Choose Your Reader: Fueling Literacy, Language Acquisition and Meaningful Relationships

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There are some people that make their
work just another thing they have to do,

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and there are those that make their
work something that they want to do.

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Welcome to Working on Purpose with your
host Elise Cortez. In our program,

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we provide guidance and inspiration from those
people who have found deeper meaning and

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personal connection to their work life.
It's beyond nine to five. It's working

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on Purpose. Now Here is your
host, Elise Cortez. Welcome back to

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the Working in a Perfect Show.
Thanks for tuning in again this week.

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I'm your host, Elise Cortez,
joining you live from Dallas, which is

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home base for me. If you've
been tuning in for a while, you

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know this program is dedicated to helping
people create more meaningful and purposeful lives and

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equipping leaders inside organizations to make work
a rich and compelling part of life so

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employees thrive, give their best performance, and want to stay. I'll talk

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with my guests to draw on their
expertise and share my own experience consulting,

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speaking and developing workforces across the globe. Each week. In these conversations,

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I hope you walk away with something
you can immediately put to use. And

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if I can do anything to help
you along your journey. Go to my

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website at a least Cortez dot com
and use the contact me feature to message

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me. Let's open a conversation and
explore what's going on for you and how

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I might be able to help.
Whether you want to learn how we can

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help you visioneer a future of purpose
by facilitating meaningful dialogue among all your stakeholders.

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Want information about how to develop vitally
inspired leaders in a meaning infused culture

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in your organization. You want to
see about joining a catch fire online community

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to stoke your own passion, inspiration
or purpose discovery, or provide membership as

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a gift and benefit for your team, Or you'd like me to speak for

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your company or conference at any rate. I'm glad we're connected, and thanks

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for listening. Now onto this week's
program with us Today is Mike Coles,

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who is a lawyer and award winning
screenwriter, children's book author, and entrepreneur.

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He runs his own law firm,
The Coles Firm, focusing on serving

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business and individual clients in various corporate
employment in immigration law matters. He is

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a creed and founder of Choose Your
Reader, a patent pending mobile application that

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allows an adult to record stories for
a child using a mobile phone, and

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as a platform for teaching children to
read or speak a variety of languages while

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strengthening families across generations. We'll be
talking about how this innovative solution was created

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and what he aspires to accomplish on
the platform. It joins us today from

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Dallas here in my office studio,
next to meet Mike. Welcome to working

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on Purpose. Thank you, Thank
you. Isn't this fun? Really looking

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forward to it? All right?
Good, well, I've got a lot

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to extract from you. You're ready, I'm ready, okay. So first,

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you know, in my introduction of
you have already made it clear you

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were already a very busy professional.
You were a very busy and successful lawyer

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with the practice of your own when
the idea of Choose your Reader was born

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in your heart. So tell us
what was happening in your life at the

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time of the apps birth as an
idea. What was happening in your life

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that something like this would actually surface. So in the beginning, I was

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just doing what I think a lot
of parents do, which is story time

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with my son, and I would
essentially read a book off the bookshelf that

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he had, and then at one
point he just wanted me to make up

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a story. And he didn't realize
that I am a storyteller at heart as

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it is, so that wasn't very
difficult for me. But what was difficult

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was that he wanted me to repeat
the story, right. You know,

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the kids, they want that story
again and again if they like it.

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And so it began with me just
having to write down the stories that I

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was making up so that when he
wanted that one story again, I had

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a resource to go back to.
But then he wanted me to have it

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illustrated. He wanted pictures, right, because that's the next component that he

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expects. But then I thought about, if I'm going to go through the

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process of getting an illustrator, because
I can write stories, but I cannot

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illustrate to save anyone's life. And
so what am I going to do?

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Right? Am I going to have
these books illustrated and go through that process

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and then shelve them and have them
just for him? But then I also

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wanted to find ways because at the
time I was going through a divorce and

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figuring out how we were going to
just really continue to connect at that young

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age, and so I thought,
well, surely there is a platform for

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me to read to my son remotely. And I looked online and couldn't find

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one. Looked around and thought,
well, maybe there's at least a platform

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where I can take something that I've
said and written for him and send them

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as messages in a way that's more
meaningful than you know, a voice memo.

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And there really wasn't anything in that
space. And I thought, well,

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gosh, I mean, there's so
many people who have to be in

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a similar situation, whether it's a
parent who's traveling or divorced, or grandparents

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and military families, and so there's
so many people that are away from their

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kid that there's got to be a
way to do it, and there isn't.

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And so rather than wait for it, I decided to make it.

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You are definitely a creative problem solver, I think so. Yeah. So

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the other thing that I was thinking
about as I was thinking about this conversation,

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how I wanted to presence it as
I really got present to the idea

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that storytelling it's a long held history
that has allowed us human beings to pass

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down key messages and traditions through the
generations, and as a lawyer you traffic

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in in many ways. Your product
is language and words, albeit artfully crafted.

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That's what you're up to. So
beyond your love for your son,

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who you missed while traveling, I
wonder if there's something also meaningful for you

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about storytelling to your obvious gifts in
language as well. Well. Certainly right,

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the ability to create what I'm going
to call that image in your mind,

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right, that's such an important part, and especially for a child,

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where that creative spark can really be
sort of fostered and encouraged. So yeah,

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I think that just being in the
space as a lawyer and then I

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got into screenwriting, and both of
those you're really trying to help someone envision

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something right, whether it's trying to
help someone imagine a workplace incident like the

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cases that I typically litigate, or
putting on a page a scene of a

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town and there's a Christmas festival and
then you know, the Grinch arrives,

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right, and so there's all these
different kinds of moments where you don't have

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the additional component of the visual,
and so you have to do all the

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heavy lifting with word choice. I
know you said this earlier but I just

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want a presence for our listeners.
Your son's name is Da, well,

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that's what I call him him.
I want to understand how did he before

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he began asking for illustrations? What
was his response to you when you would

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read to him? So he enjoyed
it, and so there's certainly books that

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he really likes. And frankly,
because I had been away from it as

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a child, right, had been
so many years since I had looked at

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children's books. As I was picking
them up, I was really impressed with

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a lot of the content that's out
there. And so he had books that

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he loved, and as it out, I loved them as well. And

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he also had his sort of style, right he certainly as he got older,

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one of the things I noticed is
that he liked the what i'll call

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that mystery solving component. Right.
He wanted a book that had this arc

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where a problem got solved at the
end, or a mystery got solved.

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And so as he got older,
that part of him really grew. And

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so yeah, I just being in
that space as a parent and remembering as

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a kid, it didn't really for
me resonate that same way. And so

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thinking that, gosh, this is
a chance to give him a lifelong love

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of reading and books and learning and
language. That was really a big part

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of it. You're reminding me when
my daughter was younger, I don't want

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I want to say, well,
in her elementary school years, what we

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there. We had a fantastic tradition
when I was making dinner. She'd always

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say, Mamma, tell me the
story about when you and Grandma used to

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make pies. It was just like
you said. It was the same story,

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and I would render it the same
way every time, and then you'd

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say, no, no, you
left out the detail about such and such.

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But there was something about that,
And so in our case, he

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was always about about history of the
family and where we each came from.

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That was so appealing to her.
Yeah, it's funny. We were just

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over the holidays. I made up
a book series for my son, just

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on the fly, because we were
talking about stories of you know, strange

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things that people have eaten, and
strange we call them. Tales from the

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gut is what we called them.
And there would just be stories of strange

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things that we've eaten. And one
of the stories he had heard before he

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actually heard it from his mother and
she knew about it from my you know,

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just knowing me, of course.
And so then he's he's wanted to

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hear that story multiple times, and
so I'm telling it again and he says,

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but right, but then he starts
to tell it with me right,

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And so my mother, who was
there where we were doing this, had

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not heard the story. And so
yeah, that's part of the process,

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is that he now knows the story
well enough that he can actually tell it

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again, and he's developing his own
sense of both language and the narrative arc

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and that sense of drama. Right. So it's all very much a skill

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that he's picking up. And if
it's innate or not, it doesn't matter.

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He's getting it. And that's fun
to watch him grow through that process.

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I loved reading too to my daughter, and later on I do plan

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for each of us to a little
bit of reading, just to treat the

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listeners that are here with us.
Yes, so now let's get into it.

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Been talking aboit about where this came
from. Help us understand, Help

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us and the listeners and our viewers
on Facebook Live understand this app So sketch

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for how for us, how does
choose your reader? How was it developed

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from its early concept to being able
to read to your son across the key

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milestones that have brought it to its
present form today. I know it's been

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through a few iterations, right,
So in the beginning, it really started

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as Okay, I want to be
able to have a story on my phone.

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And so there are a few apps
out there that had stories. You

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would basically download the app. There's
content that was there. It might change

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every so often. You could perhaps
pay to have additional accessor or to have

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some stories that you could store,
but for the most part those stories were

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flat on the screen and essentially you
had to bring them to life present with

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the child. And so my first
thought was, what is the step that's

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going to be useful to be able
to separate the child from the adult,

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or separate the adult from the moment
where the story is being heard, because

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the moment when the story is being
read does not need to be the story

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the moment when the story is being
heard, and yeah, you really want

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to do that, right, And
so that was the first challenge. And

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so obviously with us with a cell
phone, having a microphone, I mean,

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we can accomplish a lot of the
small all technical parts of record a

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story and have it held on a
device. But now the challenge was to

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be platform agnostic, be able to
cross over. I can record on an

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Android device and send it to you
on an iOS and you could send it

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to someone else on an Android and
it would not matter. And so that

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was the real hurdle to get over
from a technical standpoint, But the vision

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for it was very much a I
want to be able to have my son

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and the name of the app is
called Choose Your Reader. I want him

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to be able to say I have
a library of content read by a number

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of people, and tonight, I
want Grandma to read X y Z story

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and it's going to happen. And
it didn't even occur to me at the

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time. But when we talk about
shifting time, we're also talking about generations

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that might be passed, right,
So if Grandma has recorded a story but

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it's no longer with us, still
can read a story tonight. So there

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was a phrase that came to me
as you were talking, and it's basically

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read to me on demand. I
want it when I want it. There

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is that element I love that that's
fantamistic, and it also when you think

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about read on demand. The other
piece is there's a certain amount of what

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I'll call that parental challenge of occupying
a very busy mind, yeah, and

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being two places at one time.
And so now, how do we drive

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down the street and occupy a child
in the backseat. And so you can

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turn on you know, the wheels
on the bus go round and round,

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or you can have your kid watching
a cartoon in a screen that might be

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either in the car or in their
hand. But none of those things provide

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the level of education and connection that
choose your reader would provide. And so

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that's the other thing is that it's
not just because mom is away. Mom

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might be away, but five feet
away in the front seat, driving and

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so unable to really do all the
things that might occupy that child's mind.

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And we can still put into that
kid's head the learning about language, picking

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up sounds and skills as a reader, all of that can be accomplished on

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demand without the necessity for right stopping
everything else that you're doing. And then

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there's of course the beautiful relational component
to it is what's right right? I

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mean, I would love I would
love love love, Mike, if you

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can make this happen let me just
know, my grandmother passed away years ago.

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If we can get her to record
a story for me, that would

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be amazing. I do that.
Yeah. See, that's the thing is

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that it's not the sort of thing
that I, at least initially was very

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comfortable promoting because it has a certain
morbid component to it right in the beginning,

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but not to me. Well that's
good. See once you get beyond

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that notion of yes, this is
talking about death, but it's really talking

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about preserving a relationship. I love
it, you know, I'm done with

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that. Yeah, that's the more
important component there. Okay, So before

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we go on, Brad, we've
got a couple minutes before break. If

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you could anybody who's listening to this
show or now watching it via Facebook live

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stream, it is probably wondering.
Yeah, but you probably had a few

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stumbling blocks along the way. It
probably wasn't as easy as just as it

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just now sounded, so right,
a few things that you went through alongto

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which you had to overcome. So
the first thing was to figure out whether

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or not I had the bandwidth personally
to take this all the way right.

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And so it's an idea. I
wrote it down and I'm an ideas guy.

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Anyone that knows me knows I have
dozens of ideas. The first time

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I met you blew me away.
Yes, keep going, So is this

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going to be the one that I
pursue? That was the first challenge of

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it, just a commitment and so
but then once I committed, that was

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back in twenty sixteen, and I
named the app. I remember sitting at

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my kitchen table January twenty seventeen.
And then I began with a developer and

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that developer took a year and I
did not have an app, and so

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I had to ask a second time, am I really going to commit to

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this? Or is that enough?
And fortunately it was not enough, and

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I decided to go forward. Wow, well, I really appreciate and applaud

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your entrepreneurship, your vision, and
your energy, just to shure number of

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place that you can you can spend
any one time I thought I was busy

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and I'm apparently I'm not next to
you. So I applaud this and I'm

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really glad to share you with my
listeners. And with that, let's grab

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our first break here. We've got
some questions coming in through wfour CY and

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we'll try to get to those who
when we come back from the breaks.

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So stay with us, Alexa and
others, Please stay with us. We'll

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be right back. I'm at Last
Cortez your host with It or the Air

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with Mike Coles, who owns the
law firm, The Coles Firm, focusing

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on serving business and individual clients in
various corporate, employment, and immigration law

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matters. He is the creator and
founder of Choose Your Reader, a patent

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pending mobile application allows an adults record
stories for a child using a mobile phone.

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You joins it today from Dallas in
my office studio next to me.

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We've been talking about where this idea
came from. After the break, we're

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going to talk about the societal issues
in the educational opportunities Choose your Reader addresses.

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Stay with us, We'll be right
back. Alise Cortez is a speaker

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and engagement and development catalyst. She
designs and delivers professional development, leadership and

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engagement workshops and can bring her expertise
to your organization. She will help ignite

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meaningful development within your workforce that will
increase employee engagement, performance and retention.

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To learn more or to invite Elise
to speak to your organization. Please visit

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her at www dot Elise Cortez dot
com. She would welcome the opportunity to

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help get your employees working on purpose. This is working on Purpose with Elise

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00:17:07.279 --> 00:17:11.880
Cortez. To reach our program today, send an email to Elise ali Se

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00:17:12.279 --> 00:17:19.799
at Elise Cortez dot com. Now
back to working on purpose. Thanks for

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staying with us, and welcome back
to working on purpose if you're just joining

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us. My guest is Mike Coles, who owns the law firm The Coles

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Firm, focusing on serving business and
individual clients in various corporate, employment and

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immigration law manners. He is the
creator and founder of Choose Your Reader,

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a patent pending mobile application that allows
an adult to record stories for a child

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using a mobile phone, and it's
a platform for teaching children to read or

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speak a variety of languages while strengthening
families across generations. I'm your host,

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Alice Cortez, so let's grab a
couple of questions that came in through the

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W fourcy chat room. Alexa,
thank you for your comment about it's great

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to see a good man being an
amazing dad. And also I love that

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you say I'm assumed to be mom
and my husband is in the army,

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and I love the idea of him
being able to read to our child without

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being home. Mike, can you
help her with that? Can you hook

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her up? Absolutely? That's one
of the main applications that I thought about

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when we were building this thing is
we have so many deployed servicemen and servicewomen

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and there's got to be a way
for them to be able to make that

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connection back home, particularly when you
think about when they come home, having

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that integration into the family because their
voice has been a part of the family

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the entire time they've been deployed.
That to me is one of the most

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amazing pieces of this for this technology. So, Alexa, let's get you

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hooked up. So if you would
please when you get up, when we

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get off the show, send me
an email to at least Cortez dot com.

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I'll connect you to Mike and let's
make it happen, all right,

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and then let us know how it
goes for you. That's a done deal,

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right, cool, make it happen, Okay. So I want to

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talk about a few things that I
think are really interesting about what you've created.

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So, as a business person,
myself. I have created verious products.

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They're meant to impact people in different
ways. And so when I think

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about today's workforce, which is full
of traveling professionals who spend a lot of

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days, if not weeks, away
from their home. My assessment used to

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travel one hundred percent. It leaves
a hole in the family. And so

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I see Choose your Reader as helping
bridge that communication and that connection gap.

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Absolutely. Yeah, I mean there's
even if I were not divorced, I

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have a significant amount of travel with
my law practice, and so I would

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want this kind of technology to be
available to me. This platform would give

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me that opportunity to again be away, but not just leave a recording behind,

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but rather, while I'm away,
make a recording from a hotel room

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who knows where, and send it
and then my son receives it. And

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it's not just Dad left you a
recording, but while Dad was away,

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Dad was thinking about you. And
so that's the important part of that platform

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is the ability to transfer that story
electronically and remotely. Yeah, that is

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beautiful. You generated it, They're
in the moment for him, and I

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think that's beautiful. So, and
of course the other thing that I love

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about what you created is that it
does give parents still the chance to read

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to their children. And I loved
reading to my daughter, and I loved

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I actually did it in a few
different languages. I can speak Spanish pretty

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comfortably, Portuguese pretty well, bad
French and Italian these days, but I

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can render them. But it would
be great if you could treat us to

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maybe a little something that you created
for DA some time ago. I know

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you had a couple of poems that
you pulled up, but give us a

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little taste of Mike Coles. So
what I'm going to read to you is

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a poem that I wrote about a
year ago, and it's the first poem

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that I've ever written in life.
I was always a storyteller in long form,

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narrative form prose, and so I
decided to take a shot at this.

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So this is called the Last Time
I Knew Everything. The last time

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I knew everything was way way back
in time. I studied and I learned

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so much. I had it all
in mind. I knew the sky was

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blue and water made it so.
I knew that grass was green and water

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made it grow. I knew that
trees grew up and carrots all grew down.

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I knew how to play music and
walk without a sound. I knew

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a cardinal from a robin, an
eagle from a hawk. I knew when

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I was listening I really shouldn't talk. I knew that Pegasus was not a

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unicorn. I knew my little brother
before he was even born. I knew

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about airplanes and giant submarines. I
knew so many facts about big and little

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things. No matter what you asked
me, I had a thing to tell

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for I knew many things, and
knew them all quite well. The last

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time I knew everything was way way
back in time, till a little fact

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escaped me. Somehow it slipped my
mind. The capital of California is actually

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Sacramento. How could I be so
wrong? And guess it's San Diego.

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The last time I knew everything,
that was my favorite day. I learned

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a good lesson and remember it today. It's not how much you know that

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decides who you'll be. Try learning
something new. It's amazing. What you'll

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see is beautiful and not surprising that
you could create something like that, you

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and your language abilities. And what
a great lesson to teach your son too,

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And that that hey Dad doesn't have
it all figured out either, so

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that's right. Yeah, I mean
I love being on the pedestal, but

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part of being on the pedestal is
recognizing and teaching him, Hey, I

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don't have it all, I don't
know all the answers, but we can

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work together and figure our way through
it. I love that. I really

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really love that. And also that
speaks to something else that I really want

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to call out. And I've had
a few of my other guests talk about

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some of these problems in today's world
that they're trying to address through various other

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channels. So especially in today's in
the industrialized countries, there are increas using

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rates and loneliness, depression, and
they all contribute to higher drug use suicide

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rates, and psychologists tell us that
a large contribution to these problems comes from

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a lack of meaningful connection and relationship. And as I said, I used

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to love to read to my daughter, and they were those intimate moments where

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she was sitting right next to me, and there was something about conveying the

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voice that was just so so critical
and beautiful that I loved. It really

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is, And we've been talking about
the different applications for the app, right,

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and so we had Alexa talking about
the military use and so, but

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there are other spaces and so,
as you mentioned, I'm an immigration lawyer,

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and so I've dealt with a number
of families that are separated by immigration,

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and so they've got in some instances
language barriers. Now where you have

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children who grow up in the US
and they don't have the language of their

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parents. Well, now those kids
have had kids, and because they don't

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have language skills, Grandma can't talk
to the grandchild because the grandchild is not

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getting that language at home. And
so one of the things that I decided

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to do is to create language based
storytelling in the app, where we could

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say, take a story in English
and then translate that story into As of

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right now we're in Spanish, Russian, Mandarin, will be launching Hebrew and

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Arabic and allowing the kid to get
the language in the story in two languages.

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And so by knowing the story in
language one, your home language,

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whatever your parents speak traditionally, and
then having grandma or grandpa or someone else

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reading that same story in a different
language, your understanding and your comprehension is

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so much faster. It's so much
greater. And so there's all kinds of

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barriers that we're looking at trying to
overcome with technology, and the greatest barrier

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to me is that connection, that
interpersonal connection. If we could do that,

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that's the best use of technology.
That is so beautiful, Mike,

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That just is stunning to me.
I love that. And of course,

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somebody who loves language and well that
the use of language between people and different

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languages, foreign languages, of course, I'm even more thrilled by that.

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So I really appreciate your creativity.
When you and I were talking about what

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we wanted to say on the show, we were both saying, how would

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it be wouldn't it be useful?
It would it be interesting if if if

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you read something? And then I
thought, hey, I want to read

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something too, So listeners. This
is one of the mini books I used

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to read to my daughter when she
was in elementary school. I'm just going

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to read you part of it,
because if I read the whole thing it

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would take too much time. But
it's called Our Twitchy and it's by Kess

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Gray and Mary mcquinlan. When I
get done with a little snip, I

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want to share with you why I
love reading it. But let me just

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give you the little taste of it. TWITCHI was watching a butterfly being a

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butterfly mom. He asked, why
don't butterflies hop like I do? Milfoy

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smiled and answered, because they're butterfly
pop. Twitchy asked, Sedge, why

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don't you and mom hop like I
do? Sedge looked at Milfoyle. Milfoyle

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looked at Sedge. Sit down,
Twitchy said, sedg there's something you need

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to understand. Twitchy sat down and
took a bite of his carrot. The

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reason we don't hop like you is
I'm not your bunny mom, said Milfoyle,

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And I'm not your bunny Pop,
said Sedge. Twitchy twitched his nose

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and blinked. Milfoyle tried to explain, Twitchy, your bunny mom and bunny

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Pop brought you to us after you
because you were to look after you,

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because they already had sixteen children to
feed. They wanted someone to love and

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care for you properly. So we
said we would, and we did,

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and we have ever since. I
don't understand, whispered Twitchy. If you're

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not my bunny mom and bunny pop, who are you? I'm a cow,

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00:26:52.000 --> 00:26:57.119
said Milfoyle, and I'm a horse, said Sedge. Twitchy blinked again.

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But you can't be, he said. Bunnies live in burrows. We

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00:27:00.400 --> 00:27:03.559
live in a burrow. It isn't
really a burrow, Twitchy. It's an

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old train tunnel. We wanted to
be like a burrow, said Milfoyle.

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But bunnies eat carrots all the time. We eat carrots all the time,

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said Twitchy. It's very dark in
the train tunnel, Twitchy, explained Sedge.

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We eat carrots to help us see
in the dark. I still don't

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00:27:18.359 --> 00:27:22.519
understand, said Twitchy. Come with
us, said milfoylean Sedge. Twitchy followed

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00:27:22.519 --> 00:27:26.839
milfwoyan sedge down to the bank of
the river. Look into the water,

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Twitchy, what do you see,
asked Milfoyle. Twitchy stared long and hard

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00:27:30.200 --> 00:27:34.039
at reflection in front of him.
I see two pairs of big brown eyes

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that always twinkle when they look at
me. I see two great, big,

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00:27:37.359 --> 00:27:41.119
kind smiles that always make me feel
happy, said Twitchy. I see

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the two best bunnies in the world. So I'll stop there, but you

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00:27:45.720 --> 00:27:49.519
can see it's just a great,
great illustrated book as well, and I

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00:27:49.559 --> 00:27:52.559
loved reading it to my daughter but
obviously it's a book about adoption. It's

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00:27:52.559 --> 00:27:56.480
a book about unlikely adoption and unlikely
love that can be found anywhere. So

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I think the stories are so beautiful. But that's one of the mini stories

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00:28:00.200 --> 00:28:03.359
I used to read to Gabby when
she was young, and she would not

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00:28:03.440 --> 00:28:07.920
want me to necessarily probably say that, So all of your listeners, don't

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00:28:07.960 --> 00:28:12.400
tell her I read it to you. Okay, we situate our camera here

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00:28:12.400 --> 00:28:17.319
for Facebook. Okay, response to
that, But what did that do for

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00:28:17.359 --> 00:28:18.880
you, Mike when I was reading
that was what did it evoke in you?

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00:28:19.400 --> 00:28:25.720
Yeah, there's this idea that what
it means to be a family need

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00:28:25.839 --> 00:28:30.200
not be structured on a what I'm
going to call standard model. Right.

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00:28:30.480 --> 00:28:34.400
We all have this idea of what
a family was or is, and it's

406
00:28:34.440 --> 00:28:40.720
often based upon what your family was
or is. But family is about more

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00:28:40.799 --> 00:28:44.759
than that, and family is about, as Twitchy said, right, the

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00:28:44.880 --> 00:28:48.680
two best bunnies ever are the ones
that love you the most, right and

409
00:28:48.759 --> 00:28:52.720
so right, it doesn't matter how
your family is structured. And for me,

410
00:28:53.000 --> 00:28:56.480
as I've already said, right,
this whole process began from divorce.

411
00:28:57.880 --> 00:29:04.799
But what is a family is a
question that is defined by the family beautiful,

412
00:29:04.880 --> 00:29:07.480
right, and this is it just
illustrates the power of story why it's

413
00:29:07.480 --> 00:29:11.119
so important. And that brings me
to my next question that I want to

414
00:29:11.160 --> 00:29:12.519
ask you, Mike. So,
given what you've been up to in the

415
00:29:12.519 --> 00:29:17.079
world, and I really think how
you've navigated your life and your own education,

416
00:29:17.920 --> 00:29:22.480
what can you share with us about
as how parents reading to our children

417
00:29:22.599 --> 00:29:27.480
affects their literacy and comprehension. So
when I was looking at building the app,

418
00:29:27.640 --> 00:29:33.640
I wanted to figure out what's the
best way to actually use this idea?

419
00:29:33.920 --> 00:29:37.680
Right, you can build it a
number of different ways, and so

420
00:29:37.680 --> 00:29:41.880
one of the features that I decided
to include in the app is a karaoke

421
00:29:41.039 --> 00:29:47.240
style interface, so that as the
parent is reading, the words are being

422
00:29:47.319 --> 00:29:52.480
highlighted to establish pacing, But once
the child has the same story, the

423
00:29:52.640 --> 00:29:57.880
words on the screen are also highlighted
in that same speed, so that we're

424
00:29:57.960 --> 00:30:02.279
actually just as you would if you
were physically with a child, pointing at

425
00:30:02.319 --> 00:30:06.039
the words as you read them.
We're doing that for you because you can't

426
00:30:06.119 --> 00:30:11.559
be there. So when I was
researching that, what I discovered is that

427
00:30:11.640 --> 00:30:15.079
yes, a couple of things one
kids will pick up that ability to read

428
00:30:15.200 --> 00:30:19.200
my son, and then you probably
had this experience. Certain books we read

429
00:30:19.279 --> 00:30:25.200
so many times he could quote unquote
read the book because he memorized it.

430
00:30:25.240 --> 00:30:30.119
That's right, and so but that's
a skill set that we have to leverage.

431
00:30:30.920 --> 00:30:34.480
And so the other thing is that
when you're talking about learning a language,

432
00:30:36.160 --> 00:30:40.200
there's at least this recognition that every
adult that has the ability to speak

433
00:30:40.240 --> 00:30:44.519
a standard language has the ability to
speak all the languages when they're born,

434
00:30:45.200 --> 00:30:49.680
and then they actually perfect the ability
in certain languages and not in others.

435
00:30:51.480 --> 00:30:55.599
If you can get stories read to
a child in a variety of languages,

436
00:30:56.079 --> 00:31:00.680
that child will have the ability to
make the sounds of that language. Now,

437
00:31:02.559 --> 00:31:06.400
words change, right, we didn't
have twitter as a word right when

438
00:31:06.440 --> 00:31:10.039
we were growing up, but we
had those sounds. If you can give

439
00:31:10.079 --> 00:31:14.079
a child the sounds of a language
when they're growing up, they'll be able

440
00:31:14.119 --> 00:31:17.519
to master the language as an adult
because the words may change, but the

441
00:31:17.519 --> 00:31:22.240
sounds do not. Okay, that
was mind blowing that we as babies,

442
00:31:22.319 --> 00:31:26.640
as children have the ability at birth
to learn any language. That is mind

443
00:31:26.680 --> 00:31:29.480
blowing. I love that. But
it has to be that way, right,

444
00:31:29.799 --> 00:31:33.400
because you could take a child from
anywhere and teach them any language just

445
00:31:33.480 --> 00:31:36.559
by dropping them in and saying,
I know you were born in America,

446
00:31:36.599 --> 00:31:41.519
but you're now going to learn Swahili. Get to it right. So that's

447
00:31:41.519 --> 00:31:44.200
awesome. That's very, very exciting. Mike, I'm so glad to ask

448
00:31:44.240 --> 00:31:45.880
you that question. All right,
let's grab our last break. I'm a

449
00:31:45.960 --> 00:31:48.240
Last Cortez, your host. We
were in the air with Mike Coles,

450
00:31:48.279 --> 00:31:52.519
who owns the law firm The Coles
Firm, focusing on serving businesses and individual

451
00:31:52.519 --> 00:31:56.559
clients in various corporate employment the immigration
law matters. He is the creator and

452
00:31:56.599 --> 00:32:00.519
founder of Choose Your Reader, a
patent pending application that allows an adult to

453
00:32:00.599 --> 00:32:05.759
record stories for a child using a
mobile phone. Joins it today from Dallas

454
00:32:05.759 --> 00:32:07.920
in my office studio. After the
break, we're going to hear more about

455
00:32:08.119 --> 00:32:10.960
the future of Choose Your Reader.
Stay with us. Will be right back.

456
00:32:25.960 --> 00:32:30.680
Alise Cortez is a speaker and engagement
and development catalyst. She designs and

457
00:32:30.759 --> 00:32:37.279
delivers professional development, leadership and engagement
workshops and can bring her expertise to your

458
00:32:37.359 --> 00:32:42.759
organization. She will help ignite meaningful
development within your workforce that will increase employee

459
00:32:42.759 --> 00:32:46.359
engagement, performance and retention to learn
more or to invite Elise to speak to

460
00:32:46.400 --> 00:32:52.759
your organization, please visit her at
www dot Elise Cortez dot com. She

461
00:32:52.880 --> 00:33:04.000
would welcome the opportunity to help get
your employees working on purpose. This is

462
00:33:04.079 --> 00:33:07.960
working on Purpose with Elise Cortez.
To reach our program today, send an

463
00:33:07.960 --> 00:33:15.160
email to Elise ali Se at Elise
Cortez dot com. Now back to working

464
00:33:15.200 --> 00:33:20.839
on Purpose. Thanks for staying with
us, and welcome back to working on

465
00:33:20.880 --> 00:33:23.079
Purpose if you're just tuning in.
My guest is Mike Coles, who owns

466
00:33:23.079 --> 00:33:28.279
the law firm The Coles Firm,
focusing on serving business and individual clients in

467
00:33:28.400 --> 00:33:31.000
various corporate, employment, and immigration
law matters. He is the creator and

468
00:33:31.039 --> 00:33:36.039
founder of Choose Your Reader, a
patent pending mobile application that allows an adult

469
00:33:36.079 --> 00:33:38.880
to record stories for a child using
a mobile phone and as a platform for

470
00:33:38.920 --> 00:33:44.839
teaching children to read or speak a
variety of languages while strengthening families across generations.

471
00:33:45.119 --> 00:33:47.920
I'm your host, Elise Cortez.
So for this last segment here,

472
00:33:47.960 --> 00:33:52.160
Mike, I wanted to talk about
the future of Choose Your Reader. I

473
00:33:52.200 --> 00:33:55.240
know you have some really fantastic plans
for what you want to do with it

474
00:33:55.319 --> 00:33:58.599
and in the impact that you're trying
to create with it. So that's what

475
00:33:58.640 --> 00:34:00.759
I want to focus this last bit
on. And let me start by saying

476
00:34:00.759 --> 00:34:05.559
that as a soon to be published
author myself first time full length book,

477
00:34:06.000 --> 00:34:09.880
I really appreciate that your app and
platform provides aspiring writers and illustrators and opportunity

478
00:34:09.920 --> 00:34:15.320
to showcase and published their work.
So tell us a little bit about how

479
00:34:15.360 --> 00:34:22.079
you work with aspiring authors and illustrators. Yeah, so we actually today before

480
00:34:22.119 --> 00:34:25.960
I got here, we just closed
out a book for an author who wrote

481
00:34:25.960 --> 00:34:31.039
a book but hadn't had the book
illustrated, and so we did that for

482
00:34:31.079 --> 00:34:37.760
her. And essentially the process is
using the resources that we pulled together for

483
00:34:37.800 --> 00:34:42.679
our own content to begin with,
we have the ability to take the process

484
00:34:42.719 --> 00:34:45.880
of getting a book published and change
it. So just to give you a

485
00:34:45.920 --> 00:34:50.360
sense of what a traditional situation might
look like for an author, right,

486
00:34:50.679 --> 00:34:53.679
assume you've got your book and you've
presented it to a number of different publishers.

487
00:34:54.039 --> 00:34:59.559
They've got to figure out how to
make enough money on that book to

488
00:34:59.679 --> 00:35:04.960
war spending the twenty five to thirty
thousand dollars and the eighteen to thirty six

489
00:35:05.039 --> 00:35:07.760
months that it takes to get that
book on a single bookshelf in a single

490
00:35:07.800 --> 00:35:14.960
store. And so our model allows
us to do it for two thousand dollars

491
00:35:15.159 --> 00:35:17.800
one thousand dollars, and we can
do it in sixty days. And so

492
00:35:17.880 --> 00:35:23.119
it gives us the chance to really
be far more open and inviting to a

493
00:35:23.119 --> 00:35:25.360
potential author. And so that's what
we were able to do. We took

494
00:35:25.400 --> 00:35:30.239
a book. The book is called
Alma for Now, and it's a great

495
00:35:30.320 --> 00:35:36.880
story and it will be on the
app soon. And so it's the process

496
00:35:36.920 --> 00:35:38.400
of being able to say to an
author who comes and says, I've written

497
00:35:38.440 --> 00:35:44.199
it, and they're basically the same
person that I was in twenty sixteen.

498
00:35:44.639 --> 00:35:50.000
I had written a handful of books
and decided to go out and find illustrators.

499
00:35:50.559 --> 00:35:54.480
Well, now that we have a
bank of fifteen twenty illustrators, we

500
00:35:54.519 --> 00:35:59.519
can actually say, take a look
at our content on the app, find

501
00:35:59.519 --> 00:36:01.800
the illust station style you like.
We know exactly who that is. We

502
00:36:01.800 --> 00:36:06.519
already have an existing relationship, and
we can get that content created for you

503
00:36:06.960 --> 00:36:12.480
in a very efficient way. And
so it's something that I'm really looking forward

504
00:36:12.480 --> 00:36:15.840
to because I hear from people so
many people as I talk about the app,

505
00:36:15.360 --> 00:36:20.880
I have a book that I wrote
for my kid five or fifteen or

506
00:36:20.920 --> 00:36:24.360
thirty five years ago and I've done
nothing with it. And my response is,

507
00:36:24.760 --> 00:36:28.880
sixty days, you can be a
published author on this platform. Oh

508
00:36:28.920 --> 00:36:30.840
that's so exciting, y'all hear that? That sounds so great. Yeah,

509
00:36:31.039 --> 00:36:35.880
kind of musical almost. I'm really
looking forward to that part. Oh,

510
00:36:35.920 --> 00:36:37.360
that's so great. Love that,
Mike. So many great things about what

511
00:36:37.400 --> 00:36:39.440
you're up to. And now we
add the next thing that I want to

512
00:36:39.480 --> 00:36:44.079
talk about, which is to choose
your reader affiliate program. So as I

513
00:36:44.239 --> 00:36:49.440
understand in our conversations that the idea
there is that you're partnering with community organizations

514
00:36:49.480 --> 00:36:53.880
like schools, churches, nonprofits,
etc. To provide meaningful fundraising opportunities to

515
00:36:53.880 --> 00:37:00.000
these mission aligned partners. That the
idea is to promote literacy, language skills

516
00:36:59.840 --> 00:37:02.760
in family bonds. And so see
a little bit about what is your goal.

517
00:37:02.800 --> 00:37:06.159
I know you've got a figure that
you're going after. Here, tell

518
00:37:06.239 --> 00:37:08.320
us a little bit about what's behind
that and what you're up to. Yeah.

519
00:37:08.360 --> 00:37:12.639
So, in the beginning, I
was looking at building a marketing budget,

520
00:37:13.159 --> 00:37:15.119
and when I thought about it,
I thought, do I want to

521
00:37:15.159 --> 00:37:20.840
put five or ten thousand dollars a
month behind the app and try to do

522
00:37:20.960 --> 00:37:24.920
marketing, and that could be done
through social media, radio advertisements, things

523
00:37:24.920 --> 00:37:29.639
like that. Get a billboard on
a highway for that matter. But then

524
00:37:29.719 --> 00:37:34.000
I got to thinking about that's taking
money and throwing it into the market and

525
00:37:34.039 --> 00:37:38.039
hoping that it hits a target.
And that's still at at the end of

526
00:37:38.079 --> 00:37:42.400
the day, I'm not leveraging the
money that I have that I'm putting behind

527
00:37:42.440 --> 00:37:45.199
it. And so what I decided
is, no, what I want to

528
00:37:45.239 --> 00:37:50.559
do is take some organization and I
can do this with one or with one

529
00:37:50.639 --> 00:37:54.039
hundred, but an organization that has
a mission that I believe in, and

530
00:37:54.559 --> 00:38:00.280
allow them to then spread the word
about the app. We create a dedicated

531
00:38:00.320 --> 00:38:06.239
portal for that organization to send people
too, so that we can give them

532
00:38:06.280 --> 00:38:09.119
credit for the purchases, and then
we give them twenty percent of the sales.

533
00:38:09.599 --> 00:38:14.719
And so whereas I've seen, I'm
sure you have right the popcorn and

534
00:38:14.840 --> 00:38:20.280
candy bars and buy your twenty twenty
calendar and all of those things, those

535
00:38:20.320 --> 00:38:25.559
are not mission aligned fundraisers. Those
are just the best fundraisers available. And

536
00:38:25.639 --> 00:38:30.280
so wouldn't it be better for a
school to not sell chocolate, but rather

537
00:38:30.400 --> 00:38:36.559
to sell literacy and language and relationships. Wouldn't it be great for a church

538
00:38:36.880 --> 00:38:40.360
to be able to spread this idea
of an app and get paid for it,

539
00:38:40.920 --> 00:38:45.159
and then in the app there's a
ton of content as I mentioned,

540
00:38:45.199 --> 00:38:50.000
that supports these the morals and all
of the sort of things that we have

541
00:38:50.199 --> 00:38:53.800
within our religious institutions. And so
that's something that's important to me is to

542
00:38:53.880 --> 00:38:59.360
say I would much rather take the
money than I have and give it to

543
00:38:59.480 --> 00:39:02.280
a word organization and let them do
something great with it. Then put it

544
00:39:02.320 --> 00:39:07.840
in the hands of you know,
some big marketing firm and say great,

545
00:39:07.559 --> 00:39:12.440
go and good luck and maybe you'll
you'll hit something with it. So that's

546
00:39:12.519 --> 00:39:15.679
that's something that I'm really excited about, is the opportunity to give money back

547
00:39:15.719 --> 00:39:21.280
to organizations that do good things around
the country, around the globe. We

548
00:39:21.320 --> 00:39:24.559
really want to be able to say
that that's something that can matter beyond like

549
00:39:24.599 --> 00:39:30.320
I said, cookies and cupcakes.
There's a place for that. But you

550
00:39:30.320 --> 00:39:34.840
know, when you look at the
math, we're able to really give significant

551
00:39:34.840 --> 00:39:37.599
money through this platform. It is
so smart, Mike, it's just hopeless.

552
00:39:37.599 --> 00:39:40.400
I love that now we've got it
We've got a question here in the

553
00:39:40.519 --> 00:39:45.840
w forcy online chatman from Ken.
He says, is it free to record

554
00:39:45.880 --> 00:39:49.559
a book? And he says,
what does the app icon look like?

555
00:39:49.639 --> 00:39:52.480
So he can actually download the download
the right app. Yep, So choose

556
00:39:52.519 --> 00:39:58.679
your reader. It's on both the
Android and iOS stores. And you'll see

557
00:39:58.679 --> 00:40:02.599
the app icon. It's four square
with four figures in it, and so

558
00:40:02.960 --> 00:40:07.280
and then there's got to choose your
at the top in black and then reader

559
00:40:07.320 --> 00:40:09.920
at the bottom in orange on an
orange banner, so you'll see that.

560
00:40:10.280 --> 00:40:15.360
And right now, the app is
free to use, free to do everything,

561
00:40:15.400 --> 00:40:17.880
and so there's no limitations on it. We'd love to have people trying

562
00:40:17.880 --> 00:40:22.119
it, downloading it, checking it
out, so you can record stories,

563
00:40:22.159 --> 00:40:27.159
you can share stories. All the
access is one hundred percent free. Right

564
00:40:27.199 --> 00:40:29.880
now, we're just giving it away
and saying, you know, have at

565
00:40:29.920 --> 00:40:31.239
it, have fun with it.
So, Ken, I hope that just

566
00:40:31.320 --> 00:40:35.320
makes your day right there and the
rest of your listeners as well. That

567
00:40:35.400 --> 00:40:38.440
was a great question, Ken,
Thanks much. Okay, so let's just

568
00:40:38.519 --> 00:40:40.920
we've got a little bit less a
little bit more time here on the show.

569
00:40:40.960 --> 00:40:44.559
Here. I want to I want
to be able to talk about the

570
00:40:44.679 --> 00:40:46.760
vision that you have of choose your
reader. When it's working, it's very

571
00:40:46.800 --> 00:40:50.840
best. In other words, what
problem does this app solve? And how

572
00:40:50.880 --> 00:40:53.920
does the world improve when it's being
well utilized. Yeah, so at its

573
00:40:54.039 --> 00:41:01.039
best, what you're going to see
is children developing with a variety of family

574
00:41:01.079 --> 00:41:07.880
members near and far. And you'll
find that those kids are also developing a

575
00:41:07.920 --> 00:41:12.559
love for reading, that they're developing
a love for language, but they're also

576
00:41:12.639 --> 00:41:16.480
developing a love for storytelling. And
then one of the things that will you'll

577
00:41:16.480 --> 00:41:25.079
see is interestingly enough, parents will
become more engaged in reading and learning at

578
00:41:25.079 --> 00:41:30.079
the same time. And so in
that way that they're sharing stories with their

579
00:41:30.199 --> 00:41:37.039
child, they're also just enjoying the
whole notion of a story that they can

580
00:41:37.079 --> 00:41:39.320
read, they can laugh a little
bit, they can see cute pictures.

581
00:41:39.840 --> 00:41:43.079
Because at the end of the day, right if you go to see these

582
00:41:43.320 --> 00:41:46.079
the new movies out, whether it
be the Pixar films and the Disney films,

583
00:41:46.119 --> 00:41:51.440
they're still appealing to parents because they
know that they are in the audience

584
00:41:51.519 --> 00:41:53.960
just the same. So the books
that I'm writing, in the books that

585
00:41:54.000 --> 00:42:00.400
we're selecting, we're trying to be
very smart about the content so that arrants

586
00:42:00.440 --> 00:42:06.800
and children enjoy it and appreciate it. I think it's just fabulous on all

587
00:42:06.840 --> 00:42:09.280
fronts. And let me also include
the voice of doctor James Poe, who

588
00:42:09.280 --> 00:42:15.280
justs waited on Facebook Live. He
just simply encourages and it reiterates what we

589
00:42:15.280 --> 00:42:17.559
just talked about, but in a
beautiful way. He says, cookies and

590
00:42:17.559 --> 00:42:22.840
cupcakes are great, but giving back
through literacy to orgs that support and encourage

591
00:42:22.960 --> 00:42:25.239
and push literacy. And it's focused
on purpose. I can't see the rest

592
00:42:25.280 --> 00:42:28.920
of it just from here, James, but I appreciate very much you weighing

593
00:42:28.920 --> 00:42:31.440
in with your perspective as a learned
gentleman yourself. So thank you for that.

594
00:42:32.079 --> 00:42:35.800
Isn't this fun engaging with all kinds
of listeners across the world. I

595
00:42:35.880 --> 00:42:38.079
love it. Who care about literacy? Is this fun? Yeah? I

596
00:42:38.119 --> 00:42:43.320
appreciate that. So Okay, So
now here we are, and because this

597
00:42:43.360 --> 00:42:45.960
show is really focused and anchored in
the world work, I have to get

598
00:42:45.960 --> 00:42:49.519
this question in, So, what
encouragement or advice do you have for our

599
00:42:49.519 --> 00:42:52.800
listeners who are wanting to create a
new product or service of their own?

600
00:42:52.519 --> 00:42:58.599
Absolutely so, at least in the
beginning, as I mentioned that that idea

601
00:42:58.639 --> 00:43:01.719
of how much bandwidth I had and
whether or not I could commit to it.

602
00:43:04.199 --> 00:43:09.280
That is a big barrier. Intellectually, You've got to start. You've

603
00:43:09.440 --> 00:43:14.599
got to start right. That's the
thing that you can spin your wheels on

604
00:43:15.199 --> 00:43:19.440
planning it and scoping it out,
but at some point you have to just

605
00:43:19.639 --> 00:43:23.320
jump into the fray and learn a
little bit on the job, and you're

606
00:43:23.400 --> 00:43:28.559
going to make mistakes. Could I
could have taken the hour on mistakes I've

607
00:43:28.559 --> 00:43:32.480
made instead of anything else, But
some of those mistakes, I will tell

608
00:43:32.559 --> 00:43:37.360
you, have turned into oh my
goodness, I didn't know that we could

609
00:43:37.400 --> 00:43:40.320
do that in the first place,
and so we have. The app has

610
00:43:40.480 --> 00:43:45.679
evolved and grown from some successes and
from some of those failures. But the

611
00:43:45.960 --> 00:43:51.559
first thing is start right. You
have to begin before you can ever find

612
00:43:51.599 --> 00:43:54.079
that that stride that you're going to
hit. And then the other thing that

613
00:43:54.119 --> 00:44:01.599
I would add to that is the
people around you that are candid supporters are

614
00:44:01.679 --> 00:44:07.000
important. Some of us have cheerleaders
in our lives, and you know,

615
00:44:07.440 --> 00:44:08.880
it's all right, it's okay,
you're going to get them another day,

616
00:44:09.000 --> 00:44:15.039
right, But that's nice and it
helps. But the candid supporters are the

617
00:44:15.039 --> 00:44:19.880
ones that are going to say to
you this is good, I'm not sure

618
00:44:19.880 --> 00:44:23.039
about this, and I'm going to
give you some feedback that's honest, and

619
00:44:23.360 --> 00:44:29.679
you, in turn, are a
genuine recipient of that information, and you

620
00:44:29.719 --> 00:44:32.480
can listen to it and you can
incorporate it into your worldview. You don't

621
00:44:32.639 --> 00:44:37.960
pivot on a dime every time you
get criticism, but you incorporate criticism as

622
00:44:38.000 --> 00:44:43.800
a whole, and you allow that
to shape as one piece of these sets

623
00:44:43.840 --> 00:44:46.880
of information that you're able to use
to make decisions. So get that team

624
00:44:47.119 --> 00:44:53.239
of candid supporters, right. I
don't call them cheerleaders. Supporters means that

625
00:44:53.320 --> 00:44:58.199
sometimes they give you criticism well.
And so I would add two things to

626
00:44:58.280 --> 00:45:00.679
that if I can. One is
I like that you said candid supporters,

627
00:45:01.239 --> 00:45:04.719
because one thing I do know in
the work that I do, because my

628
00:45:04.840 --> 00:45:07.119
job in so many ways is tell
people to discover and live their purpose.

629
00:45:07.719 --> 00:45:10.840
When they start talking to their family
and friends about this whole purpose thing,

630
00:45:10.880 --> 00:45:15.679
a lot of times people get really
pooh poo about that. And I understand

631
00:45:15.679 --> 00:45:19.079
that because for a lot of people, that's incredibly intimidating, and I get

632
00:45:19.119 --> 00:45:21.760
them, so they want to tell
them all the ways it's not going to

633
00:45:21.840 --> 00:45:23.639
work. So I want to make
sure that we differentiate that you said candid

634
00:45:23.679 --> 00:45:28.199
supporters. And yes, they could
be critical and they could say, well

635
00:45:28.280 --> 00:45:30.880
have you thought about this? And
this doesn't seem viable, etc. But

636
00:45:30.920 --> 00:45:34.000
there's still supporters. And then the
second thing that you said that I think

637
00:45:34.079 --> 00:45:37.320
is really important to echo is I've
getting exactly how you said it, but

638
00:45:37.519 --> 00:45:40.119
get it out there. Do something
absolutely. It doesn't need to be perfect

639
00:45:40.199 --> 00:45:44.559
per se, and I think a
lot of us get stuck in analysis paralysis.

640
00:45:44.599 --> 00:45:47.920
And I know when I launched the
I'd been talking about creating this online

641
00:45:47.960 --> 00:45:52.280
catch fire community for months because I
want to help people across the world I

642
00:45:52.400 --> 00:45:58.079
can't have access to face to face
or even via much email, come into

643
00:45:58.079 --> 00:46:00.199
the community and be inspired by it, and I wanted to birth it.

644
00:46:00.199 --> 00:46:05.000
And finally December thirteenth, we said
the thing is going live. It was

645
00:46:05.079 --> 00:46:08.400
not perfect, but it was working
and it was alive. I see James

646
00:46:08.400 --> 00:46:14.400
had a question about formalizing the candid
Supporters, and the short answer is yes,

647
00:46:14.480 --> 00:46:17.400
and a couple of ways. The
first is even though I am the

648
00:46:17.599 --> 00:46:22.599
idea guy behind the app and I'm
running the show, I still take my

649
00:46:22.760 --> 00:46:28.400
content and run it through our editorial
review process and say give me that candid

650
00:46:28.400 --> 00:46:30.079
feedback, because I don't want to
just say I wrote this book, so

651
00:46:30.119 --> 00:46:34.280
it goes up on the app,
and I've had I have a book right

652
00:46:34.280 --> 00:46:38.079
now that isn't on the app and
I wrote it. But candid support is

653
00:46:38.159 --> 00:46:44.199
candid support, so that the Island's
right, that's right. But then we

654
00:46:44.280 --> 00:46:46.719
also do a number of things where
we engage with a number of people where

655
00:46:46.760 --> 00:46:51.719
we say we send out information right
a survey or take a poll, and

656
00:46:51.760 --> 00:46:54.519
we say, you are people that
are in the space of users, what

657
00:46:54.559 --> 00:46:57.840
do you think, what do you
what do you like? What do you

658
00:46:57.880 --> 00:47:01.519
dislike? And so we try to
leverage them by interacting in a very formalized

659
00:47:01.559 --> 00:47:07.000
way by saying, answer this one
or two questions very helpful. I don't

660
00:47:07.039 --> 00:47:09.079
know what you mean, doctor James
poke by monthly or quarterly meetings, but

661
00:47:09.119 --> 00:47:13.000
maybe you do, Mike. Yeah. So that's another way that we so

662
00:47:13.320 --> 00:47:16.519
in terms of we do have an
advisory board and so talking about decisions that

663
00:47:16.559 --> 00:47:22.079
we're going to make and making sure
and then we also have oddly enough,

664
00:47:22.079 --> 00:47:25.199
I have a daily call with my
developers where we talk about what we're doing

665
00:47:25.559 --> 00:47:30.159
and trying to make sure that we
bring in the input that we're getting externally

666
00:47:30.880 --> 00:47:35.920
and use that to inform the decisions
that we're making about where are we headed

667
00:47:36.000 --> 00:47:39.920
from a developmental standpoint. Fantastic.
I think that's fair. There's nothing strange

668
00:47:39.920 --> 00:47:45.000
about daily Call to Me. It
sounds accountability your time. Okay, that

669
00:47:45.079 --> 00:47:47.400
sounds a little strange. Now we're
getting in the strange starts right. Okay,

670
00:47:47.440 --> 00:47:50.679
Well, here we are almost at
the very end of this thing.

671
00:47:50.719 --> 00:47:52.559
But I always like to be able
to give my guests the last word.

672
00:47:52.679 --> 00:47:55.639
So, Mike, you know,
this program is literally listened to across the

673
00:47:55.639 --> 00:48:00.960
globe. We have listeners today on
from Australia and Malaysia and it's really designed

674
00:48:00.960 --> 00:48:04.119
to help them cultivate more meaningful and
purposeful lives. So what would you like

675
00:48:04.199 --> 00:48:07.239
to leave a listeners with today?
Well, I would say that it's not

676
00:48:07.360 --> 00:48:09.719
just you know, as we've talked
about the app quite a bit today,

677
00:48:10.559 --> 00:48:16.280
the app isn't the thing, right, The relationship is the thing. The

678
00:48:16.320 --> 00:48:21.559
app is the tool, and so
as long as you are tending to those

679
00:48:21.639 --> 00:48:27.639
relationships and using the resources that are
available to do that, that's how at

680
00:48:27.679 --> 00:48:30.360
least for me, my life and
my relationship, particularly with my son,

681
00:48:30.760 --> 00:48:36.440
has had purpose. And so just
one last sort of nugget about that is

682
00:48:36.480 --> 00:48:38.880
that my son and I wrote a
book together. Right, Well, he's

683
00:48:38.960 --> 00:48:43.280
six years old, and so he's
got a book published on the app that

684
00:48:43.320 --> 00:48:46.360
we wrote together. And so it's
not just that's my point. You can

685
00:48:46.480 --> 00:48:50.960
use the app to connect with a
child by reading, but there is nothing

686
00:48:51.000 --> 00:48:53.679
that stops me from using the app
to connect with my child by saying,

687
00:48:53.760 --> 00:48:58.320
hey, son, let's write a
book for everyone else to read. And

688
00:48:58.360 --> 00:49:01.480
when I told him that of kids
could read his book, the light in

689
00:49:01.559 --> 00:49:05.800
his eyes was just amazing. Oh
yeah, I talk about motivation in an

690
00:49:05.800 --> 00:49:07.400
age. Sex he's published. I
love it. So, Mike, thank

691
00:49:07.440 --> 00:49:09.679
you very much for coming on the
show with us and sharing us your heart,

692
00:49:09.760 --> 00:49:13.519
your soul, your energy, and
your creation. Thank you for having

693
00:49:13.559 --> 00:49:16.159
me. Listeners who want to learn
more about Mike Coles and choose your reader

694
00:49:16.239 --> 00:49:21.039
just go to Choose yourreader dot com, or you can download the app.

695
00:49:21.079 --> 00:49:23.360
You told you how to do it
before last week. If you can miss

696
00:49:23.400 --> 00:49:27.679
the live show, you can always
catch it recorded podcast. We are on

697
00:49:27.719 --> 00:49:30.880
the Earth Doctor Jeanette McConnell, who
led us into her year long journey in

698
00:49:30.920 --> 00:49:35.760
a transformational leadership program that culminated in
a three week trip to Antarctica focused on

699
00:49:35.800 --> 00:49:39.119
empowering women leaders addressing climate problems.
Next week, we'll be on the air

700
00:49:39.159 --> 00:49:44.719
with Steve Kahan, marketing strategist,
teech speaker, startup guru, and passionate

701
00:49:44.719 --> 00:49:47.639
businessman. We'll be talking about his
book Be a Startup Superstar. Ignite your

702
00:49:47.679 --> 00:49:51.639
career working in a tech startup.
See you there. Remember that works at

703
00:49:51.679 --> 00:49:57.320
least one third of our lives,
So let's work on purpose. We hope

704
00:49:57.320 --> 00:50:00.599
you've enjoyed this week's program. Be
sure to tune in to Working on Purpose,

705
00:50:00.920 --> 00:50:06.880
featuring your host, Alice Cortez,
each week on the Voice America Empowerment

706
00:50:06.960 --> 00:50:09.960
Channel. This week, find your
life's purpose at work.