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The Open Forum in the Villages Florida podcast is a listener-supported show that aims to bring joy, knowledge, and inspiration to its audience. They rely on supporters to keep the podcast alive and thriving. In an upcoming episode, three students from a podcasting 101 class will share their goals and stories. The first student, Alex Lakatos, is a travel agent with a passion for aviation. He discusses his background in engineering and how he transitioned into sales. Alex also explains the benefits of using a travel agent and recommends Viking cruise lines for a smaller, more personalized experience. The podcast also features Dr. Craig Curtis, who discusses the future of Alzheimer's treatment and the importance of early detection. Welcome to the Open Forum in the Villages Florida podcast. In this show we talk to leaders in the community, leaders of clubs and interesting folks who live here in the villages to get perspectives of what is happening here in the Villages Florida. We are a listener-supported podcast. There will be shout-outs for supporters and episodes. A note from the heart. Hello, dear listeners. I'm thrilled to share our passion project with you. A podcast that brings joy, knowledge and inspiration. Creating it is a labor of love even though it demands more time than I can easily spare. But hey, time isn't something that we can buy back, right? Now here's where you come in, the unsung hero. You can help us keep the podcast alive and thriving. How? By becoming a supporter. You can make a small monthly contribution. Visit our website, Open Forum in the Villages Florida and click on the supporter box. Even a humble three to ten dollars a month makes a difference. And guess what? You can cancel any time. No strings attached. Free and priceless. Thank you. Your support means the world to us. Stay curious, stay inspired and keep those headphones on. If you have a book that you would like to turn into an audiobook, let us know via email to mikeatrawvoice.com. Hope you enjoy today's show. Today we'll have a really interesting episode. I have three of my students in the podcasting 101 class who agreed to record their first podcast with us. Each one will have about eight to ten minutes and we'll hear a little bit about each one of their goals, lives and what's going on here in the Villages. The first one is going to be Alex Lakatos who's moved here to the Villages and he's a travel agent. Our second speaker will be Ken Lee who is going to be running a mastermind group on a national basis. And the third is Rich Radcliffe who's going to tell us some interesting stories about when he was working at the Coors Brewery in Denver, Colorado in the 1980s. This is Mike Roth on Open Forum in the Villages Florida. I'm here today with Alex Lakatos. So that's pronounced just like it's spelled. Well in English it is. In Hungarian it would be totally different. How would it sound in Hungarian? Lakatos. Lakatos. Which actually means locksmith. So it's got a meaning. Okay. Yeah. That's cool. That's cool. It is. My family name coming from Germany was Roth Apple or something like that and customs or Ellis Island they cut off the apple. It's fine. Alex was a student of mine in the Enrichment Academy course this year and he volunteered to do a 10-minute podcast with us. So Alex why don't you tell us a little bit about your background. Mike, starting out early most of my interest was really in electronics and technology and travel was not a thought at that time. I went to a high school where I learned electronics and eventually ended up going to college Fairleigh Dickinson University in Teaneck New Jersey taking electrical engineering. I graduated with a BS in electrical engineering. First job I got out of school was for a military contractor designing inertial navigation equipment for a military aircraft. You know I realized pretty quickly that being an engineer and designing was really not really for me. I saw myself more in in a sales role and as a result that I got myself into the computer industry when it was just in the beginning early stages working for companies like Hewlett-Packard and the Digital Equipment Corporation selling what was called mini computers at that time. No disk drives or any of the great stuff we're used to right now. Ultimately I left those companies and ended up working for a company called Codex who was a leader at that time in data communications allowing remote locations to talk to a central location. After a number of years I've got to say modestly I became an expert in the field and I really knew my stuff. I ended up meeting a guy at the company who was hired to sell a brand new product of IBM compatible equipment and we became friends pretty quickly. Now unfortunately the company let him down and did not support that product line and he ended up going into a business where he wrote a resold IBM previously owned IBM equipment which was a huge field and the thing that made it work was that IBM as long as you had maintenance on your equipment would maintain used equipment so it's like getting a an old car and getting a new car warranty on it and so he said to me says well why can't you do that with data communications equipment. I had no answer for him so I said let's give it a shot he gave me leads we did sales together we did great really did great. After a while we realized we couldn't work together so I ended up starting my own company and reselling very high-tech equipment which eventually led to brands like Cisco Systems. Now this was an incredible experience for me and it led me to do things I never believed I would have done. For example into aviation. I had a fear of flying and fear of heights so I figured the way to solve that was to learn to fly. So I had some free time and I had the money so I did that. Ultimately I was able to purchase my own airplane and flew it all over the place so my original traveling was really flying from New Jersey where I lived to the Bahamas and I was involved with an air race down there and also a trip from New Jersey to the Dominican Republic for a big celebration that they were having down there and I still love aviation it's a real passion of mine. Did you still own a plane? No unfortunately it got to be quite expensive maintaining an airplane. I have friends that have planes currently and I go up with them once in a while but I mean if I win the lottery or PCH or something I might get a plane but right now I let some other guys do the flying. Right we had one fellow a couple of fellows on the show who deliver airplanes. Let me ask you this with so much information available to us online today why should someone use a travel agent as opposed to just booking it with the cruise line the airline or making it an independent tour? Mike that's a that's a great question I think there's a misconception by some people that it costs you extra money if you use a travel agent and that's really not true at all. I've joined some groups on Facebook that are people that cruise the cruise lines like Viking cruise line and it's amazing the misconception that people have but to answer your question in more detail a travel agent can offer expert advice both about the destinations and also about the cruise lines. All cruise lines have a different personality so a travel agent would have had personal experience both with the destination and with the cruise line. The other thing there's a lot of complexity involved. Is it okay if I ask you a cruise line question? Sure. With our Mercedes-Benz Club here in the villages we're attempting to plan a cruise for 24 and 25 naturally we're more than 55 years of age on average some people are up into their 80s. What cruise lines would you think would be a good cruise line to go for five to seven days? I would recommend cruise lines like Viking cruise lines and the reason I would do that is that it's smaller ships less people less crowds the service is outstanding for people and I've gotten a lot of positive feedback from my clients so they definitely would be high on my list as opposed to a ship that's got 6,000 people on it and a bunch of two-year-olds running around. Where does Viking start from here in Florida? Viking would you be finding Viking down in the Miami Fort Lauderdale area they're not at the Port Canaveral. And what would a five to seven day cruise into the eastern I guess it would have to be the eastern Caribbean the numbers. Cost wise you're saying? Yeah. I would say ballpark you're probably looking at about $4,000 a person that would be my my guess right now. Yeah okay I don't know if I'm gonna use that. I think Viking makes a very I think both of the river cruises and the transatlantic I went this has been to Miami. Yeah they have both the ocean and the river cruises yes. The ship is too small for the ocean my opinion they made very small stabilizers and so any other way like that you know I didn't get seasick but I found it annoying you know that that's another whole story with it. So Alex if someone wants to get hold of you to talk about using you as a travel agent how do they do that? Well there's a couple of different ways one could be a phone call and my number is 352-268 or they can email me at alex.com. Alex was that a cell phone number so they could text you at the same number? That's correct Mike. Okay good thanks for joining us today Alex. You're welcome thank you for having me. We're gonna take a break now and listen to Dr. Craig Curtis. So Dr. Curtis what do you think the future looks like Alzheimer's treatment here in America? I think the future looks very good. I think that these blood tests are going to make a significant difference in our ability to detect someone who's developing Alzheimer's disease before symptoms. A person who develops memory loss due to Alzheimer's disease we know that that disease actually started approximately two decades or 20 years prior. We know that amyloid starts building up for approximately 20 years 15 to 20 years which then initiates other brain cells or brain duct to die off essentially which leads to Alzheimer's disease. So we're trying to remove that amyloid prior to that so we can prevent Alzheimer's disease and we're also attempting to once somebody already has the cognitive changes or memory symptoms we're trying to figure out if we if reducing that amyloid really slows the disease. We now have of course the world's first medicine on the market that is slowing Alzheimer's disease by removing amyloid from the brain and we're looking at newer more advanced forms of those medications that remove the amyloid much more quickly in a matter of months. So that's very exciting. With over 20 years of experience studying brain health Dr. Curtis's goal is to educate the villages community on how to live a longer healthier life. To learn more visit his website CraigCurtisMD.com or call 352-500-5252 to attend a free seminar. This is Mike Roth. I'm here today with Ken Lee. Thanks for joining me Ken. Happy to be here. Ken is starting a new business I guess and it's all about mastermind groups. Ken why don't you tell our listeners a little bit about what a mastermind group is. Napoleon Hill in his book Think and Grow Rich talked about the concept of a mastermind group and he says that when two people individuals get together to discuss some a third mind emerges and I found that concept fascinating and had experienced it somewhat and I was singing in a local barbershop group and they have something called up notes or ringing a tone and you can have four individuals singing their individual notes and then you will hear if they ring that tone you will hear a fifth note so it's a fascinating concept so going back to the mastermind I had masterminds with different people different individuals where we would brainstorm things and come up with ideas and my wife said to me why don't you do that with your son I said okay so about a year ago December I started a special time with each one of my sons I have four sons and we sit down via telephone for an hour and just I talk about their lives their work what I'm doing hopes dreams ambition been going on for well over a year I have never been closer to my sons than I am right now and I thought well if I can do this for my son maybe I could start doing this for other other individuals so there was a young lady who's a real estate broke up in upstate upper Maryland and we had done some business things and started talking and she and I started talking doing a weekly mastermind it was beneficial for both of us and it was very very exciting and so with my son Tim he is out in st. Louis he had a coach coach who was raised by a single mom did not have a father figure and the fact that my son and I talked an hour a week fascinated him so we come down to collaborating and we're starting a group called American Dream United and information at American Dream United net and we are offering a monthly mastermind for free no charge the third Thursday and for an hour and a half we talk about different topics for people who are in business people who are trying to balance the family life work mm-hmm they're trying to balance the fitness aspect and they're trying to balance their lives because what I have found I'm 71 years old I and I'm retired but I have found that there are many people who reach what they think is success in their lives but they're still missing something still got a hole in their heart if you please and what can fill that hole I'm thinking and the way I'm doing things that significant can do that success is where I pour into myself trying to reach my goals my ambitions the things I want to do significance is where I pour my life into other and help them to achieve the goals they want so your mastermind group is going to be done at no charge to the participant correct is it going to be done over zoom yes over zoom so can't in May what is the date that the mastermind group will meet it will be the third Thursday third Thursday of May and what time 11 Eastern Time 11 Eastern Time and how do they get a hold of you to gain access to the zoom you can get access to the zoom meeting by going to American dream united net that will take you to our Facebook page give you all the information you can sign up there and get additional information I can be reached here in the villages at beyond success at the villages dot net good that sounds like a great idea many many years ago David Sandler forced me to read Napoleon Hill and in many respects some of the Sandler management meetings were mastermind group and so I have a great familiarity with what you're trying to do it does help a lot of people the other topic we wanted to talk about was the other item we were going to talk about is personal coaching the mastermind is free and people can enjoy that as much as they want take advantage of that the other thing we offer for those that want to go a little bit deeper we do have coaching available one-on-one coaching well group coaching we're going to do book club where we get a perhaps a John Maxwell book some other great leader and go through it and then we have do-it-yourself code through a source called right now media we will give individuals access to right now media where they can in the comfort of their home go on view a video and then set up a time to discuss that and again it'd be more like a one-on-one mastermind so those services are available and as we expand that will be available on the website but right now the free mastermind is what we're offering and we're hoping people can take advantage of that just out of curiosity round numbers what kind of course would it be for someone to participate in that in the free and then wanted to have some one-on-one code we're trying to target $30 a month as a base for people to take advantage of different aspects of that still working through that but it's one of those things that with the free mastermind and other people available people can get the help that they deserve and mostly it comes down to accountability one of the things that my doctor tells me because I need to become less of the man that I am lose some pounds that I need someone to be accountable so I have a nutrition she encouraged it's basically the same someone is paying her fee my medical paying her fee but if we do that in business then people die so it's the prices are all over the place I know of individuals I know an individual right now he is paying $1,800 a month for personal coaching he happens to work for a very large domestic airline company has that in his continuation budget but it runs the gamut of $20 $30 a month up to 2000 okay so it's a very big variability and again if someone wanted to get ahold of you on a phone to ask a question what's your telephone number is 352-626-7581 if they wanted to drop you an email beyond success at the villages dotnet good Ken thanks for being with us today happy to have happy to be here with this is Mike Roth on open forum in the villages Florida I'm here today with rich Radcliffe thanks for joining me rich thank you I appreciate this opportunity rich was part of my enrichment Academy course podcasting 101 for beginners did you learn anything from that course I learned a lot Mike I learned basics I learned technology I learned website good are you planning to start your own podcast now I have plans to start podcasting probably starting in the summer of this year that's good but any equipment you want let me know I'll send you some of the equipment as I buy new stuff now in your background rich you work for the Coors Brewing Company and gold in Colorado I loved it it was a dream come true for a person in their 20s and 30s to be working at Coors and living in Colorado now you work for Coors during the period of time where Coors was not sold in every state in the United States that's right and that contributed to sort of excitement of working for Coors the novelty of it and having come from the Midwest working for a Colorado brewery was just wonderful okay you still enjoy Colorado Kool-Aid I do in fact I enjoyed every night I have one of the beverages that they make and just has fond memories for me there was a period of time in my career where I lived on the back of a 727 I would do four cities in a day had my sales people pick me up at the airport and I remember going to Milwaukee Wisconsin and the first sales call the day 9 a.m. was one of the brewing company and we said we go into one of the senior managers offices offices and he's got a big pitcher of beer and four or five glasses behind him and he picks up the pitcher puts a glass in front of each of us and says enjoy one of our beers I just couldn't believe it are you thinking about Coors and maybe how they maybe had free beer for people in meetings as well did they well yes the answer is we had free beer and all the cafeterias and people instead of taking a coffee break would take a beer break typically in the afternoon not in the morning the beer was very fresh and people did not take advantage of this in a wrongful way it was just an enjoyable way to end the day free beers at the end of the week might be something that keep people in the office a little longer last part of my glasses Mike okay at the end of the week you might find employees including myself hanging around in the lunchroom just having a couple beers free beers with some friends good good is it true that at one point in your career with Coors you stood in six inches of beer it is true it is very memorable how that happened what happened was that there was a union strike at Coors and so most of the brewery workers vacated their job while and management brought white-collar people in to take over their jobs and my job was running a filler and a closer machine and these are two machines their shapes are like carousels or merry-go-rounds and beer cans come in to the filler machine without a lid on them and they travel around in a circle and machine is filling them with beer and then the cans travel about two more feet up by conveyor into a closer machine that slams a lid on the top of hence your beer gets filled now this goes at a ferocious rate 1,200 cans a minute with it well so in the particular episode I'm thinking about there were a couple problems technically and the filling machine that's filling beer at that rate continued to run even though cans were entering the machine we're not not entering the machine my role and I sat in a separate little of viewing room was to watch this machine 12-hour shifts a lot of beer cans and when I saw that happening I hit the normal off buttons that didn't work so I had to jump out of my viewing station go into the small room where the filler and the closer was and hit the emergency shut off by that time a lot of beer had hit the floor it was all tiled there's a drain so it started running off I remember distinctly looking at my feet we wore protective clothing even on like booties on my feet and my feet were under beer suds Wow that's interesting do you have any other memorable moments that happened to you while you were working at Coors I think that employee sales was another real benefit employee sale this is where late afternoon they opened up the beer trailer and employees could buy beer at super discounted prices this was not you know old beer or problems with packet beer it was great a case of beer was $4 with two case limit per week I made lots of friends in my neighborhood because I could buy them Coors beer at that price that was great and one other thing that's memorable there were a lot of benefits at Coors one of them was the ski club and Coors negotiated ski lift ticket rate that were very very discounted for employees and I remember paying ten and twelve dollars for a lift ticket to a basin to Keystone to Breckenridge steamboat and so forth that's another favorable memory good maybe you can remind our listeners why in the 1980s Coors beer was not available in many states and that that's what made the movie Smokey and the Bandit well there are two reasons one of them was a sense more popular in public and that had to do with shelf life of the beer and the idea that because Coors was not a pasteurized beer it couldn't stay fresh for long periods of time that it might take to ship it all the way to say Massachusetts or New York or New York exactly Coors did overcome that by starting to filter their beer with extremely fine filters that kept it very fresh as it was being packaged the second explanation and this is the one that I found a lot of truth in is Coors simply did not have the capacity to make and sell that much beer we had enough capacity in the mid 70s to supply 14 Western state but in terms of the whole country we were not geared up with production capacity to make and sell that much beer Coors did change that during the 80s. Is it still only brewed in Colorado? What I'm reading and it's been many years since I've been with Coors so I may be inaccurate here but what I'm reading is the banquet beer is still brewed only in Golden whereas the Coors Light is brewed at a variety of different brewery sites. Right I spent 25 years in Cincinnati and that was a big brewing capital before Prohibition and one of the fellas who was selling beer for a number of brands left the beer company he was working for and bought the formulas for these old beer and in the beginning he had other breweries brew new batches of the old Cincinnati beers and it became very popular in Cincinnati and then he started his own brewery there where he actually brewed the beers using the old formula. I think that that was a real major trend that large breweries like Anheuser-Busch Coors for example had to deal with is sort of the craft brewing the small breweries that started becoming popular in the 80s and 90s. Seems like they couldn't put them up fast enough. I agree and some of the quality beer that I enjoyed was great in Colorado we had some of those breweries in Denver. I understand that you're also a writer. I write children's take one I write books and short stories for children and currently have maybe a hundred short stories that I've saved in terms of audio cassette. I'm working with a writers group in the villages that focuses on writing for kids and I find a lot of motivation having people that are sort of like-minded and highly skilled as classmates. Are you thinking of converting those children's stories to audible books or podcasts? That's exactly what I'm hoping to be able to do and the course I took with you and all the information you shared is giving me insight on how to do it plus it's also getting me motivated that there's a way to share a very large number of short stories for kids. Do you have the stories in written form or they're only on cassette? I have over a hundred on cassette and about 20 in written form. Good great thanks for joining us today Rich. Thanks Mike I appreciate the opportunity. I'd love to be able to play back into our show one of your first children's books. Well I hope so too and maybe I'll send you a case of beer too. Thanks very much Rich. Okay remember our next episode will be released next Friday at 9 a.m. Should you want to become a major supporter of the show or have questions please contact us at Mike at Rothvoice.com. This is a shout out for supporters Twe Coleman, Ed Williams and major supporter Dr. Craig Curtis at K2 in the Villages. We will be hearing more from Dr. Curtis with short Alzheimer's tips each week. If you know someone who should be on the show contact us at Mike at Rothvoice.com. We thank everyone for listening to the show. The content of the show is copyrighted by Rothvoice 2024. All rights reserved.
