Notary Knowledge by Derrick Spruill
"Notary Knowledge by Derrick Spruill," created by Derrick Spruill and hosted by Eddie Montes Travis and Marylyn Lee Trotter, is the definitive podcast resource for navigating the multifaceted world of notarization. This show transcends the typical notary discussion, offering a comprehensive look at the industry from both sides of the signing table.
For notaries, whether seasoned veterans or those just embarking on their professional journey, "Notary Knowledge by Derrick Spruill" provides invaluable insights into the ever-evolving landscape. The hosts delve into the latest legislative changes, industry trends, and best practices, equipping notaries with the knowledge and tools necessary to excel. They explore effective marketing strategies, business development techniques, and the nuances of building a thriving notary practice. The show also addresses the challenges and opportunities notaries face daily, offering practical advice on handling diverse situations and maintaining compliance.
However, "Notary Knowledge by Derrick Spruill" goes beyond simply serving notaries. It also aims to demystify the notarization process for individuals seeking notary services. By examining real-life scenarios and discussing the events that necessitate notary involvement, the podcast provides a clearer understanding of why notarization is essential and what to expect during a signing. Listeners gain insight into the responsibilities of a notary, the importance of proper identification, and the legal implications of notarized documents.
Derrick, Eddie, and Marylyn bring a wealth of knowledge and expertise to the table, fostering engaging discussions and sharing practical wisdom. They feature expert interviews, dissect complex legal issues, and offer life lessons gleaned from years of navigating the notary field. This podcast is a vital resource for anyone seeking to stay informed, understand the notary process, and navigate the intricacies of notarization with confidence. "Notary Knowledge by Derrick Spruill" is a must-listen for notaries looking to elevate their careers and for individuals seeking to understand the critical role notaries play in legal and business transactions.
Check out the "Notary Knowledge Reference Guide and Notary Bible" by Derrick Spruill on Amazon.
Contact Information:
Email us at MobileNotary@DerrickSpruill.com
Give us a call: 1-833-462-4632
Disclaimer: The podcast Notary Knowledge by Derrick Spruill does not provide legal advice. Eddie Montes Travis, Derrick Spruill, and Marylyn Lee Trotter are not lawyers or part of any law firm. This podcast is for informational purposes only.
Notary Knowledge by Derrick Spruill
The Mobile Command Center: Car Ergonomics & Health for Mobile Agents
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Staying healthy on the road is just as important as getting the signature on the dotted line. In this episode, Eddie Montes Travis and Marylyn Lee Trotter look at how your vehicle serves as your primary workspace and why proper posture is the secret to longevity in this business. We explore how to turn your car into a space that supports your body instead of breaking it down.
• Lumbar Support: Learn why simple cushions or specific seat adjustments prevent long-term back pain during those long drives between appointments.
• Steering Wheel Height: Discover the ideal positioning for your arms to avoid shoulder strain when navigating both rural roads and busy neighborhood streets.
• Mobile Desk Setup: Check out the best ways to organize your passenger seat office so you are not twisting your spine to reach files or your laptop.
• Hydration and Movement: Find out how to incorporate quick stretches and water breaks into a packed schedule to keep your energy high.
Your vehicle is more than just a ride; it is your mobile command center. By making these small health-focused adjustments today, you ensure a much more comfortable and profitable career for years to come. Please make sure to subscribe and like the podcast for more practical tips.
Show Notes:
• Optimizing your car seat for long-distance comfort and spine health.
• Essential tools for setting up a safe and efficient passenger-seat office.
• Simple stretches to perform during short breaks between signings.
• The impact of proper hydration and lighting on mobile agent productivity.
Buy Becoming a Notary on Amazon
Notary Knowledge Reference Guide and Notary Bible on Amazon
Your Sunday Notary Reading:
Notary Public Foundation: Essential Guide to Core Duties, Ethics, and Commissioning on Amazon
Your Monday Notary Reading:
Notary Operational Excellence: Mastering Certificates, Journals, Ink, and Copy Certification on Amazon
Your Tuesday Notary Reading:
Notary Fraud Shield: Real-World Tactics, Red Flags, and Refusal Strategies on Amazon
Your Wednesday Notary Reading:
The Mobile Notary Blueprint: Launching and Managing Your On-Demand Business on Amazon
Your Thursday Notary Reading:
Notary Niche Navigator: Your Guide to Loan Signings, Apostilles, I-9s, and More on Amazon
Your Friday Notary Reading:
Notary Law & Liability: Understanding State Regulations, Insurance, and Avoiding UPL
Your Saturday Notary Reading:
The Future Notary: Mastering RON, eNotary, and Complex Scenarios on Amazon
Quick & Easy Solutions: How to Increase Mobile Notary Business for More Success & Profit: with 37 Professional Tips on Amazon
Executive Producer Derrick Spruill
Writers Marylyn Lee Trotter and Eddie Montes Travis
Graphics & Illustrations by Eddie Montes Travis
Music by Thomas Bynum
This Show is Produced by Magnificent Workz
Business Solutions
Need a blueprint to start your mobile notary business? Don't stumble through the premises. You need an outline for success. Introducing the Mobile Notary Blueprint by Derek Sprudel. Build you a thriving mobile business and protect yourself from costly mistakes with expert advice.com, Women's and Noble Bookstore, Booksofmillion.com, Bookshop.org, Mobile Notary by DerekSprudel.com, or download from Kindle and build your successful notary business today.
SPEAKER_03Welcome to Notary Knowledge. The most dangerous piece of equipment a mobile professional owns isn't their car on a busy highway. It's actually the seat inside it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's it is this silent, completely invisible toll of the mobile workspace. And honestly, it is surprisingly destructive to the human body over time.
SPEAKER_03We are Marilyn and Eddie. Today, our mission is to explore how mobile workers, specifically experienced mobile agents, can build the ultimate pain-free mobile command center.
SPEAKER_02Right, because the car's the office now.
SPEAKER_03Exactly. And we're synthesizing a really fascinating stack of resources today. We're looking at comprehensive clinical biomechanical reports, occupational guidelines from the CDC, some chiropractic guides, and practical reviews of heavy-duty notary supplies from notary style.
SPEAKER_02It's a rich cross-section of data, honestly, because well, when you combine the physical act of driving with the demands of mobile office work, you're essentially merging two very different physical stressors into one single confined environment.
SPEAKER_03And that combination is exactly what we need to unpack. I mean, we so often obsess over the tools of our trade, you know. We hunt for the perfect pens, the sleekest self-inking stamps, the most professional briefcases.
SPEAKER_02The fun stuff, right?
SPEAKER_03Right, all the fun gear, while completely neglecting the single most important piece of equipment we actually own, which is our own bodies.
SPEAKER_02For sure. And the damage actually begins before you even reach your first signing appointment. The simple act of driving is silently acting as like a microscopic jackhammer on your spine. So we really have to understand the physics of the daily commute before we can begin to fix it.
SPEAKER_03So the biomechanical reports in our sources point to something called whole body vibration or WBV. And reading through this, it seems like the issue isn't just that the car is shaking, it's it's the specific frequency of the shaking, right?
SPEAKER_02That is the absolute core of the issue. So every object in the world has a natural resonant frequency. The human spine, as it turns out, has a primary resonant frequency range of three to five hertz vertically.
SPEAKER_03Okay, three to five hertz.
SPEAKER_02Right. And unfortunately, the mechanical vibration transmitted from the asphalt up through the car frame into the seat pan and directly into your pelvis. It perfectly matches that exact three to five hertz range.
SPEAKER_03Wow. So if I'm understanding the physics here, the spine is essentially acting like a tuning fork that just catches the exact frequency of the highway.
SPEAKER_02That is a great way to visualize it. Yeah. When the road's vibration hits that specific resonant frequency of your spine, the kinetic energy amplifies. You are absorbing the maximum possible amount of mechanical stress.
SPEAKER_03Which sounds terrible.
SPEAKER_02It is. This constant low frequency vibration drastically increases the risk of disc displacement, lumbar scoliosis, and herniated discs over the course of a career.
SPEAKER_03Knowing that this internal amplification is happening every single time I get on the freeway is well, it's unsettling, frankly. How do we possibly mitigate this when driving is quite literally mandatory for the job? I mean, you can't be a mobile notary without the mobility.
SPEAKER_02Right, you're stuck in the car. But the vibration itself is really only half of the equation. The other half is what the physical posture of sitting actually does to your anatomy.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_02Prolonged sitting naturally flattens the inward curve of your lower back, your lumbar spine. When that curve flattens out, the pressure inside your spinal discs skyrockets. And worse, it initiates a dangerous biomechanical phenomenon called ligament creep.
SPEAKER_03Ligament creep, that sounds ominous. But the clinical explanation in the sources is actually fascinating. If our spinal ligaments are like, you know, thick elastic bands designed to hold our vertebrae tightly together, sitting in a flattened, vibrating posture for long periods slowly stretches those bands out.
SPEAKER_02Exactly. They slacken completely. They lose their ability to hold your spine in a tight, supportive structure. And the body reacts very poorly to this. Clinical reports show that this sustained static posture initiates a rapid soft tissue inflammatory cascade.
SPEAKER_03Okay, let's break down that phrase for a second. Soft tissue inflammatory cascade. I want to make sure we're translating the clinical jargon here.
SPEAKER_02Aaron Powell Of course. So when those ligaments stretch beyond their normal capacity, they sustain microscopic tears. Your body's immune system senses those micro tears and essentially sounds an alarm.
SPEAKER_03Like an injury response.
SPEAKER_02Exactly. It floods the area with fluid and immune cells to try and heal the irritation. That sudden flood of fluid is the cascade, and it causes that deep swelling and stiffness you feel in your lower back after a really long drive.
SPEAKER_03Oh wow. So the vibration shakes the spine, the posture stretches out the exact ligaments meant to protect it, and the body responds by swelling up. Yep. Since we can't just abandon our cars, we obviously have to change how our environment receives and absorbs that vibration. But before we get into the mechanics of engineering the car seat, let's take a quick break. We want to encourage you to check out the Notary Knowledge books by Derek Sproul. They are absolutely essential reading for this level of the business.
SPEAKER_02Truly game-changing resources in those books.
SPEAKER_03And while you're at it, visit the Notary Knowledge website and be sure to check out our video podcast, No Notary, with Eddie Montes Travis. And you can also catch Marilyn's 90 seconds of notary. Alright, so engineering the cockpit. The sources outline a few specific modifications. Let's start with the angle of the seat. The clinical guidelines suggest the ideal seat recline is between 100 and 110 degrees. Right. But wait, aren't we always told by like every elementary school teacher that sitting perfectly straight at a 90 degree angle is the gold standard for good posture?
SPEAKER_02It's funny you mention that because that is a very common misconception, especially when it comes to a moving vehicle. Let's think about the center of gravity here. If you sit at a rigid 90 degrees, your upper body weight is entirely vertical. Okay. Furthermore, a moving car has lateral forces. It sways side to side. At 90 degrees, your lower back muscles are constantly firing and contracting to keep your torso upright against that sway.
SPEAKER_03Oh, I see. They're working overtime just to keep you from falling over.
SPEAKER_02Precisely. But if you recline slightly to that 100 to 110 degree range, you shift your center of gravity backward. You transfer the physical load of your upper body away from your spinal discs and directly into the back rest of the seat. The seat takes the lateral forces, which allows your lumbar muscles to finally relax.
SPEAKER_03That makes a lot of sense. The seat should do the work, not the spine. What about the lower half of the body?
SPEAKER_02Your hips must be level with or slightly higher than your knees. If your hips dip below your knees, like in one of those deep sporty bucket seats, it forces your pelvis to roll backward. Which flattens the back. Right. That posterior tilt immediately flattens that crucial lower back curve. We are trying so hard to protect. You also need to ensure there is a two to three-finger gap between the back of your knees and the front edge of the seat.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I noticed that detail in the occupational guidelines. If the seat presses right into the back of the knees, it compresses the blood vessels and the nerves. That restricts blood circulation down to the calves, which leads to the leg cramps, the swelling, and that numbness that so many drivers complain about.
SPEAKER_02Exactly. Moving up to the arms, the steering wheel should be positioned at least 10 inches from your breastbone, and your hands should rest at 9 and 3 o'clock, or even lower at 8 and 4 o'clock.
SPEAKER_03Lowering the hands to 8 and 4 allows the shoulders to drop away from the ears, which I imagine must relieve a massive amount of upper back and neck tension over a long route.
SPEAKER_02It really does. Now, if your factory car seat cannot achieve these angles, which honestly many cannot, you need an external seat cushion. Ergonomic cushions manage vibration and pressure through two primary biomechanical methods, immersion and offloading.
SPEAKER_03Let's clearly distinguish those two because I feel like a lot of people just buy whatever memory foam pad is on sale at the auto parts store and assume they're protected.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and that's a mistake. Immersion cushions are exactly what you just mentioned. High density memory foam, or those elastomeric gel grids, they're designed to deform under your body weight and conform precisely to your shape. By doing so, they spread the downward force of your body over a much wider surface area. They immerse you in the material to reduce pressure hotspots.
SPEAKER_03But then you have offloading cushions, and these seem much more specialized. The sources describe them as having specific structural cutouts, usually a U shape at the back.
SPEAKER_02Right, they completely remove the support material beneath vulnerable bony prominences, specifically your tailbone, the Cossack Cushits. By creating a physical void under the tailbone, the cushion forces your body to redirect its entire weight to the dense, blood-rich muscles of your thighs and glutes. Those muscles are actually built to bear heavy weight, whereas your tailbone absolutely is not.
SPEAKER_03It literally removes the physical bridge for the vibration. The vibration comes up through the seat, but because there is a cutout under the tailbone, the energy has nowhere to travel. It breaks the chain of WBV transmission to the spine.
SPEAKER_02That is the ultimate goal of the ergonomic cockpit.
SPEAKER_03Okay, so we've engineered our seat. We've got our 110-degree recline, our off-loading cushion, our hands at eight and four. We survived the drive. But, and this next point from the sources feels like a cruel irony, the absolute most dangerous moment of the mobile professional's day happens the very second they step out of the vehicle.
SPEAKER_02Oh, without a doubt, that post-ride transition is the ultimate danger zone.
SPEAKER_03Because of that ligament creep we discussed earlier, the passive spinal stabilizers have been stretched and compromised for the last hour. So if an agent arrives at a client's house, immediately hops out of the car and just twists to lean into the backseat to grab a heavy 15-pound bag.
SPEAKER_02They are risking an acute spinal herniation right there in the driveway.
SPEAKER_03It's like, well, if your spinal ligaments are a stretched-out rubber band, they need a minute or two to snap back into their tight supportive shape before you start hanging heavy weights on them. If you pull on a slack rubber band from a weird angle, it just snaps.
SPEAKER_02The ligaments simply cannot support the load of the vertebrae in that vulnerable state. To prevent this, occupational therapists enforce the golden rule of transition, which is no BLT.
SPEAKER_03No BLT. No bending, no lifting, no twisting.
SPEAKER_02Exactly. When you get out of the car, you must stand upright and walk around for one to two minutes before you even attempt to lift your gear. You have to give your soft tissues time to recover their natural elasticity and for your spinal discs to re-pressurize.
SPEAKER_03Which means the gear you choose to carry is incredibly important. I mean, if we are physically compromised just stepping out of the vehicle, the last thing we should do is grab something poorly designed. The notary-style reviews we looked at highlight how choosing the right mobile bag is essentially a medical necessity, not just a fashion choice.
SPEAKER_02The weight distribution of a bag drastically impacts those slacked ligaments. If you are handling highly sensitive real estate documents, you might opt for something like the locking KOSM C CO bag. It is essentially a large, portable safe.
SPEAKER_03But it has traditional briefcase style handles, which means you are carrying 15 pounds of paper, journals, and stamps by hand. That asymmetrical weight is going to pull your posture down on one side.
SPEAKER_02Right. And if you're just walking from the driveway to a living room, that might be fine. But what if your route involves navigating massive hospital corridors to reach a patient or wandering through huge sprawling apartment complexes? Carrying a briefcase over long distances will cause severe arm fatigue and pull your already vulnerable spine out of alignment.
SPEAKER_03In those high mileage scenarios, the better ergonomic choice is a tote with a wide padded shoulder strap. It allows you to distribute the weight evenly across your torso, leaving your hands free and keeping your spine balanced vertically. It is all about matching the equipment to the physical environment.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. But we also have to consider the scenarios where the car itself is the environment. A massive portion of this job is done parked on the side of the road, working on laptops, or organizing paperwork right in the driver's seat between appointments.
SPEAKER_03And when that happens, the physical danger shifts away from the lower back and moves aggressively up to the neck and upper extremities. We are talking about the dreaded text neck.
SPEAKER_02Twisting your body to type on a laptop that is resting awkwardly on the passenger seat is disastrous for your thoracic spine and your surgical alignment.
SPEAKER_03Let's quickly define those terms for clarity. The thoracic spine is your mid-back, the area attached to your ribcage. And cervical flexion means you are bending your neck sharply forward and down to look at a screen.
SPEAKER_02When you combine a twisted thoracic spine with extreme cervical flexion, you are placing massive static loads on the shoulder girdle muscles. Over time, this leads directly to chronic tension headaches and nerve impingement.
SPEAKER_03The solution provided by the sources is to engineer the mobile workspace just like we engineered the seat. You have to bring the work to you rather than twisting your body to the work. They point to specific in-car desks like steering wheel trays. These clip directly onto the steering wheel and elevate your laptop to near-eye level, which drastically reduces that cervical flexion.
SPEAKER_02We do need to include a massive, non-negotiable safety warning with those steering wheel trays, though. They must only be used when the vehicle is parked, with the engine entirely off, and the keys removed from the ignition.
SPEAKER_03We would hope that goes without saying, but it is a critical safety parameter. Another option mentioned is a bucket seat leveling tray. It sits on the passenger seat but has an adjustable base that levels it out, creating a flat, forward-facing desk. It stops you from having to twist to reach your files.
SPEAKER_02So we have addressed the neck and the twisting. But we really need to look at the hands, because the primary revenue generating task for a notary is document execution, high volume stamping and signing.
SPEAKER_03Okay, I want to push back on this a little bit, or at least admit some confusion. I understand how lifting heavy bags or vibrating car seats can cause structural damage, but is the simple act of pressing a rubber stamp onto paper really forceful enough to cause serious nerve damage? I mean, it's just a stamp.
SPEAKER_02It absolutely is, and the danger lies in the repetition. Think about the physical reality of closing a mortgage refinance. You aren't just stamping once. You're sitting in a living room, processing a 200-page loan package. You're gripping a stamp, pressing it down forcefully onto thick paper, signing your name, initialing over and over. That massive repetitive strain leads directly to carpal tunnel syndrome, or CTS, and decrevanes tenosinovitis.
SPEAKER_03Let's unpack the biomechanics of that. Decrevanes tenosinovitis is a severe inflammation of the tendons on the thumb side of your wrist. But how exactly does stamping cause carpal tunnel?
SPEAKER_02Well, the carpal tunnel in your wrist is a rigid, inelastic tube of bone and ligament. Inside that tiny tube are nine flexor tendons, along with a fragile median nerve. When you repeatedly bend your wrist to press a heavy traditional wooden stamp down, the friction from that repetitive movement literally depletes the natural synovial fluid in your wrists.
SPEAKER_03The synovial fluid, that's basically the body's natural WD40, right? It lubricates the tendons so they can glide smoothly.
SPEAKER_02Exactly. Without that lubrication, the friction causes the tendons to become inflamed. They swell up. But remember, the carpal tunnel is rigid. It cannot expand to accommodate the swelling. So that pressure has nowhere to go, and it ends up crushing the median nerve. That is what causes the radiating numbness, the tingling, and the eventual loss of grip strength.
SPEAKER_03That is a terrifying mechanical failure. So what is the ergonomic fix? We can't just stop stamping documents.
SPEAKER_02The fix is upgrading the tool itself. The sources strongly recommend switching to modern self-thinking stamps with wide curved handles. These are specifically designed to allow for a zero-degree neutral wrist.
SPEAKER_03A zero-degree neutral wrist, often called the thumbs-up grip. So instead of bending your wrist down like you're revving a motorcycle, you are applying downward force using the flat of your palm. Your wrist stays completely straight.
SPEAKER_02By keeping the wrist in that neutral, straight alignment, you align the flexor tendons perfectly so they aren't grinding against the walls of the carpal tunnel.
SPEAKER_03The notary style reviews actually note that using this grip reduces muscular effort by up to 35%. Over a 200-page loan package, that is a massive conservation of physical energy.
SPEAKER_02It is the difference between a long, healthy career and needing a wrist brace or surgery after just a few years of high volume work.
SPEAKER_03Alright, time for another quick break, and then we're going to dive into active recovery and our favorite segment.
SPEAKER_02Let's do it.
SPEAKER_03Okay, we're back. To recap our progress, we've built the perfect mobile command center. We have the 110-degree recline, the offleading tailbone cushion, the shoulder strap bag for long walks, the steering wheel tray for laptop work, and the zero-degree ergonomic stamp. But all of this gear is defensive. It's armor to protect you from the environment. Now we need to look at the offensive strategies from our clinical guidelines. How do we actively maintain the machine, meaning our bodies?
SPEAKER_02Gear alone will not save you. You have to actively reverse the structural compression with targeted movement. This brings us to active recovery.
SPEAKER_03The CDC guidelines are pretty strict about this. They recommend stopping every one to two hours for a five-minute stretch break. But let's look at the reality of the job. We are rushing between back-to-back appointments, fighting rush hour traffic, dealing with delayed clients. Who actually has time for a full physical therapy session on the side of the highway?
SPEAKER_02It's a fair concern, but it's misconception that you need a full physical therapy session. The guidelines advocate for microbreaks. Five minutes is all it takes. You can perform specific, highly effective stretches right in the driver's seat or standing next to the open car door.
SPEAKER_03The sources highlight a few critical ones. Walk us through the mechanics.
SPEAKER_02The most important stretch targets your piriformis muscle, which sits deep in your glutes and has a tendency to compress the sciatic nerve when you sit too long. You use a clinical method called the FAIR technique.
SPEAKER_03F A I R. What does that acronym stand for and how do we do it?
SPEAKER_02It stands for flexion, adduction, and internal rotation. When you are safely parked, you perform flexion by bending your knee. You perform a ductin by bringing it across your body, crossing your ankle over your opposite knee. So, right ankle resting on a left knee. Then you keep your back straight and gently lean forward until you feel a deep stretch in your glute that creates the internal rotation.
SPEAKER_03Holding that for 20 to 30 seconds physically decompresses the sciatic nerve and releases the tension in the pelvis. That sounds incredibly relieving.
SPEAKER_02It is. The guidelines also recommend seated pelvic tilts to re-engage your core muscles and correct your lumbar alignment. And for the upper body, simple in-car chest stretches. You just hold the bottom of the steering wheel and roll your shoulders back and down, squeezing your shoulder blades together.
SPEAKER_03So you are actively opening up the chest to counteract that rounded, slumped driving posture. You're undoing the exact shape the car tries to mold you into.
SPEAKER_02Exactly. But there is one final preventative measure in the sources that completely reframes how we look at occupational health. It has nothing to do with stretching and nothing to do with seat cushions.
SPEAKER_03You are talking about vehicle maintenance.
SPEAKER_02Yes. Regularly replacing worn shock absorbers, checking your suspension bushings, and maintaining exact perfect tire pressure. In the context of a mobile professional, these are actually classified as medical interventions.
SPEAKER_03Calling a tire rotation a medical intervention is wild, but the logic is totally sound. The suspension of the car is the absolute first line of defense against whole body vibration.
SPEAKER_02If your shocks are worn out or your tires are underinflated, your vehicle is failing to absorb the kinetic energy of the road. Those high-frequency mechanical oscillations travel straight through the tires, up the floorboards, and directly into the driver's seat.
SPEAKER_03So a fresh set of tires and new shock absorbers are literally protecting your spine from WBV before the vibration ever has a chance to reach your body. Even the most expensive, scientifically designed offloading seat cushion cannot fix a broken vehicle suspension.
SPEAKER_02You have to treat the car and the human body as a single connected biomechanical system. One relies entirely on the other.
SPEAKER_03That completely changes how we should look at a trip to the mechanic. It's not just an annoying car repair expense, it is literal healthcare for the mobile professional.
SPEAKER_02It's an investment in the longevity of your career.
SPEAKER_03Absolutely. Okay, it is time for our favorite segment. Good question. What would you do? We've got a wild batch of real-world scenarios from our listeners.
SPEAKER_02These are always my favorite. What do we have today?
SPEAKER_03First up, we have Violet in Texas. Her scenario. The parrot. You're at a dining room table doing a loan signing, and the client's large pet macaw keeps trying to bite the pen out of your hand and is squawking over every explanation you give. What would you do?
SPEAKER_02Oh, the parrot. Honestly, you have to control the room. I would politely but firmly pause the signing and ask the client, could we maybe move the bird to another room while we execute these legal documents? I want to make sure I don't make any errors. You can't fight a bird for a pen.
SPEAKER_03You definitely cannot fight a bird. Okay, next is Eli in Maine with the snow. You pull up to a rural property for a signing, but their half mile driveway hasn't been plowed. It's totally impassable. You're parked on the shoulder of the highway. What's the move?
SPEAKER_02That's tough, especially in Maine. I would call the client immediately, tell them you physically cannot access the property safely, offer to meet them at a nearby coffee shop if they have a four-wheel drive vehicle and can make it out. Or you just have to reschedule. No signing fee is worth getting your car stuck in a ditch.
SPEAKER_03Agreed. Safety first. All right, Aurora in Washington brings us the coffee. You're at a coffee shop signing, and a clumsy barista bumps the table, spilling a full latte all over the freshly signed deed of trust.
SPEAKER_02Oh no.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, nightmare scenario. What do you do?
SPEAKER_02First, do not panic. Do not try to wipe it and smear the ink. You have to reprint. If I don't have a portable printer in my mobile command center, I'm calling the title company immediately, explaining the situation and finding the nearest print shop. You cannot submit a coffee-stained deed. It will get rejected.
SPEAKER_03Yep, it's a total redo. Okay, Julian in Alabama. Scenario. Naked. You knock on the door for a scheduled appointment, and the client answers the door wearing absolutely nothing.
SPEAKER_02Wow. Uh immediate retreat. I would turn around, walk straight back to my car, lock the doors, and call the hiring agency to report an unsafe environment. You do not proceed, period.
SPEAKER_03Absolutely. Zero tolerance for that. Finally, Sadie in Oklahoma with the bull. You are driving onto a sprawling ranch property, and there is a literal massive bull standing directly in front of the cattle gate you need to open.
SPEAKER_02A bull. Well, like we said earlier, your car is your safe zone. Stay in the car, honk the horn a few times and see if it moves. If it doesn't, you call the ranch owner and say, Hey, I'm at the gate, but your security guard is blocking the entrance. Come get your bull. You do not get out of the vehicle.
SPEAKER_03I love that. The security guard. Well, those were amazing. Thank you to everyone who submitted. So to bring it all back, what does this analysis mean for you, the listener? It means that investing in your bodily health is just as critical to your bottom line as investing in your business marketing, your professional education, or your software subscriptions. Proper seat ergonomics, choosing a bag based on weight distribution, upgrading to zero-degree stamps, and prioritizing active stretching are the keys to a long, profitable career on the road. You are the engine of your business. If the engine breaks down, the entire operation grinds to a halt.
SPEAKER_02You have to protect the primary asset. And in a mobile business, the primary asset is you.
SPEAKER_03And as remote work continues to evolve, and more and more professionals trade traditional office desks for mobile command centers in their vehicles, it leaves you with a lingering thought. If the car is officially becoming the workplace, will future vehicles legally need to be designed to meet occupational health and safety standards, just like a corporate cubicle? Will OSHA one day regulate the ergonomics of the driver's seat?
SPEAKER_02That is a fascinating question about the future of work in vehicle manufacturing. It really makes you wonder.
SPEAKER_03Something to mull over during your next commute. Email your questions to Derek at derekspraul.com. We will try to answer as soon as possible at the end of our shows.
SPEAKER_02Executive producer Derek Spruell. Lead writer Marilyn Lee Trotter. Graphics Eddie Montes Travis. Music Thomas Bynum. Produced by Magnificent Works Business Solutions.
SPEAKER_03Don't just be listeners of the knowledge, be doers of the knowledge. This is notary knowledge. Until next time.
SPEAKER_01Ready to unlock your notary potential and boost your income? It's time to move beyond basic notarizations. In Notary, Niche Navigator by Derek Spruel. Learn the most profitable specialized services. Learn to master high-demand areas like loan signings, international apostles, and I-9 employment verifications. This distential guide offers new ideas to help you become the GoTa expert in the field. Grab your copy of Notary, Niche Navigator by Derek Spruel today, and start building your empire.