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Hello, and welcome to Leaders Creating Rugus on Rugus Avenue Radio,
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the world's largest South Asian radio and podcast network. Here
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on iHeartRadio, I'm your host, Ashi Aurora, the founder of
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Irise Executive Coaching. I bring over twenty five years of
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leadership experience and specialize in guiding professionals to transform conflict
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into collaboration through my strengths based Eyrise model. Our show
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dives into the minds of visionary, bold leaders who challenge
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the status quo, from business innovators to cultural pioneers. Expect
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candid conversations about radical thinking, breakthrough strategies, and the courage
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to blaze new trails. Let's inspire transformations in your professional
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life together.
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Check out Rucus Avenue Radio dot com for our full
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schedule and listen to past episodes available on all major
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podcast platforms.
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And now I'd like to introduce today's guest, Chris's PR
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expert David Oates. Hey, Dave, Welcome the Leaders Creating Ruckus.
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It's so good to see Ashi. Thanks for the time.
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All right, So I have had the pleasure of hearing
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you speak and listening to multiple case stories. Yeah, and
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I just want to jam right at the beginning of
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the show today with the one that just stop me
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dead in my tracks, like the one that I heard
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you talk about the twenty twenty one case with case
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in Texas. I'm sure many of our listeners know about it,
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but they don't really know all about it the way
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you do. So Dave walk us through what was going
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on when a good Samaritan, a doctor was trying to
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get as many people vaccinated as possible and ran into problems.
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So I want to start with the story of doctor
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Hassan Gocol. Doctor Gocol was about ten, if memory serves me,
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when he and his family immigrated from Pakistan to actually
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upstate New York, and it was in his young preteen
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teenage years. He said about the time he was sixteen
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that he.
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Knew he wanted to be a doctor. He knew he
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wanted to.
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Help people, and after schooling had gotten down, to make
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a long story short, down to Houston, Texas. And when
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I asked him about that, he said, I got to
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Houston because that's where medicine was being practice at a
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very innovative and high level. A lot of people from
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all over the world, including into China, come to Houston
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because of their amazing.
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Medical centers to do work.
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And not only was he practicing medicine, he was practicing
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medicine in the emergency room.
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He was an emergency room physician.
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So he's seen people at their most vulnerable, at their worst,
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and probably the most scared. They don't know what the
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outcome is going to be. And doctor Golcal oftentimes would
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see these patients having never seen them before, didn't know
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their history, didn't know their background, had to not only
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care for them from a techician, you know, technician standpoint,
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but had to really provide that care and comfort and
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get that trust that you give with the patient right
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off the bat. And I had the pleasure of knowing
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this guy through his brother and through his families, and
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I just think the.
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World of him.
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He had decided during the middle of COVID to take
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up the Harris County Public Health Department. So that's the
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county that Houston, you know, resides in, that is responsible
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for all public health initiatives. He decided to join them
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after he was recruited to help with COVID mitigation and
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then vaccines when they came out there.
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This is around or so this is the end.
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This is twenty twenty when he joins the public Health Department.
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At the end, like literally the very end of twenty twenty,
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this was December twenty ninth, vaccines get rolled out, the
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Maderna vaccines specifically, without a lot of direction except for
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the state of Texas at the time, and the federal
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government said.
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Rollies out.
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Get these the first responders and healthcare workers first, and
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then don't waste any vaccines. So if you've if you don't,
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if you basically run out of healthcare workers at first
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responders find people with comorbidities sixty five of eight years
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of age and older, and things of that nature. So
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he and his team roll out with not a lot
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of preparation and on their own, get out to a
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vaccine site that was designated by his superiors, and for
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twelve hours vaccinates healthcare workers and first responders.
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That come there.
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About fifteen minutes before the end of this long, arduous
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twelve hour days, a healthcare worker pulls up in their
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vehicle because that's the way they were doing It proves
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that they are employees' healthcare worker and requires doctor Goldgal's
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team to puncture another vial of MODERNA vaccine. Each vial
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contains about ten or eleven dosage and they administered the vaccine.
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But that means there was about ten dosage dosages left
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in this Madonna vaccine that had to be used within
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six hours. The thing that I don't know if the
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public even knows today. Once you punctured a vial of
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Maderna vaccine, you had six hours to use it before
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was declared inert. In other words, it lost its efficacy
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and he had to throw it away. He calls his superiors,
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He's like, I've got ten dosage. I've got to do
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something with them. Everybody here has been vaccinated or they're
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going to wait, make other arrangements. His boss has told him,
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put it in a box, sent it back to him
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to the office. Well, he knew that meant that they
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were not going to be used. And this is at
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a time. Keep in mind the end of December where
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there were full.
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ICU rooms and emergency room.
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Every bed was taken and there were ambulances outside with
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COVID patients waiting for a bed in the icy room.
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They were in bad, bad shape. And doctor Coles said, no,
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we were under the directive that we were not to
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waste a vaccine, so I and he told his boss
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when he was going I'm going to find people with
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cod morbidity sixty five years of age and older, and
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I'm going to get them vaccinated. And on his own,
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through the goodness of his heart, with no real support
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from his superiors, he called friends and family and said,
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I'm not vaccining you. Who do you know six or
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five years of age and older who've got these issues.
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I want to get them vaccine. Have got ten dosages,
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and I've got to use them within six hours. And
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he was driving to people's homes. This is December, it's dark,
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it's scary. He goes out and does that on his own.
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To make a long story short, he gets all the
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vaccines used, fills out all the proper paperwork, and submits
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it into the public health department at the county. The
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next day, He's spent now twenty one hours. This is
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a public survey. He spend twenty one hours doing all
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of that and felt pretty good about himself, as he should.
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He took a hippocratic oath to take care of others,
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and they did that. A week later, he gets called
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into the human resources department of Harris County Public health
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who promptly fire him and saying you stole the vaccine,
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which shocked him to no end, to which he said, no,
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I didn't steal it. I told you what I was doing.
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Here's all the proper paperwork. But because they were afraid
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a political figure was afraid of what this might mean,
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that they didn't have proper control. Because the doctor who
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should have made the decision made the decision instead of
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a politician. They fired him for theft and turned over
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the matter to the local district attorney, the local prosecutor's office,
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at which.
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Point I took a criminal case.
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It became it became a potential criminal case. Now he's
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reeling he just got fired for doing the right thing,
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and now he's being told it's going to be turned
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over the DA. He lawyers up. He gets a really
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good criminal defense attorney who and then calls me through
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his family and we get together. And I remember when
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when he's telling me about this a couple of days later,
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and I said, Okay, look, cooler heads are going to prevail.
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People are a little bit on edge.
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It's COVID. Nobody's really sure what to do. But this
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sounds pretty ridiculous.
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Just for those who don't know about what you do.
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Why did the family call you, Dave?
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And the yeah no, and I sort of yeah, I
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sort of walked into that. I'm the guy. Business owners, executives,
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and high profile individuals called when their reputation is being
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called into question in some sort of public domain. That's
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social media accounts, that's online reviews, that's blogs, that's press coverage,
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that kind of stuff. And they're usually not always, but
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usually big enough issues that it's disrupting operations, it's disrupting employment.
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In some cases with for profit companies, it's disrupting sales.
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UH.
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For nonprofits, it could be disrupting services and so forth
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like that. In this case, the doctor Golcal's family, who
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I had to know because he's got a brother and
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a sister in law in Orange County. Uh, they said,
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this could make press and we want to be ready
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in case it does.
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So I got a call.
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This was preventative from their perspective, because well they just
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attorney and the legal team.
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But but and again he hadn't been charged at this point.
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This was we got we got to get things ready
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in case something happens. And I remember when they called
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me in and I was appreciative that I got somewhat
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of an advanced notice, but I'll tell you that I
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think I was the same as the as the criminal
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defense attorney, a guy by name of Paul Doyle who
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is out of Houston, Texans, out of Houston, Texas, excuse me,
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and it's a brilliant guy. And I think we both
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thought the same thing, which was this is going anywhere,
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like somebody's going to realize they made a gregious mistake
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that they really should hire this guy back, let alone
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not charge him. But two weeks later, out of the blue,
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without so much as the DA's office contacting his attorney
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who reached out to the prosecuting office, or calling doctor Goldcol,
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he gets charged with one count misdemeanor theft, punishable by
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four thousand US dollars and one year in prison. And
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the way doctor Gocal found out about that is he
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get to knock on his door and there's a news
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camera pointing at him saying can you comment on this?
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And that's the first time he found out that he
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was being charged as a criminal by the Harris County
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Public District Attorney's office, at which point his brother texted
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me and we had forty five minutes to get a
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statement out to the press, because we knew if it
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was one station, that it was going to be several.
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The Harrison County DA's office put out a press release
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calling this guy criminal throwing his twenty year of spotless
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and I want to articulate spotless professional record, not a
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BLI not a smudge on his record. We're trying to
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throw him under the bus for a policy and the
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criminal defense attorney and I became fast friends. Within forty
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five minutes, we had a statement out to the media
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within two hours. This story not only permeates through Houston,
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not only goes national through all of the US, it
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goes international, It hits the Pond, goes to the UK
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Daily Mail, it goes to Pakistan because of his Pakistani
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heritage and his Pakistani connections, and it's now a global phenomenon.
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And I was proud of the fact that we were
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able to get a statement in there that we attributed
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to the defense attorney, his attorney, mister Doyle, who we
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said doctor Cocho is a good and faithful servant who
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went above and beyond to sure no vaccine got wasted
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in the Harris County DA's office and Public Health Department
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wanted to throw him under the bus to shield a
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bad policy and continue on with their operations. Will not stand.
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We are looking forward to our day in court to
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write this wrong. We then did a virtual press conference
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the next day, literally because we were still in COVID
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there's still the restrictions of meeting in public. We had
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the Criminal Defense Journey on zoom. I had news media
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from all over the world, predominantly in the US, but
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I literally we had him all over the world asking questions.
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For an hour, we answered questions about why the charge
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was erroneous and outlined just what I told you about
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doctor Golkel going above and beyond to ensure no vaccine
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got wasted and people people got protected to the best
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extent that he could. And three days later, because this
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was now a Friday, three days later, so it's sext
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two days later, Monday, excuse me.
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Three days later.
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That Monday, the matter goes in front of a criminal
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court judge Judge buying them, who almost immediately dismisses the
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case and be rates the DA called the charge erroneous.
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We thought, finally reasonable heads prevail. I started literally watching
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my hands and going finally, we're done.
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That was it.
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I thought three days we pretty much nailed this, and
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the ridiculousness of this charge has now ended.
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I was wrong.
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Three hours after the judge dismissed the case, the district attorney,
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for reasons I still don't really understand, was at a
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press conference and asked about this case, and she said, well,
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the judge doesn't have the final say, we will send
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this to a grand jury, and then proceeds to torture
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and threaten doctor Gokel with the possibility of a grand
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jury and diape in for the next five and a
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half months. Basically, she didn't want to admit that she
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was wrong, that her team jumped the gun, that they
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assumed too much and they got it wrong. So in
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order to save her personal face, she was willing to
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throw this good man under the bus and insinuated the
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fact that the people that he called in the middle
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of the night were because he was trying to hoard
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vaccines for his podcast, Downy Friends and Neighbors, which is
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absolutely bogus. But because there was no policy and procedures
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on how you were going to use the extra vaccines,
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doctor gocol took it upon himself to find people six
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surviving over comorbidities to do it. Well, guess who's on
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his phone. People who are on his phone are the
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people that are of his are part of his faith,
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are part of his community, and of course they would
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be leaning toward that. But that's certainly not why we did,
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and we knew that the We knew that was bogus
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from the start, but because the DA wouldn't let go
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the defense attorney mister Doyle and I with doctor Gokeel's consent,
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we said, the world needs to understand how wrong this is.
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So we started a global media campaign. We had him
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on the front page, top full of New York Times.
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I had him on all the cable outlets that are
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here in the US.
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We had him in all the Houston I remember all
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this in real time, but I didn't realize how intentional it.
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It was very intentional. We were not talking the press
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because you don't typically want to litigate this type of
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matter in the public. But when the DA continually tried
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to basically go against Judge's directions, which was the right call,
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we felt like somebody had to call her out on that.
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Somebody had to put her in check. From that, and
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the story was so compelling. I mean, people are like,
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how did you were able to convey the story? The
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story was cut and dry. This was as basic as
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you get. A intern in public relations could see the
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story and write it up, and it's just no disrespect
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to interns I teach at San Diego State University. My
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point is is that it wasn't hard to come up
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with that because the truth was so blatant, and the
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district attorney, because of her political aspirations, just basically through
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truth to the through truth away to continue with this narrative.
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So she could say, Base, I think you're listening to
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Ruckus Avenue Radio.
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So it was an easy story to tell, and we
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had him live all over place, including Asia based media
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and UK based media and all that. And the goal
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we were trying to do is to convince put enough
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pressure on the da UH to not press forward to
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finally admit what she should have admitted on day one,
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that they got it wrong, that they were they jumped
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the gun.
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This campaign still took five and a half months.
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It took five and a half months because she would
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not give up. But we were savvy enough that we
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whenever she tried to put out a little communication where
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she had to mention it and everything like that. Because
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because we had wound up getting so well connected thanks
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to doctor Gocol within the local community, the medical community,
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the local Indochina community, particularly Pakistani community, and the general press.
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At that point we had developed enough relationships that when
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they were putting out something, we would get calls to
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ask to respond, and so we had statements always at
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they're ready. They could never try to reset the narrative,
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and even to the point that when they did finally
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think they had an opening to send it the grand jury.
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The DA's office.
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Told the prosecutor going into the grand jury that when
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the grand jury makes its decision up or down, do
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not let the defense attorney mister Doyle know what was
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going on until after they put out a release, which
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is not common. Usually as a courtesy when a grand
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jury makes a decision, even though the defense council is
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not present, the prosecutor usually lets the defense council know
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what happened before the DA makes any statement. But they
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wanted to make a statement from that, But mister Doyle
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knew the bailiff in the room, who got a text
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that told him that the grand jury finally came. Grand
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jury did what it did, the same thing that the
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criminal judge did six months before and which has dismissed
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the case. They did not indict miss doctor Gocle, And
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before the prosecutor left the room, we had press release
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out an interview set up with doctor Gocle and mister Doyle.
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To explain the truth.
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And that was, out of the thirty years I've been
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in this business, the best thing I've done. Oh by
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the way, as a PostScript, the DA's who ran for
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reelection didn't even make it out of her primary. And
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I take personal pride, I take I take person. I
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take personal pride in that I'm not a I'm not
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a political guy. But this is really one of those
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cases where it was truly one good person and one
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not so good person and uh and and trying to
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throw what is truly a genuinely good and decent human
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being and his family under the bus. So you can say,
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political face is unconsiderable to me, and so I was.
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I was.
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I felt it was a great privilege to be able
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to do that for a man that I now call
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my friend.
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Yeah. Wow, what a powerful, powerful story.
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Dave it's still so was this was five years ago,
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almost five years ago. Now, well we were in the
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midst of it five years ago, and I still, you know,
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I'm still I still talk about it. Yeah, I don't
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think I was a Navy officer. Yeah, well, just to
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give you some backstory, right, as a Navy I was
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the United States and Navy officer, proud to serve both
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in service warfare, combat capacities, and then as a public
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affairs officer. I got to do some really cool things.
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I've worked as a marketing head of software companies. I've
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worked as nonprofit presidents, I've worked in various capacity I've
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had I've had a really good, fortunate professional and quite
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frankly personal life, and I'm I'm blessed that. But there
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are a few things that top that's success story for me.
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If I go, you know, whatever, whatever I've been judged,
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that's in the good column, and I'm grateful for him.
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Wow, that's that's just so so powerful, so moving, so incredible.
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Thank you for sharing that and the type of work
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you do. Mean wow, like how it all fit into place,
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I can't imagine. I'm sure that your friends here in
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Orange County could have never imagined this was going to happen.
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To I don't think any of us, none of us
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would have seen that coming. Yeah, right, let alone know
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somebody who had to who had to endure that, Right,
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And it's a privileged to know doctor gocl and its
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privileged to know his family. I had to go out
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there for business to Houston, and he lives in the
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sugar Land area, And and.
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I hope he's still practicing.
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Oh, he's still he's still practicing. He is an emergency
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room physician. He had to slow that down a little
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bit because of just the pressure and the toll that
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that ordeal took.
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For him from that one there. But he No, he's practicing.
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He's still doing amazing work.
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But I got to meet his family, and I got
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to also understand the toll it took on his family,
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particularly his parents and his kids. But but but it
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was grateful to see sort of the outcome on that.
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And yeah, it's it's just it's one of those one
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of those things that I'll always remember.
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Wow. So, so how did you mentioned that you've had
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a great professional and personal history. How did you get
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and I'm calling you a PR crisis expert? Is there
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another term you.
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Like to use, I say sorry to interrupt, I say
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crisis communication.
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Crisis PR is easier for people to remember.
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But a lot of the things that I work on
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is helping organizations and entities communicate to audiences that are
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not the press. In fact, sometimes the press are not
402
00:21:57.680 --> 00:21:59.279
are not even involved in some of the work that
403
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I do. Sometimes it's effectively conveying information to employees, to staff,
404
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right directly to customers or clients, or if you're nonprofit donors,
405
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investors and other stakeholders, business partners or partners that you
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do some sort of wonderful nonprofit philanthropic you know, initiative.
407
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So I call it crisis communication work. And I'm the
408
00:22:22.720 --> 00:22:26.400
guy that comes in. Usually, I like, you know, I
409
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like to come in the preventive side, or when somebody's
410
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thinking about, hey, all the what if scenarios that can
411
00:22:30.799 --> 00:22:33.880
go wrong with an organization. But oftentimes I get called
412
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when the houses figuratively if not literally, on fire and
413
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there's something that's gone awry, something uninspected, something that has
414
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people questioning the authenticity and the legitimacy of not all
415
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the organization but the leaders within that organization specifically, and
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helping them be able to convey empathy and action to
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get through a certain situation, even if it's simply just
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a misunderstanding, but sometimes it's you know, catastrophic matters that that.
419
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You had to deal with.
420
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I sadly remember when I first met you, you were
421
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you know, kind of the connection we had from a
422
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healthcare perspective was how much work you had to do
423
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for long term care facilities because COVID was ripping through
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the senior population, especially at a time where we didn't
425
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even know it was COVID. So tell us about kind
426
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of that time too, or any stories that came out
427
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of that.
428
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You know.
429
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So this is a tail end on that I got
430
00:23:31.079 --> 00:23:36.759
introduced to a long term care skilled nursing facility chain,
431
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an organization that operated north of fifty facilities throughout here
432
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in the United States, throughout California and Nevada. And you know,
433
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that population being very vulnerable to new ailments, in this case,
434
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the COVID virus. They even with the best ffforts and
435
00:24:00.440 --> 00:24:05.480
the best mitigation practices, couldn't keep the virus out. So
436
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at times we would have different facilities that would be
437
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the largest outbreak in their region, if not the state
438
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at that point, and.
439
00:24:16.839 --> 00:24:17.559
I still remember.
440
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I mean, I think there was I think at one time,
441
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you know, out of the thousands of residents as they
442
00:24:26.440 --> 00:24:28.440
call them in these facilities, I think there was something
443
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like I think the running taly was like five hundred
444
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residents infected and or five hundred residents who passed away,
445
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excuse me, and thousands that were infected. And then there
446
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were healthcare workers who were also infected, and a few
447
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of them passed away from that. And what I got
448
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to witness was not only some great efforts by a
449
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lot of staff members who were trying to do the
450
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right thing, but also the mental toll it took on
451
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them as they were trying to fight something that we
452
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were all just trying to learn as we went and
453
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not really sure about that. And the thing that we
454
00:25:03.319 --> 00:25:05.960
prided ourselves in when we were working through that the
455
00:25:06.079 --> 00:25:09.039
organizations time was called Plumb Healthcare. It's since been sold
456
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to a larger entity. But one of the things I
457
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appreciate about the Plumb health Care management is will we
458
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will tell the truth. We will convey the information as
459
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quickly as we can. We convey it often, not just
460
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again to the press, which was all over it, national local, regional,
461
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but also to family members who were just as distraught
462
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because they couldn't get into the facilities to see their
463
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loved one, which was gut wrenching for both them as
464
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well as the staff members who were trying very hard
465
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to convey the information to them and then tell them, no,
466
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for your safety, we can't have you come into these facilities,
467
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and that was just heartbreaking, And so we did that
468
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on a regular basis, and I think that helped. If
469
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you look at some of the cases other skilled nursing
470
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facilities throughout the country, the ones that wound up getting
471
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the most ridicule but also the ones that got the
472
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most investigations done to them by state regulators. We're the
473
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ones who weren't set up to communicate, the ones who
474
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didn't convey it. So all of a sudden, there was
475
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this surprise. And I think that's probably one of the
476
00:26:12.400 --> 00:26:15.519
things that I talk about most when it comes to
477
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crisis communications. Things that makes something a crisis is the unexpected.
478
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It's a shock value.
479
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They thought you knew you and then nobody hears from you.
480
00:26:25.319 --> 00:26:27.559
So it's that lack of communications. I don't come at
481
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this from any sort of moral authority I'm a practitioner,
482
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I'm as fragile as anybody else in those times of
483
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stress to not necessarily be willing to be as the
484
00:26:37.319 --> 00:26:41.200
phrase I use is confidently vulnerable. But it's so important
485
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in a time period where you're trying to convince audiences
486
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that you have their interest at heart, that you're caring
487
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about them, and to the extent you can, you are
488
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being as transparent as possible. And it was really the
489
00:26:54.680 --> 00:26:58.440
first nine months. The first three months were really torturous
490
00:26:58.559 --> 00:27:00.799
as we were trying to get test case in those
491
00:27:00.839 --> 00:27:04.000
facilities up and running because the production on those test
492
00:27:04.079 --> 00:27:07.160
kits were tough. But once there was adequate test kits
493
00:27:07.160 --> 00:27:11.319
about three three months into COVID, you could test every
494
00:27:11.359 --> 00:27:15.400
resident weekly and that helped identify people who were infected
495
00:27:15.480 --> 00:27:19.799
far earlier so they could start isolation and other treatment procedures.
496
00:27:20.720 --> 00:27:22.880
But the first you know, first three months were torturous.
497
00:27:23.000 --> 00:27:24.319
The next six months were.
498
00:27:24.200 --> 00:27:28.400
Intense, and then when vaccines rolled out, you know, I
499
00:27:28.440 --> 00:27:32.079
saw a demonstrative drop and those affected and let alone
500
00:27:32.079 --> 00:27:35.599
those who were seriously affected and who had to go
501
00:27:35.640 --> 00:27:40.359
to the hospital, and death rates plummeted, and thank yoursel.
502
00:27:40.319 --> 00:27:44.119
During this time, Yeah, what was your communication external communication
503
00:27:44.319 --> 00:27:46.079
strategy as well.
504
00:27:46.240 --> 00:27:53.559
We the external The external communications centered on on two
505
00:27:53.599 --> 00:27:57.119
what I'll call probably three general pillars. The first one
506
00:27:57.160 --> 00:28:00.440
was before anybody sees anything in the press, we want
507
00:28:00.440 --> 00:28:02.880
to make sure that family members and employees are notified.
508
00:28:03.440 --> 00:28:06.480
So we made sure that our internal audiences knew what
509
00:28:06.519 --> 00:28:09.759
was going on. And and when I say internal audience,
510
00:28:09.799 --> 00:28:11.880
I'm including the family members on that because we didn't
511
00:28:11.920 --> 00:28:14.960
want to see we didn't want them to see something
512
00:28:14.960 --> 00:28:16.720
in the press that they never heard from us about
513
00:28:16.720 --> 00:28:18.599
that we thought that that was a disservice to them.
514
00:28:19.039 --> 00:28:21.200
So that was the first pillars, make sure our internal
515
00:28:21.240 --> 00:28:24.119
audience has hurt from us before anybody else did. It
516
00:28:24.119 --> 00:28:27.559
didn't mean we delayed, you know, sending anything to the press,
517
00:28:27.599 --> 00:28:30.200
but we made sure that we were as focused on
518
00:28:30.240 --> 00:28:32.359
them as anything. So that was the first thing. The
519
00:28:32.400 --> 00:28:35.720
second thing is that we communicate often. There were updates
520
00:28:36.160 --> 00:28:40.400
regularly if necessary, and sometimes more than once a day
521
00:28:40.599 --> 00:28:42.680
if that was the case. To do that, and that
522
00:28:42.759 --> 00:28:46.400
was tough because again, all the healthcare workers who weren't infected,
523
00:28:46.400 --> 00:28:49.480
who were on staff, you know, they're just trying to
524
00:28:49.720 --> 00:28:53.599
treat the residents and care for the residents and there
525
00:28:53.599 --> 00:28:57.039
are different regulations that came down from state officials almost
526
00:28:57.079 --> 00:28:59.279
by the hour in the beginning stages, because everybodys trying
527
00:28:59.279 --> 00:29:01.920
to figure out how best to protect everybody, and so
528
00:29:01.960 --> 00:29:03.720
there was a lot of changes that we made, but
529
00:29:03.799 --> 00:29:06.079
we spent a lot of effort and time to do
530
00:29:06.160 --> 00:29:11.119
so and and update regularly. And then the third one
531
00:29:11.160 --> 00:29:17.960
was every every inquiry, Every question got answered. Everybody had
532
00:29:18.000 --> 00:29:20.920
an answer. There wasn't anybody who didn't get something. We
533
00:29:21.000 --> 00:29:25.240
did not want uh to there be a point at
534
00:29:25.240 --> 00:29:28.519
where somebody in the news organization, or in an influencer,
535
00:29:28.599 --> 00:29:32.279
or somebody said, uh, such and such organizations, such and
536
00:29:32.319 --> 00:29:33.319
such facility.
537
00:29:32.960 --> 00:29:33.519
Had no comment.
538
00:29:34.720 --> 00:29:36.799
We did not think. We did not We did not
539
00:29:36.880 --> 00:29:39.559
want that to happen. So we were very transparent. Sometimes
540
00:29:39.559 --> 00:29:42.440
it was by email because there wasn't really anybody who
541
00:29:42.480 --> 00:29:44.799
was available to talk. Because if we'd taken time to
542
00:29:44.839 --> 00:29:48.119
pull somebody out to have a conversation, that meant some
543
00:29:48.319 --> 00:29:51.160
that meant a resident wasn't being cared for. But we
544
00:29:51.359 --> 00:29:52.880
answered every inquiry.
545
00:29:53.039 --> 00:29:56.000
Your role was to manage all of all of that.
546
00:29:56.359 --> 00:30:00.119
I was trapped. I was I was traffic cop. I
547
00:30:00.000 --> 00:30:04.119
I coached the facilities as to what they say I pressured.
548
00:30:04.319 --> 00:30:08.359
I would pressure is probably the wrong word, but I would.
549
00:30:08.920 --> 00:30:12.279
I would ask them to dig deeper into getting as
550
00:30:12.359 --> 00:30:15.000
much information as we could and if we couldn't why,
551
00:30:15.039 --> 00:30:17.720
And sometimes it was because of federal regulations. There's privacy
552
00:30:17.759 --> 00:30:21.279
regulations hip as it's called in the United States, where
553
00:30:21.400 --> 00:30:25.960
you can't violate somebody's privacy for that. But short of that,
554
00:30:26.599 --> 00:30:28.920
you know, we were we were as transparent as we can.
555
00:30:28.960 --> 00:30:31.680
And yeah, I mean there were early on I you know,
556
00:30:32.039 --> 00:30:35.599
like like all the healthcare workers. I was pulling eighteen
557
00:30:35.680 --> 00:30:39.319
twenty hour days in that time period for that one.
558
00:30:39.079 --> 00:30:40.960
Because there was, like you said, there was so much
559
00:30:40.960 --> 00:30:45.680
coming out like on the hour constant. Yeah, and I
560
00:30:45.759 --> 00:30:48.400
had so much, so much to respond to, especially with
561
00:30:48.559 --> 00:30:51.039
such a hot, high profile situation.
562
00:30:52.039 --> 00:30:54.160
But you know, so you ask, like sometimes I get
563
00:30:54.160 --> 00:30:55.759
asked a question like why are you in this job?
564
00:30:55.799 --> 00:30:57.240
This is when people need you.
565
00:30:57.319 --> 00:30:59.880
It's so hard in my mind, Dave, why are you
566
00:31:00.079 --> 00:31:03.240
in this job? This is like like pretty high adrenaline
567
00:31:03.279 --> 00:31:05.519
and yet this high stress at the same time.
568
00:31:17.359 --> 00:31:25.119
You're listening to Ruckus Avenue Radio Avenue available now on
569
00:31:25.200 --> 00:31:27.960
the free iHeart radio app.
570
00:31:38.960 --> 00:31:42.400
This is when organizations need you. Right, it's easy.
571
00:31:43.599 --> 00:31:45.920
I say easy, and I'm gonna get I'm gonna get
572
00:31:45.920 --> 00:31:48.519
grief from some of my fellow marketing PR people, which
573
00:31:48.559 --> 00:31:51.559
I've done promotional and stuff beforehand. But it's it's cool,
574
00:31:51.599 --> 00:31:53.960
it's fun when it's a cool project that it's fun
575
00:31:54.000 --> 00:31:56.359
and you're talking about kids and puppies and you know,
576
00:31:56.400 --> 00:31:59.359
all sorts of different stuff that you everybody wants to
577
00:31:59.400 --> 00:32:03.079
talk about, wants on their Instagram feed or the their
578
00:32:03.119 --> 00:32:06.599
TikTok reels. But the fact of the matter is when
579
00:32:06.680 --> 00:32:09.759
things are not going well, this is the time that
580
00:32:09.799 --> 00:32:11.440
people want to hear from you, and they need to
581
00:32:11.480 --> 00:32:13.079
hear from you. They need to feel that sense of
582
00:32:13.119 --> 00:32:17.680
security now. So I feel fortunate when I get to
583
00:32:17.720 --> 00:32:19.839
call in and I say, people go like, how do
584
00:32:19.880 --> 00:32:21.079
you represent bad people?
585
00:32:21.119 --> 00:32:24.279
I don't. I represent good people and good organizations communicating
586
00:32:24.319 --> 00:32:25.440
through bad situations.
587
00:32:25.640 --> 00:32:28.559
And if they're willing to be that confidently vulnerable, express
588
00:32:28.599 --> 00:32:30.680
empathy and then show action of how they're going to
589
00:32:30.720 --> 00:32:32.400
fix it, I'm going to help them all day long.
590
00:32:32.680 --> 00:32:34.519
And sometimes there are people who've done some really not
591
00:32:34.559 --> 00:32:37.160
so nice things who've gone to jail, But if they're
592
00:32:37.200 --> 00:32:40.079
willing to own it and repent and try to make amends.
593
00:32:40.839 --> 00:32:43.000
I'm all in their corner and I'll help them communicate
594
00:32:43.039 --> 00:32:46.759
to the best extent possible. Now I've had to luren.
595
00:32:47.240 --> 00:32:49.160
So I've been I've been in PR and I've been
596
00:32:49.160 --> 00:32:51.799
in marketing for thirty odd years. I've done crisis from
597
00:32:51.799 --> 00:32:53.759
my early days in the Navy till then, but I
598
00:32:53.880 --> 00:32:56.680
focused on it as a full service for about eight
599
00:32:57.160 --> 00:33:00.359
really about eight and a half or so years as
600
00:33:00.960 --> 00:33:03.880
my primary job. And in that time period, I've had
601
00:33:03.880 --> 00:33:07.839
to learn the hard way how to check myself. I
602
00:33:08.400 --> 00:33:13.039
have taken on some and adopted I should say some mental.
603
00:33:12.759 --> 00:33:14.839
Really are reading my mind, because I was like, tell
604
00:33:14.880 --> 00:33:18.839
me about the ones that didn't want to exercise empathy
605
00:33:18.880 --> 00:33:20.960
and action and what did you do?
606
00:33:21.160 --> 00:33:25.359
I call them non clients and all candor. So the
607
00:33:25.359 --> 00:33:27.960
way it works is I get an organization that reaches
608
00:33:28.000 --> 00:33:31.200
out to me, either through a third party entity or a
609
00:33:31.200 --> 00:33:34.880
referral or something, or somebody finds me on my website
610
00:33:35.400 --> 00:33:38.880
or a LinkedIn profile or reaches out and you can
611
00:33:39.400 --> 00:33:41.559
I've been in this business long enough. And I don't
612
00:33:41.599 --> 00:33:43.920
say that to boast. I just say I've been kicked
613
00:33:43.920 --> 00:33:45.759
in the teeth enough to know that when somebody is
614
00:33:45.759 --> 00:33:49.400
not going to be conveying truth or be as again
615
00:33:49.440 --> 00:33:52.599
that confidently vulnerable, and so sometimes they want to use
616
00:33:52.599 --> 00:33:54.240
me as a human shield. And we've all seen those
617
00:33:54.279 --> 00:34:00.920
PR people who stand up there and categorically deny, defer,
618
00:34:01.079 --> 00:34:02.759
and sometimes quite frankly, just.
619
00:34:03.000 --> 00:34:06.119
Happening, especially a federal level right.
620
00:34:06.039 --> 00:34:08.840
Now, it's it's yeah, right, it's and sometimes, like you said,
621
00:34:08.920 --> 00:34:14.239
even at the federal level, there's bold face lie, I'm
622
00:34:14.280 --> 00:34:16.880
not that guy, and I'm not a public defender. Right
623
00:34:16.880 --> 00:34:18.960
in the United States, you know, everybody's entitled to a
624
00:34:19.039 --> 00:34:21.679
rigorous defense, and so if you can't afford when you
625
00:34:21.719 --> 00:34:24.039
get a public defender, well, I in one, I'm a
626
00:34:24.039 --> 00:34:27.280
PR guy, and so you're not entitled to my services.
627
00:34:27.360 --> 00:34:30.119
Quite frankly, so I am not in If I do
628
00:34:30.199 --> 00:34:34.800
not believe that you're being truly vulnerable, truly open, truly
629
00:34:35.079 --> 00:34:37.840
candor and forthright, and are willing to have me partner
630
00:34:37.960 --> 00:34:41.119
with that, we can discuss the fine tuning of messaging
631
00:34:41.239 --> 00:34:43.639
or how we go about that. But if you're not
632
00:34:43.679 --> 00:34:46.159
willing to take that stance, you're not a client. I
633
00:34:46.239 --> 00:34:49.000
say thank you very much, I walk away. The half
634
00:34:49.039 --> 00:34:51.079
hour to an hour conversation we have to sort of
635
00:34:51.079 --> 00:34:54.679
get to that point before you engage me as a client.
636
00:34:54.960 --> 00:34:55.920
Is it ends?
637
00:34:55.960 --> 00:34:58.000
And I just go, thank you very much, And I've
638
00:34:58.079 --> 00:35:02.960
learned the hard way that well, I should say I've
639
00:35:03.039 --> 00:35:05.320
learned the hard way to check myself mentally in those
640
00:35:05.360 --> 00:35:08.039
moments too, because it's hard, it's it's it can be
641
00:35:08.079 --> 00:35:11.920
a challenge to absorb somebody else's anxiety, fears, or anger,
642
00:35:11.960 --> 00:35:14.639
and then they'll try to deflect that to me, and
643
00:35:15.000 --> 00:35:16.840
I need to be open. I need to be in
644
00:35:16.880 --> 00:35:19.960
their corner. I want to be their partner in that case.
645
00:35:20.000 --> 00:35:23.000
But I can't take on that emotion and do my job.
646
00:35:24.039 --> 00:35:28.039
Typically, What do you do with organizations where they're like,
647
00:35:28.119 --> 00:35:30.039
we don't want this to get out, that's why we're
648
00:35:30.119 --> 00:35:32.519
hiring you, Dave. How do we how do we keep
649
00:35:32.519 --> 00:35:33.199
a cap on this?
650
00:35:34.079 --> 00:35:37.480
You can't, So you're convincing them.
651
00:35:37.360 --> 00:35:39.400
Out of that, or you're you're trying to help them
652
00:35:39.480 --> 00:35:40.800
understand like kind.
653
00:35:40.679 --> 00:35:44.079
Of it's so it's a great no, it's a great
654
00:35:44.119 --> 00:35:45.960
question because they go, we don't want this to go out.
655
00:35:46.000 --> 00:35:49.079
How can we prevent that? I'm like, I don't. I
656
00:35:49.119 --> 00:35:51.960
don't have you know, to borrow Harry Potter.
657
00:35:52.079 --> 00:35:55.239
I can't use the imperious curse on somebody to tell
658
00:35:55.280 --> 00:35:58.079
them what not to say out in the public domain.
659
00:35:58.159 --> 00:35:58.320
Right.
660
00:35:58.360 --> 00:36:01.079
And we're in this age where everybody a flipp and broadcaster.
661
00:36:01.199 --> 00:36:01.320
Right.
662
00:36:01.320 --> 00:36:03.320
We've all got these wonderful little devices that we all
663
00:36:03.360 --> 00:36:06.679
carry around where we've got a camera, a microphone, and
664
00:36:06.719 --> 00:36:10.920
through a social media APS, a distribution system which oftentimes
665
00:36:11.000 --> 00:36:13.400
is more effective than any news outlet because people that
666
00:36:13.400 --> 00:36:17.199
you're connected with trust you and they can say whatever. Yeah,
667
00:36:17.800 --> 00:36:18.920
they can say whatever they want.
668
00:36:19.400 --> 00:36:21.880
I used to tell leaders this, and I'll tell you
669
00:36:21.920 --> 00:36:25.519
my difficult story with this because I learned it later
670
00:36:25.639 --> 00:36:30.719
as well, and luckily I had not defamed a person
671
00:36:30.880 --> 00:36:34.079
too too horribly that was putting the company that I
672
00:36:34.119 --> 00:36:38.679
worked for at risk. But when they pulled, you know,
673
00:36:38.800 --> 00:36:41.679
there was there was basically an employee that was suing
674
00:36:42.519 --> 00:36:48.039
and there was some joking banter on email between me
675
00:36:48.239 --> 00:36:52.639
and another leader in the organization, and it was found
676
00:36:52.880 --> 00:36:57.039
in the defense, you know, the attorney looking at our
677
00:36:57.280 --> 00:37:01.159
six thousand email interchanges and they found it and they said, Okay,
678
00:37:01.199 --> 00:37:03.159
we need to prep you because if this case goes
679
00:37:03.159 --> 00:37:05.880
to court or in a deposition, you need to be
680
00:37:05.920 --> 00:37:09.119
ready to answer this. So we're prepping it. I'm horrified
681
00:37:09.159 --> 00:37:12.559
that they're able to find all of this information was
682
00:37:12.599 --> 00:37:15.639
so discoverable and from that moment on, by the way,
683
00:37:15.639 --> 00:37:19.480
the case settled or it was actually this person who
684
00:37:19.559 --> 00:37:22.719
was suing everyone left, right and center, including the National
685
00:37:22.719 --> 00:37:25.840
Institutes of Health. So it was a bogus case and
686
00:37:25.880 --> 00:37:30.039
it was thrown out. But what it taught me was
687
00:37:31.360 --> 00:37:35.159
be always prepared for anything you say, or anything you
688
00:37:35.199 --> 00:37:37.320
put in writing to be on the front page of
689
00:37:37.360 --> 00:37:39.519
the La Times, of the Orange County Register or your
690
00:37:39.519 --> 00:37:43.039
newspaper choice anytime. Yeah, and now you can say an
691
00:37:43.039 --> 00:37:44.000
Instagram post.
692
00:37:44.559 --> 00:37:47.480
You know, look, now you spot on it, right, You can't.
693
00:37:48.920 --> 00:37:53.239
No conversation that has any sort of recording capability, just
694
00:37:53.320 --> 00:37:56.000
like this one they were doing now is private and
695
00:37:56.079 --> 00:38:01.280
so you have to operate under that sort of under
696
00:38:01.280 --> 00:38:04.519
that mindset. And so my answer is when somebody says, hey,
697
00:38:04.559 --> 00:38:05.880
we got this issue we don't want to get in
698
00:38:05.880 --> 00:38:08.960
the press, is I can't prevent it. What will you
699
00:38:09.000 --> 00:38:12.800
do if it does? How do you respond to that one?
700
00:38:12.880 --> 00:38:15.199
How do you become part of the narrative, how do
701
00:38:15.280 --> 00:38:18.000
you explain? How do you expand? And if it's bad,
702
00:38:18.760 --> 00:38:19.559
then say it's bad.
703
00:38:19.599 --> 00:38:22.440
I just I just didn't read it, get ahead of it.
704
00:38:22.920 --> 00:38:26.440
I just did reel on this one where a kid,
705
00:38:26.519 --> 00:38:28.519
because I, like I said, I teach part time, and
706
00:38:28.559 --> 00:38:30.480
I had reached out to kid because she hadn't shown
707
00:38:30.559 --> 00:38:32.639
up to class for a couple of days, and she
708
00:38:33.039 --> 00:38:35.239
within thirty minutes of me reaching out, she came back
709
00:38:35.320 --> 00:38:37.800
saying I'm sorry because I have an early morning class.
710
00:38:38.079 --> 00:38:40.199
She goes, I'm sorry, I slept through the alarm. Won't happen again.
711
00:38:40.480 --> 00:38:44.639
It's like, okay, done, Like, thanks for owning it, thanks
712
00:38:44.639 --> 00:38:46.639
for your brutal honesty on that one. Don't let it
713
00:38:46.639 --> 00:38:48.920
happen again, and we'll move on. If it was a
714
00:38:49.079 --> 00:38:51.599
corporation with a lot with you know, some sort of
715
00:38:51.800 --> 00:38:54.280
bad press, they would be doing all well, I got
716
00:38:54.320 --> 00:38:58.840
my my my roommate didn't set the alarm right, or
717
00:38:59.079 --> 00:39:01.920
I didn't get this, I was up whatever, you know,
718
00:39:02.159 --> 00:39:02.639
just be.
719
00:39:03.119 --> 00:39:05.440
Frank about it and everything else.
720
00:39:05.840 --> 00:39:08.679
And you'll be okay. Right, you can move forward from
721
00:39:08.679 --> 00:39:13.400
that one. Audiences will give you a second chance if
722
00:39:13.400 --> 00:39:16.760
you're if you're transparent, you're open, you're empathetic, and you're
723
00:39:16.800 --> 00:39:20.400
action oriented. Right, So so this student, you know, I
724
00:39:20.480 --> 00:39:23.239
expect that she'll show up in my class tomorrow, and
725
00:39:23.320 --> 00:39:25.079
if she does and she shows up, you know, in
726
00:39:25.119 --> 00:39:27.960
perpetuity for this one there, or if she doesn't show
727
00:39:28.039 --> 00:39:30.000
up she lets me know ahead of time for whatever reason,
728
00:39:30.440 --> 00:39:32.719
then we're good. Like this is, you know, we all
729
00:39:32.719 --> 00:39:35.079
move on from this one there. We all we're frail
730
00:39:35.920 --> 00:39:39.079
human species, right, we don't. We don't get things right
731
00:39:39.119 --> 00:39:43.119
often time. So own it when you don't. I mean again,
732
00:39:43.920 --> 00:39:47.119
I'm not coming from a position of moral authority there,
733
00:39:47.159 --> 00:39:49.599
but for the grace of God go I I realize
734
00:39:49.599 --> 00:39:52.719
in my in my solidly middle aged I live in
735
00:39:52.760 --> 00:39:54.719
a very large glass house, so I keep my stone
736
00:39:54.719 --> 00:39:59.159
throwing ammunition to a minimum. But but man, just own
737
00:39:59.239 --> 00:40:01.159
it when you do. And and it's hard for a
738
00:40:01.159 --> 00:40:03.000
lot of people to get there, and I understand that,
739
00:40:03.039 --> 00:40:04.079
but it's so much better in.
740
00:40:04.079 --> 00:40:04.599
The long run.
741
00:40:05.719 --> 00:40:09.440
So the internal work you do with organizations, I mean,
742
00:40:09.760 --> 00:40:14.480
there's probably a lot I would often hear, especially and
743
00:40:14.480 --> 00:40:17.360
I still hear this, right like from my clients and others,
744
00:40:17.960 --> 00:40:23.239
teams and groups I'm working with. That's there's always a
745
00:40:23.280 --> 00:40:27.159
subset that says things aren't transparent enough, and then another
746
00:40:27.199 --> 00:40:30.960
subset that's like, we're too transparent. We've got to be careful,
747
00:40:31.039 --> 00:40:34.280
you know how we're messaging, and then that clash and
748
00:40:34.320 --> 00:40:36.840
then there's like no messaging and you know, it becomes
749
00:40:37.440 --> 00:40:39.840
it can become a hot mess and there's all this distrust.
750
00:40:40.000 --> 00:40:42.920
Like when you come into an organization, you're helping them
751
00:40:42.920 --> 00:40:46.079
manage their internal communications, kind of like, what are some
752
00:40:46.119 --> 00:40:48.000
of the problems you're seeing, what are some of the
753
00:40:48.000 --> 00:40:50.119
goals you're setting, like, kind of walk us through a
754
00:40:50.159 --> 00:40:51.199
little bit of your process.
755
00:40:51.679 --> 00:40:54.559
I think, I think, what here's what I heard you say.
756
00:40:54.639 --> 00:40:55.719
Just want to make sure I get it right.
757
00:40:55.760 --> 00:40:58.840
When is you will always have a camp that says
758
00:40:59.159 --> 00:41:02.960
you're talking too much. Quiet down, and another camp that'll say,
759
00:41:03.000 --> 00:41:05.320
I'm not getting the full story from you. Even with
760
00:41:05.360 --> 00:41:07.440
all this sort of stuff, be more transparent. How do
761
00:41:07.480 --> 00:41:09.199
you how do you sort of reconcile that? How do
762
00:41:09.199 --> 00:41:10.440
you do that with all audiences?
763
00:41:10.519 --> 00:41:10.679
Right?
764
00:41:10.880 --> 00:41:14.239
Yeah, Well, I think that that first camp is often
765
00:41:14.400 --> 00:41:16.719
a little bit more of the executive leadership who are like,
766
00:41:16.880 --> 00:41:19.239
we'll we'll we'll tell people what they need to know,
767
00:41:20.320 --> 00:41:22.440
and so we're going to keep it a little bit quieter.
768
00:41:22.760 --> 00:41:25.280
And then the other camp, which is a lot of
769
00:41:25.280 --> 00:41:27.800
the receivers are like, we're not getting enough information.
770
00:41:28.440 --> 00:41:31.480
Yeah, So in those thank you for that. So in
771
00:41:31.559 --> 00:41:34.280
those circumstances, let's start with the executive team. They say, hey,
772
00:41:34.280 --> 00:41:37.239
we'll talk about that later. And my answer is, why
773
00:41:37.239 --> 00:41:38.960
are you going to talk about that later? What are
774
00:41:39.000 --> 00:41:40.920
you doing that there? And if the answer is we
775
00:41:41.000 --> 00:41:43.800
don't really want to discuss that because and when you
776
00:41:43.800 --> 00:41:46.559
get to the bottom line, it's because it's uncomfortable, because
777
00:41:46.559 --> 00:41:48.239
it makes us look bad, I'm like, that's not a
778
00:41:48.239 --> 00:41:51.000
good that's not a good answer. You need to be
779
00:41:51.159 --> 00:41:54.280
overly communicated right now, you know. And that's another term
780
00:41:54.320 --> 00:41:57.960
I use for different context. It's called hugging your cactus, right.
781
00:41:58.800 --> 00:42:02.079
It's it's the idea of getting it hugging the cat.
782
00:42:02.119 --> 00:42:04.400
That's not my phrase. I actually heard. I actually heard
783
00:42:04.440 --> 00:42:07.760
folks do it when it comes to sort of reconciling
784
00:42:07.800 --> 00:42:12.360
their own transgressions. But it's if you can if you
785
00:42:12.400 --> 00:42:15.760
can get to that point where you're openly talking about
786
00:42:15.800 --> 00:42:19.239
all the stuff that's gone on and then talk about
787
00:42:19.320 --> 00:42:22.760
your making amends, it clean. It cleans the slate that
788
00:42:22.920 --> 00:42:26.000
much quicker. Now, flip side attorneys will tell you, I
789
00:42:26.039 --> 00:42:28.320
don't want to do that because now I'm disclosing things
790
00:42:28.320 --> 00:42:30.199
in public. That could be part of a lawsuit could
791
00:42:30.199 --> 00:42:33.559
be discoverable. I get a new slash RAYA. The lawsuits
792
00:42:33.559 --> 00:42:36.840
are probably coming in those situations anyway. And I have
793
00:42:36.960 --> 00:42:41.480
seen circumstances where lawyers will prevent the disclosure of information
794
00:42:42.360 --> 00:42:46.599
to to to protect the organization with litigation to the
795
00:42:46.599 --> 00:42:49.039
point that they no longer have a business because that
796
00:42:49.159 --> 00:42:53.679
lack of authenticity and transparency means customers go elsewhere, business
797
00:42:53.679 --> 00:42:58.320
partners go elsewhere, your investors go elsewhere. And so you
798
00:42:58.360 --> 00:43:01.199
could you could prevent yourself from litigation to the point
799
00:43:01.199 --> 00:43:03.880
that you shut your doors. So I think that's one
800
00:43:03.920 --> 00:43:07.960
from the executive standpoint, from the customer standpoint or the
801
00:43:08.000 --> 00:43:10.400
general public standpoint, the ones who are saying you're not
802
00:43:10.440 --> 00:43:13.760
giving me enough, there are going to be circumstances that
803
00:43:13.800 --> 00:43:17.360
you can't disclose information beyond what you've already done. It
804
00:43:17.400 --> 00:43:19.519
may be because you don't have the full story. It
805
00:43:19.519 --> 00:43:22.519
may be because there are privacy regulations prevent you do something.
806
00:43:22.599 --> 00:43:27.920
Employee privacy, customer privacy, patient medical privacy, all of those
807
00:43:28.000 --> 00:43:31.639
kind of things that prevent you from talking about that.
808
00:43:32.039 --> 00:43:35.000
May be you may be under some sort of nda,
809
00:43:35.639 --> 00:43:37.760
with some sort of contract with some other folks or
810
00:43:37.800 --> 00:43:41.079
things like that. Right, whatever the case may be, you
811
00:43:41.079 --> 00:43:44.159
need to explain then why you can't go any further. Yes,
812
00:43:44.239 --> 00:43:46.760
we know you want that information. We can't discuss that
813
00:43:47.119 --> 00:43:50.760
for these reasons. We understand the question. We appreciate the question.
814
00:43:51.199 --> 00:43:55.079
We can't violate somebody else's privacy. We can't violate this
815
00:43:55.199 --> 00:43:58.840
court or we can't violate this and so we're gonna
816
00:43:58.840 --> 00:44:01.039
be able to go this far. At least give them
817
00:44:01.039 --> 00:44:04.639
a reason why you can't disclose something. If your reason
818
00:44:04.800 --> 00:44:07.880
for not talking about something is because it's uncomfortable as
819
00:44:07.920 --> 00:44:10.679
an organization, as an executive, as a leader, as an individual,
820
00:44:10.800 --> 00:44:13.199
it's not a good enough reason, because now what you're
821
00:44:13.239 --> 00:44:15.679
telling somebody is you are not going to be candid
822
00:44:15.719 --> 00:44:19.159
and forth right enough. And that skept that skepticism they
823
00:44:19.199 --> 00:44:22.760
already have of you, and the trust that they are
824
00:44:22.760 --> 00:44:26.559
now calling in the question only gets only gets amplified,
825
00:44:26.880 --> 00:44:29.119
and they'll walk away from you, and and that's a
826
00:44:29.159 --> 00:44:29.679
bad scene.
827
00:44:31.960 --> 00:44:35.840
Thank you for that. That's very helpful. I yeah, I've
828
00:44:35.920 --> 00:44:41.400
seen more often than not executive leaders CEO C suite
829
00:44:41.440 --> 00:44:46.039
for example, not really do a great job with internal communications.
830
00:44:46.679 --> 00:44:50.199
I mean, what's what is it? Not enough?
831
00:44:51.559 --> 00:44:55.000
No, it's often overlooked. Yeah, it's it's off and overlooked.
832
00:44:55.079 --> 00:44:57.599
It's not important, like what what, what's the deal?
833
00:44:58.320 --> 00:45:01.639
It's not it's not given the priority that that people see.
834
00:45:01.960 --> 00:45:06.679
They don't really understand that that dilemma. They don't understand
835
00:45:06.679 --> 00:45:11.360
that your employees are your first line of marketing. They're
836
00:45:11.400 --> 00:45:14.559
your cheapest form too, because they are the ones who
837
00:45:14.599 --> 00:45:16.639
will validate to their friends or their families, to the
838
00:45:16.719 --> 00:45:19.599
customers what you're saying in the public domain. And if
839
00:45:19.599 --> 00:45:22.119
you haven't talked to them, and let's say you put
840
00:45:22.119 --> 00:45:23.960
out a press release and a customer calls in or
841
00:45:24.000 --> 00:45:25.559
a friends calls and go, hey, what's going on here?
842
00:45:25.559 --> 00:45:27.320
And they go, I have no idea what's going on?
843
00:45:27.639 --> 00:45:30.119
No one's talked about me. Anything you've said in public
844
00:45:30.159 --> 00:45:33.599
now just gets discounted. It gets discredited, it's believed to
845
00:45:33.719 --> 00:45:37.079
not be true because nobody else is on your team.
846
00:45:37.119 --> 00:45:39.639
And yeah, the way, especially the people who work for
847
00:45:39.719 --> 00:45:42.599
the organization don't even know what's going on or can
848
00:45:42.679 --> 00:45:46.039
defend it then, or like understand what is the messaging
849
00:45:46.079 --> 00:45:47.639
behind what are we supposed to be saying?
850
00:45:48.320 --> 00:45:51.119
Absolutely, the employees are the ones that will help you
851
00:45:51.559 --> 00:45:54.119
get through a situation. If you let them do that,
852
00:45:54.519 --> 00:45:57.599
and if you're concerned about your employees not being in
853
00:45:57.639 --> 00:46:02.119
your corner, you've got a workplace culture that needs that
854
00:46:02.199 --> 00:46:05.440
needs to be worked on, right. You've got some serious
855
00:46:05.480 --> 00:46:09.280
issues on there that professionals in both HR and leadership
856
00:46:09.360 --> 00:46:12.039
coaching probably need to get involved and soon. And that's
857
00:46:12.079 --> 00:46:14.519
the other thing that happens. Usually after a crisis, you
858
00:46:14.599 --> 00:46:19.000
identify shortcomings and operation and personnel and finances and customer
859
00:46:19.039 --> 00:46:21.480
service and sales. And I like to bring in people,
860
00:46:21.840 --> 00:46:25.079
yourself included, to come in and help them with that,
861
00:46:25.079 --> 00:46:27.280
because I say, I've got the world's worst business model.
862
00:46:27.320 --> 00:46:29.280
I never want to repeat customer. Please don't come back
863
00:46:29.320 --> 00:46:31.760
to me with the same problem six months later. And
864
00:46:31.800 --> 00:46:34.360
here's the thing, here's the incentive. If you do, my
865
00:46:34.519 --> 00:46:37.679
fees will double. They're already pretty pricy, but my fees
866
00:46:37.719 --> 00:46:39.639
will double. Not because I'm being a jerk, not because
867
00:46:39.679 --> 00:46:41.159
I'm going to take advantage of it, but because it's
868
00:46:41.199 --> 00:46:44.880
going to be extraordinarily expensive to try to convince audiences
869
00:46:44.920 --> 00:46:47.440
to give you a third chance. Yeah, they're apt to
870
00:46:47.440 --> 00:46:49.159
give you a second chance if they believe you, but
871
00:46:49.199 --> 00:46:53.639
if you mess with them again, they are walking away.
872
00:46:53.719 --> 00:46:56.519
Fully once, shame on you forlly twice shame on me,
873
00:46:56.960 --> 00:46:57.400
and I'm.
874
00:46:57.280 --> 00:46:57.719
Out of here.
875
00:46:58.519 --> 00:47:01.800
Wow, Dave, Oh my gosh, what a great way to
876
00:47:02.000 --> 00:47:09.679
end this segment that was so amazing, interesting, difficult to
877
00:47:09.760 --> 00:47:14.320
hear at times, but still nonetheless very engaging. Really helped
878
00:47:14.360 --> 00:47:19.800
us understand what you do, understand a lot about preventing
879
00:47:19.880 --> 00:47:22.320
crises as well as what to do in terms of
880
00:47:22.440 --> 00:47:26.320
communications and crisis. So thank you, thank you. If someone
881
00:47:26.320 --> 00:47:29.119
else wants to hear more about what you do or
882
00:47:29.360 --> 00:47:31.400
continue the conversation, how can they best get a.
883
00:47:31.360 --> 00:47:32.559
Hold of you?
884
00:47:32.559 --> 00:47:34.719
You know it can go to my website, but probably
885
00:47:34.800 --> 00:47:38.159
just google Dave Oats Crisis PR. My LinkedIn profile comes up,
886
00:47:38.199 --> 00:47:41.519
my website comes up, my social medi accounts on Instagram
887
00:47:41.519 --> 00:47:43.960
and Facebook come up Dave oats Crisis PR.
888
00:47:44.480 --> 00:47:45.840
And I really appreciate the time.
889
00:47:45.880 --> 00:47:48.239
This has been so much fun to relive a real
890
00:47:48.239 --> 00:47:51.480
success story with doctor golcol And thanks thanks for allowing
891
00:47:51.559 --> 00:47:52.559
me the platform to do so.
892
00:47:52.679 --> 00:47:54.440
He's yank you such a good guys.
893
00:47:54.840 --> 00:47:57.559
Thank you for sharing that. That's great, and thank you
894
00:47:57.599 --> 00:48:01.679
for the great work you do, says Ashiarora. Join us
895
00:48:01.800 --> 00:48:04.880
every Sunday at four pm Pacific Standard time. As we
896
00:48:04.960 --> 00:48:08.480
have great leaders like day Votes and others who are
897
00:48:08.480 --> 00:48:11.679
creating a lot of commotion or helping people work through
898
00:48:11.719 --> 00:48:15.760
the commotion that is being created. Thank you Rakasavani Radio
899
00:48:15.840 --> 00:48:19.239
and iHeartRadio for hosting our platform. Have a great rest
900
00:48:19.239 --> 00:48:19.599
of your day.
901
00:48:19.639 --> 00:48:41.280
Bye bye the
902
00:48:41.320 --> 00:48:46.760
World's most listen to South Asian radio and podcast network
1
00:00:07.120 --> 00:00:10.919
Hello, and welcome to Leaders Creating Rugus on Rugus Avenue Radio,
2
00:00:11.199 --> 00:00:14.800
the world's largest South Asian radio and podcast network. Here
3
00:00:14.839 --> 00:00:19.280
on iHeartRadio, I'm your host, Ashi Aurora, the founder of
4
00:00:19.320 --> 00:00:22.640
Irise Executive Coaching. I bring over twenty five years of
5
00:00:22.719 --> 00:00:27.839
leadership experience and specialize in guiding professionals to transform conflict
6
00:00:27.879 --> 00:00:32.399
into collaboration through my strengths based Eyrise model. Our show
7
00:00:32.439 --> 00:00:36.079
dives into the minds of visionary, bold leaders who challenge
8
00:00:36.119 --> 00:00:40.679
the status quo, from business innovators to cultural pioneers. Expect
9
00:00:40.759 --> 00:00:45.359
candid conversations about radical thinking, breakthrough strategies, and the courage
10
00:00:45.399 --> 00:00:49.640
to blaze new trails. Let's inspire transformations in your professional
11
00:00:49.640 --> 00:00:50.399
life together.
12
00:01:03.240 --> 00:01:07.439
Check out Rucus Avenue Radio dot com for our full
13
00:01:07.519 --> 00:01:12.560
schedule and listen to past episodes available on all major
14
00:01:12.719 --> 00:01:23.799
podcast platforms.
15
00:01:23.879 --> 00:01:27.959
And now I'd like to introduce today's guest, Chris's PR
16
00:01:28.120 --> 00:01:32.560
expert David Oates. Hey, Dave, Welcome the Leaders Creating Ruckus.
17
00:01:32.879 --> 00:01:35.000
It's so good to see Ashi. Thanks for the time.
18
00:01:36.000 --> 00:01:39.480
All right, So I have had the pleasure of hearing
19
00:01:39.519 --> 00:01:45.239
you speak and listening to multiple case stories. Yeah, and
20
00:01:45.359 --> 00:01:47.799
I just want to jam right at the beginning of
21
00:01:47.840 --> 00:01:50.840
the show today with the one that just stop me
22
00:01:50.920 --> 00:01:53.680
dead in my tracks, like the one that I heard
23
00:01:53.719 --> 00:01:57.799
you talk about the twenty twenty one case with case
24
00:01:57.879 --> 00:02:00.799
in Texas. I'm sure many of our listeners know about it,
25
00:02:01.280 --> 00:02:04.239
but they don't really know all about it the way
26
00:02:04.319 --> 00:02:08.319
you do. So Dave walk us through what was going
27
00:02:08.400 --> 00:02:13.800
on when a good Samaritan, a doctor was trying to
28
00:02:14.560 --> 00:02:18.400
get as many people vaccinated as possible and ran into problems.
29
00:02:19.120 --> 00:02:21.240
So I want to start with the story of doctor
30
00:02:21.319 --> 00:02:27.319
Hassan Gocol. Doctor Gocol was about ten, if memory serves me,
31
00:02:27.840 --> 00:02:30.840
when he and his family immigrated from Pakistan to actually
32
00:02:30.879 --> 00:02:35.960
upstate New York, and it was in his young preteen
33
00:02:36.240 --> 00:02:39.360
teenage years. He said about the time he was sixteen
34
00:02:39.439 --> 00:02:39.800
that he.
35
00:02:39.840 --> 00:02:42.560
Knew he wanted to be a doctor. He knew he
36
00:02:42.599 --> 00:02:43.000
wanted to.
37
00:02:43.000 --> 00:02:47.520
Help people, and after schooling had gotten down, to make
38
00:02:47.560 --> 00:02:49.960
a long story short, down to Houston, Texas. And when
39
00:02:50.000 --> 00:02:52.240
I asked him about that, he said, I got to
40
00:02:52.280 --> 00:02:56.520
Houston because that's where medicine was being practice at a
41
00:02:56.639 --> 00:02:59.759
very innovative and high level. A lot of people from
42
00:02:59.800 --> 00:03:03.199
all over the world, including into China, come to Houston
43
00:03:03.280 --> 00:03:05.520
because of their amazing.
44
00:03:05.039 --> 00:03:06.719
Medical centers to do work.
45
00:03:07.000 --> 00:03:10.080
And not only was he practicing medicine, he was practicing
46
00:03:10.159 --> 00:03:11.680
medicine in the emergency room.
47
00:03:11.719 --> 00:03:13.240
He was an emergency room physician.
48
00:03:13.599 --> 00:03:17.479
So he's seen people at their most vulnerable, at their worst,
49
00:03:17.680 --> 00:03:21.080
and probably the most scared. They don't know what the
50
00:03:21.080 --> 00:03:25.159
outcome is going to be. And doctor Golcal oftentimes would
51
00:03:25.199 --> 00:03:27.319
see these patients having never seen them before, didn't know
52
00:03:27.360 --> 00:03:30.000
their history, didn't know their background, had to not only
53
00:03:30.360 --> 00:03:33.240
care for them from a techician, you know, technician standpoint,
54
00:03:33.680 --> 00:03:37.120
but had to really provide that care and comfort and
55
00:03:37.520 --> 00:03:40.199
get that trust that you give with the patient right
56
00:03:40.199 --> 00:03:42.800
off the bat. And I had the pleasure of knowing
57
00:03:42.879 --> 00:03:46.360
this guy through his brother and through his families, and
58
00:03:47.120 --> 00:03:47.840
I just think the.
59
00:03:47.759 --> 00:03:48.400
World of him.
60
00:03:48.879 --> 00:03:52.879
He had decided during the middle of COVID to take
61
00:03:53.120 --> 00:03:56.360
up the Harris County Public Health Department. So that's the
62
00:03:56.400 --> 00:04:00.960
county that Houston, you know, resides in, that is responsible
63
00:04:00.960 --> 00:04:05.240
for all public health initiatives. He decided to join them
64
00:04:05.479 --> 00:04:08.439
after he was recruited to help with COVID mitigation and
65
00:04:08.479 --> 00:04:10.360
then vaccines when they came out there.
66
00:04:10.400 --> 00:04:13.000
This is around or so this is the end.
67
00:04:13.120 --> 00:04:16.360
This is twenty twenty when he joins the public Health Department.
68
00:04:16.560 --> 00:04:20.120
At the end, like literally the very end of twenty twenty,
69
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this was December twenty ninth, vaccines get rolled out, the
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Maderna vaccines specifically, without a lot of direction except for
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the state of Texas at the time, and the federal
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government said.
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Rollies out.
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Get these the first responders and healthcare workers first, and
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then don't waste any vaccines. So if you've if you don't,
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if you basically run out of healthcare workers at first
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responders find people with comorbidities sixty five of eight years
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of age and older, and things of that nature. So
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he and his team roll out with not a lot
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of preparation and on their own, get out to a
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vaccine site that was designated by his superiors, and for
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twelve hours vaccinates healthcare workers and first responders.
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That come there.
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About fifteen minutes before the end of this long, arduous
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twelve hour days, a healthcare worker pulls up in their
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vehicle because that's the way they were doing It proves
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that they are employees' healthcare worker and requires doctor Goldgal's
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team to puncture another vial of MODERNA vaccine. Each vial
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contains about ten or eleven dosage and they administered the vaccine.
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But that means there was about ten dosage dosages left
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in this Madonna vaccine that had to be used within
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six hours. The thing that I don't know if the
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public even knows today. Once you punctured a vial of
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Maderna vaccine, you had six hours to use it before
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was declared inert. In other words, it lost its efficacy
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and he had to throw it away. He calls his superiors,
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He's like, I've got ten dosage. I've got to do
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something with them. Everybody here has been vaccinated or they're
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going to wait, make other arrangements. His boss has told him,
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put it in a box, sent it back to him
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to the office. Well, he knew that meant that they
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were not going to be used. And this is at
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a time. Keep in mind the end of December where
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there were full.
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ICU rooms and emergency room.
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Every bed was taken and there were ambulances outside with
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COVID patients waiting for a bed in the icy room.
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They were in bad, bad shape. And doctor Coles said, no,
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we were under the directive that we were not to
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waste a vaccine, so I and he told his boss
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when he was going I'm going to find people with
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cod morbidity sixty five years of age and older, and
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I'm going to get them vaccinated. And on his own,
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through the goodness of his heart, with no real support
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from his superiors, he called friends and family and said,
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I'm not vaccining you. Who do you know six or
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five years of age and older who've got these issues.
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I want to get them vaccine. Have got ten dosages,
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and I've got to use them within six hours. And
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he was driving to people's homes. This is December, it's dark,
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it's scary. He goes out and does that on his own.
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To make a long story short, he gets all the
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vaccines used, fills out all the proper paperwork, and submits
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it into the public health department at the county. The
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next day, He's spent now twenty one hours. This is
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a public survey. He spend twenty one hours doing all
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of that and felt pretty good about himself, as he should.
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He took a hippocratic oath to take care of others,
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and they did that. A week later, he gets called
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into the human resources department of Harris County Public health
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who promptly fire him and saying you stole the vaccine,
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which shocked him to no end, to which he said, no,
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I didn't steal it. I told you what I was doing.
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Here's all the proper paperwork. But because they were afraid
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a political figure was afraid of what this might mean,
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that they didn't have proper control. Because the doctor who
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should have made the decision made the decision instead of
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a politician. They fired him for theft and turned over
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the matter to the local district attorney, the local prosecutor's office,
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at which.
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Point I took a criminal case.
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It became it became a potential criminal case. Now he's
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reeling he just got fired for doing the right thing,
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and now he's being told it's going to be turned
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over the DA. He lawyers up. He gets a really
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good criminal defense attorney who and then calls me through
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his family and we get together. And I remember when
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when he's telling me about this a couple of days later,
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and I said, Okay, look, cooler heads are going to prevail.
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People are a little bit on edge.
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It's COVID. Nobody's really sure what to do. But this
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sounds pretty ridiculous.
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Just for those who don't know about what you do.
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Why did the family call you, Dave?
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And the yeah no, and I sort of yeah, I
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sort of walked into that. I'm the guy. Business owners, executives,
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and high profile individuals called when their reputation is being
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called into question in some sort of public domain. That's
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social media accounts, that's online reviews, that's blogs, that's press coverage,
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that kind of stuff. And they're usually not always, but
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usually big enough issues that it's disrupting operations, it's disrupting employment.
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In some cases with for profit companies, it's disrupting sales.
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UH.
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For nonprofits, it could be disrupting services and so forth
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like that. In this case, the doctor Golcal's family, who
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I had to know because he's got a brother and
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a sister in law in Orange County. Uh, they said,
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this could make press and we want to be ready
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in case it does.
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So I got a call.
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This was preventative from their perspective, because well they just
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attorney and the legal team.
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But but and again he hadn't been charged at this point.
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This was we got we got to get things ready
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in case something happens. And I remember when they called
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me in and I was appreciative that I got somewhat
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of an advanced notice, but I'll tell you that I
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think I was the same as the as the criminal
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defense attorney, a guy by name of Paul Doyle who
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is out of Houston, Texans, out of Houston, Texas, excuse me,
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and it's a brilliant guy. And I think we both
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thought the same thing, which was this is going anywhere,
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like somebody's going to realize they made a gregious mistake
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that they really should hire this guy back, let alone
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not charge him. But two weeks later, out of the blue,
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without so much as the DA's office contacting his attorney
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who reached out to the prosecuting office, or calling doctor Goldcol,
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he gets charged with one count misdemeanor theft, punishable by
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four thousand US dollars and one year in prison. And
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the way doctor Gocal found out about that is he
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get to knock on his door and there's a news
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camera pointing at him saying can you comment on this?
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And that's the first time he found out that he
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was being charged as a criminal by the Harris County
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Public District Attorney's office, at which point his brother texted
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me and we had forty five minutes to get a
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statement out to the press, because we knew if it
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was one station, that it was going to be several.
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The Harrison County DA's office put out a press release
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calling this guy criminal throwing his twenty year of spotless
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and I want to articulate spotless professional record, not a
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BLI not a smudge on his record. We're trying to
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throw him under the bus for a policy and the
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criminal defense attorney and I became fast friends. Within forty
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five minutes, we had a statement out to the media
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within two hours. This story not only permeates through Houston,
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not only goes national through all of the US, it
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goes international, It hits the Pond, goes to the UK
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Daily Mail, it goes to Pakistan because of his Pakistani
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heritage and his Pakistani connections, and it's now a global phenomenon.
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And I was proud of the fact that we were
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able to get a statement in there that we attributed
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to the defense attorney, his attorney, mister Doyle, who we
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said doctor Cocho is a good and faithful servant who
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went above and beyond to sure no vaccine got wasted
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in the Harris County DA's office and Public Health Department
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wanted to throw him under the bus to shield a
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bad policy and continue on with their operations. Will not stand.
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We are looking forward to our day in court to
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write this wrong. We then did a virtual press conference
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the next day, literally because we were still in COVID
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there's still the restrictions of meeting in public. We had
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the Criminal Defense Journey on zoom. I had news media
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from all over the world, predominantly in the US, but
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I literally we had him all over the world asking questions.
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For an hour, we answered questions about why the charge
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was erroneous and outlined just what I told you about
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doctor Golkel going above and beyond to ensure no vaccine
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got wasted and people people got protected to the best
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extent that he could. And three days later, because this
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was now a Friday, three days later, so it's sext
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two days later, Monday, excuse me.
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Three days later.
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That Monday, the matter goes in front of a criminal
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court judge Judge buying them, who almost immediately dismisses the
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case and be rates the DA called the charge erroneous.
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We thought, finally reasonable heads prevail. I started literally watching
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my hands and going finally, we're done.
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That was it.
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I thought three days we pretty much nailed this, and
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the ridiculousness of this charge has now ended.
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I was wrong.
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Three hours after the judge dismissed the case, the district attorney,
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for reasons I still don't really understand, was at a
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press conference and asked about this case, and she said, well,
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the judge doesn't have the final say, we will send
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this to a grand jury, and then proceeds to torture
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and threaten doctor Gokel with the possibility of a grand
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jury and diape in for the next five and a
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half months. Basically, she didn't want to admit that she
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was wrong, that her team jumped the gun, that they
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assumed too much and they got it wrong. So in
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order to save her personal face, she was willing to
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throw this good man under the bus and insinuated the
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fact that the people that he called in the middle
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of the night were because he was trying to hoard
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vaccines for his podcast, Downy Friends and Neighbors, which is
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absolutely bogus. But because there was no policy and procedures
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on how you were going to use the extra vaccines,
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doctor gocol took it upon himself to find people six
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surviving over comorbidities to do it. Well, guess who's on
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his phone. People who are on his phone are the
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people that are of his are part of his faith,
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are part of his community, and of course they would
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be leaning toward that. But that's certainly not why we did,
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and we knew that the We knew that was bogus
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from the start, but because the DA wouldn't let go
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the defense attorney mister Doyle and I with doctor Gokeel's consent,
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we said, the world needs to understand how wrong this is.
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So we started a global media campaign. We had him
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on the front page, top full of New York Times.
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I had him on all the cable outlets that are
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here in the US.
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We had him in all the Houston I remember all
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this in real time, but I didn't realize how intentional it.
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It was very intentional. We were not talking the press
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because you don't typically want to litigate this type of
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matter in the public. But when the DA continually tried
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to basically go against Judge's directions, which was the right call,
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we felt like somebody had to call her out on that.
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Somebody had to put her in check. From that, and
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the story was so compelling. I mean, people are like,
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how did you were able to convey the story? The
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story was cut and dry. This was as basic as
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you get. A intern in public relations could see the
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story and write it up, and it's just no disrespect
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to interns I teach at San Diego State University. My
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point is is that it wasn't hard to come up
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with that because the truth was so blatant, and the
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district attorney, because of her political aspirations, just basically through
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truth to the through truth away to continue with this narrative.
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So she could say, Base, I think you're listening to
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Ruckus Avenue Radio.
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So it was an easy story to tell, and we
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had him live all over place, including Asia based media
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and UK based media and all that. And the goal
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we were trying to do is to convince put enough
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pressure on the da UH to not press forward to
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finally admit what she should have admitted on day one,
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that they got it wrong, that they were they jumped
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the gun.
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This campaign still took five and a half months.
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It took five and a half months because she would
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not give up. But we were savvy enough that we
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whenever she tried to put out a little communication where
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she had to mention it and everything like that. Because
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because we had wound up getting so well connected thanks
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to doctor Gocol within the local community, the medical community,
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the local Indochina community, particularly Pakistani community, and the general press.
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At that point we had developed enough relationships that when
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they were putting out something, we would get calls to
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ask to respond, and so we had statements always at
313
00:17:14.960 --> 00:17:18.039
they're ready. They could never try to reset the narrative,
314
00:17:18.559 --> 00:17:21.160
and even to the point that when they did finally
315
00:17:21.359 --> 00:17:23.960
think they had an opening to send it the grand jury.
316
00:17:24.359 --> 00:17:25.839
The DA's office.
317
00:17:27.319 --> 00:17:30.559
Told the prosecutor going into the grand jury that when
318
00:17:30.599 --> 00:17:33.920
the grand jury makes its decision up or down, do
319
00:17:34.079 --> 00:17:37.480
not let the defense attorney mister Doyle know what was
320
00:17:37.559 --> 00:17:39.680
going on until after they put out a release, which
321
00:17:40.119 --> 00:17:43.839
is not common. Usually as a courtesy when a grand
322
00:17:43.920 --> 00:17:45.960
jury makes a decision, even though the defense council is
323
00:17:46.000 --> 00:17:49.599
not present, the prosecutor usually lets the defense council know
324
00:17:49.680 --> 00:17:53.119
what happened before the DA makes any statement. But they
325
00:17:53.119 --> 00:17:57.039
wanted to make a statement from that, But mister Doyle
326
00:17:57.319 --> 00:17:59.720
knew the bailiff in the room, who got a text
327
00:18:00.160 --> 00:18:03.319
that told him that the grand jury finally came. Grand
328
00:18:03.359 --> 00:18:05.440
jury did what it did, the same thing that the
329
00:18:05.440 --> 00:18:09.160
criminal judge did six months before and which has dismissed
330
00:18:09.160 --> 00:18:12.759
the case. They did not indict miss doctor Gocle, And
331
00:18:12.839 --> 00:18:16.640
before the prosecutor left the room, we had press release
332
00:18:16.680 --> 00:18:21.039
out an interview set up with doctor Gocle and mister Doyle.
333
00:18:20.960 --> 00:18:22.359
To explain the truth.
334
00:18:22.759 --> 00:18:25.880
And that was, out of the thirty years I've been
335
00:18:25.920 --> 00:18:28.599
in this business, the best thing I've done. Oh by
336
00:18:28.599 --> 00:18:32.279
the way, as a PostScript, the DA's who ran for
337
00:18:32.319 --> 00:18:35.079
reelection didn't even make it out of her primary. And
338
00:18:36.559 --> 00:18:40.279
I take personal pride, I take I take person. I
339
00:18:40.319 --> 00:18:42.599
take personal pride in that I'm not a I'm not
340
00:18:42.640 --> 00:18:46.720
a political guy. But this is really one of those
341
00:18:46.799 --> 00:18:49.599
cases where it was truly one good person and one
342
00:18:49.640 --> 00:18:53.799
not so good person and uh and and trying to
343
00:18:53.799 --> 00:18:56.839
throw what is truly a genuinely good and decent human
344
00:18:56.880 --> 00:19:00.599
being and his family under the bus. So you can say,
345
00:19:00.599 --> 00:19:02.920
political face is unconsiderable to me, and so I was.
346
00:19:03.000 --> 00:19:03.279
I was.
347
00:19:04.039 --> 00:19:06.000
I felt it was a great privilege to be able
348
00:19:06.039 --> 00:19:07.559
to do that for a man that I now call
349
00:19:07.640 --> 00:19:08.039
my friend.
350
00:19:08.880 --> 00:19:12.920
Yeah. Wow, what a powerful, powerful story.
351
00:19:13.000 --> 00:19:17.440
Dave it's still so was this was five years ago,
352
00:19:17.519 --> 00:19:19.880
almost five years ago. Now, well we were in the
353
00:19:19.880 --> 00:19:22.039
midst of it five years ago, and I still, you know,
354
00:19:22.039 --> 00:19:24.200
I'm still I still talk about it. Yeah, I don't
355
00:19:24.279 --> 00:19:28.440
think I was a Navy officer. Yeah, well, just to
356
00:19:28.480 --> 00:19:30.799
give you some backstory, right, as a Navy I was
357
00:19:30.799 --> 00:19:33.200
the United States and Navy officer, proud to serve both
358
00:19:33.279 --> 00:19:36.880
in service warfare, combat capacities, and then as a public
359
00:19:36.880 --> 00:19:39.279
affairs officer. I got to do some really cool things.
360
00:19:39.640 --> 00:19:41.920
I've worked as a marketing head of software companies. I've
361
00:19:41.920 --> 00:19:45.119
worked as nonprofit presidents, I've worked in various capacity I've
362
00:19:45.119 --> 00:19:49.599
had I've had a really good, fortunate professional and quite
363
00:19:49.599 --> 00:19:52.079
frankly personal life, and I'm I'm blessed that. But there
364
00:19:52.079 --> 00:19:55.359
are a few things that top that's success story for me.
365
00:19:56.079 --> 00:20:00.640
If I go, you know, whatever, whatever I've been judged,
366
00:20:00.680 --> 00:20:02.759
that's in the good column, and I'm grateful for him.
367
00:20:03.720 --> 00:20:08.480
Wow, that's that's just so so powerful, so moving, so incredible.
368
00:20:09.640 --> 00:20:12.240
Thank you for sharing that and the type of work
369
00:20:12.279 --> 00:20:16.400
you do. Mean wow, like how it all fit into place,
370
00:20:16.960 --> 00:20:20.519
I can't imagine. I'm sure that your friends here in
371
00:20:20.519 --> 00:20:23.559
Orange County could have never imagined this was going to happen.
372
00:20:23.359 --> 00:20:26.200
To I don't think any of us, none of us
373
00:20:26.240 --> 00:20:28.799
would have seen that coming. Yeah, right, let alone know
374
00:20:28.880 --> 00:20:30.880
somebody who had to who had to endure that, Right,
375
00:20:31.960 --> 00:20:33.799
And it's a privileged to know doctor gocl and its
376
00:20:33.839 --> 00:20:36.000
privileged to know his family. I had to go out
377
00:20:36.039 --> 00:20:39.319
there for business to Houston, and he lives in the
378
00:20:39.359 --> 00:20:44.319
sugar Land area, And and.
379
00:20:43.000 --> 00:20:44.400
I hope he's still practicing.
380
00:20:45.039 --> 00:20:48.519
Oh, he's still he's still practicing. He is an emergency
381
00:20:48.559 --> 00:20:51.799
room physician. He had to slow that down a little
382
00:20:51.799 --> 00:20:55.279
bit because of just the pressure and the toll that
383
00:20:55.279 --> 00:20:56.200
that ordeal took.
384
00:20:56.119 --> 00:21:00.559
For him from that one there. But he No, he's practicing.
385
00:21:00.599 --> 00:21:01.920
He's still doing amazing work.
386
00:21:02.440 --> 00:21:04.400
But I got to meet his family, and I got
387
00:21:04.440 --> 00:21:08.279
to also understand the toll it took on his family,
388
00:21:09.119 --> 00:21:14.839
particularly his parents and his kids. But but but it
389
00:21:14.880 --> 00:21:16.880
was grateful to see sort of the outcome on that.
390
00:21:16.960 --> 00:21:20.240
And yeah, it's it's just it's one of those one
391
00:21:20.279 --> 00:21:22.119
of those things that I'll always remember.
392
00:21:23.160 --> 00:21:28.480
Wow. So, so how did you mentioned that you've had
393
00:21:29.240 --> 00:21:34.039
a great professional and personal history. How did you get
394
00:21:34.119 --> 00:21:36.839
and I'm calling you a PR crisis expert? Is there
395
00:21:37.000 --> 00:21:38.440
another term you.
396
00:21:38.480 --> 00:21:44.359
Like to use, I say sorry to interrupt, I say
397
00:21:44.400 --> 00:21:45.440
crisis communication.
398
00:21:45.960 --> 00:21:47.920
Crisis PR is easier for people to remember.
399
00:21:48.279 --> 00:21:50.039
But a lot of the things that I work on
400
00:21:50.240 --> 00:21:55.000
is helping organizations and entities communicate to audiences that are
401
00:21:55.039 --> 00:21:56.920
not the press. In fact, sometimes the press are not
402
00:21:57.680 --> 00:21:59.279
are not even involved in some of the work that
403
00:21:59.319 --> 00:22:04.759
I do. Sometimes it's effectively conveying information to employees, to staff,
404
00:22:04.880 --> 00:22:09.039
right directly to customers or clients, or if you're nonprofit donors,
405
00:22:09.440 --> 00:22:14.799
investors and other stakeholders, business partners or partners that you
406
00:22:14.880 --> 00:22:18.880
do some sort of wonderful nonprofit philanthropic you know, initiative.
407
00:22:19.759 --> 00:22:22.680
So I call it crisis communication work. And I'm the
408
00:22:22.720 --> 00:22:26.400
guy that comes in. Usually, I like, you know, I
409
00:22:26.480 --> 00:22:28.319
like to come in the preventive side, or when somebody's
410
00:22:28.359 --> 00:22:30.799
thinking about, hey, all the what if scenarios that can
411
00:22:30.799 --> 00:22:33.880
go wrong with an organization. But oftentimes I get called
412
00:22:33.920 --> 00:22:37.039
when the houses figuratively if not literally, on fire and
413
00:22:37.079 --> 00:22:40.480
there's something that's gone awry, something uninspected, something that has
414
00:22:40.519 --> 00:22:45.839
people questioning the authenticity and the legitimacy of not all
415
00:22:45.839 --> 00:22:49.200
the organization but the leaders within that organization specifically, and
416
00:22:49.279 --> 00:22:52.920
helping them be able to convey empathy and action to
417
00:22:53.079 --> 00:22:55.759
get through a certain situation, even if it's simply just
418
00:22:55.759 --> 00:23:00.640
a misunderstanding, but sometimes it's you know, catastrophic matters that that.
419
00:23:00.640 --> 00:23:01.359
You had to deal with.
420
00:23:01.480 --> 00:23:04.920
I sadly remember when I first met you, you were
421
00:23:05.119 --> 00:23:07.759
you know, kind of the connection we had from a
422
00:23:07.759 --> 00:23:10.799
healthcare perspective was how much work you had to do
423
00:23:11.640 --> 00:23:18.559
for long term care facilities because COVID was ripping through
424
00:23:18.839 --> 00:23:22.319
the senior population, especially at a time where we didn't
425
00:23:22.359 --> 00:23:25.640
even know it was COVID. So tell us about kind
426
00:23:25.640 --> 00:23:28.319
of that time too, or any stories that came out
427
00:23:28.359 --> 00:23:28.680
of that.
428
00:23:29.000 --> 00:23:29.240
You know.
429
00:23:29.359 --> 00:23:31.039
So this is a tail end on that I got
430
00:23:31.079 --> 00:23:36.759
introduced to a long term care skilled nursing facility chain,
431
00:23:37.359 --> 00:23:44.240
an organization that operated north of fifty facilities throughout here
432
00:23:44.240 --> 00:23:49.279
in the United States, throughout California and Nevada. And you know,
433
00:23:49.680 --> 00:23:55.319
that population being very vulnerable to new ailments, in this case,
434
00:23:55.359 --> 00:24:00.400
the COVID virus. They even with the best ffforts and
435
00:24:00.440 --> 00:24:05.480
the best mitigation practices, couldn't keep the virus out. So
436
00:24:07.240 --> 00:24:10.319
at times we would have different facilities that would be
437
00:24:10.319 --> 00:24:13.039
the largest outbreak in their region, if not the state
438
00:24:13.279 --> 00:24:14.640
at that point, and.
439
00:24:16.839 --> 00:24:17.559
I still remember.
440
00:24:17.599 --> 00:24:21.920
I mean, I think there was I think at one time,
441
00:24:22.079 --> 00:24:26.400
you know, out of the thousands of residents as they
442
00:24:26.440 --> 00:24:28.440
call them in these facilities, I think there was something
443
00:24:28.480 --> 00:24:31.680
like I think the running taly was like five hundred
444
00:24:32.119 --> 00:24:35.759
residents infected and or five hundred residents who passed away,
445
00:24:35.799 --> 00:24:38.039
excuse me, and thousands that were infected. And then there
446
00:24:38.039 --> 00:24:40.720
were healthcare workers who were also infected, and a few
447
00:24:40.720 --> 00:24:44.000
of them passed away from that. And what I got
448
00:24:44.079 --> 00:24:47.880
to witness was not only some great efforts by a
449
00:24:47.960 --> 00:24:50.160
lot of staff members who were trying to do the
450
00:24:50.240 --> 00:24:53.480
right thing, but also the mental toll it took on
451
00:24:53.559 --> 00:24:56.160
them as they were trying to fight something that we
452
00:24:56.160 --> 00:24:58.880
were all just trying to learn as we went and
453
00:24:59.000 --> 00:25:02.480
not really sure about that. And the thing that we
454
00:25:03.319 --> 00:25:05.960
prided ourselves in when we were working through that the
455
00:25:06.079 --> 00:25:09.039
organizations time was called Plumb Healthcare. It's since been sold
456
00:25:09.920 --> 00:25:13.119
to a larger entity. But one of the things I
457
00:25:13.160 --> 00:25:16.920
appreciate about the Plumb health Care management is will we
458
00:25:16.960 --> 00:25:19.440
will tell the truth. We will convey the information as
459
00:25:19.519 --> 00:25:22.839
quickly as we can. We convey it often, not just
460
00:25:23.039 --> 00:25:27.319
again to the press, which was all over it, national local, regional,
461
00:25:27.599 --> 00:25:31.599
but also to family members who were just as distraught
462
00:25:31.720 --> 00:25:34.200
because they couldn't get into the facilities to see their
463
00:25:34.240 --> 00:25:37.720
loved one, which was gut wrenching for both them as
464
00:25:37.759 --> 00:25:40.640
well as the staff members who were trying very hard
465
00:25:40.680 --> 00:25:42.920
to convey the information to them and then tell them, no,
466
00:25:43.000 --> 00:25:46.039
for your safety, we can't have you come into these facilities,
467
00:25:46.079 --> 00:25:49.440
and that was just heartbreaking, And so we did that
468
00:25:49.519 --> 00:25:53.039
on a regular basis, and I think that helped. If
469
00:25:53.079 --> 00:25:55.759
you look at some of the cases other skilled nursing
470
00:25:55.759 --> 00:25:58.920
facilities throughout the country, the ones that wound up getting
471
00:25:58.920 --> 00:26:01.480
the most ridicule but also the ones that got the
472
00:26:01.519 --> 00:26:04.599
most investigations done to them by state regulators. We're the
473
00:26:04.640 --> 00:26:06.480
ones who weren't set up to communicate, the ones who
474
00:26:06.480 --> 00:26:08.759
didn't convey it. So all of a sudden, there was
475
00:26:08.839 --> 00:26:12.359
this surprise. And I think that's probably one of the
476
00:26:12.400 --> 00:26:15.519
things that I talk about most when it comes to
477
00:26:15.559 --> 00:26:20.519
crisis communications. Things that makes something a crisis is the unexpected.
478
00:26:21.160 --> 00:26:22.119
It's a shock value.
479
00:26:22.160 --> 00:26:25.240
They thought you knew you and then nobody hears from you.
480
00:26:25.319 --> 00:26:27.559
So it's that lack of communications. I don't come at
481
00:26:27.559 --> 00:26:30.720
this from any sort of moral authority I'm a practitioner,
482
00:26:31.039 --> 00:26:33.279
I'm as fragile as anybody else in those times of
483
00:26:33.319 --> 00:26:37.279
stress to not necessarily be willing to be as the
484
00:26:37.319 --> 00:26:41.200
phrase I use is confidently vulnerable. But it's so important
485
00:26:41.319 --> 00:26:43.720
in a time period where you're trying to convince audiences
486
00:26:43.720 --> 00:26:45.960
that you have their interest at heart, that you're caring
487
00:26:45.960 --> 00:26:48.480
about them, and to the extent you can, you are
488
00:26:48.480 --> 00:26:54.640
being as transparent as possible. And it was really the
489
00:26:54.680 --> 00:26:58.440
first nine months. The first three months were really torturous
490
00:26:58.559 --> 00:27:00.799
as we were trying to get test case in those
491
00:27:00.839 --> 00:27:04.000
facilities up and running because the production on those test
492
00:27:04.079 --> 00:27:07.160
kits were tough. But once there was adequate test kits
493
00:27:07.160 --> 00:27:11.319
about three three months into COVID, you could test every
494
00:27:11.359 --> 00:27:15.400
resident weekly and that helped identify people who were infected
495
00:27:15.480 --> 00:27:19.799
far earlier so they could start isolation and other treatment procedures.
496
00:27:20.720 --> 00:27:22.880
But the first you know, first three months were torturous.
497
00:27:23.000 --> 00:27:24.319
The next six months were.
498
00:27:24.200 --> 00:27:28.400
Intense, and then when vaccines rolled out, you know, I
499
00:27:28.440 --> 00:27:32.079
saw a demonstrative drop and those affected and let alone
500
00:27:32.079 --> 00:27:35.599
those who were seriously affected and who had to go
501
00:27:35.640 --> 00:27:40.359
to the hospital, and death rates plummeted, and thank yoursel.
502
00:27:40.319 --> 00:27:44.119
During this time, Yeah, what was your communication external communication
503
00:27:44.319 --> 00:27:46.079
strategy as well.
504
00:27:46.240 --> 00:27:53.559
We the external The external communications centered on on two
505
00:27:53.599 --> 00:27:57.119
what I'll call probably three general pillars. The first one
506
00:27:57.160 --> 00:28:00.440
was before anybody sees anything in the press, we want
507
00:28:00.440 --> 00:28:02.880
to make sure that family members and employees are notified.
508
00:28:03.440 --> 00:28:06.480
So we made sure that our internal audiences knew what
509
00:28:06.519 --> 00:28:09.759
was going on. And and when I say internal audience,
510
00:28:09.799 --> 00:28:11.880
I'm including the family members on that because we didn't
511
00:28:11.920 --> 00:28:14.960
want to see we didn't want them to see something
512
00:28:14.960 --> 00:28:16.720
in the press that they never heard from us about
513
00:28:16.720 --> 00:28:18.599
that we thought that that was a disservice to them.
514
00:28:19.039 --> 00:28:21.200
So that was the first pillars, make sure our internal
515
00:28:21.240 --> 00:28:24.119
audience has hurt from us before anybody else did. It
516
00:28:24.119 --> 00:28:27.559
didn't mean we delayed, you know, sending anything to the press,
517
00:28:27.599 --> 00:28:30.200
but we made sure that we were as focused on
518
00:28:30.240 --> 00:28:32.359
them as anything. So that was the first thing. The
519
00:28:32.400 --> 00:28:35.720
second thing is that we communicate often. There were updates
520
00:28:36.160 --> 00:28:40.400
regularly if necessary, and sometimes more than once a day
521
00:28:40.599 --> 00:28:42.680
if that was the case. To do that, and that
522
00:28:42.759 --> 00:28:46.400
was tough because again, all the healthcare workers who weren't infected,
523
00:28:46.400 --> 00:28:49.480
who were on staff, you know, they're just trying to
524
00:28:49.720 --> 00:28:53.599
treat the residents and care for the residents and there
525
00:28:53.599 --> 00:28:57.039
are different regulations that came down from state officials almost
526
00:28:57.079 --> 00:28:59.279
by the hour in the beginning stages, because everybodys trying
527
00:28:59.279 --> 00:29:01.920
to figure out how best to protect everybody, and so
528
00:29:01.960 --> 00:29:03.720
there was a lot of changes that we made, but
529
00:29:03.799 --> 00:29:06.079
we spent a lot of effort and time to do
530
00:29:06.160 --> 00:29:11.119
so and and update regularly. And then the third one
531
00:29:11.160 --> 00:29:17.960
was every every inquiry, Every question got answered. Everybody had
532
00:29:18.000 --> 00:29:20.920
an answer. There wasn't anybody who didn't get something. We
533
00:29:21.000 --> 00:29:25.240
did not want uh to there be a point at
534
00:29:25.240 --> 00:29:28.519
where somebody in the news organization, or in an influencer,
535
00:29:28.599 --> 00:29:32.279
or somebody said, uh, such and such organizations, such and
536
00:29:32.319 --> 00:29:33.319
such facility.
537
00:29:32.960 --> 00:29:33.519
Had no comment.
538
00:29:34.720 --> 00:29:36.799
We did not think. We did not We did not
539
00:29:36.880 --> 00:29:39.559
want that to happen. So we were very transparent. Sometimes
540
00:29:39.559 --> 00:29:42.440
it was by email because there wasn't really anybody who
541
00:29:42.480 --> 00:29:44.799
was available to talk. Because if we'd taken time to
542
00:29:44.839 --> 00:29:48.119
pull somebody out to have a conversation, that meant some
543
00:29:48.319 --> 00:29:51.160
that meant a resident wasn't being cared for. But we
544
00:29:51.359 --> 00:29:52.880
answered every inquiry.
545
00:29:53.039 --> 00:29:56.000
Your role was to manage all of all of that.
546
00:29:56.359 --> 00:30:00.119
I was trapped. I was I was traffic cop. I
547
00:30:00.000 --> 00:30:04.119
I coached the facilities as to what they say I pressured.
548
00:30:04.319 --> 00:30:08.359
I would pressure is probably the wrong word, but I would.
549
00:30:08.920 --> 00:30:12.279
I would ask them to dig deeper into getting as
550
00:30:12.359 --> 00:30:15.000
much information as we could and if we couldn't why,
551
00:30:15.039 --> 00:30:17.720
And sometimes it was because of federal regulations. There's privacy
552
00:30:17.759 --> 00:30:21.279
regulations hip as it's called in the United States, where
553
00:30:21.400 --> 00:30:25.960
you can't violate somebody's privacy for that. But short of that,
554
00:30:26.599 --> 00:30:28.920
you know, we were we were as transparent as we can.
555
00:30:28.960 --> 00:30:31.680
And yeah, I mean there were early on I you know,
556
00:30:32.039 --> 00:30:35.599
like like all the healthcare workers. I was pulling eighteen
557
00:30:35.680 --> 00:30:39.319
twenty hour days in that time period for that one.
558
00:30:39.079 --> 00:30:40.960
Because there was, like you said, there was so much
559
00:30:40.960 --> 00:30:45.680
coming out like on the hour constant. Yeah, and I
560
00:30:45.759 --> 00:30:48.400
had so much, so much to respond to, especially with
561
00:30:48.559 --> 00:30:51.039
such a hot, high profile situation.
562
00:30:52.039 --> 00:30:54.160
But you know, so you ask, like sometimes I get
563
00:30:54.160 --> 00:30:55.759
asked a question like why are you in this job?
564
00:30:55.799 --> 00:30:57.240
This is when people need you.
565
00:30:57.319 --> 00:30:59.880
It's so hard in my mind, Dave, why are you
566
00:31:00.079 --> 00:31:03.240
in this job? This is like like pretty high adrenaline
567
00:31:03.279 --> 00:31:05.519
and yet this high stress at the same time.
568
00:31:17.359 --> 00:31:25.119
You're listening to Ruckus Avenue Radio Avenue available now on
569
00:31:25.200 --> 00:31:27.960
the free iHeart radio app.
570
00:31:38.960 --> 00:31:42.400
This is when organizations need you. Right, it's easy.
571
00:31:43.599 --> 00:31:45.920
I say easy, and I'm gonna get I'm gonna get
572
00:31:45.920 --> 00:31:48.519
grief from some of my fellow marketing PR people, which
573
00:31:48.559 --> 00:31:51.559
I've done promotional and stuff beforehand. But it's it's cool,
574
00:31:51.599 --> 00:31:53.960
it's fun when it's a cool project that it's fun
575
00:31:54.000 --> 00:31:56.359
and you're talking about kids and puppies and you know,
576
00:31:56.400 --> 00:31:59.359
all sorts of different stuff that you everybody wants to
577
00:31:59.400 --> 00:32:03.079
talk about, wants on their Instagram feed or the their
578
00:32:03.119 --> 00:32:06.599
TikTok reels. But the fact of the matter is when
579
00:32:06.680 --> 00:32:09.759
things are not going well, this is the time that
580
00:32:09.799 --> 00:32:11.440
people want to hear from you, and they need to
581
00:32:11.480 --> 00:32:13.079
hear from you. They need to feel that sense of
582
00:32:13.119 --> 00:32:17.680
security now. So I feel fortunate when I get to
583
00:32:17.720 --> 00:32:19.839
call in and I say, people go like, how do
584
00:32:19.880 --> 00:32:21.079
you represent bad people?
585
00:32:21.119 --> 00:32:24.279
I don't. I represent good people and good organizations communicating
586
00:32:24.319 --> 00:32:25.440
through bad situations.
587
00:32:25.640 --> 00:32:28.559
And if they're willing to be that confidently vulnerable, express
588
00:32:28.599 --> 00:32:30.680
empathy and then show action of how they're going to
589
00:32:30.720 --> 00:32:32.400
fix it, I'm going to help them all day long.
590
00:32:32.680 --> 00:32:34.519
And sometimes there are people who've done some really not
591
00:32:34.559 --> 00:32:37.160
so nice things who've gone to jail, But if they're
592
00:32:37.200 --> 00:32:40.079
willing to own it and repent and try to make amends.
593
00:32:40.839 --> 00:32:43.000
I'm all in their corner and I'll help them communicate
594
00:32:43.039 --> 00:32:46.759
to the best extent possible. Now I've had to luren.
595
00:32:47.240 --> 00:32:49.160
So I've been I've been in PR and I've been
596
00:32:49.160 --> 00:32:51.799
in marketing for thirty odd years. I've done crisis from
597
00:32:51.799 --> 00:32:53.759
my early days in the Navy till then, but I
598
00:32:53.880 --> 00:32:56.680
focused on it as a full service for about eight
599
00:32:57.160 --> 00:33:00.359
really about eight and a half or so years as
600
00:33:00.960 --> 00:33:03.880
my primary job. And in that time period, I've had
601
00:33:03.880 --> 00:33:07.839
to learn the hard way how to check myself. I
602
00:33:08.400 --> 00:33:13.039
have taken on some and adopted I should say some mental.
603
00:33:12.759 --> 00:33:14.839
Really are reading my mind, because I was like, tell
604
00:33:14.880 --> 00:33:18.839
me about the ones that didn't want to exercise empathy
605
00:33:18.880 --> 00:33:20.960
and action and what did you do?
606
00:33:21.160 --> 00:33:25.359
I call them non clients and all candor. So the
607
00:33:25.359 --> 00:33:27.960
way it works is I get an organization that reaches
608
00:33:28.000 --> 00:33:31.200
out to me, either through a third party entity or a
609
00:33:31.200 --> 00:33:34.880
referral or something, or somebody finds me on my website
610
00:33:35.400 --> 00:33:38.880
or a LinkedIn profile or reaches out and you can
611
00:33:39.400 --> 00:33:41.559
I've been in this business long enough. And I don't
612
00:33:41.599 --> 00:33:43.920
say that to boast. I just say I've been kicked
613
00:33:43.920 --> 00:33:45.759
in the teeth enough to know that when somebody is
614
00:33:45.759 --> 00:33:49.400
not going to be conveying truth or be as again
615
00:33:49.440 --> 00:33:52.599
that confidently vulnerable, and so sometimes they want to use
616
00:33:52.599 --> 00:33:54.240
me as a human shield. And we've all seen those
617
00:33:54.279 --> 00:34:00.920
PR people who stand up there and categorically deny, defer,
618
00:34:01.079 --> 00:34:02.759
and sometimes quite frankly, just.
619
00:34:03.000 --> 00:34:06.119
Happening, especially a federal level right.
620
00:34:06.039 --> 00:34:08.840
Now, it's it's yeah, right, it's and sometimes, like you said,
621
00:34:08.920 --> 00:34:14.239
even at the federal level, there's bold face lie, I'm
622
00:34:14.280 --> 00:34:16.880
not that guy, and I'm not a public defender. Right
623
00:34:16.880 --> 00:34:18.960
in the United States, you know, everybody's entitled to a
624
00:34:19.039 --> 00:34:21.679
rigorous defense, and so if you can't afford when you
625
00:34:21.719 --> 00:34:24.039
get a public defender, well, I in one, I'm a
626
00:34:24.039 --> 00:34:27.280
PR guy, and so you're not entitled to my services.
627
00:34:27.360 --> 00:34:30.119
Quite frankly, so I am not in If I do
628
00:34:30.199 --> 00:34:34.800
not believe that you're being truly vulnerable, truly open, truly
629
00:34:35.079 --> 00:34:37.840
candor and forthright, and are willing to have me partner
630
00:34:37.960 --> 00:34:41.119
with that, we can discuss the fine tuning of messaging
631
00:34:41.239 --> 00:34:43.639
or how we go about that. But if you're not
632
00:34:43.679 --> 00:34:46.159
willing to take that stance, you're not a client. I
633
00:34:46.239 --> 00:34:49.000
say thank you very much, I walk away. The half
634
00:34:49.039 --> 00:34:51.079
hour to an hour conversation we have to sort of
635
00:34:51.079 --> 00:34:54.679
get to that point before you engage me as a client.
636
00:34:54.960 --> 00:34:55.920
Is it ends?
637
00:34:55.960 --> 00:34:58.000
And I just go, thank you very much, And I've
638
00:34:58.079 --> 00:35:02.960
learned the hard way that well, I should say I've
639
00:35:03.039 --> 00:35:05.320
learned the hard way to check myself mentally in those
640
00:35:05.360 --> 00:35:08.039
moments too, because it's hard, it's it's it can be
641
00:35:08.079 --> 00:35:11.920
a challenge to absorb somebody else's anxiety, fears, or anger,
642
00:35:11.960 --> 00:35:14.639
and then they'll try to deflect that to me, and
643
00:35:15.000 --> 00:35:16.840
I need to be open. I need to be in
644
00:35:16.880 --> 00:35:19.960
their corner. I want to be their partner in that case.
645
00:35:20.000 --> 00:35:23.000
But I can't take on that emotion and do my job.
646
00:35:24.039 --> 00:35:28.039
Typically, What do you do with organizations where they're like,
647
00:35:28.119 --> 00:35:30.039
we don't want this to get out, that's why we're
648
00:35:30.119 --> 00:35:32.519
hiring you, Dave. How do we how do we keep
649
00:35:32.519 --> 00:35:33.199
a cap on this?
650
00:35:34.079 --> 00:35:37.480
You can't, So you're convincing them.
651
00:35:37.360 --> 00:35:39.400
Out of that, or you're you're trying to help them
652
00:35:39.480 --> 00:35:40.800
understand like kind.
653
00:35:40.679 --> 00:35:44.079
Of it's so it's a great no, it's a great
654
00:35:44.119 --> 00:35:45.960
question because they go, we don't want this to go out.
655
00:35:46.000 --> 00:35:49.079
How can we prevent that? I'm like, I don't. I
656
00:35:49.119 --> 00:35:51.960
don't have you know, to borrow Harry Potter.
657
00:35:52.079 --> 00:35:55.239
I can't use the imperious curse on somebody to tell
658
00:35:55.280 --> 00:35:58.079
them what not to say out in the public domain.
659
00:35:58.159 --> 00:35:58.320
Right.
660
00:35:58.360 --> 00:36:01.079
And we're in this age where everybody a flipp and broadcaster.
661
00:36:01.199 --> 00:36:01.320
Right.
662
00:36:01.320 --> 00:36:03.320
We've all got these wonderful little devices that we all
663
00:36:03.360 --> 00:36:06.679
carry around where we've got a camera, a microphone, and
664
00:36:06.719 --> 00:36:10.920
through a social media APS, a distribution system which oftentimes
665
00:36:11.000 --> 00:36:13.400
is more effective than any news outlet because people that
666
00:36:13.400 --> 00:36:17.199
you're connected with trust you and they can say whatever. Yeah,
667
00:36:17.800 --> 00:36:18.920
they can say whatever they want.
668
00:36:19.400 --> 00:36:21.880
I used to tell leaders this, and I'll tell you
669
00:36:21.920 --> 00:36:25.519
my difficult story with this because I learned it later
670
00:36:25.639 --> 00:36:30.719
as well, and luckily I had not defamed a person
671
00:36:30.880 --> 00:36:34.079
too too horribly that was putting the company that I
672
00:36:34.119 --> 00:36:38.679
worked for at risk. But when they pulled, you know,
673
00:36:38.800 --> 00:36:41.679
there was there was basically an employee that was suing
674
00:36:42.519 --> 00:36:48.039
and there was some joking banter on email between me
675
00:36:48.239 --> 00:36:52.639
and another leader in the organization, and it was found
676
00:36:52.880 --> 00:36:57.039
in the defense, you know, the attorney looking at our
677
00:36:57.280 --> 00:37:01.159
six thousand email interchanges and they found it and they said, Okay,
678
00:37:01.199 --> 00:37:03.159
we need to prep you because if this case goes
679
00:37:03.159 --> 00:37:05.880
to court or in a deposition, you need to be
680
00:37:05.920 --> 00:37:09.119
ready to answer this. So we're prepping it. I'm horrified
681
00:37:09.159 --> 00:37:12.559
that they're able to find all of this information was
682
00:37:12.599 --> 00:37:15.639
so discoverable and from that moment on, by the way,
683
00:37:15.639 --> 00:37:19.480
the case settled or it was actually this person who
684
00:37:19.559 --> 00:37:22.719
was suing everyone left, right and center, including the National
685
00:37:22.719 --> 00:37:25.840
Institutes of Health. So it was a bogus case and
686
00:37:25.880 --> 00:37:30.039
it was thrown out. But what it taught me was
687
00:37:31.360 --> 00:37:35.159
be always prepared for anything you say, or anything you
688
00:37:35.199 --> 00:37:37.320
put in writing to be on the front page of
689
00:37:37.360 --> 00:37:39.519
the La Times, of the Orange County Register or your
690
00:37:39.519 --> 00:37:43.039
newspaper choice anytime. Yeah, and now you can say an
691
00:37:43.039 --> 00:37:44.000
Instagram post.
692
00:37:44.559 --> 00:37:47.480
You know, look, now you spot on it, right, You can't.
693
00:37:48.920 --> 00:37:53.239
No conversation that has any sort of recording capability, just
694
00:37:53.320 --> 00:37:56.000
like this one they were doing now is private and
695
00:37:56.079 --> 00:38:01.280
so you have to operate under that sort of under
696
00:38:01.280 --> 00:38:04.519
that mindset. And so my answer is when somebody says, hey,
697
00:38:04.559 --> 00:38:05.880
we got this issue we don't want to get in
698
00:38:05.880 --> 00:38:08.960
the press, is I can't prevent it. What will you
699
00:38:09.000 --> 00:38:12.800
do if it does? How do you respond to that one?
700
00:38:12.880 --> 00:38:15.199
How do you become part of the narrative, how do
701
00:38:15.280 --> 00:38:18.000
you explain? How do you expand? And if it's bad,
702
00:38:18.760 --> 00:38:19.559
then say it's bad.
703
00:38:19.599 --> 00:38:22.440
I just I just didn't read it, get ahead of it.
704
00:38:22.920 --> 00:38:26.440
I just did reel on this one where a kid,
705
00:38:26.519 --> 00:38:28.519
because I, like I said, I teach part time, and
706
00:38:28.559 --> 00:38:30.480
I had reached out to kid because she hadn't shown
707
00:38:30.559 --> 00:38:32.639
up to class for a couple of days, and she
708
00:38:33.039 --> 00:38:35.239
within thirty minutes of me reaching out, she came back
709
00:38:35.320 --> 00:38:37.800
saying I'm sorry because I have an early morning class.
710
00:38:38.079 --> 00:38:40.199
She goes, I'm sorry, I slept through the alarm. Won't happen again.
711
00:38:40.480 --> 00:38:44.639
It's like, okay, done, Like, thanks for owning it, thanks
712
00:38:44.639 --> 00:38:46.639
for your brutal honesty on that one. Don't let it
713
00:38:46.639 --> 00:38:48.920
happen again, and we'll move on. If it was a
714
00:38:49.079 --> 00:38:51.599
corporation with a lot with you know, some sort of
715
00:38:51.800 --> 00:38:54.280
bad press, they would be doing all well, I got
716
00:38:54.320 --> 00:38:58.840
my my my roommate didn't set the alarm right, or
717
00:38:59.079 --> 00:39:01.920
I didn't get this, I was up whatever, you know,
718
00:39:02.159 --> 00:39:02.639
just be.
719
00:39:03.119 --> 00:39:05.440
Frank about it and everything else.
720
00:39:05.840 --> 00:39:08.679
And you'll be okay. Right, you can move forward from
721
00:39:08.679 --> 00:39:13.400
that one. Audiences will give you a second chance if
722
00:39:13.400 --> 00:39:16.760
you're if you're transparent, you're open, you're empathetic, and you're
723
00:39:16.800 --> 00:39:20.400
action oriented. Right, So so this student, you know, I
724
00:39:20.480 --> 00:39:23.239
expect that she'll show up in my class tomorrow, and
725
00:39:23.320 --> 00:39:25.079
if she does and she shows up, you know, in
726
00:39:25.119 --> 00:39:27.960
perpetuity for this one there, or if she doesn't show
727
00:39:28.039 --> 00:39:30.000
up she lets me know ahead of time for whatever reason,
728
00:39:30.440 --> 00:39:32.719
then we're good. Like this is, you know, we all
729
00:39:32.719 --> 00:39:35.079
move on from this one there. We all we're frail
730
00:39:35.920 --> 00:39:39.079
human species, right, we don't. We don't get things right
731
00:39:39.119 --> 00:39:43.119
often time. So own it when you don't. I mean again,
732
00:39:43.920 --> 00:39:47.119
I'm not coming from a position of moral authority there,
733
00:39:47.159 --> 00:39:49.599
but for the grace of God go I I realize
734
00:39:49.599 --> 00:39:52.719
in my in my solidly middle aged I live in
735
00:39:52.760 --> 00:39:54.719
a very large glass house, so I keep my stone
736
00:39:54.719 --> 00:39:59.159
throwing ammunition to a minimum. But but man, just own
737
00:39:59.239 --> 00:40:01.159
it when you do. And and it's hard for a
738
00:40:01.159 --> 00:40:03.000
lot of people to get there, and I understand that,
739
00:40:03.039 --> 00:40:04.079
but it's so much better in.
740
00:40:04.079 --> 00:40:04.599
The long run.
741
00:40:05.719 --> 00:40:09.440
So the internal work you do with organizations, I mean,
742
00:40:09.760 --> 00:40:14.480
there's probably a lot I would often hear, especially and
743
00:40:14.480 --> 00:40:17.360
I still hear this, right like from my clients and others,
744
00:40:17.960 --> 00:40:23.239
teams and groups I'm working with. That's there's always a
745
00:40:23.280 --> 00:40:27.159
subset that says things aren't transparent enough, and then another
746
00:40:27.199 --> 00:40:30.960
subset that's like, we're too transparent. We've got to be careful,
747
00:40:31.039 --> 00:40:34.280
you know how we're messaging, and then that clash and
748
00:40:34.320 --> 00:40:36.840
then there's like no messaging and you know, it becomes
749
00:40:37.440 --> 00:40:39.840
it can become a hot mess and there's all this distrust.
750
00:40:40.000 --> 00:40:42.920
Like when you come into an organization, you're helping them
751
00:40:42.920 --> 00:40:46.079
manage their internal communications, kind of like, what are some
752
00:40:46.119 --> 00:40:48.000
of the problems you're seeing, what are some of the
753
00:40:48.000 --> 00:40:50.119
goals you're setting, like, kind of walk us through a
754
00:40:50.159 --> 00:40:51.199
little bit of your process.
755
00:40:51.679 --> 00:40:54.559
I think, I think, what here's what I heard you say.
756
00:40:54.639 --> 00:40:55.719
Just want to make sure I get it right.
757
00:40:55.760 --> 00:40:58.840
When is you will always have a camp that says
758
00:40:59.159 --> 00:41:02.960
you're talking too much. Quiet down, and another camp that'll say,
759
00:41:03.000 --> 00:41:05.320
I'm not getting the full story from you. Even with
760
00:41:05.360 --> 00:41:07.440
all this sort of stuff, be more transparent. How do
761
00:41:07.480 --> 00:41:09.199
you how do you sort of reconcile that? How do
762
00:41:09.199 --> 00:41:10.440
you do that with all audiences?
763
00:41:10.519 --> 00:41:10.679
Right?
764
00:41:10.880 --> 00:41:14.239
Yeah, Well, I think that that first camp is often
765
00:41:14.400 --> 00:41:16.719
a little bit more of the executive leadership who are like,
766
00:41:16.880 --> 00:41:19.239
we'll we'll we'll tell people what they need to know,
767
00:41:20.320 --> 00:41:22.440
and so we're going to keep it a little bit quieter.
768
00:41:22.760 --> 00:41:25.280
And then the other camp, which is a lot of
769
00:41:25.280 --> 00:41:27.800
the receivers are like, we're not getting enough information.
770
00:41:28.440 --> 00:41:31.480
Yeah, So in those thank you for that. So in
771
00:41:31.559 --> 00:41:34.280
those circumstances, let's start with the executive team. They say, hey,
772
00:41:34.280 --> 00:41:37.239
we'll talk about that later. And my answer is, why
773
00:41:37.239 --> 00:41:38.960
are you going to talk about that later? What are
774
00:41:39.000 --> 00:41:40.920
you doing that there? And if the answer is we
775
00:41:41.000 --> 00:41:43.800
don't really want to discuss that because and when you
776
00:41:43.800 --> 00:41:46.559
get to the bottom line, it's because it's uncomfortable, because
777
00:41:46.559 --> 00:41:48.239
it makes us look bad, I'm like, that's not a
778
00:41:48.239 --> 00:41:51.000
good that's not a good answer. You need to be
779
00:41:51.159 --> 00:41:54.280
overly communicated right now, you know. And that's another term
780
00:41:54.320 --> 00:41:57.960
I use for different context. It's called hugging your cactus, right.
781
00:41:58.800 --> 00:42:02.079
It's it's the idea of getting it hugging the cat.
782
00:42:02.119 --> 00:42:04.400
That's not my phrase. I actually heard. I actually heard
783
00:42:04.440 --> 00:42:07.760
folks do it when it comes to sort of reconciling
784
00:42:07.800 --> 00:42:12.360
their own transgressions. But it's if you can if you
785
00:42:12.400 --> 00:42:15.760
can get to that point where you're openly talking about
786
00:42:15.800 --> 00:42:19.239
all the stuff that's gone on and then talk about
787
00:42:19.320 --> 00:42:22.760
your making amends, it clean. It cleans the slate that
788
00:42:22.920 --> 00:42:26.000
much quicker. Now, flip side attorneys will tell you, I
789
00:42:26.039 --> 00:42:28.320
don't want to do that because now I'm disclosing things
790
00:42:28.320 --> 00:42:30.199
in public. That could be part of a lawsuit could
791
00:42:30.199 --> 00:42:33.559
be discoverable. I get a new slash RAYA. The lawsuits
792
00:42:33.559 --> 00:42:36.840
are probably coming in those situations anyway. And I have
793
00:42:36.960 --> 00:42:41.480
seen circumstances where lawyers will prevent the disclosure of information
794
00:42:42.360 --> 00:42:46.599
to to to protect the organization with litigation to the
795
00:42:46.599 --> 00:42:49.039
point that they no longer have a business because that
796
00:42:49.159 --> 00:42:53.679
lack of authenticity and transparency means customers go elsewhere, business
797
00:42:53.679 --> 00:42:58.320
partners go elsewhere, your investors go elsewhere. And so you
798
00:42:58.360 --> 00:43:01.199
could you could prevent yourself from litigation to the point
799
00:43:01.199 --> 00:43:03.880
that you shut your doors. So I think that's one
800
00:43:03.920 --> 00:43:07.960
from the executive standpoint, from the customer standpoint or the
801
00:43:08.000 --> 00:43:10.400
general public standpoint, the ones who are saying you're not
802
00:43:10.440 --> 00:43:13.760
giving me enough, there are going to be circumstances that
803
00:43:13.800 --> 00:43:17.360
you can't disclose information beyond what you've already done. It
804
00:43:17.400 --> 00:43:19.519
may be because you don't have the full story. It
805
00:43:19.519 --> 00:43:22.519
may be because there are privacy regulations prevent you do something.
806
00:43:22.599 --> 00:43:27.920
Employee privacy, customer privacy, patient medical privacy, all of those
807
00:43:28.000 --> 00:43:31.639
kind of things that prevent you from talking about that.
808
00:43:32.039 --> 00:43:35.000
May be you may be under some sort of nda,
809
00:43:35.639 --> 00:43:37.760
with some sort of contract with some other folks or
810
00:43:37.800 --> 00:43:41.079
things like that. Right, whatever the case may be, you
811
00:43:41.079 --> 00:43:44.159
need to explain then why you can't go any further. Yes,
812
00:43:44.239 --> 00:43:46.760
we know you want that information. We can't discuss that
813
00:43:47.119 --> 00:43:50.760
for these reasons. We understand the question. We appreciate the question.
814
00:43:51.199 --> 00:43:55.079
We can't violate somebody else's privacy. We can't violate this
815
00:43:55.199 --> 00:43:58.840
court or we can't violate this and so we're gonna
816
00:43:58.840 --> 00:44:01.039
be able to go this far. At least give them
817
00:44:01.039 --> 00:44:04.639
a reason why you can't disclose something. If your reason
818
00:44:04.800 --> 00:44:07.880
for not talking about something is because it's uncomfortable as
819
00:44:07.920 --> 00:44:10.679
an organization, as an executive, as a leader, as an individual,
820
00:44:10.800 --> 00:44:13.199
it's not a good enough reason, because now what you're
821
00:44:13.239 --> 00:44:15.679
telling somebody is you are not going to be candid
822
00:44:15.719 --> 00:44:19.159
and forth right enough. And that skept that skepticism they
823
00:44:19.199 --> 00:44:22.760
already have of you, and the trust that they are
824
00:44:22.760 --> 00:44:26.559
now calling in the question only gets only gets amplified,
825
00:44:26.880 --> 00:44:29.119
and they'll walk away from you, and and that's a
826
00:44:29.159 --> 00:44:29.679
bad scene.
827
00:44:31.960 --> 00:44:35.840
Thank you for that. That's very helpful. I yeah, I've
828
00:44:35.920 --> 00:44:41.400
seen more often than not executive leaders CEO C suite
829
00:44:41.440 --> 00:44:46.039
for example, not really do a great job with internal communications.
830
00:44:46.679 --> 00:44:50.199
I mean, what's what is it? Not enough?
831
00:44:51.559 --> 00:44:55.000
No, it's often overlooked. Yeah, it's it's off and overlooked.
832
00:44:55.079 --> 00:44:57.599
It's not important, like what what, what's the deal?
833
00:44:58.320 --> 00:45:01.639
It's not it's not given the priority that that people see.
834
00:45:01.960 --> 00:45:06.679
They don't really understand that that dilemma. They don't understand
835
00:45:06.679 --> 00:45:11.360
that your employees are your first line of marketing. They're
836
00:45:11.400 --> 00:45:14.559
your cheapest form too, because they are the ones who
837
00:45:14.599 --> 00:45:16.639
will validate to their friends or their families, to the
838
00:45:16.719 --> 00:45:19.599
customers what you're saying in the public domain. And if
839
00:45:19.599 --> 00:45:22.119
you haven't talked to them, and let's say you put
840
00:45:22.119 --> 00:45:23.960
out a press release and a customer calls in or
841
00:45:24.000 --> 00:45:25.559
a friends calls and go, hey, what's going on here?
842
00:45:25.559 --> 00:45:27.320
And they go, I have no idea what's going on?
843
00:45:27.639 --> 00:45:30.119
No one's talked about me. Anything you've said in public
844
00:45:30.159 --> 00:45:33.599
now just gets discounted. It gets discredited, it's believed to
845
00:45:33.719 --> 00:45:37.079
not be true because nobody else is on your team.
846
00:45:37.119 --> 00:45:39.639
And yeah, the way, especially the people who work for
847
00:45:39.719 --> 00:45:42.599
the organization don't even know what's going on or can
848
00:45:42.679 --> 00:45:46.039
defend it then, or like understand what is the messaging
849
00:45:46.079 --> 00:45:47.639
behind what are we supposed to be saying?
850
00:45:48.320 --> 00:45:51.119
Absolutely, the employees are the ones that will help you
851
00:45:51.559 --> 00:45:54.119
get through a situation. If you let them do that,
852
00:45:54.519 --> 00:45:57.599
and if you're concerned about your employees not being in
853
00:45:57.639 --> 00:46:02.119
your corner, you've got a workplace culture that needs that
854
00:46:02.199 --> 00:46:05.440
needs to be worked on, right. You've got some serious
855
00:46:05.480 --> 00:46:09.280
issues on there that professionals in both HR and leadership
856
00:46:09.360 --> 00:46:12.039
coaching probably need to get involved and soon. And that's
857
00:46:12.079 --> 00:46:14.519
the other thing that happens. Usually after a crisis, you
858
00:46:14.599 --> 00:46:19.000
identify shortcomings and operation and personnel and finances and customer
859
00:46:19.039 --> 00:46:21.480
service and sales. And I like to bring in people,
860
00:46:21.840 --> 00:46:25.079
yourself included, to come in and help them with that,
861
00:46:25.079 --> 00:46:27.280
because I say, I've got the world's worst business model.
862
00:46:27.320 --> 00:46:29.280
I never want to repeat customer. Please don't come back
863
00:46:29.320 --> 00:46:31.760
to me with the same problem six months later. And
864
00:46:31.800 --> 00:46:34.360
here's the thing, here's the incentive. If you do, my
865
00:46:34.519 --> 00:46:37.679
fees will double. They're already pretty pricy, but my fees
866
00:46:37.719 --> 00:46:39.639
will double. Not because I'm being a jerk, not because
867
00:46:39.679 --> 00:46:41.159
I'm going to take advantage of it, but because it's
868
00:46:41.199 --> 00:46:44.880
going to be extraordinarily expensive to try to convince audiences
869
00:46:44.920 --> 00:46:47.440
to give you a third chance. Yeah, they're apt to
870
00:46:47.440 --> 00:46:49.159
give you a second chance if they believe you, but
871
00:46:49.199 --> 00:46:53.639
if you mess with them again, they are walking away.
872
00:46:53.719 --> 00:46:56.519
Fully once, shame on you forlly twice shame on me,
873
00:46:56.960 --> 00:46:57.400
and I'm.
874
00:46:57.280 --> 00:46:57.719
Out of here.
875
00:46:58.519 --> 00:47:01.800
Wow, Dave, Oh my gosh, what a great way to
876
00:47:02.000 --> 00:47:09.679
end this segment that was so amazing, interesting, difficult to
877
00:47:09.760 --> 00:47:14.320
hear at times, but still nonetheless very engaging. Really helped
878
00:47:14.360 --> 00:47:19.800
us understand what you do, understand a lot about preventing
879
00:47:19.880 --> 00:47:22.320
crises as well as what to do in terms of
880
00:47:22.440 --> 00:47:26.320
communications and crisis. So thank you, thank you. If someone
881
00:47:26.320 --> 00:47:29.119
else wants to hear more about what you do or
882
00:47:29.360 --> 00:47:31.400
continue the conversation, how can they best get a.
883
00:47:31.360 --> 00:47:32.559
Hold of you?
884
00:47:32.559 --> 00:47:34.719
You know it can go to my website, but probably
885
00:47:34.800 --> 00:47:38.159
just google Dave Oats Crisis PR. My LinkedIn profile comes up,
886
00:47:38.199 --> 00:47:41.519
my website comes up, my social medi accounts on Instagram
887
00:47:41.519 --> 00:47:43.960
and Facebook come up Dave oats Crisis PR.
888
00:47:44.480 --> 00:47:45.840
And I really appreciate the time.
889
00:47:45.880 --> 00:47:48.239
This has been so much fun to relive a real
890
00:47:48.239 --> 00:47:51.480
success story with doctor golcol And thanks thanks for allowing
891
00:47:51.559 --> 00:47:52.559
me the platform to do so.
892
00:47:52.679 --> 00:47:54.440
He's yank you such a good guys.
893
00:47:54.840 --> 00:47:57.559
Thank you for sharing that. That's great, and thank you
894
00:47:57.599 --> 00:48:01.679
for the great work you do, says Ashiarora. Join us
895
00:48:01.800 --> 00:48:04.880
every Sunday at four pm Pacific Standard time. As we
896
00:48:04.960 --> 00:48:08.480
have great leaders like day Votes and others who are
897
00:48:08.480 --> 00:48:11.679
creating a lot of commotion or helping people work through
898
00:48:11.719 --> 00:48:15.760
the commotion that is being created. Thank you Rakasavani Radio
899
00:48:15.840 --> 00:48:19.239
and iHeartRadio for hosting our platform. Have a great rest
900
00:48:19.239 --> 00:48:19.599
of your day.
901
00:48:19.639 --> 00:48:41.280
Bye bye the
902
00:48:41.320 --> 00:48:46.760
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