuel supplies that must be cut off in order to fight the disease. She provides very detailed information on the science behind the metabolic cocktail options that individuals can tailor to their specific cancer. McLelland's book will help people to find the key metabolic pathways they need to understand in order to fight their cancer. Using herself as a testing laboratory, she experimented to find the best drugs and supplements to starve her own cancer and has gathered this information into a map of sorts that individuals can use to guide their own journey and fight.
McLelland talks about the importance of drugs in the fight against cancer. She states that diet is crucial, but diet alone rarely can achieve the best results, and that it is a combination of diet, supplements, and low-toxicity drugs that provide the proper combination of ingredients. She goes into depth about protein, fat, and carbs, the three essential elements of the human diet. She explains the ways that cancer cells use each to further their survival and the production of daughter cells.
She discusses how the pharmaceutical industry's testing process is flawed, in that it works on one solution at a time, which is a slow process that needs to be accelerated. She states that her cocktail approach is a means that individuals can begin to implement now, to fight their individual cancers. Additionally, she provides information on the alternative drugs that can be used to fight cancer. These drugs are considered to be 'alternative' because they are drugs that were created for different diseases and conditions other than cancer, but McLelland states they can be used as part of a successful cocktail to combat cancer. McLelland talks about the keys to combatting the disease, rethinking the traditional methods somewhat and using all the existing methods together in a more intelligent manner. She mentions that reducing the traditional chemotherapy to much lower doses actually stimulates the immune system, which would not happen with the high doses that traditional cancer treatment recommends in most situations.
McLelland states that the wealth of research she offers in her social media and in her book provides critical information that is backed by science and evidence. McLelland's method as described in her book takes on the common misconceptions that exist in the theories of cancer treatment. The book delves into the mystery of cancer and answers important questions that can elevate anyone to a higher level of understanding as they forge ahead on their own journey to beat cancer.
Remarkably, McLelland states that in her opinion there is almost no cancer, even at stage four, that cannot be reversed with the proper alternative treatment and protocols. Hope exists!
Jodi Goldstein, the Bruce and Bridgitt Evans Executive Director of Harvard Innovation Labs (innovationlabs.harvard.edu), delivers an overview of the innovation marketplace and how students and entrepreneurs can utilize testing and technology to advance their ideas and solve real-world problems. Harvard Innovation Labs includes the Harvard i-lab, the Harvard Launch Lab for alumni, and the Pagliuca Harvard Life Lab for alumni, faculty, and student-focused life science ventures.
Goldstein has over 20 years experience as a formidable startup executive, an enterprising co-founder, and investor. Her specific expertise in consumer and e-commerce, mobile, and luxury goods businesses, combined with her strong management skills have allowed her to carry many projects and initiatives to new heights of achievement. Notably, Goldstein had leadership roles in venture-backed startups such as iMarket (that was later successfully sold to D&B), PlanetAll (that was built up then acquired by Amazon for $100M+), as well as Mobicious, Send.com, and Hoteluxury.com.
Goldstein discusses the many companies and projects she has worked with and led to success. And she outlines some of the potential pitfalls that entrepreneurs can fall prey to. Goldstein explains that entrepreneurs and innovators need to test their early ideas in regard to practicality and validation, to assess their relative value in the marketplace. She outlines the value that industry leaders can bring to their respective companies by utilizing advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence, virtual augmented reality, and blockchain.
Harvard Innovation Labs' mission states that knowledge is certainly the engine of innovation, but the combination of connection and collaboration is the critical fuel needed for forward progress. By unlocking unrealized value, Harvard Innovation Labs can have a tremendous impact on markets, the world, and the individuals who utilize the valuable input and services they provide. Goldstein's work involves helping students and entrepreneurs take their ideas and apply them to solve real-world problems.
Goldstein discusses the diverse areas in which Harvard Innovation Labs provides expertise and assistance. She provides an overview of their extensive ecosystem in terms of what it offers. For example, the i-lab is a full-service space for currently enrolled Harvard students who are interested in pursuing innovation and entrepreneurship opportunities. Launch Lab X is their innovative new accelerator inside the i-lab that is designed for eligible Harvard alumni who are already pushing forward their promising early-stage startup ventures. And the Pagliuca Harvard Life Lab is for Harvard students and faculty, as well as alumni who are working on important life sciences and biotech startups and ventures. From medical to advanced technology, Goldstein describes how their innovation techniques and methods have helped creators and entrepreneurs walk their own unique path to breakthroughs and successes.
Goldstein holds an MBA from Harvard and a BS in International Business from the University of Vermont. She has been featured in Fast Company and The Boston Globe and is a regular contributor to Fortune as part of its Entrepreneur Insider network. Her broad range of skills and experience has prepared her for the challenges of leading Harvard Innovation Labs to continued success as they engage with the global community. And she is motivated to implement new strategic initiatives that can potentially expand their student and alumni range, presence, and impact while simultaneously serving as the chief liaison to the organization's prominent stakeholders, as well as the national and international community.
Gastric bypass surgery is the most effective form of treatment for morbid obesity and a familiar term to most of us, but until recently, the underlying mechanism that makes it so successful has been largely misunderstood. Most people—including health professionals—attribute the weight loss that follows from this surgery to reduced stomach size and therefore reduced food intake and malabsorption, but the evidence is pointing elsewhere: to the changes in gut microbiota that occur after the surgery.
Hasan Celiker is the founder and chief executive officer of Xeno Biosciences, a company that's using what they've learned about the effectiveness of gastric bypass surgery to develop an alternative and significantly less invasive form of treatment for obesity: an oral pill that mimics the changes in gut microbiota that occur after the surgery, allowing for weight loss and a significant reduction in conditions associated with obesity, such as diabetes and fatty liver disease.
Celiker delves into the details of digestive mechanisms, the differences between aerobic and anaerobic bacteria and the role of each in the microbiome, how and where in the body Xeno Bioscience's pill takes effect, and the metabolic changes brought about by both the pill and the surgery. Hit play and visit xenobiosciences.com to learn more.
Criminal cyber activity has increased dramatically over the past 10 years, leading to the existence of more malware than ever before. With so many hacker forums and cyber criminals offering their services on the dark web, committing cybercrimes no longer requires an extensive amount of knowledge or experience; you just need to know who to talk to.
Having spent over 14 years working in the field of cybersecurity, Adam Kujawa has witnessed the evolution of cybercrime. While it might seem like he's seen it all, he's the first to admit that the landscape is constantly changing, requiring cybersecurity measures to remain a step ahead of the cyber criminals. He joins the podcast today to discuss the work he's doing as the director of malware intelligence at Malwarebytes, a security solution company developing layered defense software for individual consumers and enterprises with the ultimate goal of creating a malware-free existence for the world.
Tune in for an informative and insightful conversation about the current types of malware, ransomware, and cyber-attacks, sandbox security mechanisms, security countermeasures carried out by criminals, and the recent increase in cyber-attacks in the business arena.
Learn more and check out free trial services at malwarebytes.com.
Cavin Balaster, founder of Feed a Brain (feedabrain.com) and Adventures in Brain Injury (adventuresinbraininjury.com), author, and sought-after speaker, delivers an informative and important discussion on brain function and the nutritional protocol that can deliver dramatic results.
Cavin Balaster made a miraculous recovery from an accident that could have easily taken his life instantly. In 2011, he survived a two-story fall and was comatose for twelve days. Balaster was diagnosed with a diffuse axonal injury (DAI) and his chances for recovery were not good, bleak actually, at less than 10%. Emergency medicine and the work of many skilled, truly outstanding healthcare professionals and specialists saved his life, without a doubt. Balaster acknowledges that he would absolutely be dead if it were not for their incredible work over a long period comprised of many crucial moments in his recovery. But after he began to wake from the severe brain fog, and recover somewhat from the memory loss, double vision, infections, etc. when he was able to begin doing some research on his own, he started on a mission, a goal to take back his life to the best of his ability. He states that once he was cognizant of his predicament and the gravity of it, he felt he was faced with a choice: to wallow in despair considering the impact of his injury or consider it to be an adventure. He chose the latter.
Balaster recounts the early months of his life after the fall and subsequent severe brain injury. As he describes, the entire ordeal, as we can only imagine, was overwhelming to say the least. He talks about the extreme, and frightening, brain fog that he experienced early on and how he actually had no memory of what happened and no way to understand where he was or who the white lab coat people were. His brain fog was so intense that he imagined he might have even been kidnapped and the lab coat people were using his body to test and experiment on. Clearly, it was not a good time for Balaster. But slowly, his brain fog began to clear so he could begin to understand where he was, and what was happening to him.
After defying death through the help of his incredibly wonderful team of intelligent and supportive healthcare providers, and waking from the coma, Balaster dug deep into functional nutrition, functional neurology, neuro optometry (developmental optometry), physical and occupational therapy, and other targeted therapies. And it is these methods and practices that he attributes to his incredible recovery, at such an accelerated pace. Balaster talks about his first discovery of the nutritional connection, and how his nutritional protocol was restoring his clarity. And he describes the technical aspects of how the intestinal process is coordinated with the brain. Balaster discusses his hunger for education on the various subjects that were affecting his life and recovery. He began taking online courses at multiple universities to further understand how the brain works, and how it is fueled—neurometabolism. He details some of the many and various nutritional supplements to his diet from bone broth, to licorice, to L-glutamine, as well as fruits and vegetables, etc., and how he began to see incredible improvements right away. Balaster discusses the details in his book, covering ketogenic metabolism, color charts for fruits and vegetables, and the carbohydrate ratings of foods.
Balaster documented his process to neuro-rehabilitation in an attempt to more fully understand and heal his body and brain. He discusses his blog, Adventures in Brain Injury, and the international attention he received from his postings and research. Balaster talks about the work he has done with clients who have severe injuries, and the nutritional coaching he provides to the patients and their doctors that has led to many remarkable changes and improvements. As Balaster recounts, his work with patients is tremendously rewarding.
As the author of How to Feed a Brain: Nutrition for Optimal Brain Function and Repair and as a successful podcast host on the related subjects, Balaster has now devoted his life to helping others who are struggling with health issues, sometimes very severe ones as his was. Through Balaster's journey he has gained incredible knowledge regarding the optimization of brain function and he seeks to share his experiences, information, training, and services with the community.
Scott Eaton, chief executive officer at Algomi (algomi.com), provides an overview of the complexity of financial markets and how traders and investors need aggregated complex financial data to capitalize on and secure their interests.
Eaton is an experienced executive who has helmed many top-tier institutions. Some notable point on his extensive resume include: chief operating officer of MarketAxess Europe, managing director at Unicredit Bank AG, as well as executive managing director at BroadStreet Group.
As Eaton states, Algomi is a software company that provides technology to financial markets. Algomi delivers information-matching solutions for the optimization of fixed-income liquidity. The company is backed by investments from prominent industry leaders such as Euronext, Lakestar, AllianceBernstein, and S&P Global. Algomi's team is international and maintains offices in New York, London, and Hong Kong.
The Algomi platform can assist business leaders to improve their workflow and liquidity via data aggregation, pre-trade information analysis, and of course execution facilitation. Eaton expounds upon the ways that Algomi brings infrastructure to some of the world's largest fixed-income participants, helping them to turn complex data into actionable knowledge.
Eaton discusses Algomi ALFA, their innovative fixed-income data aggregation and market surveillance tool that aggregates liquidity data from all the major electronic venues, messaging platforms, and dealer inventory feeds, and thus provides easier access, and an opportunity to see the big picture with more detail. Traders can apply filters and see the data that is important to them, making their time more efficient and potentially more successful. By finding the liquidity more easily, Eaton states that Algomi ALFA benefits both buyer and seller, assisting with the execution of trades.
The financial markets expert delves into the many ways that buy side traders can utilize their platform. He details the processes involved with trading, specifically outlining the methods used when dealing with bonds, and he explains how bond market liquidity has been impacted, post-financial crisis. Further he talks about the issuance of corporate bonds and discusses schedules versus discreet needs, investor interest, borrower cost and more, in regard to timing and issuance. He discusses strategies investors and traders can utilize when making bond decisions, and how the aggregate data directly can impact the decisions they will make.
Eaton discusses the innovations happening at Algomi in regard to data feeds, as well as their extensive work with custodians and custody data to help facilitate asset management. Through Algomi's understanding of financial markets and experience of workflow development, Eaton's team collaborates with clients and third party providers to birth new ideas and products that greatly facilitate market function, and bring infrastructure to some of thargest fixed-income participants in the world.
You might already be familiar with the process of taking pictures of your work schedule each week, checking it repeatedly to make sure you don't miss a shift, and tracking down all your coworkers' phone numbers when you need coverage at the last minute. This is not only a hassle for hourly employees, but it's an inefficient way of managing shifts in general and makes it more likely for a company to find itself unexpectedly understaffed. With nearly 60 percent of today's workforce comprised of hourly workers and having worked as one himself, Himanshu Misra recognized a need for change; as a senior data scientist for Branch, that's exactly what he's trying to implement.
Branch is a mobile-first technology platform that allows hourly employees to easily and digitally access their schedules, be notified of changes to their schedules in real time, communicate with their coworkers, submit requests for time off at the tap of a button, and pick up shifts to expand their earning potential. At the same time, Branch is helping enterprise customers attract and retain the best hourly employees and providing them with a time-saving tool for efficient shift management. By developing demand prediction models based on historical and real-time data and machine learning algorithms, Branch customers can avoid all of the consequences of improper staffing and unsatisfied staff.
Branch already has customers in a variety of industries, including banking, hospitality, healthcare, retail, and travel, and are currently holding a number of pilots with new companies. Tune in for all the details, including what's on the horizon for Branch.
Visit branchmessenger.com to learn more.
Jeremy Born, founder, and CEO at CoinGenius (coingenius.ai), delivers an informative overview of the current state of cryptocurrency intelligence and the developing tools that allow for a deeper understanding of the changing digital financial markets.
Born is a serious blockchain enthusiast and passionate digital strategist. He is an experienced professional in the technology space with a specific interest in leveraging AI and machine learning to solve complex business problems, as well as predicting outcomes of alternative assets such as bitcoin. Born's experience before founding CoinGenius was in the various blockchain, cryptocurrency, and artificial intelligence companies such as YINC, which focuses on cryptocurrency and blockchain technology service providers, and JABB Interactive where he served as their executive director. During his tenure as senior managing consultant at Brandify Labs, Born furthered his work in branding and customer services as they relate to cognitive, artificial intelligence, machine learning, natural language processing, and blockchain. He holds an MBA from Pepperdine's Graziadio Business School and received his BS in business administration and management from Chapman University.
Born discusses his background in trading and how he had passed crypto by for a while, but as he began to dig deeper he became extremely interested. Once he took the leap and fully invested his time, and later money, he found that the tools and information available was seriously insufficient and woefully inept. He wanted to apply all of his knowledge in AI and machine learning to his new passion to fully understand what was contributing to the volatility of the market in this exciting, burgeoning digital area. As he recounts, the market changes so quickly in this space that insufficient data and the need to research could cause someone to miss a great opportunity—the need was apparent: information needed to be aggregated, and new tools were a necessity.
The artificial intelligence and financial markets expert discusses the types of events that trigger volatility and market fluctuation, and he acknowledges that the market is still highly unregulated. Thus, access to the constantly incoming information is paramount. Born's way was a new way of looking at data that allowed for smarter, quicker decisions to be made and thus CoinGenius was born to fill the void.
CoinGenius is an AI-powered cryptocurrency intelligence engine specifically built to empower traders with fast, real-time data needed to make intelligent investment decisions that can yield results. Born underscores that they do not make recommendations, but they do arm people with quality information. The platform allows for smarter trades and utilizes analysis, deep fraud detection, and real-time trade alerts. As Born's company acknowledges, investing in cryptocurrency can be challenging but with the proper tools, the trading options are better. At the core of the market, every digital asset and coin is greatly impacted by, and produces, a large amount of internal and external signals. Having the proper tools can help to order the volume of information so traders can home in on what's important.
Born gives an overview of where his team is in the process toward release of their platform and the steps they have already completed to make the full launch in early 2019. Born discusses that first they plan to do a mobile release, but other options will be coming. As many apps are on the way in this market, it can be overwhelming, but Born stresses that none of them are truly bringing everything together under one platform, that also covers multiple asset classes as CoinGenius does.
The ketogenic diet, intermittent fasting, whether or not you should skip that first meal of the day...you've probably heard a lot of arguments for and against each, so how do you know what's "right"? What will provide YOU with healthful longevity? Valter D. Longo is a biogerontologist, cell biologist, and author of several books, the latest of which is The Longevity Diet. He joins the podcast to discuss his views on these issues and shed light on some of the main arguments in his book, each of which is based on the scientific evidence that's available today.
The Longevity Diet is divided into two sections: the first utilizes an approach that's based in part on findings of epidemiological and clinical studies to decide how best to eat on a daily basis, and the second discusses the benefits of the fasting mimicking diet. He's a proponent of diets rich in legumes and vegetables, 12-hour daily fasts, and making time for breakfast each morning.
While he admits that the ketogenic diet may benefit some individuals with particular health issues or diseases, he references a Harvard study that followed 120 subjects over a 30-year span and drew conclusions about the long-term effects of high fat, high protein, low carb diets: significantly shorter lifespans, and higher rates of cancer and cardiovascular disease. He also discusses how daily fasts that exceed 12 hours lead to a mechanism by which the body essentially begins eating itself, and how the concept of "irrational exuberance" is largely at play in many people's devotion to diet fads.
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