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The Avs are only able to score one goal in a bleh matinee game where a messy third period ultimately costs the Avs at least a point Intro - 0:00Rudo is mad - 1:26The actual game - 7:48Marty Party is kicking himself - 17:07These type of games are good - 26:20Hear from Bednar - 32:20There were some positives - 39:57Might see Vesey next game - 42:05Mechanically not much to fix - 43:36Looking a little scrambly - 44:28Resting guys? - 49:22Care about these last 8 games? - 58:50Do coaches stew on losses like these? - 1:00:10 An ALLCITY Network Production PARTY WITH US: https://thednvr.com/events ALL THINGS DNVR: https://linktr.ee/dnvrsports MERCH: https://store.allcitynetwork.com/collections/dnvr-locker SUBSCRIBE: https://www.youtube.com/c/DNVR_Sports Breck Brew Ice Deck Giveaway: http://breckbrew.com/icedeckMonarch Money: Use Monarch Money to get control of your overall finances with 50% off your first year at https://www.monarchmoney.com/dnvr bet365: Go to https://www.bet365.com/hub/en-us/app-hero-banner-1?utm_source=affiliate&utm_campaign=usapp&utm_medium=affiliate&affiliate=365_03485318 or use code DNVR365 when you sign up. Must be 21+ and physically located in CO.  Please gamble responsibly. If you or someone you know has a gambling problem and wants help call or TEXT 1-800-GAMBLERUC Health: Learn more about Living Like There's A Tomorrow at https://www.uchealth.org/tomorrow/?utm_source=DNVR&utm_medium=Audio&utm_campaign=Brand_LLTIAT_Null_JFMFY25_AW_Null Get Coors Light delivered straight to your door with Instacart by going to https://coorslight.com/DNVR. Celebrate Responsibly. Coors Brewing Company, Golden, Colorado.  Rugged Road: Gear up for your next adventure with Rugged Road Coolers - Your ultimate outdoor companion! Head to http://ruggedroadoutdoors.pxf.io/ALLCITY and use code DNVR for 10% off! Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code DNVR for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Check out FOCO merch and collectibles here https://foco.vegb.net/DNVR and use promo code “DNVR10” for 10% off your order on all non Pre Order items. Exclusively for our listeners, Shady Rays is giving out their best deal of the season. Head to https://shadyrays.com and use code: DNVR for 35% off polarized sunglasses. Try for yourself the shades rated 5 stars by over 300,000 people. Get 10 FREE meals at https://hellofresh.com/freeavalanche. Applied across 7 boxes, new subscribers only, varies by plan. https://www.bet365.com/hub/en-us/app-hero-banner-1?utm_source=affiliate&utm_campaign=usapp&utm_medium=affiliate&affiliate=365_03485318 or use code DNVR365 when you sign up. Must be 21+ and physically located in CO.  Please gamble responsibly. If you or someone you know has a gambling problem and wants help call or TEXT 1-800-GAMBLER When you shop through links in the description, we may earn affiliate commissions. Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing.#coloradoavalanche #hockey #hockeypodcast

Ephesians 5:20There are 3 aspects of Thanksgiving that will help us be thankful people in spite of our circumstances.

Galatians series message 15Text: Galatians 4:8-20There is nothing greater in life than to be known by God, as that is what it means to know God personally - to be reconciled to Him, to be redeemed and indwelt by His Holy Spirit. Paul continues to express his great concern and affection for the Galatians, longing to see Christ formed in them. When it comes to the gospel, we simply cannot be vague or fuzzy on the details - clarity is needed as we build our lives on solid ground!

Scripture Reading: Acts 3 Now Peter and John were going up to the temple at the time for prayer, at three o'clock in the afternoon. 2 And a man lame from birth was being carried up, who was placed at the temple gate called “the Beautiful Gate” every day so he could beg for money from those going into the temple courts. 3 When he saw Peter and John about to go into the temple courts, he asked them for money. 4 Peter looked directly at him (as did John) and said, “Look at us!” 5 So the lame man paid attention to them, expecting to receive something from them. 6 But Peter said, “I have no silver or gold, but what I do have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, stand up and walk!” 7 Then Peter took hold of him by the right hand and raised him up, and at once the man's feet and ankles were made strong. 8 He jumped up, stood and began walking around, and he entered the temple courts with them, walking and leaping and praising God. 9 All the people saw him walking and praising God, 10 and they recognized him as the man who used to sit and ask for donations at the Beautiful Gate of the temple, and they were filled with astonishment and amazement at what had happened to him.11 While the man was hanging on to Peter and John, all the people, completely astounded, ran together to them in the covered walkway called Solomon's Portico. 12 When Peter saw this, he declared to the people, “Men of Israel, why are you amazed at this? Why do you stare at us as if we had made this man walk by our own power or piety? 13 The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our forefathers, has glorified his servant Jesus, whom you handed over and rejected in the presence of Pilate after he had decided to release him. 14 But you rejected the Holy and Righteous One and asked that a man who was a murderer be released to you. 15 You killed the Originator of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this fact we are witnesses! 16 And on the basis of faith in Jesus' name, his very name has made this man—whom you see and know—strong. The faith that is through Jesus has given him this complete health in the presence of you all. 17 And now, brothers, I know you acted in ignorance, as your rulers did too. 18 But the things God foretold long ago through all the prophets—that his Christ would suffer—he has fulfilled in this way. 19 Therefore repent and turn back so that your sins may be wiped out, 20 so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and so that he may send the Messiah appointed for you—that is, Jesus. 21 This one heaven must receive until the time all things are restored, which God declared from times long ago through his holy prophets. 22 Moses said, ‘The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your brothers. You must obey him in everything he tells you. 23 Every person who does not obey that prophet will be destroyed and thus removed from the people.' 24 And all the prophets, from Samuel and those who followed him, have spoken about and announced these days. 25 You are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant that God made with your ancestors, saying to Abraham, ‘And in your descendants all the nations of the earth will be blessed.' 26 God raised up his servant and sent him first to you, to bless you by turning each one of you from your iniquities.”Main ThemesThe MiracleThe SettingWe learn in chapter 2 that believers pray daily in the temple. (This means they prayed in the temple courts, not literally inside the temple.) So, chapter 3 opens with a predictable scene—Peter and John find themselves going to the temple to pray (3:1). We can safely assume they were going to participate in a corporate prayer meeting (as opposed to a time of personal prayer).We are aware that at some point synagogues established three prayer times during the day. We have evidence from early Christian writers that Christians continued this practice for a while. Even in Acts we read of three times of prayer: 9:00 AM (Acts 2:15), noon (Acts 10:9), and 3:00 PM (Acts 3:1). There is some doubt that the synagogue tradition was firmly in place at the time of Acts chapter 3, but most agree that was the case.We might ask ourselves: What did these times of corporate prayer look like? It may have included corporate singing of Psalms and other worship, a person leading everyone in prayer, and everyone praying differently but simultaneously.We might also ask ourselves: How long did the miracle and Peter's preaching (which we are about to discuss) take? We learn at the beginning of chapter 4 that Peter and John are arrested towards evening, and recall that Peter and John head towards the temple around 3 PM. So, the miracle and subsequent preaching probably lasted about 3 hours. Although this may be obvious to the reader already, we should note that the speeches we read in Acts are obviously summaries. Luke records the main points made by Peter.The Lame Man and the GateAs the believers head to the temple to pray, they run across a lame man who was placed at the temple gate daily. As a quick historical note, we are not certain at which gate he was placed. Ancient sources do not specify which gate was popularly called “the Beautiful Gate.” We are able to ascertain that it referred to either the Nicanor Gate (which led from the Court of the Gentiles into the Court of Women) or the Shushan Gate at the eastern wall. Since the fifth century, the tradition has been that “the Beautiful Gate” referred to the Shushan Gate, but that tradition may not be reliable.Of more relevance than which gate is being described is the fact that the lame man was at a gate. Because of his defect, he may not have been allowed to go any further into the temple. Also, temple gates were useful for begging since they were frequented by many people. Moreover, one may assume that people at the temple were a more charitable audience than elsewhere. Finally, we must keep in mind the lame man's dismal situation. Begging (considered highly shameful) would have been his only way to provide for himself. There was no other social safety net. As a scholar points out, the poor in ancient cities were “ill-fed, housed in slums or not at all, ravaged by sickness,” and with little hope of social betterment.The ExchangeThe lame man begins the exchange with the apostles on the basis of his need—he requests money. Truly, he requested alms—money given to the poor as an act of charity—but our translation uses money because the term alms is unfamiliar to current readers. Giving alms was viewed as honorable by Judaism.The lame man's request opens the door for a dramatic demonstration of the gospel. The Old Testament strongly emphasized the charitable treatment of the disabled. Consider, for example:You must not curse a deaf person or put a stumbling block in front of a blind person. You must fear your God; I am the Lord. Leviticus 19:14“Cursed is the one who misleads a blind person on the road.” Then all the people will say, “Amen!” Deuteronomy 27:18Like I have pointed out many times before, the gospels are replete with commands to help the poor.Most importantly, according to the Old Testament, healing of the sick would be a sign of the messianic era. Consider Isaiah:Tell those who panic, “Be strong! Do not fear! Look, your God comes to avenge; with divine retribution he comes to deliver you.” Then blind eyes will open, deaf ears will hear. Then the lame will leap like a deer, the mute tongue will shout for joy; for water will burst forth in the wilderness, streams in the arid rift valley. Isaiah 35:4-6)In the Old Testament, the lame also work as a type for the mistreated people of God:Look, at that time I will deal with those who mistreated you. I will rescue the lame sheep and gather together the scattered sheep. I will take away their humiliation and make the whole earth admire and respect them. Zephaniah 3:19So, Peter healing a lame man works on a literal level—it is an astonishing miracle that validates his credentials as one sent by God—and on a narrative level—the story of redemption has reached the messianic era in which the people of God will be gathered.The Disclaimer—No MoneyUpon the lame man's request, Peter and John clarify that they do not have any money. (The phrase “silver and gold” simply means money, “minted coins.”) Although this is nothing but a footnote in the story, we should notice that as the believers shared all their possessions with one another (see chapter 2), the apostles do not seem to have been enriched. Also, this distinguishes Peter and John from magicians of that time, who took payment for their services.The MiracleJesus' NamePeter begins the miracle by giving credit to Jesus Christ. Jesus's name is a key element that recurs throughout this section. It is repeated many times in chapter 3, and its mention continues into chapter 4. This leaves no doubt that the apostles are acting only as agents for the one who sent them—Jesus.We should notice that Peter specifies that he speaks of Jesus “the Nazarene.” This shows a reference to a real, historical figure, and it operates as defiance to popular expectations of greatness. Being from Nazareth was certainly nothing to brag about.How should we understand the use of Jesus' name? For example, in the context of prayer, calling God's name generally means one is addressing God. For example:Now Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he stopped, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.” 2 So he said to them, “When you pray, say: “‘Father, may your name be honored; may your kingdom come. . . .” Luke 11:1-2But in prayer, one is also calling on the Lord himself to act. Consider how the Lord's prayer continues:Give us each day our daily bread, and forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us. And do not lead us into temptation. Luke 11:3-4Invocations of God's name could be directed at people or at least with people as the intended audience to prove who is acting. Consider Elijah challenging the prophets of Baal:“Then you will invoke the name of your god, and I will invoke the name of the Lord. The god who responds with fire will demonstrate that he is the true God.” All the people responded, “This will be a fair test.” 1 Kings 18Consider also David's blessing of the people of God in the name of the Lord. This probably means he was calling on the Lord to the bless them.When David finished offering burnt sacrifices and peace offerings, he pronounced a blessing over the people in the Lord's name. 1 Chronicles 16:2So, when Peter asks the lame man to walk “in the name of Jesus Christ,” he may be pointing to who is doing the miracle.We could also understand calling on the Lord's name slightly differently. Both in Jewish and Gentile tradition, we can find brokers (i.e., representatives or messengers) using the name of their patron to denote on whose authority they speak or act. So, to say “in the name of Jesus Christ” is to say, “as a representative of Jesus Christ.” We find this (or a very similar) use of the expression in the Gospel of John when praying in Jesus' name (John 14:13; 15:16; 16:23-24). In John, praying “in one's name” evokes praying “on the merits of,” or because of, another's status before the one entreated (much like Israel seeking favor before God on account of their ancestors' favor).Notice that under either interpretation of using the Lord's name, it is Jesus or through the power of Jesus that the miracle happens. The difference is whether the apostle works as an announcer of what Jesus is doing or as the agent through whom Jesus acts.We should also notice that Peter does not use a particular ritual. For pagans, God's favor could be sought by using very specific rituals that needed perfect execution. Jewish ritual was less particular, but correctly implementing the ritual remained important, leading to conflicts between, for example, Pharisees and Sadducees. Peter also does not employ techniques or ingredients that would lend themselves to be interpreted as magic. The only ingredient, so to speak, is the power and authority of Jesus.The HealingPeter clasps the lame man's right hand—typically a sign of agreement or covenant in the ancient world. Given the man's low social status, this denotes acceptance and kindness on Peter's part. Peter helps him up.The miracle is emphatically evident. The man jumps up and immediately walks. Then we are told repeatedly that he “walks around,” walks and leaps,” and all saw him “walking.” The miracle works as a sign that draws attention to the message about to be preached.Why is the miracle so effective? Those at the temple recognized this man as the one “who used to sit and ask for donations.” Since he had been lame from birth, we can conclude he had been placed there daily for a very long time.Moreover, if we are correct in concluding that the lame man could venture no further into the temple due to his disability, the fact that the man enters the temple courts to praise God is significant. His barrier to experience God has been removed by the power and grace of Jesus.The SpeechThe SettingPetter delivers his speech at Solomon's Portico. It was a long outdoor hallway supported by pillars on the east of a pre-Herodian structure, which overlooked the steep Kidron Valley. Apparently Solomon's Portico was a traditional place for Christians to meet and preach; we read about it in Acts (Acts 3:11; 5:12) and in John 10:23.The MessageWhodunit?Peter begins his sermon by correcting an apparent misunderstanding by the crowd. He makes clear that the cause of the healing is Jesus, not himself.Wonder-workers were common at the time, and they were often understood as sorcerers. Clarifying that Jesus was the source of the miracle, along with other passages in Acts (e.g., Acts 8:7-13, 18-24; 19:11-20) work as an antimagical apologetics. These are miracles done by God, Peter is pointing out, not magical works done by Peter's power or cunning. Moreover, Peter is separating himself from certain Jewish traditions that held holy men had power to make certain things happen. (Pagans had a similar notion, believing that piety could lead to spiritual power. For example, Romans believed that their sacrifices could expiate the gods and that their continued worship could even make the gods embarrassed to continue in anger against Rome.)Unlike a sorcerer or a man acting by his own piety-fueled power, Peter points to Jesus and immediately says the following::The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our forefathers, has glorified his servant Jesus, whom you handed over and rejected in the presence of Pilate after he had decided to release him.In other words, the main proposition of the speech is that the God of Israel who acted to resurrect Jesus is continuing to act.The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob“The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob” was a familiar Jewish expression, derived from the biblical revelation to Moses recorded in the book of Exodus. It appears multiple times in Exodus and the Old Testament, but probably the most memorable mention is in the scene of the burning bush.Now Moses was shepherding the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the desert and came to the mountain of God, to Horeb. The angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire from within a bush. He looked, and the bush was ablaze with fire, but it was not being consumed! So Moses thought, “I will turn aside to see this amazing sight. Why does the bush not burn up?” When the Lord saw that he had turned aside to look, God called to him from within the bush and said, “Moses, Moses!” And Moses said, “Here I am.” God said, “Do not approach any closer! Take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” He added, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” Then Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God. Exodus 3:1-6This title for God was common in Jesus' time, appearing in Jewish prayers and benedictions, making it one of the most familiar titles for God. Someone who had read both of Luke's works would remember that Jesus had used this title before—once before. Jesus defended the resurrection of the dead with this very title and the very scene of the burning bush, concluding:But even Moses revealed that the dead are raised in the passage about the bush, where he calls the Lord the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. Now he is not God of the dead, but of the living, for all live before him.” Then some of the experts in the law answered, “Teacher, you have spoken well!” For they did not dare any longer to ask him anything. Luke 20:37-40There seems to be no coincidence that Peter uses that same title for God to preach about restoration as Jesus did to preach about resurrection. The God who demonstrated his faithfulness to the patriarchs in the exodus would be faithful to his promise to raise them from the dead; God demonstrated that faithfulness in raising Jesus from the dead; so, one can expect God to deliver on his promises of restoration as well.The Servant, the Holy and Righteous One, the Originator of LifeBecause I have discussed some of these Old Testament allusions in many occasions, I will provide only a brief summary of what the titles used for Jesus are meant to evoke in the listeners' minds.The term servant along with the theme of glorification almost inarguably points to Isaiah' servant.Look, my servant will succeed! He will be elevated, lifted high, and greatly exalted—(just as many were horrified by the sight of you) he was so disfigured he no longer looked like a man; his form was so marred he no longer looked human—so now he will startle many nations. Kings will be shocked by his exaltation, for they will witness something unannounced to them, and they will understand something they had not heard about. Who would have believed what we just heard? When was the Lord's power revealed through him? He sprouted up like a twig before God, like a root out of parched soil; he had no stately form or majesty that might catch our attention, no special appearance that we should want to follow him. He was despised and rejected by people, one who experienced pain and was acquainted with illness; people hid their faces from him; he was despised, and we considered him insignificant. But he lifted up our illnesses, he carried our pain; even though we thought he was being punished, attacked by God, and afflicted for something he had done. He was wounded because of our rebellious deeds, crushed because of our sins; he endured punishment that made us well; because of his wounds we have been healed. Isaiah 52:13 – 53-5“The Holy One” was especially a title for God himself in both the Old Testament and in early Judaism. In a context that draws heavily on Isaiah, the “holy one” title could imply deity (“Holy One” appears thirty times in Isaiah, including for God as Israel's savior and “redeemer” in the servant contexts). The title could also function as an acceptable title for one of God's servants when conjoined with “of God.” In the case of Acts 3, that seems like a difficult interpretation to hold.“Righteous one” is not a common expression for Christ later in the New Testament. (Although we see some uses, such as in 1 John 1-2. It says, “But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous One, and he himself is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for our sins but also for the whole world.”) So why is this title for Jesus used in Acts?In Acts, the title of righteous one is used exclusively when preaching to Jerusalem audiences, which is perhaps a clue as to its intended meaning. Calling Jesus the “righteous one” heightens both the contrast with Barabbas the “murderer” and the guilt of those who denied Jesus. It also fits one of Luke's central themes: Jesus was innocent. Moreover, the term “righteous servant” appears in the servant song of Isaiah (Isaiah 53:11), solidifying the connection between the term “servant” and Isaiah's servant.“Prince of life,” “Founder of life,” or as our translation puts it, “Originator of life” is antonomasia—a title that substitutes the name of a person. Examples in other contexts would be referring to Shakespeare as the Bard or to Lebron James as the GOAT.In Peter's speech, we see a recurring contrast between life and death, including between he who raised to life and those who kill. Calling Jesus the Originator of life is a great rhetorical device to emphasize that contrast. Also, a biblically literate listener would probably recall Deuteronomy 30:“Look! I have set before you today life and prosperity on the one hand, and death and disaster on the other. What I am commanding you today is to love the Lord your God, to walk in his ways, and to obey his commandments, his statutes, and his ordinances. Then you will live and become numerous and the Lord your God will bless you in the land that you are about to possess. However, if you turn aside and do not obey, but are lured away to worship and serve other gods, I declare to you this very day that you will certainly perish! You will not extend your time in the land you are crossing the Jordan to possess. Today I invoke heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set life and death, blessing and curse, before you. Therefore choose life so that you and your descendants may live! I also call on you to love the Lord your God, to obey him and be loyal to him, for he gives you life and enables you to live continually in the land the Lord promised to give to your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” Deuteronomy 30:15-20There is much debate about exactly to interpret the word translated as prince, founder, or originator (ἀρχηγός). The term appears frequently in the Septuagint to refer to heads of clans—hence the translations prince and founder. The term could apply to authors or originators of something, or the “initiator” of something. However, for readers steeped more in biblical Greek than in Greek tradition, the image of leadership would be dominant. Jesus is thus the hero leading the way to the historic goal of achieving eternal life, and as such fulfills the promises and inaugurates the opportunity for the eschatological era of blessing. In the words of other New Testament passages, he is the “firstborn” from the dead, who thereby guarantees life to the rest of his people. Perhaps a great translation of ἀρχηγός is “pioneer,” but modern scholars find “pioneer” to be on the list of icky words (for reasons I am sure you could guess).Believe, Repent, and Then . . . The Messiah's ReturnVerses 15 through 21 sounds quite similar to the speech in chapter 2, so I will not discuss them in detail except for the conspicuous differences. By differences, I do not mean inconsistencies. I mean the two speeches are not identical and we learn some distinct information.As in the prior chapter, Peter tells the Jewish audience that they killed Jesus, their divine king sent by God, yet God raised him from the dead, a fact to which the apostles are witnesses. In chapter 2 Peter points to the audience as witnesses of God's miracles (as opposed to the apostles). But in chapter 3 Peter quickly points out that the audience has now witnessed a miracle. The crowd was familiar with the lame man who was healed, making this charge effective. All in all, the setup of the message in chapter 3 is similar to that of chapter 2.The first distinction, albeit in tone and not theology, is in how Peter addresses the crowd's culpability. In chapter 2, Peter emphasizes the guilt of the crowd. In chapter 3, Peter minimizes (although does not remove) their guilt by highlighting their ignorance.Then just like in chapter 2, Peter then clarifies that Jesus' death was according to scripture. Finally, Peter calls the crowd to repentance.The real difference between the two speeches begins in verse 20. What are the fruits of repentance in chapter 2? “Peter said to them, ‘Repent, and each one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit'” (Acts 2:38). Peter also tells them to “Save yourselves from this perverse generation!” (Acts 2:40). In short, the result of repentance is forgiveness of sins, receiving the Holy Spirit, and salvation (which in the context of chapter 2 means avoiding judgment).What are the fruits of repentance in chapter 3? “[S]o that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and so that he may send the Messiah appointed for you—that is, Jesus. This one heaven must receive until the time all things are restored, which God declared from times long ago through his holy prophets” (Acts 3:20b-21). Repentance will be followed by “times of refreshing” or what may also be called restoration; and, once sufficient restoration has occurred (“the time all things are restored”) then Jesus will return.This idea of restoration is found throughout the Old Testament prophets. Perhaps the best known passage is in Ezekiel:“‘I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries; then I will bring you to your land. I will sprinkle you with pure water, and you will be clean from all your impurities. I will purify you from all your idols. I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit within you. I will remove the heart of stone from your body and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my Spirit within you; I will take the initiative, and you will obey my statutes and carefully observe my regulations. Then you will live in the land I gave to your fathers; you will be my people, and I will be your God. I will save you from all your uncleanness. I will call for the grain and multiply it; I will not bring a famine on you. I will multiply the fruit of the trees and the produce of the fields, so that you will never again suffer the disgrace of famine among the nations. Then you will remember your evil behavior and your deeds that were not good; you will loathe yourselves on account of your sins and your abominable deeds. Ezekiel 36:24-31Jews during Jesus' day and thereafter linked the idea of turning to God with the restoration of Israel. Many Jewish sources show an expectation that Israel would return to God's law in the last days. Often Jewish teachers, particularly in later rabbinic texts, predicated the end's arrival and Israel's restoration as chronologically contingent on Israel's repentance.Summary and ConclusionsWhat does this tell us about the current age? The opportunity to turn to God is now. The good news is going out to all the nations (see verse 25) that the Lord has already raised the firstborn from the dead. Anyone who trusts the “Pioneer of life” shall reach the same destination. And, one day, when all the people of God have turned to Him, Jesus will return to judge, to heal, to restore, and to reign a world that will be filled with love, peace, and joy.The concept of restoration and Jesus' return also prompts a few questions. Peter's speech claiming that heaven would receive Jesus until the period of restoration echoes Psalm 110:1, which Peter quoted in chapter 2. The psalm says:Here is the Lord's proclamation to my lord: “Sit down at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.” The Lord extends your dominion from Zion. Rule in the midst of your enemies. Your people willingly follow you when you go into battle. On the holy hills at sunrise the dew of your youth belongs to you. The Lord makes this promise on oath and will not revoke it: “You are an eternal priest after the pattern of Melchizedek.” O Lord, at your right hand he strikes down kings in the day he unleashes his anger. He executes judgment against the nations. He fills the valleys with corpses; he shatters their heads over the vast battlefield. From the stream along the road he drinks; then he lifts up his head. Psalm 110:1b-7So, will all enemies of Christ be defeated and then Jesus will return? Should we expect the church to advance and (peacefully) conquer all the world, every institution, and every person? Will nearly everyone become a follower of Christ? Some believe this. Other passages in scripture have led most Christian throughout history to temper those expectations, with some taking an opposite, extremely negative view of history's arch. But regardless of how we harmonize scripture, the theme of an advancing church (whether ultimately victorious or not) seems inarguable. Many will come to Christ. The enemies of the church will not prevail against the plan of salvation.The second question we might ask is whether Acts 3 (and other texts, such as Romans 11) means that it is the conversion of Jews (not Gentiles) that will trigger the end—the return of Jesus. Many Christians in the United States hold this view today. Often times, although not always, this view includes the belief that national Israel will be restored and blessed before the final judgment. In other words, that Acts 3 is talking specifically about the ethnic nation of Israel. This partially explains why many conservatives in the United States are committed to supporting the nation of Israel. One may also take a passage like Acts 3 and argue that, for example, Peter seems to intentionally omit the more Israel-centric portions of the Old Testament text he cites, and that at the end of chapter 3 Peter again highlights that the promise of salvation is for all nations. Therefore, restoration involves all the people of God—the Church—and not specifically Jews. (Of course, the arguments for the different theological positions look for evidence all over the Bible. I give examples only from the texts we have recently read so as not to derail our conversation.)So far I have avoided these eschatological topics because people feel very strongly about them. Discussion can easily get heated. My intention behind these brief comments is simply to introduce some of the options available.

In this powerful episode, Tim talks with Debbie Potts of DAP VA Limited about her inspiring story of resilience. Debbie describes how she kept her dreams alive by keeping her anchor or north star in view at all times, even while adapting to remote work during the pandemic, battling ovarian cancer (twice!), and navigating the chaos of moving to a new country. Her tenacity, vulnerability, and never-ending positivity will both inspire and motivate any listener who needs encouragement to pursue their dreams without letting obstacles get in the way or define them. Debbie's story shows listeners how powerful you can be when you advocate for yourself, discover your goals, and trust your instincts. Tim shares the main lessons he's learned from working directly with Debbie and following her achievements, including how to keep your vision clear, break down impossible tasks into manageable pieces, and keep your momentum going against the odds. You'll learn about the importance of positivity and a little bit of Swedish coffee culture along the way. About Debbie Potts | Founder of DAP VA LimitedDebbie Potts is the entrepreneurial force behind DAP VA Limited, where she stands as an Online Business Manager and Executive Virtual Assistant. With a rich tapestry of experiences spanning over three decades in the corporate legal sector and educational management, Debbie's multifaceted expertise is matched only by her grounded, go-the-extra-mile ethos and her passion for the Swedish concept of 'fika'—taking a break to savour coffee and company.Debbie's philosophy centers around the notion that exceptional business support should be within reach for every entrepreneur and business owner. She extends this support across the globe, offering services that include website redesign, social media enhancement with a particular knack for leveraging Pinterest for Business, and comprehensive executive assistance—all tailored to help her clients reclaim precious time.Beyond her professional endeavours, Debbie dedicates her energy to advocating for two cancer charities. As a survivor herself, she generously shares her journey to uplift others and advance the mission of these organizations, which provide crucial support to those touched by cancer.Resources discussed in this episode:Working Genius - Patrick LencioniVA Mastery Course - Amanda JohnsonMacmillan Cancer SupportDebbie's Story on The Royal Marsden Cancer Charity WebsiteBBC Interview Highlighting Challenges of Cancer Patients During the Cost of Living CrisisIndividualism vs. Teamwork with Rita Ernst Part 1 (Apple)Individualism vs. Teamwork with Rita Ernst Part 2 (Apple)Individualism vs. Teamwork with Rita Ernst Part 1 (Spotify)Individualism vs. Teamwork with Rita Ernst Part 2 (Spotify)--Contact Tim Sweet | Team Work Excellence: WebsiteLinkedIn: Tim SweetInstagramLinkedin: Team Work ExcellenceContact Debbie Potts | DAP VA: WebsiteLinkedin: DAPVA--Transcipt:Debbie 00:01We need to believe that we are stronger than we think. We are more resilient than we think. And we absolutely can achieve. Yes. It's hard as you said, yes, the trajectory to the dream is tough. And I was pushed down that mountain 1000 times that I got up, I kept going. So it isn't so much about failing, because I did. But it's how do you pick yourself up after failing?Tim 00:31I'd like to ask you some questions. Do you consider yourself the kind of person that gets things done? Are you able to take a vision and transform that into action? Are you able to align others towards that vision and get them moving to create something truly remarkable? If any of these describe you, then you my friend, or a leader, and this show is all about an all for you. Welcome to our 20th episode, this is the Sweet on Leadership podcast. Tim 01:04Hey, everybody, welcome back to Sweet on Leadership. Thank you very much for joining me, I am absolutely over the moon to be talking and bringing to you one of the most amazing spirits that I have encountered on this planet. She is somebody that I have a great deal of love for. I never knew when we met how much I would jive with you and how much I would feel an immediate connection with you. And I really just can't wait for everybody else to experience a little bit of Debbie because it's the vitamin D and never knew you needed. And that's coming at you today. So welcome Debbie Potts, to this podcast. And thank you so much for taking the time to join me and sharing your amazing story. Debbie 01:49You're welcome, Tim. And thank you for inviting me. This is amazing. And yeah, I jive with you, too. So it's, it's mutual. And I have a lot of love and respect for you, too. So great. Let's let's do this. Tim 02:04Oh, yeah. So Debbie, I'm going to ask you to introduce yourself, let people know what you're all about. And then I've got some really big curiosities as we talk about your journey. And so yeah, please let everybody know who you are. Debbie 02:19Oh, sure. My name is Debbie Potts, as Tim said, and I am the director of a virtual assistant business, which is a business based in the United Kingdom. And registered in the United Kingdom. I serve my clients in all sorts of ways I provide services, to help them run their businesses, I do social media for them, I've fixed their websites, I redo their websites. Basically, I turn my hand to anything. I really plus myself as not only a business owner, but also a survivor and a conqueror of two-time ovarian cancer. So for me, that's kind of my biggest achievement. It doesn't define me, but it is something that has made me who I am today, and I'm so happy to join you. Tim 03:07I appreciate it. And in case you're wondering, dear listener, Debbie helps me all the time, and she's brought an entirely new level of control, and he's around my own business. But that's not why we're here. Today, we're not to talk about the power of an amazing assistant, although that is something we're going to get into. And I don't even think of it as an assistant, I think of a power of an amazing collaborator who rounds off your edges and supplements, your leadership style or your business in ways that you can't even imagine. Okay, that's part of it. But let's talk about the journey I'd love you to, to lead us into the story of The Red House. And I think for all of the leaders that are listening, this is an amazing parable around or amazing example of what happens when you set a vision and you achieve it and how it can have what I see from the outside being a profound effect on a person's trajectory. Notwithstanding Yeah, notwithstanding the the battles that you've been through, and I think that's part of the story. But the metaphor of the red house to me is just so inspiring. So that's what I'm really hoping that we can get into today. So could you give us a little bit of a background in terms of what the red house is, take us up to the lead-up of what was happening where you first had this dream. Debbie 04:36Okay, so basically my dream about living in a red house in the middle of the countryside near the forest and near the sea, started way back decades ago, really, when I first came to Sweden, and we took a trip into the countryside and I saw all these little red houses dotted around everywhere and the colour of these red houses is specific only to Sweden and it's called “Falu Röd” (Falu Red). So I had a dream to live in a follow red house. So there so at the time, Dan and I, my partner were living and working in London. And I thought, How on earth am I going to make this happen? I work in a school, I don't work remotely, I have to go to school every day. I can't, you know, work in London and live in a red house. It's just not going to work. What should I do? It was a lot, a lot of knockbacks. At first, I applied to many positions here in Stockholm thinking, Okay, I'll just change my job. But of course, not speaking the language was a big sort of negative. So every job that I applied for was a “no.” Tim 05:49Just to back us up. When did you have this vision? What year was that?  Debbie 05:54Oh, my gosh, that would have been 2009.  Tim 05:552009? Debbie 06:02Yes. The way I sort of drifted was after my visit to Sweden, I went back home and I printed a picture, any picture Tim of any red house, and I stuck it on the wall above my computer. And obviously, I would look at this, whenever I came to sit at my computer, I would see this. And it would just keep sort of the cogs turning. Okay, so how do I turn that picture into a reality? First, was job so that I could work in the country that I want to live. Second was, while I need money, houses don't fall from trees? Yeah, I've got to have some money. And of course, I'm working with my partner, Dan, on this dream. So you know, we decided to for now do sort of a feasibility study and look at where could we possibly live? Because a dream can only become reality to me when I physically see the possibility rather than think it or see it virtually. Tim 07:08In the late 2000s, you start to think of this. And you when you put these pictures out behind your computer as a bit of a vision board, you're approaching it practically you're not approaching it with a distant dream, you're bringing it close saying, ‘Where could this exist?' The default being Sweden, obviously. Debbie 07:28Absolutely. And I did have that dream aspect as well. I mean, I would go to sleep dreaming about The Red House, I would talk about it at work with my colleagues, I would talk about it with my friends and family. So and that's all I was obsessed by. Everybody kind of knew, ah, what does Debbie want? She wants to live in a red house that's been known for years. Tim 07:49So the red house was this picture, this avatar for something. What did the Red House represent to you?  Debbie 07:56Oh my gosh, it represented freedom, it represented achievements. It represented living life on my terms. And obviously, I love nature, as you do. And it just represented, you know, being able to be close to nature and, you know, completely do a 180 turnaround of my life. You know, I lived in a big city, London, full of people full of traffic full of everything. And I've now completely reversed that. And you know, I've told you about this before in our conversations, there's, you know, this little village I live in, there's 10 plots, but only eight houses. And that's us.  Tim 08:40And eight families that are collectively a community. When you think about that, then the red house was such a clear delineation, was such a clear, step off what you knew. It there was a polar opposite from that perspective. I do remember you sharing with me at one point, the red house was just a representation, and you'd identified all of those outcomes you were looking for. That could have manifested in a bunch of different ways. Right? You could have found nature somewhere else, you could have found peace somewhere else. Debbi 09:12Yea, but it also was my love of Sweden anyway. And because I love the country, and because, you know, so it was a whole mind shift change, because not only did I have the picture of the red house above my computer, but I also enrolled myself in London to have Swedish lessons. So then I could start learning the language. Okay, so sort of ticking off all the things that I needed to do for myself to be able to achieve this dream.  Tim 09:42So you were putting in the small things in place. Debbie 09:45All the little bits and pieces. Yes.  Tim 09:49Okay. So, late 2000. You're coming up with these plans. You've got this vision, you're starting to tick off the small items. What happened then what was the next thing that happened? Debbie 09:59It just became an impossible dream. If I'm honest with you, if I'm genuinely honest. Yeah, prior to the pandemic, it became an impossible dream.  Tim 10:09It was never gonna come close.  Debbie 10:10No, I could not see myself finding a job that would, you know, give me enough money to achieve this dream, nor could I see myself finding a job in Sweden and then achieving the dream. Tim 10:23The clarity around it started to take you farther away from it. The reality starting to pose, you know, real concrete frictions with your current life. Okay, all right, so, so you went through these exercises, then you faced this hero's journey of now the challenge was starting to appear as impassible. Debbie 10:46Absolutely.  Tim 10:47This is pre-pandemic. And pre-battle with ovarian cancer.  Debbie 10:54Pre-battle. I was healthy, Debbie, you know, working living in London enjoying life. And what I decided to do was I thought, okay, I'm not going to give it up totally. Because it's, you know, when you really want something, and you just are not prepared to kind of compromise or give it up. I thought, okay, these battles are here for now. Let me just plod along with my work. And you know, think about how do I overcome this obstacle of living in London, but I really need to be in Sweden? And there's a lot of little things you've got to do. I had to research, how do I get a Swedish visa? How do I you know, legally, all of these other little things? How do I get a bank account? How do I do this? So I thought, let's just do those little things. I started a spreadsheet and, I'm a spreadsheet queen, and honest, I had all the things I needed to achieve with a box, you know, tick off, okay, that done and then notes on the side that tell me, okay, so for a visa, you need to do this da-da-da-da-da. And I just sort of left that slide and kept going. I also subscribed to a property selling website marketing site, and they would just, yeah, I'd just look every morning. That's the first thing I did. I didn't check my work emails, I didn't do anything, I would just spend 15 minutes looking to see what's on the market.  Tim 12:18So, even though part of your conscience was telling you that this is not gonna, let's say the logical part of your brain is fighting you, saying this is not logical use that okay, broke it down to the little tasks, you know, you could action. And I mean, for any of you who've worked with me on Working Genius, which is Patrick Lencioni's new piece. This is very clearly the genius of tenacity, right? It's pulling things into manageable chunks that we then are going to accomplish, Debbie 12:50But also not giving up Tim. Because lots of people give up. And they just say okay, it's not gonna happen and they shelve it. Tim 12:58And where you disaggregated it down to its constituent parts that could start, instead of going for that great big island off in the distance. You swam to this sandbar, and then this sandbar, and then this sandbar, and slowly the island is coming a little closer and a little closer.  Debbie 13:17That's right, yeah. And in English, the saying, you know, I had all my ducks in a row. So I spent nearly five years putting all these little ducks in a row, you know, finding out okay, how, you know, what do I do to get a bank account? Okay, if we lived in this area, how far away is it from the airport? You know, in case I've got to travel back to London or anywhere, for that matter. How do we get broadband or internet connection to a house that's in the middle of the forest? What do I do? Tim 13:46I don't want to get into this too far. Because I think that's fodder for another conversation. But this is so you. I mean, this is what you do for me all the time. When I'm feeling, when I'm feeling overwhelmed. And I've got too many things on the goal. You're like, stop, Break it down. Let's get this into into the easiest thing you can do next, what's just the one easiest step you can take? Which is...  Debbie 14:11Can I just add a little bit more, just so that we can get to the Red House now. Tim 14:16You got it, go for it.   Debbie 14:17So far, all of this happened and I sort of like okay, I'll just do these bits and find out so that I'm totally prepared. If and when they're… not even if, when the time comes. So fast forward to 2020. 2020 Okay, it's 20th of March 2020. The whole of the UK shut down completely. And I was like, oh, now I have to work from home for my school. This is great for me who absolutely loves tech, and absolutely loves working from home. Now my red house popped up front and center because it's, I soon clocked on that, oh my god, if I can work from home for my school, I can work from anywhere. This is it, I got my answer. It's, it's that's it, I got my answer. So in the middle of the pandemic, I decided, okay, I had a conversation with my executive head. And I said to her, Would you be happy? They knew I go to Sweden, you know, six, seven times a year, would you be happy for me to work remotely, from Sweden, for the schools? I supported four schools at the time. Of course, she said, “No, we need you here, Debbie physically.” So that's a no. So I thought, okay, what do I do then to make this remote working dream become reality? Since we're in a pandemic, people have now understood that you can work remotely globally, as you and I do. Yeah. And I decided, what job can I do that will allow me to be able to do this? And I researched, I Googled, I watched so many podcasts, or listened to so many podcasts, watched videos. And finally, yeah, why don't you be a virtual assistant on your own terms? So on the fourth of August 2020, during the pandemic, I started my own business. Tim 16:24You had to step away from your…  Debbie 16:27No, I did it simultaneously, because I needed the income. But I started because I don't know if my business is going to be a success. Of course, I'm going to put everything into it. But I thought, okay, I can do it on a part-time basis. I was lucky enough to have fantastic training, I found this amazing VA Mastery Course, with this lady called Amanda Johnson. I absolutely adore her.  Tim 16:48We can put a link to that. Debbie 16:50Yeah, totally. Yeah, I did her course. And that's what changed everything for me completely. It then made the steps to the Red House, achievable. And I knew it's gonna happen, there was absolutely not one iota of doubt in my mind that this was going to happen in the next two years. Tim 17:11Okay, so 2020, lockdown happens, suddenly we have this new reality of working remotely, and that opens a door that you're ready to step through. Debbie 17:21100% I stepped through it. My business did take off really well, which was great.  Tim 17:30Right, I remember that's when we met.  Debbie 17:32Yes, something had to give because I couldn't continue with my full-time school job, and run DAP VA limited. So I had to, in February of 2021, I then handed in my notice, and the period of notice I had to give was six months. So, I said to them, You know what, don't worry, I'll give you until the end of this academic year ie July 2021. And then I'm gone. Not only will I work full-time on my business, but I'll also be leaving the country to move to Sweden. So up pops another spreadsheet, because now I have to do all the removal costs and all that sort of you know, get the van or the lorry come and take all what will we be taking them since we are left Europe and and you know, Brexit happened. So we classed as a third country to Sweden, so I have to pay import charges, all of these things. Whereas before you could just literally drive your whole house to Sweden, and that would not be a problem.  Tim 18:34So what's amazing about this to me is you made this decision, the move starts the unhooking from life, as it was, begins. Although I mean, you still do have deep connection to London. Your Hill was getting steeper, not more shallow. I mean, Debbie 18:52Yeah. But it looks achievable to me. I don't know.  Tim 18:55Oh absolutely. It was achievable. What I mean is that the difficulty level went up. That didn't stop you. It wasn't as easy as it would have been a few years prior. But that didn't stop Debbie  Debbie 19:09That's true. This point actually, is spot on Tim, because a few years prior, I wouldn't need a visa nor would I have needed to pay all those 1000s of pounds in imports. Tim 19:19You had momentum at this point. And that inertia was carrying you up that change curve. That wasn't the end of your struggles.  Debbie 19:29No, not at all. So obviously, you know, the beginning or the first half, I'd say of 2021 I was working so hard with two jobs and being a school business manager is a stressful full-on job even though my contract was term time only. So I thought okay, you know, I will have vacation time or holiday time and I will work on my business during those times and I'll make it work somehow, Tim, I always make it work. So it was full of excitement, anticipation. If I could literally, you know, see and touch the dream. I'd set up house viewings for Dan and I to go, and you know, view all these beautiful houses. The next visit we had to Sweden. So it became it started becoming, you know, when you can just taste something and you just have a little taste. It's so nice. You want to eat the whole thing. That's what was happening. So we did all these house viewings, and we listed the our favorites and blah, blah, went back to the UK, started winding down, packed up all our stuff in boxes that we wanted to bring to Sweden. Found a company that was great that would come and pick it off from door to door. And literally, one day before we were due to fly to Sweden, or the move, I'd applied for my visa at this stage as well. And they said, Look, you can come to Sweden anyway, even if it's isn't quite granted yet. Because, you know, you can stay on the 90-day rule that the UK nationals are allowed to stay in Sweden for 90 days per year. And your visa should come during that time. So it all was good. So you can come now, I was like, okay, great. Everything's great. One day, Tim, the fourth of August 2021. We had our British Airways flights booked on, on Thursday, the fifth of August, we were going to meet the removal van in Stockholm on Friday, the sixth of August. But on the fourth, I should just back up a week or so I went for what I thought was a routine scan and had the scan and left it and it usually takes about 10 days before you find out the results. I got a call from my GP on the fourth of August, saying the morning of, no sorry, she found me on the Monday. So that was the fourth was a Wednesday. She phoned me on the Monday and said, Debbie, I don't think you'll be going to Sweden. And I said now of course I'm going everything's sorted. We flying on Thursday. She said no, we have your scan and it's you have cancer basically. So I'm like “What? No,” she goes just to be sure. Let me do another scan. So I said okay, can you do it before Wednesday? Because I'm flying on Thursday. She said I really don't think you're flying. But yes, we'll see you on Wednesday. So still, I didn't believe it. Tim, I just thought nah, it's a mistake. And you know, these scans are misread sometimes. But anyway, I'll go on. I'll go on Wednesday. Yeah, so off, I went alone. Had a more detailed scan. First I had just a pelvic ultrasound. And then I said I can't wait for the results 10 days because I'm flying tomorrow. So can you just tell me what's on your screen? And he said, I remember the radiologist saying, see these dark clouds over here. And on both sides here. That's your left ovary. That's your right ovary, these dark clouds covering both ovaries. That's cancer. See these other dark clouds? That's your upper abdomen? Yep. See all how they floating looks like a skyline? That's cancer. You have cancer. Yeah, we don't know the staging yet. Because we've got to do more details. And I was like, oh, shock. I'm alone. What do I do? So I asked them, what would happen next? They said, Okay, we do an MRI, which is more detailed. And that will definitively tell us what's going on. So I asked if they could fit me in that afternoon. And they did. It was about 2:30. I had my scan on the fourth of August. After the MRI. straightaway. Yeah. Confirmed. So obviously I was a little bit. Yeah, I was in shock. I was numb. I was, it when I'm telling you this. Now it doesn't even feel like it's me I'm talking about, but it is me, though. I called Dan. I actually didn't even call him first. I called Dan's best friend. And his name is Anders. And I said, Look, I'm probably going to die. So I need you to take care of them for me. So can you do that? And at this point, I was crying. He couldn't even hear me. And I'm you know, so I just said, just promise me that you'll do this for me because, you know. It's important. Yeah, of course, whatever you do, blah, blah, blah. Then I phoned Dan. I told him, he came over straightaway to the hospital, along with my two daughters. And yeah, we just were a little bit in shock. The doctor came, spoke to us all. And it was at that point I knew well, we're not going to Sweden. So we went home and we played a board game and ate sandwiches. That's the first thing we did, which ,I don't like, I'll tell you why.  Tim 24:57That Red House that was so close. You could almost taste it. Debbie 25:00I was on my way.  Tim 25:02And you wanted more suddenly was suddenly like it was right there. And suddenly, it's just now thrust farther and farther away. It's not about the house. It's just that, you know, as the as a backdrop to your cancer journey, that you weren't going to Sweden.  Debbie 25:16Not at this time. Tim 25:18No, but you went home and you ate sandwiches. Debbie 25:20And played a board game. God knows why. Tim 25:22Played a board game. What happened next from now you're redoing all the math. This point was, Debbie 25:31No, I didn't even. Now I thought about life and death. So now my, my whole... Tim 24:33Your spreadsheet changed, now it had two columns.  Debbie 25:36I didn't even look at that for about a year. Actually. Tim 25:42If you know what I mean, is if you may have met one, it would have been pretty stark it would have been like, yeah, that's it.  Debbie 25:48Yea, so I just decided to, again, because I'm such a practical organized person. Okay, now death is coming. Let's get all my ducks in a row before I die. You know, so I need to do this, this, this, this and this. Okay, what should I do? Well, I didn't have a will, believe it or not. Okay, I need to get a well done. And even then, kind of, you know, Dan would say, Look, that's not priority. Right now, we need to see what can we do about this disease, we have an appointment in two weeks' time, everything in the UK is two-week wait under our national health system. And I said, I'm sorry, I can't sit here or lie here, knowing I have ovarian cancer and wait two weeks to hear how they can help me. Anybody at all who's had any kind of diagnosis of a terminal illness, it does not just cancer loads. You can't wait, Tim, two weeks and just stew over all the sooner you know, and the most dangerous thing is you go to Google and you start Googling. And Google is the worst thing you can do when you've been diagnosed, because the results it gives are not your results. They could be someone else's. And you know, you could be reading into it in the wrong way, which I did. I Googled how long can people with ovarian cancer live? And they, you know, maximum two years is what I was reading, and I'm like, Oh my God, I've got two years to live. No, I can't. Tim 27:21So you were literally Doom scrolling? Well, like without, we use the term Doom scrolling, like lightly now. But you were. Debbie 27:29Yea, I was.  Tim 27:30You were building up the doom. Debbie 27:31I decided to try and speed up things again, make it happen, you know, using my power. And I just woke up one morning, and after two days, I think from diagnosis, so this would have been a Saturday morning. I woke up at 5am. And I said, Dan, I'm getting dressed. I'm going to the hospital. He goes, baby, it's 5am Where are you going? I said, I'm just gonna sit there until I can speak to someone. I'm not waiting two weeks, I really can't. And that's exactly what I did. I woke up. He came with me. We'd sold our car as well by this time. So we because we were moving to Sweden, so we didn't have a car, got an Uber to the hospital. Tim 28:09And all your stuff is in a truck as well. Right? Debbie 28:10Well, it's in Sweden. It's already made the journey. We had to get Anders and other friends to come and offload for us. It was a nightmare, an absolute nightmare. And so at the hospital, I just waited. I went in there six o'clock, as soon as the oncology department opened, I just there was sort of seating just outside. And I sat there and waited for a staff member that came through. I'm like, I need to speak to someone right now. Tim 28:41Right? So you were advocating for yourself, you're advocating for knowledge for not being left in the lurch. And saying Debbie 28:48I'm also knowing, I need to know, you know, is this? You know, I know that there are so many advances in, you know, the treatment of cancer today, it's not as it was 20 or 30 years ago. It's far advanced. So I just want to know, will I live? Or will I die? Can you put a timeline on it? Or can you not? What's the deal? And so yeah, I did actually happen to speak to a really nice oncologist who looked at all my sort of notes and my scan results and everything. And he said, and this is where it got even worse. It's it. This looks so complicated. We actually can't treat you in this hospital. So we need to refer you to one of my colleagues. Her name is Angela. And she's, you know, the hospital just 20 minutes down the road. It's one of the best cancer research hospitals, certainly in the country and certainly in the world. And you'll be in good, good hands. I'm making you an appointment for Monday. So yeah, go go and see. No, no, he saw kind of the distress and then sometimes I'm Tim, you have to go with your feelings. You have to trust what you feel like doing rather than keep second-guessing yourself.  Tim 30:08Yeah, you weren't on anybody else's schedule. You weren't in anyone else's rules.  Debbie 30:12Yeah, I was on my own. Yeah. So that's another good sort of characteristic to develop because, you know best and you know how things should be. So yeah, I will just fast forward. I went to see Angela, Dan and I, it was our first time ever stepping over the threshold of a cancer hospital. Surprisingly, it was a lovely place. Even today, it's still my happy place. And saw Angela, she did more tests looked at me and said, Debbie, I'm so happy to tell you that we have developed a curative care plan for you and that word curative. I will never forget the emotion. The rush of emotion, our shoulders, both Dan and I, our shoulders dropped. We just breathed, exhaled a deep breath out. We both started crying. But smiling at the same time, because now I knew I'm not gonna die. So now I was... Tim 31:22Knew, not hoped.  Debbie 31:26Knew. 100% knew. Yeah, she said curative? While I was talking to Dr. Angela. George. I googled her just to see. And I saw that wow, this woman is, she's a kick-ass boss lady. I mean, she is like, head of genomics head of research. She's fabulous. She's known the world over. So when I saw her credential, I almost then and I still joke with her today I say, Oh my God, you're a goddess. She's from New Zealand. And I always say to her, I didn't see her for two weeks one time, and because she was on vacation, and when she got back, I was like, Oh my god. Dr. Jordan, I missed you. Where have you been? Oh, I went home to New Zealand. Ah, great. What did you do there? You know, my mom had a long list of chores for me to do. What? Does your mother not know who you are? You are Dr. Angela? Can I, I need to speak to your mom. You should be home eating grapes with somebody standing fanning you and you know caring to your every need and whim. And she's like Debbie, I'm a human being just like you are. Tim 32:27It's funny when I wouldn't give to hear Dr. Angela's perspective and perception of you through all of this. Man, that would be would be something to hear.  Debbie 32:38Yeah, I have heard it. Yeah, that's for another time. Okay. Anyway, so once she said that, and we knew both Dan and I, almost in unison, said, Okay, what should we do? Tell us what to do, and we will do it. And that was our mindset going forwards, even till today. It's tell us what to do. We'll do it. And of course, by they then you know, just to speed it up to them. Otherwise, we'll be here forever. She put a you know, six months chemo, followed by surgery, followed by monitoring tests. And basically, that's the plan. Yeah. And, you know, had all sorts of ups and downs during that time had nearly had my right leg amputated. I reacted badly to my first chemo drug. Paclitaxel, I'll never forget that I'm allergic to Paclitaxel. And on a scale of one to five, one being the not-so-bad. I'm a five. So basically, I passed out and woke up three hours or four hours later, with all these things attached my beautiful red dress split in half, because time was of the essence. So they have no time to, oh, let's not spoil her dress. And, you know, I'm here. I'm a fighter. I'm here. I'm resilient. Tim 33:54You gave yourself over to the process. That process was a curative process. That process was one more thing that you needed to do…  Debbie 33:59To achieve my red house. Tim 34:05To achieve this red house. Debbie 34:09So I had to also have some psychotherapy whilst I was being treated for cancer because, yeah, it's an aggressive cancer that I have and it's also an aggressive treatment for it. So, during my, one of my therapy sessions, I remember my therapist said, Debbie, you need an anchor, you need something to hold on to throughout this process. And we call it an anchor and that's going to anchor you and keep you steady. And so what is your anchor, and immediately I blurted out, The Red House. That's my anchor. I'm just going to live and fight this battle for the Red House. Of course you do it for your, you know, my beautiful partner, Dan, for my children, and for the grandson I didn't yet have at that time. So you know, I'm doing it for all of them. But I'm also doing it for the Red House. Tim 35:02And the Red House is so much more than just a building. I mean, it is an expression of everything that you were heading towards, what an optimum life looked like for you. I mean, often when we're doing, we're doing career, when I'm coaching, and we're looking at somebody's career, I ask them the question, “What is what is this all for? What's your future look like?” And when it comes to a job, I'll say, “What is the best day of the last year you're ever going to work look like?”, or the last year of your career going to look like, and then that's our North Star, that's the one that we're going towards. And this Red House was your North Star. Debbie 35:42It was indeed, it was indeed. But also it was place, because both Dan and I are very sociable people. We are gregarious we are. We love friends and family. And we said, we're not going to get a little red house that just fits us too. We're going to get a red house where everybody can come our friends, our family. It's just a place of community and socializing, and fun and laughing and enjoyment and love and sitting around the fight. It's all of that, Tim. So the red house is that red house, but it is a bigger vision than just the red house. Tim 36:22Let's maybe use this then to talk about and, and like not to gloss over this. You have still, you still had to battle. You've still had other aspects when it comes to the cancer journey. You are thankfully healthy now. But it has come at no small amount of effort, right? At the same time, you are now in the dream. You are, the dream is now reality. So give us a sense of what were the surprises? What were the surprises, the little things that this house has meant to you, that this new life has meant to you, that achieving this goal has meant to you? And also, perhaps the things that you never thought were going to happen that suddenly are realities. What does life look like now in the dream?  Debbie 37:06Oh, it's wonderful. I can't… I actually have another dream because I can't live without a dream. We always have to have a dream. But that's something else. I'll tell you at the end. Remember to ask me what my dream is now. It's wonderful. I really cannot stress enough how as human beings, we need to believe that we are stronger than we think we are more resilient than we think. And we absolutely can achieve. Yes, it's hard, as you said, Yes. You know, the trajectory to the dream is tough. And you know, I was pushed down that mountain 1000 times, Tim. But I got up. And I kept going. So it isn't so much about failing, because I did. But it's how do you pick yourself up after failing? Do you hold on to that North Star, that anchor? What do you do? And that's exactly what I did. I held on and held on. And you know, I made sure I shared my dream with everybody. I came in contact with Dr. Georgia. And when I had my second, my recurrence, my cancer came back after five months of being clear. And she knew I had this dream. And she said, Debbie, don't get the stress because we can we can treat this by surgery. So look at this as a big boulder in you, going along the road to your dream, all of a sudden a boulder comes and gets in your way. What do you do? Just go around it and then continue. So that's what we're going to do. We're going to go around the bouider and put you back on your road. And yeah, again, you know, that was so close, Tim. We came back in June of 2022. After being given the all-clear. We were here for days, the surgeon in London phoned and said I'm sorry, we your scan you had two weeks ago showed two masses one, seven and a half centimetres, one three and a half centimetres. Do you need to come back? For days, Tim? Yeah, I went back and then in February of this year, it all came to be I didn't wait for the all-clear. I made an arrangement with my hospital in London that, you know, I'll come back every three months for treatment and tests and scans. So in February, we looked at 13 houses in two days. And it's a big area that we had to cover. Everything is like 30-40 minutes apart. And we looked at thirteen. I actually got sick from looking at so many, all the houses and then went back to London and packed up the few things that we could now bring with us. By this time we bought another car so we packed the car up, drove to Sweden from London with our stuff, put an offer into the house that we saw, which was this one. It was accepted by the lovely Gustaf, who is the developer, and he built this house with his own hands. And when we finally met, we shared our story with him. He started crying, we started crying. He goes, as I was building this house, I was hoping that it would go to someone with love and who saw it for what it was. And he goes... Tim 40:19He had no idea.  Debbie 40:21Yea, he had no idea it was for me or for us. He even said I was going to paint it white because I'd ordered the red paint. And then I thought,  no, all the other houses are white, I need to paint this one white. So you phoned the company where he ordered the paint from and said, look, can I change from red to white? And the company said, sorry, no, we've already mixed your paint for you. It's coming. So he said oh, okay, don't worry, I'll just paint it red. How about that? Tim 40:52Well, it's, you know, we can talk about serendipity for sure. But I'm sure Gustaf, he had no idea of when he was looking for somebody that would love that house, just how much meaning it would represent. Debbie 41:04Oh, he said that. And we actually invited him back after we'd moved in and, you know, changed things. That garden was developed. And it's now furnished, and it's got our stamp on it. And he came over, and again, he was filled with tears. And he's like, this is exactly what I had in mind that you would do in this room when I built it. This is how I, you know, our open plan kitchen and living room has a Fika area. Remember Fika? Very important. He actually said I want this to be the heart. And where we all gather? And for sure, Tim, everything happens in the Fika area. Tim 41:41Yea, and Fika, for those that don't know, what's the word? Debbie 41:44Fika is the art of Swedish coffee, drinking, where you go, you take time to be in the moment with friends, colleagues, family, whoever, no electronics, nothing, you just are present, and enjoy each other over a cup of coffee or tea, and a bun or a sweet treat. Tim 42:03I think I think that's really interesting to think I see you living always in two zones, you were very clear about what your vision was. But you didn't step too far away from the moment. Because you were always working. You were always working in the moment you worked. Not in somebody's two-week timeframe. But you said no, I gotta go advocate for myself, and you did. And then and then everything for you has been a balance between things being far away and having that Northstar, but then doing what makes immediate sense in order to leverage the situation that's in front of you. Debbie 42:39But I think it all circles back to what you said in the very beginning. You know, the Red House signifies this dream or vision or lifestyle that I wanted to have. And without that clear, definitive dream or vision, I don't feel I could have achieved it. So if I've said, Well, I could live in a red house, maybe a green one would do. Oh, I don't mind if it's close to the city or, you know, maybe it can just be in a field. I'm so sort of wishy-washy. Tim 43:11But but in this case, you did not compromise.  Debbie 43:15No, it was a definitive kind of vision where it had to be. And the picture said it all I wish I knew whose house that was, but it was, you know, close to water with the forest. There, right there and clearly in the countryside. And that is that's how I wanted to live. Yeah, Tim 43:33Yea, it will be a question whether or not that was predetermined? Or if that is something that you made the most likely most statistically possible.  Debbie 43:44I think it's a bit of both. Yeah, I think it's a bit of both because I believe this is my path. And you know, throughout it, I didn't sort of say I'm the cancer person, even though I introduced myself as that. But I always do put a caveat that cancer has never defined me, I still worked on DAP VA limited during my chemotherapy, I'm in the hospital. And, you know, I still did all the things I could do until I couldn't. And when I couldn't I took an eight month break because I had to focus on my recovery and beating this disease. But as soon as I was able to, I came back, and here I am. I've been working ever since. Tim 44:24And it's a life without compromise in many ways, is what I see, like there's of course you make small adjustments. But would you say that through all this, your ability to yes, both flow with things and move around the boulders as you need to. That's a skill that you've obviously developed but also, you're not living by anybody else's rules. Would you say that anything's changed from you and just that level of sort of determination of? Debbie 44:53I've gained a resilience I never thought I had, you know before a pre-cancer, you kind of or even pre-DAP VA limited, you kind of hear the word resilience, people talk about being resilient. And it kind of sort of doesn't settle. But since I've now had to prove resilience, I feel that now I totally understand what that word means. I also understand what self-discovery means. Because never did I look inward, I would always just do things and never sort of think, how am I doing this? And what's my driver? What's the goal? I would just do it, you know. And so, this whole becoming a business owner, having this dream, having cancer has taught me and showed me that yeah, I'm sorry to use the cliche, but we are so much stronger than we think. Tim 45:51You have to be careful not to believe what you think. That's so yeah. Debbie 45:55Yea, and I kept sort of feeding my brain with positive things. You know, funny thing is Tim, this house before we even moved, or even had viewed it, in London, I bought all the soft furnishings, for a four-bedroom house. And, you know, Dan was like, You're crazy. You don't even know it's gonna have three bedrooms or four. But I said, No, I know, I'm just buying this room, this room, this room, I bought enough stuff for two bathrooms. It's like, we don't know if we can have two bathrooms, baby. I said, no, I know. Tim 46:30Not everybody is going to always understand. And I think for those of the people that are listening, if this story doesn't give them some perspective, in terms of just how, you know, if you think your life is difficult, take a look, take a look at what Debbie's overcome and adopt some of her principles. And I mean, what I'm what I've jotted down here, as we've been talking is that North Star, that vision is, among the first the ability to break things down into into manageable chunks, the ability to then build a momentum. That's just incredible. And I remember back in the day, we used to say, you know, put yourself between the immovable object and the irresistible force, right? And then, you know, you know, Your situation may change and you're ready to be resilient for what unknowns are going to come up or what things how the environment or how the situation is going to change. You need to flow with that.  Debbie 47:27And I think it's also the power of positivity, you know, I read her book at the time that I was actually I was staying in hospital. And you know, it's just that positivity, Tim, I know, it sounds like nothing, but oh, my God, the power of positivity is a force that you cannot reckon with. I'm sorry, it's staying positive. That's also another thing I learned. You know, I did consider myself a positive person before cancer, pre-cancer, but I didn't realize that positivity actually can change your life. Tim 48:06Well, I'm for those of you that are interested. Read has been on the show a couple of times, or we've got two episodes with read on it. We'll put links to those in the shownotes.  Debbie 48:12Yeah, definitely.  Tim 48:15Your story about how you're able to advocate for yourself is one of the things that I love most about that is just when you are willing to stand up for yourself, how many people will then stand up with you. Whereas if you're willing, if you're just going to relegate yourself to you know, being part of some predetermined process, people will keep moving the way they were moving anyway. And I think back to Dolly Parton, she had this saying if you don't like the road, you're on pave a new one. In your story, I just so many times you found yourself on a road more rocky than perhaps you had anticipated. Debbie 48:56Yea, so true. Dolly's words.  Tim 48:59Yea, as we wrap up here, let's, let's talk a little bit about some of the amazing things that are happening now. Your story has inspired many other people. Debbie 49:08I'm filled with gratitude, really, Tim. You know, every day I wake up, I'm alive, I'm healthy, I can do all the things that I could be for my cancer, despite having body parts missing, ie, I have a stoma, that colostomy bag on my left side. And I can still do everything. So I'm really grateful. So then I just kind of thought, now I'm on my feet. I'm back at work. You know, I'm enjoying working with my clients, who I love and adore all of you, all of them. And how can I give back? How do we, what do I do? What should I do? I can't just sit here and bask in the glory of the grid house. So I decided to put myself in the most uncomfortable position ever, which is speaking in public. And so I share my story wherever I'm invited. In order to you know, spread awareness that we can achieve that getting a terminal or a serious illness diagnosis perhaps is the better term is not the end of the road. There is light at the end of the tunnel. And you know, just maybe adjusting our mindset a little because you do have to contend with dealing with your illness as well. But you know, within that, try your hardest to see the positive side of these things. For example, having Chloe, that's the name of my stoma. Chloe, the colostomy, gives me priority boarding on any flight. So wow, I love, I love Chloe and airport security. I just go present myself at the fast track with my little badge. And there I go on the fast track. I never queue. Tim 50:55There you go, so many silver linings. Debbie 50:58They are so yeah, yeah, absolutely. And also, I enjoy speaking, one on one like this. Very nervous about speaking in public. And so yesterday, I was invited to speak for a charity that actually helped us, Dan and I in 2021, when we were down and out, it's called the Macmillan Cancer Charity, based in the UK. I love them to death. Well, no, I love them not to death, but I love them. And so I love them to live. And they said, would you come and share your story as our away day so that, you know, all the people who support and donate and work in this charity understand, and just are reminded of why they do the job they do. It's because of people like me, they literally gave me life. They supported me when I was in my darkest moments in so many ways, Tim. And so I thought yeah, of course I'll do it even though my stomach was doing somersaults the whole time. And I felt like throwing up and pay off with me lunch and I couldn't eat. But I just thought now I've got to do this. And you know, there was not a dry eye in the room. And I didn't do it to make them cry. I said to them, no, I'm I'm emotional. Because I'm so grateful to have this platform, not only to share, but also to actually thank you, each and every single one of you, how much you, you know, helped us to thank you for, you turned our lives around. And so, you know what you do, please do not minimize it. You actually do change lives.  Tim 52:38Again, it's a story for another time, but we can talk about, you've shared with me how influential you're being locally around local government and other areas. You're exercising your advocacy  Debbie 52:45My a voice.  Tim 52:49Yeah, yeah, your voice without making it too cute. If you weren't operating from this dream achieved, in a sense, you're in the red house. Now if you, if you didn't have this new these set of of traumatic and like, this amazing, but very treacherous journey that you've been on. You're seeing things with new eyes. If you if that hadn't happened? Would you have the voice you have today? Debbie 53:19No, absolutely not. I'd be on the treadmill that I had been on for 34 years. Same old, same old, nothing new. Tim 53:26So I'm gonna ask you two things. One is, let people know where they can connect with you.  Debbie 53:35Absolutely.  Tim 53:36Where would you like them to connect with you? And the second thing is, if you had a wish for people that are listening to this today, what would that wish be? Okay, so where can people find you? Debbie 53:44where can people find you so people can find me? I'm on LinkedIn. So it's just Google Debbie Potts. My company is DAP VA Limited. They can also just Google DAP VA Limited. Tim 53:58We'll put those in the show notes. Debbie 53:59Perfect. So yeah, I think my one wish for everybody who's listening and facing any kind of challenge, uncertainty, you know, indecisive. Don't give up; find your anchor, find your north star and work towards it. Because you'll get there. Tim 54:22And every step towards that star is going to be a discovery about who we really are. Debbie 54:29Absolutely. But it also takes you that one step closer. No matter what it takes you step, it takes you closer, so please don't give up whoever you are, wherever you are. Tim 54:40Keep coming back to that even when it seems that it's pulled away from you a little further, you know? Debbie 54:45Yeah, totally. Oh, you got it, Tim, you understand. Tim 54:49Right. Well, Debbie, love you so much. And thank you for spending time with me.  Debbie 54:55That's okay.  Tim 54:56Okay. Well, Debbie 54:57You're so welcome. Thank you very much Tim 54:58Till next time. Buh-bye  Debbie 55:00Bye.  Tim 55:01There's so much more we could talk about. We didn't even get to talk about your next dream.  Debbie 55:07Well, Do you want to know what it is, Tim?  Tim 55:09Yea, I do?  Debbie 55:10It's a Yamarin, six and a half foot, boat, speed boat. It has a sundeck at the back enough for six to seven people. It's got a little table so we can have our dinner in the middle of the archipelago in the ocean.  Tim 55:20There we go.  Debbie 55:22It's got to cover so that Dan and I can go and camp out in the archipelago should we wish. So I have a picture of a boat. So I'm working towards it. I'm close. I'm very close. The deadline or the timeline is March 2024 to purchase it. If not before. And then they will put it in the water. So I've been to speak to them. I've spoken I'm a regular visitor, I go sort of every two weeks, and they all know my name. They go ideally, you ready to buy the boat? I go no, no, no, not yet. But I have a question. So they're gonna put it in the water for us in April next year, already and good to go. And then we're going to use it throughout the summer season. And then in September, October, they're going to pick it up and store it for us. Ready for the following year. And they're going to clean it services, fix it and we don't even have to worry about any of that. So in order to achieve that dream, I first need a spot to moor my boat during the summer season. So, before I can buy the boat, because it's pointless having a boat and got nowhere to put it. During the summer season. I had to go and find the spot and of course all the spots are taken because we live close to the water. And you know, everybody has the boats in the summer. So everyone was like no, the spot is a two-year waiting list. Now I can't wait to use that spot. There's no hardly anybody changes. You know what I did? I went old school Tim. I typed on a piece of A4 paper. And we invite everybody new to the area. We live in (area of Sweden) and we're looking for a spot to moor boats. If anyone knows of anybody who's giving up this spot and will please remember this number. Old guy rang the number. And he says, oh, yeah, I know a spot over, maybe it's a five-minute drive from us that okay? And we go absolutely. We got a spot.  Tim 57:24There you go.  Debbie 57:26Got a spot. Tim 57:29So Debbie's next dream is the boat. The boat, the blue boat. What color is it?  Debbie 57:38It's white. It's called a Yamarin. I'll send you a picture after this. Tim 57:42Sounds great. All right. Can't wait to hear about Debbie's next adventure soon. Tim 57:53Thank you so much for listening to Sweet on Leadership. If you found today's podcast valuable, consider visiting our website and signing up for the companion newsletter. You can find the link in the show notes. If, like us, you think it's important to bring new ideas and skills into the practice of leadership. Please give us positive rating and review on Apple podcasts. This helps us spread the word to other committed leaders. And you can spread the word to by sharing this with your friends, teams and colleagues. Thanks again for listening. And be sure to tune in in two weeks time for another episode of Sweet on Leadership. In the meantime, I'm your host, Tim Sweet, encouraging you to keep on leading 

GospelMARK 12:18-2718And Sad'ducees came to him, who say that there is no resurrection; and they asked him a question, saying, 19"Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man's brother dies and leaves a wife, but leaves no child, the man must take the wife, and raise up children for his brother. 20There were seven brothers; the first took a wife, and when he died left no children; 21and the second took her, and died, leaving no children; and the third likewise; 22and the seven left no children. Last of all the woman also died. 23In the resurrection whose wife will she be? For the seven had her as wife." 24Jesus said to them, "Is not this why you are wrong, that you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God? 25For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. 26And as for the dead being raised, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the bush, how God said to him, `I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob'? 27He is not God of the dead, but of the living; you are quite wrong."

Steve and Adam discuss the drama in the banking industry, and the potential impact on Registered Investment Advisers. Transcript: 0:06Welcome to crypto for planners.0:09I am Steve Larsen and with me is Adam Bloomberg and today we're going to cover what's going on with the banks and in the economy, Adam, how are you feeling about everything that's going on right now?0:21And you know, Steve, I am feeling okay considering, you know, kind of teetering on the brink of financial collapse, whatever that is that the economy are you personally that's on the brink of collapse.0:32The answer to that is, yes, it is.0:36Actually both, both are kind of teetering right now, but that's okay.0:40It's where we are and, and you know, you and I are here to chat about it.0:44Yeah, we are.0:45So what we're not going to do today is really give you a thorough recap of what happened that's already been done much better by better journalistic outlets than Adam and I talking on a zoom.0:55However, for those of you that you brought up to speed, there were three major bank failures here in the last several weeks.1:02They were all coincidentally crypto related for various reasons that we may get into.1:07And so we really want to cover what's going on.1:10Obviously, it's spread into some concern over bigger contagion that's going on.1:15But we really want to talk about what's going on with these three banks and how it might affect advisors, right?1:23And so well important important note there is the middle bank in their rights Silicon Valley Bank was actually not much of a crypto bank.1:31It was, it was a tech centered bank, it was created, you know, basically to service those companies that were getting VC funding in, you know, mainly in the Silicon Valley area at first.1:43But really those those companies that were getting VC funding in the tech arena.1:47and so they were actually notoriously not a crypto bank.1:50They did not like banking crypto related companies.1:53They like banking kind of web two related companies.1:56Fintech, those kind.1:58So that the middle of the three banks was really not a crypto related.2:03And remember the first one wasn't a, wasn't a total failure.2:06It was a bank that just wound down operations because they said we're not gonna have enough money if we don't wind down now and they gave and that Silver Gate, I'm referring to, they gave everyone their money back.2:16So again, I know we're not trying to recap everything, but when we see headlines and this, this is how it affects advisors, right?2:23Your clients see headlines about bank failures and bailouts and everything and that's really not what we're seeing here, we didn't have a full on failure from Silver Gate.2:33They wound down operations because, and we can go into the fact that they were, they had a, you know, a loan from the Federal Home Loan bank kind of pulled out from under them, but they gave everyone that gave all their deposits, depositors their money back and got rid of operations.2:52And with Silicon Valley Bank, it was just a run on the bank that didn't really need to be there.2:57And then with, with signature bank in New York, that one's kind of up in the air.3:03We still don't know, we, we still don't know they're there.3:06The fed is calling it a failure and we had to take it over and I'm a little leery of that.3:11Yeah, it was shut down via press release.3:13It would appear without much more of a formal process.3:17Exactly.3:18Yeah, it's one of those things like if you're a baseball player and you find out you got traded because someone sends you a tweet or something.3:23It's kind of like that.3:24Very, very similar.3:26I, you know, I know that, that I had some thoughts on it over the weekend and I think you may have summed it up in a, in a tweet.3:32It was something to the effect of, is this the dumbest bank run of all time?3:38Yep.3:38That sounds about right.3:39It was an incredibly dumb, but it was you know, and what you and I, what I kind of intimated to you earlier today and I think I said on Twitter is so many people that, I don't know, there are so many people that I know and, you know, I'm, I'm relatively privileged.3:55Right.3:55I have people, you know, all my friends have, have gone to college and their doctors and lawyers and in business and such, they still don't understand how fractional banking works and they don't understand that the inverse relationship between interest rates and bond prices and, and how that works.4:11So when they start reading headlines and these people are your clients right there.4:15They're the clients of advisers in plant or how they're, they're clients of advisors.4:19We talked to their reading these headlines going, oh my gosh, there's a banking crisis and the reality is there's really not a, I don't understand what the crisis is.4:29Right?4:30That, that's the trouble.4:31But, but it's one of those things on as a bank run starts, once it starts, it just keeps going, it's kind of self perpetuating.4:39hmm.4:40Is it being a crisis of confidence more than more than anything?4:43And let's, let's move over to that.4:45Let's move into how it, it does affect advisors and how a potential change in the macro environment is going to affect, affect practices.4:53So, for example, yesterday, so we met with my R A, we met with the team on Sunday, we decided to get something out to the clients on Monday just because there's so much bad information and so many scared headlines.5:07As you know, I'm not a big Twitter person, but I made the mistake of getting on there for, you know, about 20 minutes at night that I thought the world was collapsing and then I remembered why I stay off of their But what, what, what we, what we did.5:19So we put, we put on a webinar for clients and really the focus was, of course, here's what's going on, but we spent a lot of time going through basically the different types of accounts.5:28So you mentioned how people don't understand fractional reserve banking.5:31Well, we, we wanted them to understand what a bank account is, you know, how they don't have all the deposits on hand to cover the clients.5:39And also the F D I C insurance is tied to that.5:42What does that mean?5:43And then over on the brokerage side, that's not for actual reserve.5:46So they're supposed to be your assets that aren't loaned out or borrowed against or anything else, you know, whether that's the case, that's a different story, but that's at least theoretically how it works.5:55And then there is civic S I P C insurance on that and how that works.6:00So that's kind of, that's kind of where we started at our firm.6:03Yeah, and that's a great place to start for any advisor is to just kind of help your clients understand and then you can, you can move forward from there and once they have a better understanding, then you can move forward and go.6:15All right, let's, we can talk individually with all of you about where your account sit, what kind of risks there are in those accounts because that's your job as the advisors to, to know about these things and then, and then to help them through it.6:27So that's a good place to start is not to go, is not to go full on Twitter.6:32You know, all caps, this has to stop or you have to hate the government or everything's falling.6:37But let me just explain to you how all these work and then if you need to come talk to us, but which you probably did, if you need to come talk to us about it, you can schedule an appointment and we'll talk about your different accounts, whether they're at banks, whether their brokerage accounts wherever and what they mean, what kind of risks there are, whose money it is officially.6:59And you know, let's have those discussions.7:01And as I said, most people don't understand how all that works.7:04So if you just explain it to it and your job as the advisor is the first, is that first line of education, then that's a good place to start.7:13Now, now, what if people, you know not?7:16What if clients started with where I started with, right?7:18Like there's a run on crypto banks there after the crypto banks.7:22This is about crypto and it's not about crypto at the same time.7:25So that gets, that gets a little more confusing as far as the bank fundamentals.7:29I certainly don't think so, but as far as the crypto banks being targeted.7:32Yes.7:33So where do you, where do you think crypto as it relates to advisors fits into this scenario here?7:42So the hard part is, you know, as we've seen it very much seems like the crypto related banks are being targeted by the government, right?7:51And there's plenty of stuff to read, there's plenty of stuff that is conspiracy theory and some of it that is probably not at all conspiracy theory that is the crypto banks or the crypto industry, I guess is being targeted in one way you target that is you go after the banks that are banking, the actual companies and those companies being exchanges, those companies being, you know, like circle which offers us D C or U S dollar coin, you start targeting those banks and saying you're no longer allowed to exist.8:19And therefore all your depositors have to get their money back.8:22And I got to go find another bank and eventually crypto companies run out of banks, run out of places that, that they can hold their money.8:28So where it affects, where it comes down to affecting clients is you go.8:33All right.8:33What is, what do we feel is the U S government's attitude towards crypto.8:40It's obviously this current administration is negative, is a negative attitude towards crypto.8:45Where does that affect?8:48Then where does it affect your investments in crypto?8:50Prices?8:50Well, kind of what we saw is, is prices went down for a little while in terms of Bitcoin and Ether and the other crypto assets and then they have taken off the last few days.9:01Now, whether that's because the tough part to know is, is that because the government quote averted a banking crisis and we're all happy that we're not all losing our money or is it because we're starting to realize the cracks in the banking system and the cracks in the financial system and go, oh, maybe this is the, this is part of the solution and therefore there's going to be more usage of Bitcoin and usage of the theory and it could be a combination.9:30And it makes you wonder, are we shifting from an attitude where, hey, the government's coming after crypto, crypto is in trouble too.9:38Hey, the government's coming after crypto crypto super important, you know, because really they know they're not just coming after crypto, they're coming after your economic freedom and now it's more important and that's certainly the optimistic take, but I think it warrants watching as the government goes harder.9:54Does, does the adoption increase?9:56And the price increase because of that.10:00Right.10:00Exactly.10:01And, and we can go that route, which is kind of the conspiracy theory route, which I don't feel is very conspiracy theory anymore.10:07I think it's pretty, they've made it pretty obvious, but if the route is, I don't like the fact that I'm subject to what, what happens with the banks and therefore I'm subject to what happens with the central bank and the fed.10:19There's a way to opt out of that.10:21It doesn't have to be with everything, but with some of your money, there are ways to opt out and the way you opt out is you hold onto your assets and that's exactly what crypto is.10:29It's, I'm going to take care of my own assets so it could be, I'm worried that the government's gonna have full, you know, purview over everything I do and, and full visibility and everything that, that I spend my money on or it's, I'm not so much as worried about that, but I kind of want to have some of my assets where I have full control over it and that's what the education for clients, right about how fractional reserve banking works and about how your accounts work is.10:56Once you've handed the money over to the bank, you're kind of not in full control.11:00And if you want to have this full control, once you understand that you go and they're probably going to go.11:05Alright, how do I, how do I get control of my assets?11:07Well, that's kind of what the crypto system is building.11:10It does have a lot of warts right now.11:12It's not the easiest user experience, all of those things, which are getting better.11:16But at least for advisors, you kind of see now why there's a need for it and maybe now is the time to start learning about it and we're gonna, you know, totally self you know, self promotion here.11:27But this is, that's kind of what we're trying to do here, but this maybe is the time to learn about it because maybe now the system, it makes a little more, more sense.11:37And even if you weren't behind some of the speculation behind the price of Bitcoin, now you kind of go, oh, I see where the idea of custody my own assets or my clients wanting to custody their own assets.11:49Kind of makes sense.11:50This is a system that does that, that's, that's, that's well said, and one of the practical effects, you know, on, on the R A firm was the switching of the banking partners.12:02So obviously getting money on and off in and out of the accounts, my friends at Gemini Vitria and, and so, you know, they were processing wires through silver gate, you know, and then it, then it changed and then now I think it's jpmorgan or something.12:16Don't, don't quote me under, they switched to, but, and again, and I know another great great provide in the space for advisors that again, they've been fined through all this.12:25He's a great custodian, but they've had to redo the banking provider in the on and on off and on a couple of times and it's just been a pain in the butt.12:32So it wasn't any funds at risk, but certainly operationally and logistically getting money on and off was affected throughout this.12:40And Adam transition into the last thing we want to talk about, which is what does this mean for defi and self custody that you mentioned.12:49And I use those to link it because the choke point in both places is the cramping.12:53It's getting money out of your bank in the crypto.12:56And that's, that's the first thing it needs to be tackled if we're going to really go any direction.13:00But specifically in the defi where, where it leaves defi is, it's hard because you're right.13:07The on and off ramps are the tough part.13:09We still pay for most of our stuff in dollars.13:12We still mostly get paid in dollars, whether it's your business, whether you're an employee, whatever you generally get paid in dollars and you at some point, if you want to participate in the defi system, have to convert that into crypto.13:24So I think it leaves us honestly in some tough points.13:28coin base is still, you know, kind of the biggest on off ramp here in the US.13:33And it's gonna be really tough for the government to put a clamp on coin base because they're a publicly traded company because everything is really pretty transparent.13:42And it's at some point you can't just basically snuff out an entire publicly traded company.13:48So I think that's, you know, coin base is still there and, and going a little bit further into where it sits with defied the things that coin base released in the last few weeks, right, which is their base, which is their layer two on top of Ethereum.14:05their wallet is a service, product code, whatever it is, it's coming out, which is basically now, I'm going to have this on ramp on the coin base and then probably more easily transmit, move that into defi on chain as we, as we say it.14:20I think that's, those are pretty important in the fact that coin base is still there and, and coin bases is moving these things forward, not to be like an advertisement for coin base, but again, being a publicly traded company,, and, and having the relationships they have and having the amount of money they have, they're, they're kind of the, the, I don't know the bellwether right now.14:40They're, they're kind of what we're all looking for as for as far as the on and off ramps and then you get into defi that's probably the on off ramp.14:47Eventually, we probably see us more of earning money on chain, meaning I'm going to earn in crypto, I'm going to get paid from my company's wallet to my wallet or my company's, you know, crypto account to my crypto account.15:00There is probably going to be more of that and more of that, you know, you X is being built and more of these products are being built.15:06And again, as the advisors, it's gonna be kind of incumbent to understand how all that works.15:11If my clients getting paid in crypto, I better understand what that means and, and how to take on those risks.15:17Because honestly, before last week, would you have even thought about the risk, the risks inherent in your bank accounts at federally chartered banks?15:28No, no, I wouldn't have and I don't think most people were we, you know, and, and part of like I mentioned, the education, different clients was, hey, within your Schwab account here, we can, we can put it at C D s at 10 different banks.15:40If we need to, we can get it diversified out, we can stand with these limits because even though it's unlikely, it's still, why not?15:48Like why wouldn't we be more safe than not in doing that?15:53And you bring up a good point about coin base, they are, they are aligned with us As much as possible with people who want crypto to succeed because they're not a fractional reserve bank and they do segregate assets and they are regulated and they're kind of the best of all worlds and, you know, to somebody like Geminis credit.16:11So, are they accept?16:14Right.16:14They were going out there trying to generate yield from a black box and got in trouble with the product and all that.16:19But as, but as, as far as, you know, segregating the customer's assets specifically on the institutional side, they do it as well.16:28but, but that, that's looking more and more attracted by today.16:30Right.16:30At least have your assets in an institution where they can't lend them out or chop them up or pull them together.16:40Exactly.16:41And as the adviser having to do some of that due diligence, right.16:45On, not only the custodian, you're, you're using for your clients for crypto, but on who they do business with who their banks are.16:52Like where, like if you keep going down the line, where are the risks further and further down the line and you might, you know, as the advisor, throw your hands up and go, well, I don't, I just don't want to get in this crypto thing.17:02I'll just stick to traditional assets.17:04Well, look, banks got hit right.17:07Like who, who's to say there's not a run on, you know, some other bank who's to say that there's not more that's being created more that we're going to see in the near future.17:17You, you know, I think, I don't know if we've mentioned Fidelity.17:20There's fidelity is a custodian.17:21Their fidelity is a bank as well.17:23Right.17:23So everyone's going to be impacted by what happens next with what the Fed does and what the federal government and central bank do with, with banks because they're all, all of our money is so intertwined.17:37So it's an important wake up call to go.17:39All right.17:40It's time to start doing a little bit of risk management.17:42A little bit of due diligence, more so than we did in the past where we just said, we totally trust that the government has it under control and go.17:51All right, we need to find out where the risk points are and going back to the idea of Gemini and Coinbase like, okay, we need to do that, that, that kind of risk assessment and due diligence as advisors, just like you need to on all of your custodians and fidelity.18:04Fidelity is a great bridge between the two worlds right there, legitimate crypto custodian.18:10And they're obviously, you know, a top 234 legit traditional custodian for advisors and they're, they're in both worlds for sure.18:19And there's somebody again that can serve as a great on ramp between the two worlds and they're not doing a whole lot of it now.18:26And the reason is because of this regulatory uncertainty and the attacks that they see coin based taken that these banks are taken and who knows what's going on behind the scenes.18:35But at some point, we're going to need these larger companies who understand both worlds to step up to step up and, and fight for crypto hopefully.18:44Yeah.18:44And I think they will.18:46And if we could go back a little bit, I think, and I apologize for continuing to go back.18:50But when we started this conversation a little bit is what is the, what is the impact on these quote crypto banks or these banks that we're happy to, to bank crypto companies getting shut down and advisers, talking to clients in this feeling of, oh my gosh, the government's trying to shut down crypto.19:09There's no more banks.19:10Well, you just mentioned Fidelity is a pretty large traditional finance bank, a pretty large traditional finance custodian and a pretty large crypto custodian and is, is getting bigger every day and delving into that a little bit more.19:25chase, I mean, as much as Jamie Diamond talks badly about crypto, they still do quite a lot of banking for crypto companies.19:32And let's not forget, you know, Bank of New York Mellon, which is maybe the largest custodian in the world is, is the, you know, they're the custodian of choice for a lot of huge crypto hedge funds and banks.19:44And I don't feel like, and I don't, I don't want to make assertions but those companies aren't going down anytime soon.19:50Those are not banks that are going to fail anytime soon because there be too big to fail banks.19:55Right.19:56And they're all full on into crypto.19:58They're not backing away at all their custody ng assets or custom digital assets, traditional assets.20:03They're mixed.20:03So I don't want there to be this feeling of, oh, my gosh, they said they shut down Silver Gate and signature.20:10It's all done because there are much larger banks than those two that are perfectly happy delving into crypto.20:18Yeah.20:19I think my overall take and it's, it's a topic for another podcast but it's not that they're trying to kill kryptos that they're trying to control crypto and these are smaller, more independent banks who maybe don't have the revolving doors of people moving from the board of directors and general counsel through the Treasury department back to the banks, like the bigger ones, where they do have control.20:39So I would say it's more of a, more of a wanting it under their thumb than a, let's kill it altogether type of attitude coming out of the government.20:50Yeah.20:50Yeah, I agree.20:51You're right.20:52It's more of a control, how can we control it and kill it and if we need to tamp it down a little bit till we figure out how to get control, that's probably where we are at this point.21:02but, but again, there's plenty of business to go around, there's plenty of building that's going on in, in the crypto world and we're seeing every day more needs for solutions like this not to totally take over the traditional finance system and, and kick it out of the way.21:18But you see a little bit here and there as to how I can, I can take on some of that custody and take off, take on some of the things that crypto gives us the transparency, the instant settlement, the the self custody.21:32Great summary.21:33So let's go ahead and wrap it up there.21:35It's enough bank talk that I think anybody should be subjected to at one sitting.21:38Hopefully there's some value there for you.21:40Let's end with a pitch.21:42You're gonna hear from us a couple of times.21:44The pitches to go to crossroads, crossroads 23 the planet out conference in ST Louis last week of April Monday through Monday.21:52Tuesday.21:53Is it 24th, 25th?21:54I should have had that up or something like that.21:56Yes, 20 24th and 25th in ST Louis.21:59Come get your tickets and most importantly, Adam, maybe people understand the speaker lineup we have and that's why they're not buying tickets.22:07Yeah, I'm not quite sure like it's a pretty killer speaker lineup.22:09So you and I have talked about banks and clients and regulation and stuff.22:12So we have Commissioner Hester Purse is leading off our conference.22:16So we're gonna get to ask an sec commissioner, you know, have her talk about what's happening with compliance and regulations of the SEC, which is pretty important to us as advisors.22:24And we're gonna get to ask questions among after that, we have Matt Hogan from bit wise, is gonna talk about the state of the market.22:31We're gonna have a compliance panel with compliance attorneys and compliance officers where again, it's all discussions, you get to ask questions and if you're an advisor that's in the crypto or wants to be in two days, you're gonna get just about everything answered that you want.22:45We're gonna have Tyrone Ross in the 41 financial crew that's gonna talk about how they're building kind of the R I A or the future using certain tools, some crypto, some not crypto, some web two and, and yeah, kind of new tools that are out there.22:58So there are so many others.23:01We're gonna talk about data and research and where you get your information and indexes and, and all of that.23:06But it is an absolutely killer lineup for any.23:08It's very focused on advisers wanting to add crypto to their practice.23:13Yeah.23:13Hit the planet dot com slash crossroads and you can get the details on time and date hotel and buy your tickets.23:20We are using N F T s for tickets were trying to get sidetracked, explaining that, but no, you don't have to pay with crypto.23:26Yes.23:27Even though we're doing N F T tickets, you can pay with your credit card specifically and hopefully your company's credit card makes it a lot easier on everybody.23:35All right, Adam, thanks for jumping on the podcast with me.23:38Hope there is some value there.23:41Hope so.23:41Thanks for having me. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit plannerdao.substack.com

Want to Speed Up Your Results? #20There is 1 thing that will create real speed in your business and it's probably not what you think. It's not the latest and greatest system, or a way to get qualified leads, or the new social media algorithm…it's your perspective. It's where you spend the majority of your time in your mind. Perspective is the amount of time you spend in a position or a thought -Here's an Example of having a negative perspective - “this is hard” “I look stupid” “I can't do this” “I'm stuck” “I'm overwhelmed”You can Change your perspective in 2 steps Before I go through the 2 steps, I wanted to tell you about the free gift I have waiting for you over on spspcommunity.com - it's the ultimate home business success guide with the 7 insider tips that will help you build the successful Network Marketing business you really want to have so you and your children can live the life you truly deserve. Go grab it…not right this second, but after this episode LOL - pop over to www.spspcommunity.com Now, here's how to Change your perspective in 2 steps #1 - Change how you describe it -Example - Instead of “I look stupid” say “I'm not going to notice my missteps” Instead of “I can't do this” say “I'm not going acknowledge or recognize my feeling of lack or not good enough” Instead of “I'm stuck (or overwhelmed)” say “I'm not going to give energy to the feelings of being stuck (or overwhelmed)”Note: We are so conscientious about how we talk to others, We are even nice to complete strangers in the grocery store, yet, for some reason, we do not extend that same curtesy to ourselves. We would never tell someone “you're not good enough, you should just quit, you can't do this, you look stupid”Yet, we tell ourselves negative statements all the time.That has to stop… NOW!Our Self Talk is incredibly important, especially when shifting your perspective. Your self talk also cues people in on how to treat you. You'll find, if you are very negative with yourself and hard on yourself, you'll most likely attract people who won't treat you the way you want to be treated, why, because they are getting their cues from you. Look back at your past relationships, you'll see the pattern. I know I sure do. Every guy I dated and even the one I married, cheated on me and was abusive. I thought my “picker” was just broken. Turns out, they were all taking their cues on how to treat me from how I treated myself.My friend, this took me decades to understand. Please don't let it take you another minute.You are an awesome, amazing person who deserves nothing but the best in all areas of your life.Okay…moving on…#2 - this is the magic…Pour speed onto where you want to be by Visualizing yourself there - doing it - having the result you want - the success you want - the Experiences you want - So, what is it that you want from your network marketing career? I mean what do you really really want if there wasn't anything holding you back, the Sky's the limit…What is it?Once you are crystal clear on that, I mean 1000% clear, then ask yourself - What would it look

Edward Glaeser is the chair of the Harvard department of economics, and the author of the best books and papers about cities (including Survival of the City and Triumph of the City).He explains why:* Cities are resilient to terrorism, remote work, & pandemics,* Silicon Valley may collapse but the Sunbelt will prosper, * Opioids show UBI is not a solution to AI* & much more!Watch on YouTube. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any other podcast platform. Read the full transcript here.Follow me on Twitter for updates on future episodes.If you enjoy this episode, I would be super grateful if you shared it. Post it on Twitter, send it to your friends & group chats, and throw it up wherever else people might find it. Can't exaggerate how much it helps a small podcast like mine.A huge thanks to Graham Bessellieu for editing this podcast and Mia Aiyana for producing its transcript.Timestamps(0:00:00) - Mars, Terrorism, & Capitals (0:06:32) - Decline, Population Collapse, & Young Men (0:14:44) - Urban Education (0:18:35) - Georgism, Robert Moses, & Too Much Democracy? (0:25:29) - Opioids, Automation, & UBI (0:29:57) - Remote Work, Taxation, & Metaverse (0:42:29) - Past & Future of Silicon Valley (0:48:56) - Housing Reform (0:52:32) - Europe's Stagnation, Mumbai's Safety, & Climate ChangeTranscriptMars, Terrorism, & CapitalsDwarkesh Patel 0:00:00Okay, today, I have the pleasure of speaking with Professor Edward Glaeser, who is the chair of the Harvard Department of Economics, and author of some of the best books and papers about cities. Professor Glazer, thanks for coming on The Lunar Society.Edward Glaeser 0:00:25Oh, thank you so much for having me on! Especially given that The Lunar Society pays homage to one of my favorite moments in urban innovation in Birmingham during the 18th century.Dwarkesh Patel 0:00:26Oh wow, I didn't even catch that theme, but that's a great title. My first question is, What advice would you give to Elon Musk about building the first cities on Mars?Edward Glaeser 0:00:35[laughs] That's a great question. I think that demand for urbanism in Mars is going to be relatively limited. Cities are always shaped by the transportation costs that are dominant in the era in which they're created. That both determines the micro-shape of the city and determines its macro future. So cities on Mars are, of course, going to be limited by the likely prohibitive cost of traveling back and forth to the mother planet. But we also have to understand what cars people are going to be using on Mars. I assume these are all going to be Teslas, and everyone is going to be driving around in some appropriate Tesla on Mars. So it's going to be a very car-oriented living experience. I think the best strategy would be to create a fairly flexible plan, much like the 1811 grid plan in New York, that allows entrepreneurs to change land use over time and put a few bets on what's necessary for infrastructure and then just let the city evolve organically. Usually, the best way is to put more trust in individual initiative than central planning–– at least in terms of micromanaging what goes where. Dwarkesh Patel 0:01:58Gotcha. Now, since 9/11, many terrorist groups have obviously intended to cause harm to cities. But by and large, at least in Western countries, they haven't managed to kill off thousands of people like they were able to do during 9/11. What explains this? Do you think cities are just more resilient to these kinds of attacks than we would have otherwise thought? Or are the terrorists just not being creative enough?Edward Glaeser 0:02:20I don't know. There's also the question of what the objectives are. Even for the 9/11 terrorists, their end game was not to kill urbanites in America. It was to effect change in Saudi Arabia or in the Middle East more generally. We've also protected our cities better. If you think about it, two things go on simultaneously when you collect economic activity in one place in terms of defense: one of which is they become targets–– and of course, that's what we saw on 9/11; it's hard to think of a symbol that's clearer than those twin towers. But at the same time, they're also a defensible space. The origin of the urban agglomeration and use for cities and towns was the fact that they could be walled settlements. Those walls that brought together people collectively for defense are the ultimate reason why these towns came about. The walls provided protection.I think the same thing has been playing out with cities over the past 20 years. Just as New York was a target, it was also a place where post-2001, the city ramped up its anti-terrorism efforts. They put together a massive group as London had previously done. The cameras that implemented congestion pricing in London were the same cameras that used against the Irish terrorists. So both effects went on. I think we've been fortunate and that we've shown the strength of cities in terms of protecting themselves.Dwarkesh Patel 0:03:52If you look throughout ancient world history, there are so many examples of empires that are basically synonymous with their capital cities (ex. Rome or Athens, or Sparta). But today, you would never think of America as the ‘Washingtonian Empire.' What is the explanation for why the capital city has become much less salient in terms of the overall nation? Is there a Coasian answer here?Edward Glaeser 0:04:20There are specific things that went on with English offshoot colonies where in many cases, because they recognized the tendency of the capital city to attract lots of excess goodies that had been taken from elsewhere in the country, they located the capital city in a remote place. It's actually part of the story of the Hamilton musical in The Room Where it Happens. Part of the deal was about moving the capital of the US to a relatively remote Virginia location rather than having it be in Philadelphia, New York. That was partially to reflect the fact that the South needed to be protected against all of the extra assets going to New York and Philadelphia.So, whether or not this is Canberra or Ottawa, you see all of these English offshoot places without their capitals in the big metropoles. Whereas traditionally, what's happened in these places that have been around for centuries, is that even if the capital didn't start off as the largest city, it became the largest city because centuries of French leaders thought their business was to take wealth from elsewhere in France and make Paris great. I think the French Empire was as synonymous with Paris as most of those ancient empires were with their capital city. I guess the question I could throw back to you is, what are places where this is not true? Moscow, St. Peter's, and Beijing are examples. Do we think that Beijing is less synonymous with China than the Roman Empire is with Rome? Maybe a little–– possibly just because China is so big and Beijing is a relatively small share of the overall population of China. But it's more so certainly than Washington, D.C. is with the U.S. Decline, Population Collapse, & Young MenDwarkesh Patel 0:06:32That's a really interesting answer. Once a city goes through a period of decline (maybe an important industry moved out, or maybe it's had a sequence of bad governance), are you inclined to bet that there will be some sort of renewal, or do you think that things will continue to get worse? In other words, are you a momentum trader, or are you a reversion to the mean trader when it comes to cities?Edward Glaeser 0:06:54I can tell you different answers for different outcomes. For housing prices, I can tell you exactly what we know statistically about this, which is at higher frequencies, let's say one year, housing prices show wickedly large levels of momentum. For five years or more, they show very significant levels of mean reversion. It's a short-term cycle in housing prices followed by decline. Population just shows enormous persistence on the downside. So what happens is you typically will have an economic shock. Detroit used to be the most productive place on the planet in 1950, but a bunch of shocks occurred in transportation technology which made it no longer such a great place to make cars for the world. It takes a century for the city to respond in terms of its population because the housing is sticky. The housing remains there. So between the 50s and 60s, the population declines a little bit, and prices drop. They drop sufficiently far that you're not going to build a lot of new housing, but people are going to still stay in the houses. They're not going to become vacant. So, the people are still there because the houses are still there. During the 60s to 70s, the population drops a  little bit further and prices kind of stay constant, but still it's not enough to build new housing. So the declines are incredibly persistent, and growth is less so. So on the boom side, you have a boom over a 10-year period that's likely to mean revert and it's not nearly as persistent because it doesn't have this sticky housing element to it. In terms of GDP per capita, it's much more of a random walk there in terms of the straight income stuff. It's the population that's really persistent, which is, in fact, the reality of a persistent economy.Dwarkesh Patel 0:08:44Interesting. Why don't Americans move as much as they used to a century ago? So you have a paper from 2018 titled Jobs in the Heartland, where you talk about how there's increasing divergence between the unemployment rates between different parts of America. Why don't Americans just move to places where there are better economic circumstances? Edward Glaeser 0:09:04I want to highlight one point here, which is that you said “unemployment rate”, and I want to replace that with non-employment rate. That's partially what we're seeing now. It looks like America's labor force couldn't be better in terms of the low levels of unemployment, but what's happened over the last 50 years is there has been a very large rise in the share of prime-age men who are not in the labor force. So they've stopped looking for work, and those guys are miserable. It's not that those guys are somehow rather productive and happy,–– this is a very bad outcome for prime-age men. I'm separating men from women, not to say that the female labor markets aren't just as important, just as fascinating, just as critical. But labor force participation means something different for many women than it does for men. There are many women who are not in the labor force who are doing things that are enormously productive socially, like caring for their children and caring for their families.I wish it were symmetric across the genders. It just isn't true. I mean, there just are very few men not in the labor force who are doing anything much other than watching television. It's just a very different thing. So yes, there are big differences in the non-employment rate. There are some parts of America where, for much of the past decade, one in four prime-age men have been jobless. It's an enormous gap. The question is, why don't they get out?I think the answer is really twofold: one of which is the nature of how housing markets have frozen up. Historically, the differences in housing costs in the US weren't that huge across places. Most parts of America had some kind of affordable housing, and it was relatively easy to put up. At the dawn of the 20th century, these were kit helms sold by Sears and Roebuck that sprung up by the thousand. You bought the kit from Sears and Roebuck, and you just built it yourself. After World War II, it was mass-produced homes in places like Levittown.For most of the last 50 years, in places like coastal California or the East Coast, building has just become far more difficult. With the decline of mass-produced housing, it's become far more expensive, and it becomes harder and harder for relatively low-income people to find opportunities in places that have high levels of income, and high levels of opportunity. That's partially why there's not just a general decline in mobility, there's a decline in directed mobility for the poor. Historically, poor people moved from poor areas to rich areas. That's pretty much stopped. In part, that's because rich areas just have very, very expensive housing. The other thing is the rising importance of the informal safety net.So if you think about most particularly prime-aged men, they're not receiving significant handouts from the government except if they're on disability. But they will typically have some form of income, some form of housing that's being provided for them by someone other than themselves. A third of them are living in their parent's homes. That informal safety net is usually very place dependent. Let's say you're living in Eastern Kentucky; it's not like your parents were going to buy you a condo in San Francisco. You can still have your own bedroom, but you can't go anywhere else and still get that level of support. And so that's, I think, another reason why we're increasingly stuck in place.The third you mentioned, is that a third of the non-employed population of young men or is that a third of all young men? Non-employed is a third of non-employed prime aged men. So that's 25 to 54. There are a lot of 45 year olds who are living on their parents' couches or in their old bedroom. It's a fairly remarkable thing.Dwarkesh Patel 0:12:49Now, we'll get to housing in just a second, but first, I want to ask you: If the fertility trends in East Asia and many other places continue, what will the impact on cities be if the average age gets much older and the possible eventuality of depopulation?Edward Glaeser 0:12:53That's a really interesting question.The basic age fact on cities is that within the bracket of the sort of high-income or middle-income, for prime-aged parents, cities tend to be relatively bad for them. Once you're in the sort of high end of the upper middle class, the distrust of our public school systems, merited or not, means that that group tends to leave. You have plenty of parents with kids who are lower income, and then you have groups who are part of a demographic barbell that like cities. So this is partially about people who don't feel like they need the extra space and partially because if they're young, they're looking to find prospective mates of various forms.Cities are good for that. Urban proximity works well in the dating market. And they've got time on their hands to enjoy the tremendous amenities and consumption advantages that cities have. For older people, it's less about finding a mate typically, but the urban consumption amenity still has value. The ability to go to museums, the ability to go to concerts, and those sorts of activities continue to draw people in.Going forward, I would have continued to expect the barbell dimension to persist until we actually get around to solving our urban schools and declining population levels. If anything, I would have thought that COVID skews you a bit younger because older people are more anxious and remember that cities can also bring pandemics. They remember that it can be a nice thing to have a suburban home if you have to shelter in place. So that might lead some people who would have otherwise relocated to a dense urban core to move out, to stay out.Urban EducationDwarkesh Patel 0:14:44You just mentioned urban schools, and I'm curious because you've written about how urban schools are one of the reasons people who have children might not want to stay in cities. I'm curious why it's the case that American cities have some of the best colleges in the world, but for some reason, their K-to-12 is significantly worse, or it can be worse than the K-to-12 in other parts of the country. Why is it that the colleges are much better in cities, but K to 12 is worse? Edward Glaeser 0:15:19So it's interesting. It's not as if, I don't think there's ever been an Englishman who felt like they had to leave London to get better schools for the kids, or a Frenchman who thought they needed to leave Paris. It's not like there's something that's intrinsic to cities, but I've always thought it's a reflection of the fact that instead of allowing all of the competition and entrepreneurship that thrives in cities and that makes cities great, in the case of K to 12 public education, that's vanished.And your example of colleges is exactly right. I'm in this industry; I'm a participant in this industry and let me tell you, this industry is pretty competitive. Whether or not we're competing for the best students, at our level we go through an annual exercise of trying to make sure we get Ph.D. students to come to our program instead of our competitors, whether it's by hiring faculty members or attracting undergraduates, we occupy a highly competitive industry where we are constantly aware of what we need to do to make ourselves better. It doesn't mean that we're great along every dimension, but at least we're trying. K through 12 education has a local monopoly.So it's like you take the great urban food, leisure and hospitality, and food industries, and instead of having in New York City by a hyper-competitive world where you constantly have entry, you say, “You know what? We're going to have one publicly managed canteen and it's going to provide all the food in New York City and we're not going to allow any competitors or the competitors are going to have to pay a totally different thing.” That canteen is probably going to serve pretty crappy food. That's in some sense what happens when you have a large-scale public monopoly that replaces private competition.Dwarkesh Patel 0:16:50But isn't that also true of rural schools? Why are urban schools often worse? Edward Glaeser 0:17:46There's much more competition in suburban schools. So in terms of the suburban schools, typically there are lots of suburbs, and people are competing amongst them. The other thing that's actually important is (I don't want to over exaggerate this, but I think it is something that we need to think a little bit about) the role of public sector unions and particularly teachers unions in these cases. In the case of a suburban school district, the teachers union is no more empowered on the management side than they would be in the private sector.Dwarkesh Patel 0:17:30So in a normal private sector, you've got a large company, you've got a union, and they're arguing with each other. It's a level playing field. It's all kind of reasonable. I'm not saying management has done awful things, and that unions have done foolish things. I'm not saying that either are perfect, but it's kind of well-matched. It's matched that way in the suburbs as well. You've got highly empowered parents who are highly focused on their kids and they're not dominated.It's not like the teachers union dominates elections in Westchester County. Whereas if you go into a big city school district, you have two things going on. One of which is the teachers tend to be highly involved politically and quite capable of influencing management essentially, because they are an electoral force to be reckoned with, not just by the direct votes, but also with their campaign spending. On top of this, you're talking about a larger group of disparate parents, many of whom have lots of challenges to face and it becomes much harder for them to organize effectively on the other side. So for those reasons, big urban schools can do great things and many individual teachers can be fantastic, but it's an ongoing challenge. Georgism, Robert Moses, & Too Much Democracy?Dwarkesh Patel 0:18:35What is your opinion on Georgism? Do cities need a land value tax? Would it be better if all the other taxes are replaced by one?Edward Glaeser 0:18:41Okay. So Henry George, I don't know any economist who doesn't think that a land value tax is an attractive idea. The basic idea is we're going to tax land rather than taxing real estate values. And you would probably implement this in practice by evaluating the real estate and then subtracting the cost of construction, (at least for anything that was built up, meaning you'd form some value of the structures and you just subtract it).The attractive thing from most of our perspectives is it doesn't create the same disincentive to build that a real estate tax does. Real estate tax says, “Oh, you know what? I might want to keep this thing as a parking lot for a couple of years so I don't have to pay taxes on it.”If it were a land value tax, you're going to pay the same tax, whether or not it's a parking lot or whether or not you're going to put a high rise on it, so you might as well put the high rise on it and we could use the space. So I think by and large, that's a perfectly sensible idea. I'd like to see more places using land value taxes or using land value taxes in exchange for property taxes.Where George got it wrong is the idea that a land value tax is going to solve all the problems of society or all the problems of cities. That is ludicrously not true.One could make an argument that in those places that just have a property tax, you could replace it with a land value tax with little loss, but at the national level, it's not a particularly progressive tax in lots of ways. It would be hard to figure out how to fund all the things you want to fund, especially since there are lots of things that we do that are not very land intensive. I think George was imagining a world in which pretty much all value-creating enterprises had a lot of land engaged. So it's a good idea, yes. A panacea, no. Dwarkesh Patel 0:20:20No, that's a good point. I mean, Google's offices in San Francisco are probably generating more value than you would surmise just from the quantity of land they have there. Do American cities need more great builders like Robert Moses?Edward Glaeser 0:20:36Robert Caro's The Power Broker is one of the great biographies of the past 100 years, unquestionably. The only biography that I think is clearly better is Robert Caro's biography of Lyndon Baines Johnson, right? I mean, it's Caro is truly amazing. That being said, I would not exactly call it a fair and balanced view of Robert. I mean, it is true that Robert Moses was high handed, and it is true that there are things that he did that were terrible, that you never want to do again. But on the other hand, the man got stuff built. I mean, I think of myself as a child growing up in New York City, and whether or not it was the public pool that I swam in or the parks that I played in, or the roads that I traveled on, they were all delivered by Robert Moses. There's got to be a middle ground, which is, no, we're not going to run roughshod over the neighborhood as Robert Moses did, but we're still going to build stuff. We're still going to deliver new infrastructure and we're not going to do it for 10 times more than every other country in the world does it.Dwarkesh Patel 0:21:37We're actually going to have sensible procurement policies that bring in things at a reasonable cost, and I think we need to balance a little bit back towards Robert Moses in order to have slightly more empowered builders who actually are able to deliver American cities the infrastructure they need at an affordable cost. Dwarkesh Patel 0:21:57Do we have too much democracy at the local level? You wrote a paper in 2017 titled The Political Economy of Transportation Investments and one of the points you make there is that the local costs are much more salient to people for new construction than the public benefits, and the benefits to newcomers would be. Does that mean we have too much federalism? Should we just have far less power at the city level and not universally? There are lots of good things that local control does.Edward Glaeser 0:22:25I do think we have too much local ability to say no to new housing projects. So that's a particular case that I'm focused on. I think it's exactly right that the near neighbors to a project internalize all of the extra noise and perhaps extra traffic that they're going to have due to this project. They probably overestimate it because they are engaging in a bit of status quo bias and they think the present is great and can't imagine any change.By contrast, none of the people who would benefit from the new project are able to vote. All of the families that would love to move into this neighborhood are being zoned out by the insiders who get a say. I think the goal is to make sure that we have more ability to speak for outsiders. Cities at their best, are places where outsiders can find opportunities. That's part of what's so great about them. It's a tragic thing that we make that so hard. Now I'm not sure exactly that I'm claiming that I want less democracy, but I do want more limitations on how much regulations localities can do. So I think there are certain limitations on local power that I think are fine.I would prefer to call this not a limitation on local democracy, but an increase in the protection of individual rights or the individual rights of landowners to do what they want with their land. Which in effect, is a limit on democracy. But the Bill of Rights is a limit on democracy! The Bill of Rights says that they don't care if 51% of your voters want to take away your right to free assembly. They're not allowed to do that. So in some sense, what I'm just arguing for is more property owners' rights so that they can actually allow more housing in their building.In terms of transportation projects, it's a little bit dicier because here the builder is the government itself. I think the question is you want everyone to have a voice. You don't want every neighborhood to have a veto over every potential housing project or potential transportation project. So you need something that is done more at the state level with representation from the locality, but without the localities getting the ultimate sayDwarkesh Patel 0:24:33I wonder if that paper implies that I should be shorting highly educated areas, at least in terms of real estate. One of the things you mentioned in the paper was that highly educated areas that had much higher opposition were able to foment much more opposition. Edward Glaeser  0:24:49Okay. So here's the real estate strategy, which I have heard that actually there are buyers who do this. You take an area that has historically been very pro-housing. So it's got lots of housing, and it's affordable right now because supply is good. But lots of educated people have moved in. Which means that going forward, they're going to build much less, which means that going forward, they're likely to become much more expensive. So you should, in fact, buy options on that stuff rather than shorting it. You should short if you have a security that is related to the population level in that community. You should short that because the population growth is going to go down, but the prices are likely to go up. Opioids, Automation, & UBIDwarkesh Patel 0:25:29So you wrote a paper last year on the opioid epidemic. One of the points that you made there was that the opioid epidemic could be explained just by the demand side stuff about social isolation and joblessness. I wonder how this analysis makes you think about mass-scale automation in the future. What impact do you think that would have? Assume it's paired with universal basic income or something like that. Do you think it would cause a tremendous increase in opioid abuse?Edward Glaeser 0:26:03I would have phrased it slightly differently–– which is as opposed to the work of two amazing economists, Anne Case and Angus Deaton, who really emphasized the role of deaths of despair; we are much more focused on the supply side. WIth the demand side, meaning just the way that we handled the distribution of large-scale pain relieving medicines, we tell a story where every 30 to 50 years, someone comes up with the same sort of idea, which is we know that human beings love opioids in different forms. We also know they're highly addicted and lead to a terrible cycle. So all of a sudden comes along this innovator says, you know what? I've got a new opioid and it's safe. You don't have to worry about getting addicted to this one. It's magical.It won't work. 100 years ago, that thing was called heroin. 200 years ago, that thing was called morphine. 300 years ago, that thing was called Meldonium. We have these new drugs which have come in, and they've never been safe. But in our case, it was OxyContin and the magic of the time relief was supposed to make it safe, and it wasn't safe.Dwarkesh Patel 0:27:30There's a lot of great work that just shows that the patterns of opioid use was related to the places that just had a lot of pain 30 years ago. Those places came with a lot of tendency to prescribe various things for pain. So when opioids came in, when OxyContin came in, those were the places that got addicted most. Now it's also true that there are links between these economic issues. There are links with joblessness, and I basically do believe that things that create joblessness are pretty terrible and are actually much worse than income inequality. I push back against the universal basic income advocates who I think are basically engaging in a materialist fallacy of thinking that a human being's life is shaped by their take home pay or their unearned pay. I think for most people, a job is much more than that. A job is a sense of purpose. A job is a sense of social connection. When you look at human misery and opioid use, you look at the difference between high-income earners, mid-income earners. There are differences, but they're small. You then look at the difference between low-income earners and the jobless, then unhappiness spikes enormously, misery spikes enormously, family breakups spike enormously. So things like universal basic income, which the negative income tax experimented on in the 1970s, are the closest thing we have for its large-scale experiments in this area, which had very large effects on joblessness by just giving people money. They feel quite dangerous to me because they feel like they're going to play into rising joblessness in America, which feels like a path for its misery. I want to just quickly deviate and some of the UBI advocates have brought together UBI in the US and UBI in the developing world. So UBI in the developing world, basically means that you give poor farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa fairly modest amounts of money. This is a totally sensible strategy.These people are not about to live life permanently not working. They're darn poor. It's very efficient relative to other ways of giving.  I am in no sense pushing back on UBI with modest amounts of money in the poorest parts of the world. By all means, it's been deemed to be effective. It's just a very different thing if you're saying I'm going to give $100 to a poor Congolese farmer, or I'm going to give $10,000 to a long-term jobless person in Eastern Kentucky. You're not buying a PS5 for $100 in Congo.Remote Work, Taxation, & MetaverseDwarkesh Patel 0:29:57I want to ask you about remote work. You write in The Survival of the City, that improvements in information technology can lead to more demand for face-to-face contact because FaceTime complements time spent communicating electronically. I'm curious, what distinguishes situations where FaceTime substitutes for in-person contact from situations where it complements FaceTime complements virtual contact?Edward Glaeser 0:30:25So there's not a universal rule on this. I wrote a paper based on this in the 1990s about face-to-face contact complements or substitutes for electronic contacts. It was really based on a lot of anxiety in the 1970s that the information technology of their day, the fax machine, the personal computer was going to make face-to-face contact in the cities that enable that contact obsolete. That discussion has reappeared amazingly in the past two and a half years because of Zoom, and all of those questions still resonate. I think in the short run, typically these things are substitutes.Typically you don't necessarily need to meet some person who's your long-term contact. You can actually just telephone them, or you can connect with them electronically. In the long run, they seem to be much more likely to be complements, in part because these technologies change our world. The story that I tell over the last 40 years is that, yes, there were some face-to-face contacts that were made unnecessary because of electronic interactions. But it's not just that cities did well over the past 40 years–– business travel went through the roof over the past 40 years. You'd think that that would have been made unnecessary by all these electronic interactions, but I think what just happened was that these new technologies and globalization created a more interconnected world, a world in which knowledge was more important, and we become smart by interacting with people face-to-face. This world became more knowledge and information intensive and more complicated, and as things get more complicated, it's easier for ideas to get lost in translation. So we have these wonderful cues for communicating comprehension or confusion that are lost when we're not in the same room with one another. So I think over the longer time, they tend to complements, and over the shorter term, they tend to be substitutes.One of the things I think was helpful in my earlier work on this was looking at the history of information technology innovations. I think probably the first one is the book. It's hard to imagine an innovation that did more to flatten distance. Now you can read stuff that people are saying hundreds of miles away. Yet there's not a shred of evidence that the book led to less urbanization in Europe or to less connection. It helped create a totally different world in which people were passionate about ideas and wanted to talk to each other. They wanted to talk to each other about their books.Flash forward 350 years when we have the telephone. Telephones started being used more in cities, and they were used mostly by people who were going to meet face-to-face. There's no evidence that this has created a decline in the demand for face-to-face contact or a decline in the demand for cities. So I think if we look at Zoom, which unquestionably has allowed a certain amount of long-distance contact, that's very, very useful. In the short run, it certainly poses a threat to urban office markets. My guess is in the long run; it's probably going to be likely to be neutral at worst for face-to-face contact in the cities that enable that contact. Dwarkesh Patel 0:33:37I think that my podcast has been a great example for me about this. I mean, right now we're talking virtually. So maybe, in a way it's substituted, and perhaps I would have interviewed in person without the podcast. However, in another way, I've also met so many people that I've interviewed on the podcast or who have just connected with me because of the podcast in person. The amount of in-person interactions I've had because of a virtual podcast is a great anecdote to what you're talking about, so that makes total sense.Edward Glaeser 0:34:05Absolutely.Dwarkesh Patel 0:34:06Why do even the best software engineers in India or in Europe make so much less when they're working remotely from those locations than remote engineers working in America make? I mean, why don't employers just pay them more until the price discrepancy goes away?Edward Glaeser 0:34:23That's interesting. I don't fully know the answer to that question. I would suspect some of it just has to do with the nature of supply and demand. There are some things that are just very hard to be done remotely. Either because you have very precise informational needs that you have that are easier to communicate to people who are nearby or the person who's nearby has evolved in ways in terms of their mind that they actually know exactly what you want and they have exactly the product that you need. So even though the remote call center worker and the local one may be totally equivalent on raw programming talent, you may still end up in equilibrium and be willing to pay a lot more to the local one just because, right?So there's a slightly differentiated skill the local one has, and look, there's just a lot of competition for the remote ones, so the price is going to be pretty low. There's not that much supply of the one guy who's down the hall and knows exactly what you're looking for. So that guy gets much higher wages, just because he can offer you something that no one else can exactly reproduce.Dwarkesh Patel 0:35:27Let me clarify my question. Even remote engineers in America will make more than remote engineers in Europe or in India. If somebody is working remotely but he just happens to live in the US, is that just because they can communicate in English in the same way? Edward Glaeser 0:35:54I would take the same stance. I would say that they're likely to have just skills that are somewhat idiosyncratic and are valued in the US context.Dwarkesh Patel 0:35:56Are you optimistic about the ability of the metaverse and VR to be able to better puncture whatever makes in-person contact so valuable?Edward Glaeser 0:36:19No, I do not think the metaverse is going to change very much. I do think that there will be a lot of hours spent on various forms of gaming over the next 20 years, but I don't think it ultimately poses much of a threat to real-world interactions. In some sense, we saw this with the teenage world over the last three years. We saw a lot of America spend an awful lot of time, 15, 16-year-olds, 17-year-olds, gaming and connecting entirely virtually during the whole time of the pandemic lockdowns.Every single person that I've seen in that cohort, when you allowed them to interact with real members of their group live, leaped at the opportunity. They leaped at the opportunity of meeting and actually hanging out with real people until three o'clock in the morning and arguing over whatever it is–– whether or not it's football or Kant. I think particularly for the young, living life live just beats the alternative.Dwarkesh Patel 0:37:05That sounds like a very Harvard scenario, having to argue over football or Kant, those two topics. [laughs] Are you predicting lower taxes over the coming decades in places like California and New York, specifically because of how remote work sets a sort of maximum bar of how much you can tax highly productive people before they will just leave? Edward Glaeser 0:37:29This is a great question. It's a central issue of our day. Here's how I think about it. In part, it's why I wrote my recent book, Survival of the City. It's because I was worried about this. Two things happened simultaneously. One, as you correctly say, Zoom has made it easier to connect anywhere. I don't think that Zoom is going to cause our tech startup currently in Silicon Valley to say, oh, you know what? We're just going to go home to our Orange County suburban homes and never meet live again. I think that's a low-probability event.But what seems to be a perfectly high probability event is saying, “Oh, we can Zoom with our VCs, we can Zoom with our lawyers. Why don't we just relocate to Austin, Texas, not pay taxes, or relocate to Boulder, Colorado, so we can have beautiful scenery, or relocate to Honolulu so we can surf?” That seems like we've made the ability for smart people to relocate much easier, even if they're going to keep on seeing each other in the office three or four days a week. That collides with this very fervent desire to deal with festering social inequities at the local level. Be this limited upward mobility for poorer people, be this high housing costs, be this the rise of mass incarceration and police brutality towards particularly minority groups. There's this progressive urge which runs up against the fact that the rich guys can run away.If your model, which says, “Oh, the local governments are going to realize the rich guys can run away, so they will seamlessly lower tax rates in order to make sure that they attract those people,” that's running up against the fact that there's a whole lot of energy on the progressive side, which says, “No! Massachusetts just passed a millionaire's tax. For the first time ever, we have the possibility to have a progressive tax, which feels extraordinarily dangerous given this time period.”I think we may need to see a bunch of errors in this area before we start getting things right. We went through a lot of pain in the 1970s as cities first tried to deal with their progressive goals and rich people and companies ran away, and it wasn't until the 1980s that people started realizing this was the path to local bankruptcy and that we had real city limits on what the locality could do.Dwarkesh Patel 0:39:44You cited research on the survival of the city, which said that firms like Microsoft were much less willing to hire new people once they went online because of the pandemic. What do you make of the theory that this is similar to when industrialization first hit and we hadn't figured out exactly how to make the most use of it to be most productive, but over the long run, somebody will do to remote work what Henry Ford did to the factory floor and in fact, just make it much more effective and efficient than in-person contact just because we'll have better ways of interacting with people through remote work, since we'll have better systems?Dwarkesh Patel 0:40:17It's entirely possible. I never like betting against the ingenuity of humanity. On the other hand, you need a lot of technology to override 5 million years of evolution. We have evolved to be an in-person species, not just because we're productive and learn a lot face-to-face, but also because we just like it. A world of hyper-efficient remote work where you basically are puttering around your apartment doing things very quickly and getting things done, doesn't sound particularly joyful to me.Workplaces are not just places of productivity; they're also places of pleasure, particularly at the high end. Remember in 2019 and earlier, Google, and Yahoo, the companies that should have had the biggest capacity to do remote stuff, weren't sending their workers home; they were building these paradises for high-skilled workers, stuffed with foosball tables and free snacks and whatever else they had in these giant campuses in the Google lex. So they were certainly betting on the power of face-to-face and creativity rather than on the ability of remote work to make everything work. I think the most reasonable view, let's say that of Nick Bloom of Stanford, is that for those types of workers, 20% of your week being hybrid, maybe 40%, seems quite possible.That seems like a thing, particularly for workers who have families who really value that degree of flexibility. But fully remote, I guess that's a pretty niche thing. There's some jobs like call center workers where you could imagine it being the norm, but in part, that's just because it's just hard to learn the same amount remotely that you do face-to-face. This came out both in the earlier Bloom study on remote call center workers in China and on more recent work by Natalia Emmanuel and Emma Harrington. Both studies found the same thing, which is in these call centers, are plenty productive when they're remote, but the probability of being promoted drops by 50%.The entrepreneur may make it very efficient to do things in the short run remotely, but they're going to turn off this tendency that we have to be able to learn things from people around us, which is just much harder to duplicate remotely.Past & Future of Silicon ValleyDwarkesh Patel 0:42:29Now, I'm curious why Silicon Valley became the hub of technology. You wrote a paper in 2018 about where pioneer and non-pioneer firms locate. So, I was hoping you had insight on this. Does it stand for it? Is it where Fairchild Semiconductor is located? What is the explanation?Edward Glaeser 0:42:48So, we take it as being earlier. It is Stanford. I traced through this, I think in Triumph. Yeah, it was a company called Federal Telegraph Company that was founded by a guy called Cyril Frank Elwell, who was a radio pioneer, and he was tapped by his teacher to head this radio company. The story was, as I remember it, there'd been this local genius in San Francisco who had attracted all these investors and was going to do this wireless telegraphy company. Then he died in a freak carriage accident.These investors wanted to find someone else, and they went to Stanford's nearby factory and asked, who should we hire? It was this guy Elwell who founded Federal Telegraph. Federal Telegraph then licensed, I think Danish technology which was originally the Poulsen Telegraph Company. They then hired some fairly bright people like Lee DeForest and they did incredibly well in World War I off of federal Navy contracts, off of Navy contracts. They then did things like providing jobs for people like the young Fred Terman, whose father was a Stanford scientist. Now, Fred Terman then plays an outsized role in this story because he goes to MIT, studies engineering there, and then comes back to become Dean of Stanford's engineering program.He really played an outsized role in setting up the Stanford Industrial Park which attracting Fairchild Semiconductor. Then there's this sort of random thing about how the Fairchild Semiconductor attracts these people and then repels them because you have this brilliant guy Shockley, right? He's both brilliant and sort of personally abhorrent and manages to attract brilliant people and then repel all of them. So they all end up dispersing themselves into different companies, and they create this incredibly creative ecosystem that is the heart of Silicon Valley.In its day, it had this combination of really smart people and really entrepreneurial ethos, which just made it very, very healthy. I think the thing that many of us worry about is that Silicon Valley more recently, feels much more like it's a one-industry town, which is dangerous. It feels more like it's a bunch of industrial behemoths rather than a bunch of smart and scrappy startups. That's a recipe that feels much more like Detroit in the 1950s than it does like Silicon Valley in the 1960s.Dwarkesh Patel 0:45:52Speaking of startups, what does your study of cities imply about where tech startups should locate and what kind of organization in person or otherwise they should have? I think there's a lot to like about in person, certainly. Relying too much on remote feels quite dangerous if you're a scrappy startup. But I like a lot the Sunbelt smart cities.I sort of have a two-factor model of economic growth, which is it's about education, and it's about having governments that are pro-business. If you think about sort of the US, there's a lot of heterogeneity in this. If you think about the US versus other countries, it's heterogeneity. So the US has historically been better at being pro-business than, let's say, the Northern European social democracies, but the Northern European social democracies are great on the education front.So places like Sweden and the Netherlands, and Germany are also very successful places because they have enough education to counter the fact that they may not necessarily be as pro-business as the US is. Within the US, you also have this balance, whereas places like Massachusetts, and California are certainly much less pro-business, but they're pretty well-educated. Other parts of the country may be more pro-business, but they're less so. The real secret sauce is finding those places that are both highly educated and pro-business.So those are places like Charlotte and Austin and even Atlanta, places in the Sun Belt that have attracted lots of skilled people. They've done very, very well during COVID. I mean, Austin, by most dimensions, is the superstar of the COVID era in terms of just attracting people. So I think you had to wait for the real estate prices to come down a bit in Austin, but those are the places that I would be looking at. Dwarkesh Patel 0:47:46I don't know if you know, but I live in Austin, actually.Edward Glaeser 0:47:50I did not know that. [laughs]Dwarkesh Patel 0:47:54Well, actually, I'm surprised about what you said about education because you write in the paper, “general knowledge measured as average years of schooling is not a strong determinant of the survival of a pioneer firm, but relatedness of knowledge between past and present activities is.” So I'm surprised that you think education is a strong determinant for pioneer firms.Edward Glaeser 0:48:15No, I'm a big human capital determinist. So I tend to believe that individuals, cities, and nations rise and fall based on their skill levels. Certainly, if you look over the last 40 or 50 years, skills are very predictive of which cities (particularly colder cities) manage to do well versus poorly. If you ask yourself why Detroit and Seattle look different, more than 50% of Seattle's adults have college degrees, and maybe 14, 15% of Detroit's adults do.That's just a huge, huge gap. Certainly, when we think about your punitive startup, you're going to be looking for talent, right? You're going to be looking to hire talent, and having lots of educated people around you is going to be helpful for that.Housing ReformDwarkesh Patel 0:48:56Let's talk about housing. Houston has basically very little to no zoning. Why is it not more of interesting today? Nobody goes to Houston for tourism.Edward Glaeser 0:49:07I have. [laughs] I have, in fact, gone to Houston for tourism. Although part of it, I admit, was to look at the housing and to go to the woodlands and look at that. Interesting has a lot to do with age in this country. So the more that a city has… Boston is good for tourism just because it's been around for a long time, and it hasn't changed all that much. So it has this sort of historical thing. Houston's a new place, not just in the sense that the chronological age is lower but also in the sense that it's just grown so much, and it's dominated by new stuff, right?That new stuff tends to be more homogenous. It tends to have less history on it. I think those are things that make new cities typically less interesting than older cities. As witnessed by the fact that Rome, Jerusalem, London, are great tourist capitals of the world because they've just accreted all this interesting stuff over the millennium. So I think that's part of it. I'm not sure that if we look at more highly zoned new cities, we're so confident that they're all that more interesting.I don't want to be particularly disparaging any one city. So I'm not going to choose that, but there's actually a bunch that's pretty interesting in Houston, and I'm not sure that I would say that it's any less interesting than any comparably aged city in the country.Dwarkesh Patel 0:50:35Yeah. I'm visiting Houston later this month. I asked my friend there, should I stay here longer? I mean, is there anything interesting to do here? And then he responds, “Well, it's the fourth biggest city in the country, so no.”Dwarkesh Patel 0:50:47Many people, including many economists, have said that we should drastically increase US population through immigration to a figure like 1 billion. Do you think that our cities could accommodate that? We have the infrastructure, and I mean, let's say we reformed housing over a decade or so. Could we accommodate such a large influx of people? Edward Glaeser 0:51:24A billion people in a decade? I love the vision. Basically, in my heart, I'm an open borders person, right? I mean, it's a moral thing. I don't really like the idea that I get to enjoy the privileges of being an American and think that I'm going to deny that opportunity to anyone else. So I love this vision. A billion people over 10 years is an unimaginably large amount of people over a relatively short period of time. I'd love to give it a shot. I mean, it's certainly not as if there's any long-term reason why you couldn't do it.I mean, goodness knows we've got more than enough space in this country. It would be exciting to do that. But it would require a lot of reform in the housing space and require a fair amount of reform in the infrastructure space as well to be able to do this at some kind of large scale affordability.Dwarkesh Patel 0:52:05What does the evidence show about public libraries? Do they matter?Dwarkesh Patel 0:52:09My friend Eric Kleinberg has written a great book about… I think it's called Palaces for the People about all the different functions that libraries have played. I've never seen anything statistically or systematically about this, but you're not going to get a scholar to speak against books. It's not a possible thing.Europe's Stagnation, Mumbai's Safety, & Climate Change Dwarkesh Patel 0:52:32Why do European cities seem so much more similar to what they look like decades or even centuries ago than American cities, even American cities that are old, obviously not as old as European cities, but they seem to change much more over time. Edward Glaeser 0:52:46Lower population growth, much tougher zoning, much tougher historic preservation. All three of these things are going on. So it's very difficult to build in European cities. There's a lot of attention to caring about history. It's often part of the nationalist narrative. You often have huge amounts of national dollars going to preserve local stuff and relatively lower levels of population growth.An extreme example of this is Warsaw, where central Warsaw is completely destroyed during World War II, and they built it up to look exactly like it looked before the bombing. So this is a national choice, which is unlikely that we would necessarily make here in the US. Dwarkesh Patel 0:53:27Yeah. I was in Mumbai earlier this year, and I visited Dharavi, which is the biggest slum in Asia. And it's a pretty safe place for a slum. Why are slums in different countries? Why do they often have different levels of how safe they are? What is the reason?Edward Glaeser 0:53:45I, too, have been in Dharavi and felt perfectly safe. It's like walking around Belgravia and London in terms of it. I think my model of Dharavi is the same model as Jane Jacobs's model of Greenwich Village in 1960, which is this is just a well-functioning community.People have eyes on the street. If you're a stranger in these areas, they're going to be looking at you, and it's a community that just functions. There are lots of low-income communities throughout the world that have this. It requires a certain amount of permanence. So if the community is too much in flux, it becomes hard to enforce these norms and hard to enforce these sort of community rules. It's really helpful if there aren't either a massive number of guns floating around or an unbelievably lucrative narcotics trade, which is in the area. Those are both things that make things incredibly hard. Furthermore, US drug policy has partially been responsible for creating violence in some of the poor parts of Latin American cities.Dwarkesh Patel 0:54:43Maybe you don't play video games enough to know the answer to this question. But I'm curious, is there any video game, any strategic video game like Civilization or Europa that you feel does a good job representing the economics of cities? Edward Glaeser 0:55:07No, I will say that when I was in graduate school, I spent a few hours playing something called Sim City. I did think that was very fun. But I'm not going to claim that I think that it got it right. That was probably my largest engagement with city-building video games.Dwarkesh Patel 0:55:12What would you say we understand least about how cities work? Edward Glaeser 0:55:18I'm going to say the largest unsolved problem in cities is what the heck we're going to do about climate change and the cities of the developing world. This is the thing I do not feel like I have any answer for in terms of how it is that we're going to stop Manila or Mumbai from being leveled by some water-related climate event that we haven't yet foreseen.We think that we're going to spend tens of billions of dollars to protect New York and Miami, and that's going to happen; but the thing I don't understand and something we really need to need to invest in terms of knowledge creation is what are we going to do with the low-lying cities of the developing world to make them safe. Dwarkesh Patel 0:55:54Okay. Your most recent book is Survival of the City. And before that Triumph of the City, both of which I highly recommend to readers. Professor Glaeser, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. This was very interesting.Edward Glaeser 0:56:05I enjoyed this a lot. Thank you so much for having me on. I had a great deal of fun. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.dwarkeshpatel.com

Guests: Dr. Bill Weiss, The Ohio State University; Dr. Victor Cabrera, University of Wisconsin-MadisonGathering over cold drinks at the World Dairy Expo pubcast to discuss recent research on nutritional grouping among dairy farms are Dr. Bill Weiss, Dr. Victor Cabrera and Dr. Pete Morrow.Dr. Bill Weiss, Professor Emeritus at The Ohio State University, began the conservation through the recently published research paper in the Journal of Dairy Science, introducing one of the authors, Dr. Victor Cabrera, Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. 2:25 Here is a link to the article: https://www.journalofdairyscience.org/article/S0022-0302(21)01082-1/fulltextWhat strategies in dairy cow nutritional grouping does the research recommend? Victor added that along with help from a graduate student Jorge Bartos, research shows the opportunity to group animals with similar homogenous nutritional requirements. 3:40He noted the underlying concepts like production, lactation, pregnancy stages and sometimes herd sizes are also drivers for grouping considerations. 5:70Dr. Cabrera said he would first separate by lactation or production, but when calculating the density of nutritional requirements for each animal, he said the animal grouping typically happens naturally. 9:30He also said nutritional requirements play a factor, adding the concept-lead factor of following the diet of the 83rd percentile cow. But how can we improve the nutritional accuracy and formulate the best diet for the group, Dr. Bill Weiss then asked. 12:40Dr. Cabrera mentioned the research paper showed the overweight concern for animals within the transitional period and said another challenge the research indicated was the lower metabolic energy and body score conditions. He added that diets ultimately improve the health and welfare of the animals in all cases. 19:45Dr. Pete Morrow, podcast co-host, said that early in his career he had a dairy do grouping according to production on a late lactation cow on a cheap diet. He added the diet was formulated for 10 pounds less of milk and later realized lead factors was instead the key measure. 24:20There are two points to grouping, Dr. Cabrera said. The journal research was collected from a large farm in Wisconsin, with around 2,400 lactating cows used for the data. Within the grouping for this farm, cows were moved from the 14 different pens each week. Dr. Cabrera mentioned that there are multiple pens for each lactation type, adding the nutrition for the animal's changes based on feed prices and not requirements. 29:31Dr. Cabrera said he and his team thought the roadblock in nutritional grouping for farmers would be fear that moving them frequently would decrease their productivity and labor management throughout the process. 34:49From the paper, however, he added the research doesn't show a decrease in milk production, but instead, the grouping concept yields opportunities for extra milk production, health gain, environmental benefits and more. 36:30Wrapping up the conversation, Dr. Cabrera emphasized two points, mentioning he believes farmers have a great opportunity to improve nutritional accuracy and believes nutritional grouping offers an effective and efficient system.  41:48Please subscribe and share with your industry friends to bring more people to join us around the Real Science Exchange virtual pub table.  If you want one of our new Real Science Exchange t-shirts, screenshot your rating, review, or subscription, and email a picture to anh.marketing@balchem.com. Include your size and mailing address, and we'll get a shirt in the mail to you. 

A Life and Death SituationA SERMON BASED ON DEUTERONOMY 30:15-20There are parts of Scripture that sometimes take some explaining and navigating. There are complex histories and contexts. There are phrases that we need to read a few times before we feel as if we have a good grasp on what God is saying to us. This is not one of those times. God, through Moses, couldn't communicate in any clearer terms. There is death without God and there is life with him.

Strong Women Blue WavesThe Jack Blood Show 360 8-18-2022 Vicki Karp - Leah LaChapelle - Blaine PardoeVicki Karp and Leah LaChapelle Leah's Website: http://fearorlove.com/Iconoclast: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/iconoclastBlaine PardoeWebsite: http://blainepardoe.com/index.htmlTwitter: https://twitter.com/bpardoe870Book: https://www.amazon.com/Most-Uncivil-War-Blaine-Pardoe/dp/1955937273/?tag=chatangocom-20There is only one Jack Blood!Jack Blood News: https://www.facebook.com/JackBloodNews/E-Mail and Paypal jackblood@hotmail.comJack Blood Youtube Channel https://www.youtube.com/c/JackBloodOCHELLI LINKS:If You Appreciate what Ochelli.com Radio Does: https://ochelli.com/donate/Ochelli Effect - Uncle - Age of Transitions - T-shirts and MORE: https://theageoftransitions.com/category/support-the-podcasts/Special New Audiobook SeriesPayPal & Contact for special arrangements: blindjfkresearcher@gmail.comOchelli Effect Patreon https://www.patreon.com/ochelliSign-up on Ochelli.comhttps://ochelli.com/membership-account/membership-levels/

Birch Beer Ever Clear Jokes The Ochelli Effect 8-18-2022 Mike Swanson and Open LinesMike talked to Chuck about the many fringes of the right-wing and the anti-communist evolutions in America.I Led 3 Lives Pilot:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWveDieaTkYWelch:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMwi9poprqo&feature=emb_titleMICHAEL SWANSON:BE IN THE KNOW: https://wallstreetwindow.comTWITTER: https://twitter.com/tradermike_1999FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/tradermikeBOOKS BY MICHAEL SWANSON:The War State: The Cold War Origins Of The Military-Industrial Complex And The Power Elite, 1945-1963 https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00EWLGXHW/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0Why The Vietnam War?: Nuclear Bombs and Nation Building in Southeast Asia, 1945-1961 By Michael Swanson https://www.amazon.com/Why-Vietnam-War-Southeast-1945-1961-ebook/dp/B08FHBS17KDanville, Virginia: And The Coming Of The Modern South: https://www.amazon.com/Danville-Virginia-Coming-Modern-South-ebook/dp/B007VCZLWW/Chuck took calls in the second hour. Chris Graves made an appearance. Chuck made light of a poorly formulated conspiracy theory.OCHELLI LINKS:If You Appreciate what Ochelli.com Radio Does: https://ochelli.com/donate/Ochelli Effect - Uncle - Age of Transitions - T-shirts and MORE: https://theageoftransitions.com/category/support-the-podcasts/Special New Audiobook SeriesPayPal & Contact for special arrangements: blindjfkresearcher@gmail.comOchelli Effect Patreon https://www.patreon.com/ochelliSign-up on Ochelli.comhttps://ochelli.com/membership-account/membership-levels/Puppy Video on The Ochelli Effect Channel: https://youtu.be/oOshHEuuYqU================================================================Strong Women Blue WavesThe Jack Blood Show 360 8-18-2022 Vicki Karp - Leah LaChapelle - Blaine PardoeVicki Karp and Leah LaChapelle Leah's Website: http://fearorlove.com/Iconoclast: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/iconoclastBlaine PardoeWebsite: http://blainepardoe.com/index.htmlTwitter: https://twitter.com/bpardoe870Book: https://www.amazon.com/Most-Uncivil-War-Blaine-Pardoe/dp/1955937273/?tag=chatangocom-20There is only one Jack Blood!Jack Blood News: https://www.facebook.com/JackBloodNews/E-Mail and Paypal jackblood@hotmail.comJack Blood Youtube Channel https://www.youtube.com/c/JackBloodOCHELLI LINKS:If You Appreciate what Ochelli.com Radio Does: https://ochelli.com/donate/Ochelli Effect - Uncle - Age of Transitions - T-shirts and MORE: https://theageoftransitions.com/category/support-the-podcasts/Special New Audiobook SeriesPayPal & Contact for special arrangements: blindjfkresearcher@gmail.comOchelli Effect Patreon https://www.patreon.com/ochelliSign-up on Ochelli.comhttps://ochelli.com/membership-account/membership-levels/

Lori Bean and Alyssa Rabin welcome Registered Psychologist Erin Bonner back to the podcast to take everyone on a deep dive into psychology and how therapy works. Erin breaks down when diagnosis is useful in selecting a therapeutic modality, how different therapies treat behaviors and emotions, and how to go about selecting the right therapist for your needs.Erin believes everyone should know something about therapy, modalities, types of therapists, and how to find a therapist. To that end, Erin details exactly what her speciality - clinical counseling psychology - means and what modalities her training specifically focused on. She explains the differences between clinical and subclinical and what the idea ‘diagnosis directs treatment' looks like in terms of the type of therapy that would be best for an individual. Lori and Alyssa explore the differences between DBT (Dialectical Behavior Therapy) and CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) with Erin. They discuss the CBT triangle, what a DBT skill like the TIPP skill would assist with, and how important personal connection with a therapist is to effective therapy. This episode addresses your brain, your thoughts, and any feeling or trauma you may have that a psychologist or therapist can help with. This imparts important knowledge on how to choose therapy that is best for you.About Erin Bonner:Erin Bonner is a Registered Psychologist with a Master's of Arts in Counselling Psychology. She is passionate about her role in helping others navigate their individual paths towards wellness. In her 20s she tragically lost her younger brother and then her mother shortly after. Through her own therapeutic journey, she discovered her calling to help others work on understanding and processing emotions to achieve personal growth and well-being.Erin is trained in Cognitive and Dialectical Behavioural Therapies, Prolonged Exposure, Exposure with Response Prevention, Emotion-Focused and Mindfulness-Based Therapy. She specializes in treating depression, anxiety, PTSD, cPTSD, ADHD, emotion dysregulation, grief, OCD, and in helping individuals learn to love themselves and develop strong relationships with the people in their lives. She also offers Sport Psychology to equestrian athletes on an individual or group basis.Erin believes in holistic wellness and that integrating various modalities of treatment enhances the benefits of therapy. She encourages her clients to be curious about how they can cultivate lifestyle changes to think, emote and behave in ways that foster personal wellbeing and contentment; this is paramount in her approach to therapy.In addition to working with adults, she has a special interest, passion and gift for working with adolescents aged 14 and older.Resources discussed in this episode:TIPP skillCBT triangle-- Maliya: website | instagram | facebookErin Bonner | Registered Psychologist: website | linkedin TranscriptionErin Bonner  00:59Hi guys. Alyssa Rabin  01:01How are you? Erin Bonner  01:02I'm good. I'm excited to chat. Lori Bean  01:06Let's do it. We need some answers to the questions we're getting. Alyssa Rabin  01:11Totally. Erin Bonner  01:13Maybe I should start with contrary to popular belief, therapists don't know everything. We are all work-in-progresses ourselves. Lori Bean  01:20Oh. Alyssa Rabin  01:21That's not what you told me. Erin Bonner  01:22I know. You know the... speak with confidence and then everybody just believes everything you say. Lori Bean  01:30Maybe I should become a clinical psychologist. Erin Bonner  01:36I think it's important, though, to kind of know about therapy, about, you know, what kind of therapist fits for you and kind of how to maybe even choose a therapist. Because I was talking to a new client and they were wildly overwhelmed with just the process of finding, like, who the heck can help me. And so I think maybe we can uncover some of that because it's overwhelming, Alyssa Rabin  02:00Totally and completely. Finding the right fit and feeling comfortable to pour your heart out. And absolutely. So why don't you first tell us, what specifically do you specialize in? Erin Bonner  02:15My specialty is in clinical counseling psychology. And what that means is that my training is in modalities that are empirically supported for the treatment of mental disorders. So I am trained in treatments to treat borderline personality disorder, major anxiety disorder, depression, OCD, PTSD. And so a lot of the training that I have, really is designed for individuals with kind of clinical disorders, and anybody who might even be subclinical, or anybody who just is highly emotionally sensitive and emotions run their life. Alyssa Rabin  02:53What's subclinical? Erin Bonner  02:54Subclinical means you might not actually meet diagnostic criteria, according to, you know, the set diagnostic criteria in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. And that emotion pattern, you know, depression, anxiety, trauma experiences, they're pretty controlling in your life, that we as psychologists have to have, you know, a gradient. You either meet criteria for diagnosis or you don't. And if you have four out of nine criteria for something and not five out of nine criteria, where five out of nine is that threshold, having four out of nine is still pretty life altering. Lori Bean  03:30So if you recognize, like, let's say you had a trauma that's still affecting you today, you don't know if it's PTSD, you're just not functioning. Erin Bonner  03:37Yeah. Lori Bean  03:38It's controlling your life. Alyssa Rabin  03:39And even if it's not a trauma, if you don't recognize exactly what is going on, but why are you feeling anxious? Why are you feeling depressed? Why are you feeling all of these emotions? Erin Bonner  03:50Yeah. And I think often diagnosis, it directs treatment. And so sometimes we need a diagnosis before we embark on a treatment, because, let's face it, there are lots of different modalities out there. And they're all useful in one way or another for individuals who they fit for. And not every type of therapy is going to fit for every person. So sometimes, you gotta get the diagnosis first. You gotta kind of know what you're working with before you choose a path down therapy, because it's exhausting to go down a whole therapeutic pathway and feel like it doesn't do a darn thing. It just costs you a whole bunch of money, and time and energy and effort. And so sometimes the diagnosis is really, really important to start with. Lori Bean  04:30So where do you get the diagnosis? Erin Bonner  04:31So diagnosis typically will come from either a psychiatrist, or there are psychologists out there who specialize in assessment, it's not actually something I do. I have some solid familiarity, with the treatments that I offer, to kind of do general assessment, so I can assess for PTSD, I can assess for OCD. And I don't have as much training as someone who specializes in assessment would have. And so if I meet with a client and I think, you know what, I think we got to know what's going on here from kind of a diagnostic perspective first, I'll typically refer out. And I have a couple of referral sources that I think are really fantastic and they know their stuff really, really well. And so I'll say, 'hey, this is important to do so you aren't wasting your time'. I want to help every single person that comes through my doors, and if I don't offer the treatment that fits for that person, I can't as well as somebody who does offer that treatment. Alyssa Rabin  05:23So let's say I am feeling depressed and anxious. And I don't have a diagnosis. Do I have to go get that first to come to see you? Erin Bonner  05:33No, not at all. Alyssa Rabin  05:34Okay. Erin Bonner  05:34As the, you know, clinical professional in the room, it's a bit my job to go, 'hey, I think this is really important' or, the other piece, yes diagnosis directs treatment. And as a therapist, as a clinical counseling therapist, I am very much treating the symptoms. Yes, there are these diagnostic labels. And all the diagnostic label means is you're experiencing all of these symptoms in a way that's altering your life. Alyssa Rabin  05:58Interesting. Erin Bonner  06:00And so that's my job. To do some assessment. This is why a first session often feels a little 21 questioning. I try not to make it as 21 questioning as possible, and really have it be a conversation, but there is, over the first couple of sessions, a bit of assessment that I'm doing, to kind of conceptualize how does what I do fit for a client. Alyssa Rabin  06:19As well - actually, before this, you and I were talking about connection. Erin Bonner  06:25Yeah. Alyssa Rabin  06:26How important connection is between the client and their psychologist? Lori Bean  06:31Yeah. Erin Bonner  06:31Absolutely. I like to think about that chemistry factor, when it comes to choosing a psychologist, that you kind of want - and not in a weird, creepy way - you kind of want the same feeling if you go on a first date, and you're like, 'whoa, that was great'. Whether they were, like, nurturing or kind or, like, you just had that ease of conversation. You kind of want that feeling with a therapist in some way, shape, or form because, I mean, this is somebody you're gonna be spilling your guts to. You're going to be very vulnerable with this human. And so if you don't have that kind of spark of connection, it's really hard to be vulnerable. It's really hard to be candid, it's really hard to just show up and go with what happens in a session. And so I think, I mean, there's research that backs it up that there's a big statistic of - I don't know, I don't know the exact number - but about 60% of the game is finding a therapist you connect with. And so that's, you know, you got to understand and feel like they're their theory fits for you. You got to feel like their personality fits for you. I know, I'm a pretty conversational, I'd say casual, conversational style therapist. I fully believe in the power of a therapeutic F bomb. And so that's gonna fit for some people and it's not gonna fit for others. Lori Bean  06:38That fits for me. Erin Bonner  06:57And so I think that's a huge part of the battle which, absolutely, it makes finding a therapist overwhelming and challenging. Alyssa Rabin  07:54Which is why it's so amazing that you do offer free virtual consultation. It's like a 15 minute consultation. So you can see the person face to face and sort of get that energy. And see if it is a match, which I just think is brilliant. Erin Bonner  08:10I think it's important that I know therapy is expensive. And I know that people are investing time, energy, money, emotions into doing therapy with me. And so at least if they have that thought of, like, I'm kind of interested in speaking to her again, before they, you know, shell out that that fee for the first session, I think is important. And it's something that I really I like to do because I'm a human too. And we get in a session and our therapeutic or conversational selves don't fit? It's uncomfortable for everybody. Alyssa Rabin  08:43Yeah, absolutely. Lori Bean  08:46So what are some of the - do you call them processes that you use? Erin Bonner  08:51Yeah. So theories or modalities. Or processes, absolutely. So I would classify myself as someone who falls into the category of behaviorist. And so what that means is, all of the theories that backup my practice, that I'm really pulling from when I'm doing therapy, have to do with human behavior. It's one of kind of the, I think there's six kind of different categories or genres. Yeah, I like that word. So I'm a behavioral therapist. And so my training is in dialectical behavior therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, I can tell you what those are in a minute. And then a lot of the exposure based treatments that I use, so prolonged exposure to treat PTSD, exposure with response prevention for the treatment of OCD, any, like, mindfulness based therapies that are really behaviorally mindfulness based therapies, emotion focused, there is this behavioral element that I bring. Lori Bean  09:44Okay, so let's say - Alyssa Rabin  09:46- you're revisiting - Lori Bean  09:48- you're re- yeah, that's the word you use. Revisit. So what if it's something like, maybe it's something you've repressed? Erin Bonner  09:55Yeah. Lori Bean  09:56Or something that happened a long time ago as a kid and you do don't really remember. How do you revisit something like that? Erin Bonner  10:04I like that question. Because I think we have this urge, if we know there's trauma, or there's, like, a question mark about where there's trauma, we want to figure it out, we want to dive in and do the thing and heal ourselves. And my approach, that's the goal, the goal is to have this kind of holistic healing, and sometimes we have to train our brain how the heck to do that before we actually have the ability to do revisiting. And a big part of my training is in dialectical behavior therapy, which is a very behavior focused, it's probably the most behavior focused type of therapy you can get. Alyssa Rabin  10:38Which is, explain it a little bit. Erin Bonner  10:40Yes. So the concept of dialectical behavior therapy - so, DBT - is that it accounts for biology. So it was a therapy designed in the 80s by a gal named Marsha Linehan, who is this brilliant clinical social worker, I believe. Don't come for me, DBT community, if she's a psychologist. I think she's a clinical social worker, she has borderline personality disorder and went through every single therapy in the book. Luckily, she's also unbelievably brilliant. And so she kind of picked and chose parts of therapies that were helpful, even though no one therapy helped her. Lori Bean  11:17Okay. Erin Bonner  11:17And so what DBT does, it accounts for this biology, this emotional sensitivity, and not in a judgmental way. It's, 'hey, if my brain has a brain that feels emotions more intensely than the average person, I am emotionally sensitive'. Me too, absolutely! Alyssa's raising her hand. I absolutely am this way and so probably this is why I've connected with this therapy. Because sometimes our emotion system overrides our ability to think straight, to be, you know, rational, to know what we know. And so DBT really takes that into account in its approach, through behaviors, but also through treatment processing. So in order to revisit sometimes, to revisit the past, which might look like, you know, conversation about past experiences, it might be, you know, formal trauma treatments, like prolonged exposure. It might be understanding self in a different way. And so, you know, cracking into that egg of self identity, and, you know, breaking it down so we can rebuild it up. Sometimes, before we actually can do that, we actually need to train our brain how to experience an emotion first. Lori Bean  12:17Oh, interesting! Erin Bonner  12:19Yeah. Have you ever had an experience or an emotion happens - I'm maybe looking at Alyssa since she did volunteer - have you ever had a moment where an emotion has happened, and all you can see is that emotion? Alyssa Rabin  12:31Yes. Erin Bonner  12:31Like there isn't rational and you're in that place of emotion. And all we can think about is, like, how the heck do we survive this emotion? Alyssa Rabin  12:38Absolutely. Erin Bonner  12:39And our brain has built in some, like, you know, survival mechanisms. You know, the old fight, freeze, or fly. And that absolutely is survival, except it's often not functional in our day to day life. And so unless, you know, we're being attacked by a mountain lion, then yeah, I want to do all of those things. And I want to, you know, biologically save myself. In those moments where we're flooded with emotion, sometimes we need to train our brain to know what to do to be able to get access to the smart part of our brain, to, you know, challenge thoughts or to think critically, or to sit with an emotion without having to do anything about it. Alyssa Rabin  13:16So before you actually dive into the past quote/unquote trauma, you teach your brain first and the person how to deal with those emotions that will probably come about. Erin Bonner  13:32Absolutely. Lori Bean  13:33Oh, that is so interesting! Alyssa Rabin  13:36See, I could be a psychologist. Lori Bean  13:46Brilliant,. Alyssa Rabin  13:46I love that. Erin Bonner  13:47It's neat, because, I mean, we're all unique and different and complex, but we're all pretty simple as humans to. And so the truth is to process past experiences, to heal trauma, we have to do this revisiting. And, you know, there are some people that you know, biologically, genetically got that scratch off ticket that was a winning ticket, and their brain is just able to do it. Hey, let's start off and dive into trauma, great! So this is people that, like, that really benefit from, you know, therapies like maybe some somatic work or EMDR, or even like life coaching. Absolutely. Brain says I know how to do the processing thing, I just gotta have a space to talk about it. Not everybody has that, though. Alyssa Rabin  13:55So then you would, quote/unquote, pass those off to somatic therapists. Erin Bonner  14:35Potentially, yeah. Alyssa Rabin  14:37Interesting. Lori Bean  14:38So what's the difference between DBT and CBT? Erin Bonner  14:41I love that question. This is where my, like, nerdy psychologist comes. And that's a word I've reclaimed, it's not a judgment. I love this part about myself because I get really excited about this because it's not something that people know. We hear all of these different therapies and we hear all these different names and brain goes, 'great, I just want to feel better'. And knowing the therapies is actually a really important part in us choosing, like, what path we're gonna go down, who we're going to connect with. Because if I'm talking about behaviors and then someone is, like, 'what' and I want to talk about, you know, my inner child, it's probably not going to connect. And so knowing a bit about the therapies, I think it's really important. So here - I wish I had like a flowchart I could show everybody as I'm describing this. Lori Bean  15:25PowerPoint. Erin Bonner  15:26Absolutely. Vanna White over here. So everyone listening can just imagine that I'm doing that. I don't have a, you know, a nice dress like Vanna, but - Alyssa Rabin  15:37- but you look really cute. Erin Bonner  15:38Thanks. So the difference between CBT and DBT is that DBT can kind of be thought of as like advanced CBT. And not in a, like, you graduate and you do DBT. Alyssa Rabin  15:48What does DBT stand for? Erin Bonner  15:50Dialectical Behavior Therapy. Alyssa Rabin  15:52Okay. Erin Bonner  15:53So CBT is often what we think about when we think about talk therapy. It's the whole change your thoughts, feel different, do different. Alyssa Rabin  16:02So what does CBT stands for? Erin Bonner  16:05So CBT stands for Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. And so in CBT, often what we're looking at is we're understanding how our behaviors and our thoughts influence each other and how they impact our emotions. There's a diagram that lots of CBT therapists will draw, it's a triangle, it's a really fancy diagram. On the top they'll write T, and on one of the bottom corners, they'll write a B, and on the other corner, they'll write an E or an F for feelings. And so in CBT, there's this triangle, the CBT triangle. And so it's that thoughts impact behaviors impact emotions. And then we'll draw, like, these arrows between all of those three corners and go, okay, emotions impact thoughts and thoughts impact emotions. Thoughts impact behaviors, behaviors impact thoughts. Behaviors and emotions, they both impact each other. And so CBT really is this idea that we want to understand our thoughts first, how do we change thoughts so it impacts our behavior, which then impacts our emotions. And so if we can change that cycle, that feedback cycle, we're probably going to feel better. Alyssa Rabin  17:03Okay, so thoughts such as, like, I'm not worthy. Erin Bonner  17:08Absolutely. A solid shame thought. Uncomfortable. Alyssa Rabin  17:12Absolutely and completely. Lori Bean  17:14Which would impact a behavior of not showing up for something. Erin Bonner  17:20Totally. Or, like, self sabotage or never seeing no, never having boundaries. Absolutely. And so from a cognitive behavioral perspective, we look at that thought and go, 'okay, so how do we challenge that thought, so then behaviors and emotions, so the emotion of shame in that instance, can actually shift'. We're creating new patterns in our brain that change our functioning. And so the difference in DBT is we're actually doing the same thing, but we're going behavior first. And we go behavior first, because - and this is the nerdy part, ready? So when we are in a moment where emotion is really high, whether it's due to our biology, so maybe we're a highly sensitive person, maybe we have something like borderline personality disorder, which I think is a highly stigmatized diagnosis. And it really just means that we're a person with incredibly high emotions. And then we've had an environment where we've been invalidated a lot for it. Maybe with trauma, maybe not. I can get on a soapbox about that and I won't for the sake of today. Or maybe we've had major traumas, maybe it's been childhood trauma that's happened over, you know, years and years. Maybe it's been instances, and it doesn't necessarily matter what type of trauma, it's that it happened. I think sometimes we associate highly sensitive people with, like, sexual trauma. Not necessarily it can be kind of any type of trauma. I often think of even if we're a person that just has a higher than normal, not normal, higher than average emotion experience, the experience of our own emotions can be pretty traumatizing. Alyssa Rabin  18:50Totally, Erin Bonner  18:52if anyone's had a panic attack, yeah, that can be pretty dang traumatizing. And so if we've had this experience, what ends up happening is our brain functioning is altered. We don't have access to the, you know, intelligent front part of our brain, our prefrontal cortex, in the same way. And we really need that part of our brain online all the time to be able to challenge thoughts. So that same task of 'I'm not worthy' or 'I'm not good enough', in CBT, we go alright, we got to challenge that thought. If we have that emotion experience that's pretty high, the likelihood that we have the brainpower to challenge that thought and it stick, isn't there. Lori Bean  19:28So interesting. Erin Bonner  19:30So in DBT, we go - and the people that have invented DBT and turned it into the therapy that is today and the theory that it is today, they take that biology piece into account - and they go 'okay, so maybe we have to do behaviors first to change brain functioning'. So having skills, is the DBT lingo, to be able to address our physiology so we can turn all parts of our brain back on, maybe reduce intensity of emotion slightly, so we have full access to our brain. So we can biologically do that changing thinking thing. Lori Bean  20:01So what does that look like? Give us an example of when you approach a behavior first. Erin Bonner  20:06Yeah. So the classic... and it's often if I, you know, meet somebody and I go, 'okay, we need some skills here, this is maybe more DBT informed type therapy' because even though I'm trained in DBT, I came from a practice that was full fidelity. If somebody needs full fidelity DBT, I will send my client to that clinic, they are fantastic at what they do. If you need full fidelity, the whole shebang of DBT, I don't offer that anymore. I offer DBT informed practice. What that means is, in the first couple of sessions, I would teach somebody a skill, like the TIPP skill, and what the TIPP skill - everything in DBT is acronym - so it stands for Temperature, Intense exercise, Paced breathing, Paired muscle relaxation. So TIPP. So these are four behaviors that a) increase our parasympathetic activation, our body's natural cooldown system. And so there are behaviors that we do that quickly change our physiology, which then impacts our ability to function, and it impacts our ability to access the parts of our brain that we need to be able to, you know, do mindfulness or do distraction or think critically. Lori Bean  20:07So does the client approach this TIPP when they're in a behavior? They're recognizing that they're in an irrational behavior, like let's say they're having a panic attack. Is that considered a behavior? Erin Bonner  21:25Absolutely. Panic attack is a great moment for a skill like the TIPP skill, because we're in that moment, we are flooded with emotion, the emotion is controlling everything we do, and so - Lori Bean  21:37- which is a behavior. Erin Bonner  21:38Right? And so we're in that moment of panic attack, yes, the panic is the emotion but the behaviors might be crying, the behaviors might be avoiding, the behaviors might be, you know, freezing and not being able to function. And so we need something to, like, in the least clinical way knock our brain down a few pegs in a way that doesn't have long term negative consequences. Alyssa Rabin  21:59Okay, and so that you can more or less focus on regulating yourself. Erin Bonner  22:04Exactly. Because it's our survival mechanisms, those built in behaviors that go with intense emotions, our brain comes up with behaviors to try and regulate. This is why we avoid things kind of, you know, pathologically. Or we use substances. Our brain's feeling really dang intense for whatever emotion our brain trends towards, and so, you know, you pop a pill or take some drinks and brain is numbed a little bit for a short period of time. And so I really, I take this stance with every single one of my clients that every behavior that we have identified - hey, I probably got to do something about this behavior, and I got to change it - it's actually serving a function. It's our brain's way of trying to regulate itself in any way that it can, which I take a stance because it doesn't help to, you know, add a layer of shame of like, 'oh, you shouldn't be doing that'. It doesn't help. Alyssa Rabin  22:19You're doing it almost to save yourself from something and that something is what you need to recognize. Erin Bonner  23:01Exactly. Because as humans, we're complex - I say this a lot - we're complex, but yet we're very simple. Or, and we're very simple in that our brain responds to reward and relief. And so if we engage in a behavior that offers us, like, even the tiniest sliver of relief, brain goes 'oh, that helped'. Even if later on it creates chaos. Brain only learns from that, like, immediate moment and so a skill like the TIPP skill is saying, 'wait, I'm gonna forego that, like, moment of relief for something that might actually start helping in the longer term'. Lori Bean  23:35Wow. Erin Bonner  23:36I like to call this TIPP skill my, like, nerdy therapist party trick because I can reduce your heart rate to below resting heart rate in, like, 30 to 60 seconds. Alyssa Rabin  23:44Do it. Erin Bonner  23:48Give me a little bit of space after. Lori Bean  23:51I will attest that Erin has given me that skill when I personally find my nervous system just dysregulated. That kind of feeling where you're very overwhelmed, you almost feel like you want to crawl out of your body, like, you don't, you can't really differentiate between, like, is it anxiety? Is it overwhelm? Is it stress? I'm uncomfortable, I can't process. Alyssa Rabin  24:20There's too much coming down on your brain and your shoulders. Lori Bean  24:23And you literally feel like you want to crawl out of your body. This little tip has been a lifesaver. Erin Bonner  24:31It's cool. It's neat because it's not a skill that is going to change your life. It's not solving all of your life's problems. What it's doing is it's giving you access to your brain in a moment where you might need your brain. It's giving you this window, this window of access that, you know, either we can, you know, do something. So like you said earlier, Alyssa, start regulating emotion with another behavior or thinking different. Or our brain will just go back to being triggered by whatever it was triggered with before. Lori Bean  24:59Wow, amazing. Alyssa Rabin  25:02So I just have a quick question for you. So I know how amazing you are. Erin Bonner  25:07Thank you. Alyssa Rabin  25:08How would I, as a client, choose to do therapy with you? Instead of, like, a somatic therapy, or a life coaching therapy? What would I need to know as a client? Which direction to go in? Erin Bonner  25:27I love that question. And I think there's kind of different parts to it. Part of it's gonna be personality. Alyssa Rabin  25:32Absolutely. We spoke about, yeah, the connection - Erin Bonner  25:35There's a huge statistic. If you have a connection, what the person does, like, it probably matters less. Doesn't mean it doesn't matter at all, it means it probably matters less. Alyssa Rabin  25:45Ah, interesting. Erin Bonner  25:46I don't want to discount, you know, the theory and the type of therapy altogether, because sometimes we just need a different therapy, even if we really liked that person. I know I've had that as therapist where I have this huge connection with a client and I go, 'I think we've reached our limit and you got to find somebody else, because' - Lori Bean  26:03- this approach isn't working. Erin Bonner  26:04Just becasue we like each other, that's not enough in this instance. So it's part of a big part of the picture, but not the whole picture. I think a big part of understanding what therapist is gonna fit for you, is looking into kind of the theory. And you don't have to research it, like, so you're an expert. You got to read about each of the therapies and, like, Google is great for this. Pull up the Wikipedia page. Well, what is the therapy that they offer? What's it all about? And do I kind of like it? Lori Bean  26:34Does it feel in alignment? Erin Bonner  26:35Totally. Does it speak to me? And so I think that piece is important, because, I know if somebody is a psychoanalyst, yes, there's tons of research behind psychoanalytic - that's the whole Freud stuff - if that speaks to somebody, I can tell you right now, you're gonna get 0% of that with me. I don't do it. I don't, it's not what I do as a therapist. And so if that's what speaks to your brain, we can get along and, you know, be buddies in the therapy room, and it's not going to speak to you in the same way. And so knowing kind of what theory pulls you, that's going to be a big part of deciding who you work with. And then the second piece is you you gotta kind of like them. Lori Bean  27:12Yeah, but it doesn't really mean that one is better than the other. Erin Bonner  27:15Absolutely not. Lori Bean  27:16Like I think about somatic therapy, like internal family therapy. You know, reading up about that, I was like, 'oh, this is really interesting, and kind of resonates with me as a person and what I'm in alignment with'. But it doesn't mean that the different therapies cannot approach the same issues, correct? Erin Bonner  27:34Totally. Totally. I think the one difference is, if there are, you know, something like OCD. If there is a clinical diagnosis that you're coming in with, for example, you have OCD, the likelihood that anything but exposure with response prevention is going to help you is just lower. Doesn't mean there's no other option. It means that you want to look for the treatment that is the most empirically supported treatment for your diagnosis. That's where the 'diagnosis directs treatment' idea comes in. And so, yeah, there are certain areas where you've got to be a little bit more choosy about the theory. And, for lots of people, it matters more about what speaks to you, and about that connection with the therapist. And one theory or one therapy doesn't have to solve all of what's going on for you. Maybe there are pieces. This is something that a mentor that I worked with a couple years ago said that he was kind of grappling with, 'well, I want to be able to, like, you know, help everybody that comes to this door, and I want to see their, you know, start to completion'. And as therapists, I think sometimes we have to humble ourselves a little bit. We're not all, like, saviors. Even though we might have a savior complex. I'm a little guilty of that sometimes. That maybe it's just this piece, maybe it's a piece of work that somebody does with me, and then they do a piece of work with somebody else. And that's - Lori Bean  28:52- or maybe they need something altogether different, like -  Erin Bonner  28:56- like acupuncture. Lori Bean  28:57Yeah. Or naturopathy. Or a movement class. Or some additional support. Erin Bonner  29:03Absolutely. Alyssa Rabin  29:03It's interesting, because once clients, I've had some clients ask me in the past, well, why would I choose psychology over soul coaching or life coaching or... And I kind of put it like, therapy, the psychology therapy, is almost to work on what's there. And once that's been helped, as much as it can be helped, and you're ready to move on to the next level, that's when you go on to the life coaching and life therapy. So it's, everything is a process. Erin Bonner  29:39Yeah, I had a conversation with Jadine our life coach about, like, how do we decide who is the most effective fit? And she and I had this really cool conversation about if somebody comes in the doors and they go, 'okay, I'm just feeling stuck on my next step'. They don't necessarily have trauma they want to work through or it's not the time for them to work through their trauma. Because sometimes it's important to really understand that even if you have trauma, it might not always be the time to work on it. And that's a very acceptable and probably effective choice to make for ourselves. But it's more about that I want to think future focus, I want to think about how the heck do I get myself to the next step? That's where life coaching is a great option. Lori Bean  30:17Or big life changes. Like I'm a new mom. So I just had a baby and my life is just completely changed, and how do I navigate this? Needing support around that. Erin Bonner  30:28Actually, I love that example. Because that's when we can kind of guide into two paths. Okay - so what you just said Lori - absolutely life coaching might be a fit. Whereas if there's postpartum depression or postpartum anxiety, that's where a psychologist  is probably a better fit. Alyssa Rabin  30:42As well, okay, for me - example, I've been stay at home mom for 16 years. All of a sudden, BAM, I'm working 12/13 hours a week. I need to know how to move forward with that as a mom, as a wife, as a businesswoman. But as well I need to work on my guilt for not being home, and I would see Erin for that. To just say to myself, it's okay, and I'm worth it. Erin Bonner  31:15Totally. Yeah. Alyssa Rabin  31:17Awesome. Lori Bean  31:18Thank you, Erin. Erin Bonner  31:20And if anybody wants to chat more about the biology, just come and knock on my door because I will nerd out for hours. Alyssa Rabin  31:29Thank you so much.

Ben and Lexi reminisce about the quintessential coming of age movies of our youth - kind of. Dork You Forget About Me find Ben and Lexi looking back at classic 80's teen movies. Both Lexi and Ben struggled to fit in with humans and had to turn to movies to learn how to be a teen, which means watching copious amounts of John Hughes! In this episode, Ben and Lexi dork out about classic John Hughes movies, which holding them up to the test of time. Have these movies aged well? Listen now and find out! Show Notes:Lexi and Ben talked about the following movies:Uncle BuckThe Breakfast Club16 CandlesPretty in PinkHome AloneFootlooseWeird ScienceFerris Bueller's Day OffPump Up the VolumeCan't Hardly WaitAnd more!The  full list of John Hughes movies can be found hereYou can find the episode of Art Intervention we mentioned hereWe talked about  Margaret Atwood being a TERF and you can read about the 2018 conflict here and the more recent one hereSOCIALS:Here's where you can find us!Lexi's website and twitter and instagramBen's website and instagram and where to buy his book: Amazon.ca / Comixology / Ind!go / Renegade ArtsDork Matter's website(WIP) and twitter and instagramIf you're enjoying Dork Matters, we'd really appreciate a nice rating and review on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your pods. It would very much help us get this show to the other dorks out there.“We're all pretty bizarre. Some of us are just better at hiding it, that's all.” Transcript:Lexi  00:00One time I was driving to work and listening to like, you know, rap and I like aggressive hip hop, and I was listening--Ben  00:08[chuckles] Someday I'll ask you to define that, but not now.Lexi  00:12Okay, so, like, for example, I was listening to Run The Jewels one day, [Run The Jewels plays] which I wouldn't even classify as, like, super aggressive anyway, and I was trying to psych myself, like, "I gotta get in this building. I gotta be, like, in a good mood and talk to people all day," and so I was listening to it, fully cranked, and the windows were flexing, and I didn't realize there was just like a sea of children sitting there watching me, like, pound coffee, and try to, like, psych myself and, like, "Get out of the car, go inside,"  and it's just like, "Well, whoa, nope! Sorry, kids. I'm just gonna turn that off real quick". [music stops] I don't know what happened. [laughs]Ben  00:50I don't know how to get myself psyched up. When I worked in an office, I had about a 15- to 20-minute walk to work to, sort of like, just not be the person I normally am, and become work person. That didn't always work. I still a pretty grumpy shithead, usually. I don't like being bothered, and, you know, being in an office means you're just constantly bothered. It doesn't matter what you're trying to do.Lexi  01:15And you have to make small talk. Like, yuck. Ben  01:17Yeah, I had to learn how to do that. I've always been an introvert and making eye contact with people, when you have a conversation and just like... And so, I'm actually pretty good at just talking bullshit now with people. I don't like it. I don't like doing it. I don't like this other version of me is just talking to people, and I'm just like, "Eugh. Glad I'm not that guy."Lexi  01:36There are so many times where I'll finish doing, like, a presentation or having small talk with someone, and I'll go away and I'll be like, "Oh, she's terrible," and I'm referring to me. Like, I hate that part of me like, [upbeat] "Hey, how's it going?" I'm like, "Eugh! God."Ben  01:51Yeah. So that's an interesting thing with, like, being a stay-at-home parent now too, is like, I don't get to go to a different place and be a different person for a while, and divorce myself from who I think I am, versus the person I have to be in a work setting. Now, it's all just me, and it's all just gotta try to do well all the time. Lexi  02:11That sounds hard. Oh.Ben  02:13Can't phone it in like I used to when I'd go to the office. [laughs]Lexi  02:17Well, I mean, you could. You could just like plunk him in the laundry basket in front of the TV.Ben  02:21No. I mean, I'm incapable of doing that.Lexi  02:24That's good. That's good.Ben  02:25I am your Cyclops archetype. I am responsible to a fault. "No Fun Ben", I think, is what I  used to be called.Lexi  02:33Oh, I was the old wet blanket. Ben  02:35You know, you guys would be like, "Let's go to a party and get drunk." I'm like, "I don't know about that. I gotta be home by 9 PM and, you know, we're underage." [laughs]Lexi  02:43I do remember being at a party at your place when you lived with Brandon, and in the middle of the party, you did start doing dishes. [Ben laughs] I remember, I was like, "Hmm, this is interesting."Ben  02:55They were stacking up. You gotta keep 'em clean. You gotta keep them clean. That's just respectful to other people.Lexi  03:00Fun is fun, guys, but come on. Like, clean up after yourselves.Ben  03:04"No, no. Y'all keep having fun. I'll clean the dishes." That's a nice thing for me to do. [laughs]Lexi  03:08I was the wet blanket in terms of like, you know, at the sleepovers, I'd go, "Oh, it's getting late, ladies. It's probably some shut-eye time."Ben  03:16Oh, god. You're lucky you didn't get Sharpied every time.Lexi  03:20Those people, I think maybe they were like, "Is she...? Is she, like, you know...? Should we be nice to her because she's not all there?"Ben  03:29"The same as us."Lexi  03:29Yeah. And sometimes I kind of wondered, like, "Did they think that I am maybe on the spectrum or something?" which I kind of wonder if I am sometimes.Ben  03:38God, I wonder all the time if I am, and I'm not trying to say that as a joke. Like, I constantly--Lexi  03:41No, no.Ben  03:43--wonder if my inability to connect with people is something neurodivergent.Lexi  03:49Oh, do you do-- okay, sometimes I'll watch people. I'll watch-- like, especially when it comes to women, and when I was a teenager, I would watch groups of girls interact, and I felt like I was watching, like, a nature program. Like, "Ah. That is how the female species puts on makeup," and it never made sense to me to like go up to them and be like, "Hey, gals, let's all put our makeup on together." I was just, like, so awkward that I didn't understand how to talk to them.Ben  04:18Yeah. The thing for me was that I was just always felt on outside, as well. Like, I never felt like I had a group of friends in any situation. Part of that was moving schools a lot. Part of that was never feeling like I connected with other individuals. So yeah. No, I definitely should probably figure out if I'm--Lexi  04:35But I think that that's a great thing that people are learning more about themselves at all times because sometimes, like, I'll talk to adults that are like, "Well, I probably have a learning disability and that would have made school a lot easier, but what's the point in finding out now?" I'm like, "Well, why wouldn't you?"Ben  04:51How would that make... Well and, like, record scratch. [scratching record DJ-style] How would that make school more easy for you? Would you have had maybe more support? Maybe, but maybe not. It depends on where you were, what kind of, like, financial supports the school had, what your parents believed. Like, you know, there's no reason to think, like, if you have a disability, you have it easy. That's a wild take.Lexi  05:11Yeah, I think you can... You're right. Like, it depends on where you are, that you can access different types of supports, but I think we're also moving towards a more inclusive education model in the old Canada, where you should be treating everybody... It's like, it's technically universal design for learning where everybody should benefit from like, you know, flexible due dates, and, like, more understanding progressive assessment practices, because, yeah, like if you do have a disability, and you need a little bit more support, that's great, but if you don't, you can still get support, too, and that's fine, too. Ben  05:49Yeah. Lexi  05:50But, ah, that's interesting. This is maybe a good, like, introduction, though, because as teenagers when we were watching, trying to learn how to be a teenager, you turn to movies to try to understand, like, how to fit in.Ben  06:05Right. So the question is, like, "Should we have ever even looked at those other groups and people and been like, 'I'm supposed to be that way?' Or was that something we were taught by John Hughes and his movies?"Lexi  06:18Oh, John Hughes. I'm so conflicted. Ben  06:21So we're here tonight, as you've certainly guessed, to talk about '80s teen movies. You know 'em. You love 'em. We are going to revisit our memories of those movies, talk about some things that don't really hold up, some things that do just fine, and some things that are problematic and it matters to dorks. Wow, that was rough. Lexi  06:47That was-- I won't lie about it. It wasn't your best.Ben  06:51No, let's hit the theme song and let's try again after. [Lexi laughs] [theme music "Dance" by YABRA plays] Ben  07:22Welcome to Dork Matters--Voiceover  07:24[echoing] Dork Matters.Ben  07:24--the show by and for dorks, made by dorks, in a tree of dorks. We're like little dork elves, Keebler elves that make you dork cookies.Lexi  07:34Oh, I like that. Ben  07:36Yeah.Lexi  07:36That's a nice little image.Ben  07:38Yeah. Lexi  07:39We grow on trees.Ben  07:40[chuckling] Yeah, or are we are inside of trees, baking tree.Lexi  07:44Yeah, 'cause we don't like the outside so much. Ben  07:46No, I'm not an outside person. [Lexi laughs] I am your Dad Dork host, Ben Rankel, and with me, as always is...Lexi  07:53Your Movie Buff Dork, Lexi Hunt.Ben  07:56Oh, wow. No alliteration at all. You're just flying--Lexi  07:59Nah, just gettin' right in there. You know what? Fuck it.Ben  08:03You are going to have to be the movie buff dork tonight. I have tried to bone up on our subject, and I'm like, "Good God, I need a week to prepare for this by rewatching every single teen movie from the '80s," because that's what we're here to talk about tonight, or today, or whenever you're listening to this. Time is a flat circle. [chuckles] We're here to talk about teen movies of the '80s.Lexi  08:26[sing-songy] I love this episode.Ben  08:30The good, the bad, the ugly, the ones that hold up really well, the ones that do not hold up. We're gonna just shoot the shit on teen movies 'cause that's what we do. Lexi  08:39Oh, yeah.Ben  08:40We're gonna get a bunch of shit wrong, as usual, and that's half the fun here.Lexi  08:44Can I start by saying, like, how many movies did John Hughes create? My god, that man was prolific. Ben  08:51Yeah. So it depends on if we wanna look at whether he directed it, or produced it, or whatever, but if we just go by Wikipedia filmography, let's count these out. 1, 2, 3, 4... (fast-forwarded counting) 38. 38 different films.Lexi  09:16And a lot of them, like, I didn't actually know that he did some of them. Some of them, of course, I was like, "I knew that one. That's a John Hughes," but, like, Maid in Manhattan? What?Ben  09:27Yeah. Flubber.Lexi  09:28He was part of Flubber.Ben  09:30He was part of Flubber. He produced Flubber. Yeah, all the Home Alone's, right up to Home Alone 4: Taking Back the House, that seminal classic. We watch it every year at Christmas. Not the earlier three Home Alone's, just Home Alone 4, the one everyone remembers.Lexi  09:47Yeah, the one that went straight to VHS release.Ben  09:50Yeah. I think, unfortunately, it was even DVD at that point. Just DVD. [Lexi groans]Lexi  09:55But then there's so many great ones too, that... Actually, I was talking to John about, you know, "What movies did you guys watch when you were growing up that we you would classify as a teen movie?" and he was more in the action side of the '80s and '90s movies, so he was like, "I can talk to you about The Rock. How do you feel about that?" But not so much... I think he said that they watched Breakfast Club in school, which I find incredible. Like, "Why did you watch that in school?!" Like, listening to it, there's so many messed-up things like Emilio Estevez talks about supergluing a guy's butt crack together. Like, "I know, and I'm going to show my grade nines today." [chuckles theatrically]Ben  10:38And that's one of the tamer things that happens in that film, like, that doesn't hold up. [Lexi laughs] I mean, we might as well get into it. Let's start with the seminal classic, The Breakfast Club with, you know, the greatest brat cast that you've ever seen. Everyone has seen this movie. We all know how it ends, that jumping fist pump in the air. [Simple Minds "Don't You (Forget About Me)" plays]Lexi  11:00You can hear the music right now, can't you?Ben  11:01[sings] Don't you forget about me.Lexi  11:03And I gotta say, best soundtrack. Ben  11:07[sings] Forget about you.Lexi  11:10[sings] Don't you... [speaks] I also like that like weird slide guitar. [sings descending glissando, imitating slide guitar] That's a great '80s sound right there.Ben  11:17[chuckling] I want you to do it again. [Lexi sings imitation along with slide guitar] Nice. Let's start a band.Lexi  11:23I can play the mouth trumpet. [laughs] And that's... Okay, that sounds really dirty, but it's actually like... [sings melody, buzzing lips] [laughs]Ben  11:29I can play the mouth harp, as well, as long as we're embarrassing ourselves. [Lexi laughs] [harmonica plays] That's right. I play harmonica, as if I couldn't get any loser-ier. That's a word.Lexi  11:37Hey, man, I played the clarinet in the old high-school band for many years. [clarinet plays basic melody] Ben  11:41I think I played clarinet at one point, too, in the band. Lexi  11:46It's a great instrument. So Breakfast Club, which is weird, because Sixteen Candles... Okay, let's let's go through--Ben  11:55I feel like Sixteen Candles is probably the greatest offender of any teen movie--Lexi  11:59Oh.Ben  11:59--we're gonna talk about.Lexi  12:00It's so bad. Yeah. Ben  12:03And, you know, everyone loves Breakfast Club. I feel like maybe Sixteen Candles is a little less watched, still. I mean, we can talk about 'em both, but let's turn to Breakfast Club, first. Let's talk about some of the fucked-up shit that you remember happening and see if it's all true. You guys let us know if we make up anything.Lexi  12:19I couldn't get over the fact that, first of all, I was like, "Who the hell has detention on the weekend?" Because that's more of a punishment to the teachers than anything. Like--Ben  12:29Yeah, that's not happening. Lexi  12:31And what parent would be like, "Yeah"? Parents would be like, "No, I'm not doing that." [laughs]Ben  12:37Yeah, "You wanna keep my kid half an hour after school, that's one thing."Lexi  12:42Like, "Go nuts." Ben  12:42But yeah, they're not coming in on a weekend." And what teacher wants to do that? Like, you're not getting paid for that. Is that extra-curricular at that point? [Lexi blows through lips]Lexi  12:50I think that there's just so many issues with detention as-- like, that's a whole other issue. But to, like, spend your weekend... I know they're trying to demonstrate that, like, the character of-- god, what is his name? The assistant principal who hauls everybody in. It just shows what a miserable git he is. But, eugh, to me, like, that, already, I was like, "This movie is just setting me up for"--Ben  13:15Principal Richard Vernon, who, like, already is a problem, because this guy just treats these children--Lexi  13:21He's so horrible.Ben  13:22--and they are children, just awful. Yeah, just like a way that he would have lost his job if it was nowadays. There's no way he keeps his job past that weekend. There's no way he keeps his job past, like, his first interaction with, I think, Emilio Estevez with the stupid devil horns and, like, [in devil voice] "the rest of your natural born..." That'd be on TikTok. In, like, five minutes, there'd be a whole crowd of people knocking down his doors. The school board trustees, they'd be like, "Nah, you don't have a job anymore."Lexi  13:46And, as well they should. Like, you can't... There's one part in the movie where Judd Nelson's character--Ben  13:53Bender.Lexi  13:54--is playing basketball in the gym, and he's like, "I'm thinking about going out for a scholarship," and that's such a great point that, like, he could have just been like, "Okay, let's play," and then like, look, you're building relationship and you're not being a complete d-bag. Then, like, get to know him! Just play basketball with him. It's, literally, a Saturday, and you're sitting in your office. You may as well.Ben  14:16Yeah. Instead, he yells at him, if I remember correctly, and tells him he's never going anywhere. Lexi  14:21Yeah, that he's a, you know, piece of trash. Just, you don't talk to people that way. It's terrible. So, it's so, just, offensive to... You should never treat anyone like that, and you should never, 100%, have teachers speaking to students that way. That's just unacceptable.Ben  14:38The movie is in the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress, for its culturally, historically, and aesthetically significant nature, so that's something that I didn't just read off of Wikipedia.Lexi  14:51I mean, it is a huge part of culture that, kind of, changed the way that we, you know, talk about things.Ben  14:57Do you remember where the movie's set?Lexi  15:00They're all kind of set in the same...Ben  15:03Middle America. Lexi  15:04Yeah, like a Michigan kind of place.Ben  15:08Michigan is what I would guess. I have no idea. I can't remember any more. It's a very white cast, as well, which is interesting.Lexi  15:15Oh, yeah.Ben  15:16Yeah, what are some other egregious issues that we have with that one?Lexi  15:19Well, I don't like the way that Claire, so Molly Ringwald's character, she is berated, harassed by Bender the entire movie. He's got his head between her legs at one point, because he's hiding, and, at the end of the movie, she, like, goes and makes out with him and they become, like, boyfriend and girlfriend because he's wearing her earring and, like, you don't reward, like, a guy that treats you like trash, a person that treats you like trash. They're not gonna change. [laughs]Ben  15:51Yeah. I, 100%, remember it seeming, sort of, weird that that was, like, his reward for having some sort of character redemption is that Molly Ringwald will date him. And that's supposed to be character growth for her, is that she's not so stuck up anymore, she'll date somebody who's... poor and abusive?Lexi  16:07I guess? Or that, like, she's pushing back against her parents or... Like, I didn't really care for that part as much. Ben  16:18Yeah. Lexi  16:18But then, like, then you've got Claire and Allison, at one point, doing, like, makeovers and Allison's the kind of the quiet one who's the artist and the freak who's-- she's choosing to be at the detention instead of being sent there, and so Claire gives her the makeover and, all of a sudden, she's She's All That-ed. She's pretty, and now Emilio Estevez's character, Andrew, is, like, into her. If it wasn't for a lame... Before, he didn't see her, but as soon as Molly Ringwald puts some makeup on her, and pulled her hair back, well, now Allison's a person. I just thought like, "Ugh, that sends the wrong message."Ben  16:55Yeah.Lexi  16:56But, as a teenager, you're like, "Oh, that's how I get the attention of a boy."Ben  17:01Yeah, "I've gotta conform to beauty standards that are set out for me." Yeah, it's not great. It doesn't hold up. It feels wrong nowadays. I mean, it's really difficult to watch and think anything positive of it anymore.Lexi  17:14[laughs] The soundtrack was good. Ben  17:16Yeah, the soundtrack was good. Lexi  17:17But then John and I are having a conversation about that, and he's like, "Yeah, but at the time, that's what was a successful movie, and so, how fair is it for us to judge something from the past by today's standards?" Like, "Well, it's a difficult one. Like--"Ben  17:33Absolutely. Lexi  17:34I think we have to.Ben  17:36I mean, yeah, and also, like, what does that really mean, the idea of fair? Like, I mean, it feels sort of like the wrong question to apply to, sort of, reexamining past media. Like, you don't get a pass just because it was from the past.Lexi  17:54Yeah, there you go.Ben  17:55And the whole point of looking at something from the future is to reanalyze it from the scope that we have now. Like, you can do that and still acknowledge that, at the time, that general awareness of these sorts of things wasn't what it is now, but that's not really the point, I guess, is what I'm getting at.Lexi  18:12I can understand the criticism of like, yeah, you know, it's a questionable movie, but at the time, it was very progressive. And even now, like, I'm sure there are some TV shows, movies, books, whatever, that we think are pretty progressive that, in the future, people have problems with, but that's the point. Like, if we're all staying the exact same, that's the issue. Could we not be able to move forward, and then look back and be like, "Eugh. I shouldn't have done that"? Let's have a conversation about it.Ben  18:37I think the world and where it existed, and when it was made, is not where we are now. Like, that's not really the point. So Breakfast Club, like, none of these movies are really going to hold up to every standard that we have nowadays.Lexi  18:47No, it's impossible.Ben  18:48The bigger question is like, "Can I still enjoy this media the same way?" And you can't, especially... I mean, I don't think this movie, you can really... Like, I can watch it. I could enjoy parts of it, I suppose, but I don't know. I don't know if I really even would try to rewatch this movie. It used to come on TBS a lot, so we didn't have much of a choice, but...Lexi  19:10Yeah, I think now I would fast forward through a lot of it. Ben  19:14Yeah, I can't see myself going back to rewatch this, unlike a movie like "Footloose", which I still think is a fun watch. Same era, same sort of idea. There's a lot going on in that movie, too that's kind of effed up. Like, I think the main character, whose name I cannot remember, but it's Kevin Bacon, he moves to the small town where dancing and music is outlawed, and the girl that he falls for, her dad's abusive, her boyfriend's abusive, but I think, at one point, her boyfriend actually just punches her, and I'm just like, "Why would even?" Like, [sighs] in that sense, they're not trying to glorify that behavior necessarily, but it's... Yeah, so that's the interesting thing. Maybe that's what you gotta look at is the depiction of the thing in the movie something thing that they're doing as a "We're not thinking critically about this because that's the era we're from," or are they presenting it in that era, but they're saying, "This isn't a thing that should be happening," and that's a tough one. I can't remember that movie well enough. But I still like the dancin'.Lexi  20:17You like the dancin' part of it, hey?Ben  20:19Yep. Kevin Bacon, finally, in 2013, I think, admitted that he had a dance double for parts of that, but he did a lot of the dancing himself, he said.Lexi  20:28Did we not know that? I thought that that was widely accepted.Ben  20:32I don't know. It was just a thing I remember reading a while back, but yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I feel like, that movie, I could rewatch again. I feel like it's worth going back for the dancing. I don't know what would bring me back to Breakfast Club, aside from the soundtrack, which I can just listen to on my own.Lexi  20:46Yeah, I would just listen to the s... Like, if it was on the TV.Ben  20:50I guess I like Emilio Estevez. I like Molly Ringwald. Like--Lexi  20:53Then watch "Mighty Ducks", Ben. Ben  20:55Yeah, and that's what I do. We're gonna have to do an episode on "The Mighty Ducks". I love "The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers" on Disney+. Lexi  21:02Oh, there you go. Yes. Ben  21:04Disney+ isn't sponsoring our show, but if they want to. [Lexi laughs] I like "Game Changers". It's a little weird. It's a little bit--Lexi  21:13I can't say that I've watched it, but, you know, I'll take a look-see.Ben  21:17Yeah. Oh, are we gonna do a "Dawson's Creek" episode or teen TV dramas of the 2000s? And those are-- a lot of those are trash but, like--Lexi  21:26Yes.Ben  21:26Yeah.Lexi  21:27I could talk about those, just "Smallville". Oh, my god. We need to talk about "Buffy". What are we doing, here?Ben  21:32That's an interesting one, like, 'cause, you know, 'cause you have to deal with the Joss Whedon. I call him Josh now. He lost his privilege at two "s"-es.Lexi  21:41You know, you strike an "s" off the name. Okay. We have to talk about Sixteen Candles, though, because it is the worst.Ben  21:50The worst. There is nothing--Lexi  21:53I think that a couple come close. Ben  21:55I could rewatch Breakfast Club, yeah. Like, I could re-watch Breakfast Club. There's a lot I don't like about it, and a lot that doesn't hold up, a lot of analysis of, sort of like, teen issues that doesn't really feel like it really got it, but I could rewatch it. I will not re-watch Sixteen Candles. I mean, give us a rundown. Give us the point-by-point. What's wrong with Sixteen Candles, aside from everything?Lexi  22:17If you've never watched Sixteen Candles before, don't. I will just run through it really quick. Basically, it's a party movie. Sam, play by Molly Ringwald, it's her birthday. It's her 16th birthday, but her entire family has basically forgotten, and she's really pissed off about the whole thing, so she's a real b-word all day at school. Meanwhile, she has this huge crush on this guy Jake Ryan who's, like, the quintessential hot dude of the school. Ben  22:42The perfect dude. Yeah.Lexi  22:44And, like, everyone of their little friend group is just like, "No, he's got such a hot girlfriend." They even show her showering naked in the girls' change room to really hammer home the fact that this lady is like a full-blown babe.Ben  22:59Wait. I do not remember this part of the movie. There's a naked scene of Molly Ringworld as a teenager?Lexi  23:06Yeah. Not Molly Ringwald. It was the girlfriend.Ben  23:08Oh, I'm sorry. I missed that. Lexi  23:10Molly Ringwald and her creepy friend... It's so creepy. They're leering and watching her shower because Molly Ringwald is comparing her chest to Jake Ryan's girlfriend to be like, "Oh, she's such a... She's a woman and I'm a girl. Why would he ever pay attention to me?" because boobs are the only thing that matter, apparently. Ben  23:10Mm.Lexi  23:30And then, meanwhile, so at the same time, Sam, Molly Ringwald, her grandparents come to her house, and they bring their foreign exchange student.Ben  23:41No. We can't even get into the foreign exchange student. It's so bad.Lexi  23:45It's so bad. I'm not even gonna. Like, you can go look it up. I'm not gonna say his name because it makes me feel uncomfortable, if I'm honest, but it's like a derogatory name that is just, like, it's just so offensive, and every time he's--Ben  23:58It's intended to mimic what white people make as sounds when they try to, you know, do Asian voices or language, and it's just a continuous shit show of racism.Lexi  24:12Oh, Ben, every time the character is on the screen, a gong sounds.Ben  24:15Yeah, I remember that part.Lexi  24:16Like, oh. [groans frustratedly] So then, Sam goes to the dance because she still has a thing for Jake, and she has to bring people with her, and now enter Michael C. Hall.Ben  24:17Oh, he's Ducky, right?Lexi  24:31And his creepy little character because... No, that's "Pretty In Pink". Come on. Jesus Christ, Lexi. Get your shit together.Ben  24:39Oh, god. I'm mixing up movies. Well, I'm sorry that all good John Hughes movies start to blend together after a while. [Lexi laughs] Sorry, I can't specify which Molly Ringwald film we're talking about. She wears the same thing in every movie, too.Lexi  24:51No. She... Ben  24:52She looks exactly the same.Lexi  24:53She... Well, yeah, that's good.Ben  24:54I'm pretty sure she's in a pink dress in every movie.Lexi  24:56Okay, I will accept that. Anthony Michael Hall's character is Ted, and they refer to him as "Farmer Ted" the entire movie, which I don't really understand why that's the thing.Ben  25:06Oh, he's the one that gets sent home with what's-her-face? Lexi  25:09Yes. Ben  25:10Right? When she's drunk, and he, basically...Lexi  25:11Yeah, right?Ben  25:13It's a date rape situation. How fun. Lexi  25:15Well, and first, like, he won't leave Sam alone at the dance. He keeps following her around, won't take no for an answer, and she basically has to barter with him to piss off by giving him her panties. So... And then he pretends that he like got them, however, and is cheered on by, like, a full bathroom full of dorks-- not our people-- but then this devolves into a party at Jake's house. Everybody kind of winds up at this Jake's house party, where Jake's girlfriend is drunk and kind of an asshole. He kicks them all out and gives Ted the keys to his car, and his passed-out girlfriend in the backseat, and long story short, he winds up making out with her when she comes to, eventually.Ben  25:59Yeah, I remember that.Lexi  26:00And, when she asks, "Did you take advantage of me?" and he said, "No,"  and she was like, "Cool." [laughs] Like, what?!Ben  26:08Wait. Don't they actually end up, like, doing it in that movie? And neither of them remember it, or am I thinking of another movie again?Lexi  26:15It could. You know what? Ben  26:16Remember that they, like--Lexi  26:17I haven't seen it in a while.Ben  26:18"I don't remember if we did it or not," and then they're both like, "Yeah, we did it," and it's like, that's supposed to be cool or something, and I'm like-- and, like, a virtuous moments where--Lexi  26:24That does sound about right. Ben  26:25Yeah, I remember throwing up. Like, I don't think that movie even sat well with me in the '90s when I was a teen, seeing it for the first time. I was like...Lexi  26:32[whispers] No.Ben  26:34"..eugh." Yeah,  Sixteen Candles is gross. What else? Is there anything else gross about  Sixteen Candles that we need to mention before we move on? Don't rewatch Sixteen Candles. It's no good.Lexi  26:42Don't. Well, it ends with Sam getting Jake and he gets her a birthday cake, and, you know, it's this beautiful moment between the two of them, but it's just like, she spent the entire movie comparing herself to other people, about how she was shit and not good enough for him, and he spends the entire movie pissed off at the world that he lives in because he's, like, this wealthy, white dude with a dumb girlfriend, and he's brutal to her. Like, he's really mean to his girlfriend, like, sends her off to be, like, you know, ravaged by some stranger.Ben  27:15Yeah. He sends her off to get raped. Lexi  27:17Yeah. And then it's like, "Okay, movie over." Ben  27:19Yeah, and I remember him also saying like, a bunch of really crass shit to her before, because she's drunk, and being like, "I could abuse you all I want if I wanted to. Yeah, it's super fucked-up and that's supposed to be a virtue for this guy--Lexi  27:31Yeah, he's the good one.Ben  27:32--that he looks down on her for being drunk.Lexi  27:34Oh.Ben  27:35Yeah. Fuckin' dumpster fire movie, and so this is why, like, people, you bring these up and they'll be like, "I fucking hate Ron Hughes." Yeah, Ron Hughes. I don't know who that is, but I hate him, too, just for sounding like John Hughes. [Lexi laughs] Fuck you, Ron.Lexi  27:50But, I think it's also like, the genre of, like, rom coms. Like, eugh. This is where it's kind of like stemmed from some of these teen movies . People think, "Like, this is maybe like the norm?" Like, "No, it isn't. This isn't good."Ben  28:04What's next on our on our shit shower?Lexi  28:07"Weird Science".Ben  28:09Are we doing "Pretty in Pink" at some point?Lexi  28:11"Pretty in Pink", technically, comes after "Weird Science". "Weird Science" was released in 1985.Ben  28:16Oh, we're doing these chronologically? Okay, my bad. Okay, "Weird Science" it is. So like, are we even gonna find teen... Like, John Hughes defined this era and defined what it meant to be a teen in this era, so I guess we may not get away from his movies. I mean, "Footloose" wasn't one of his, so that was good, but that's wild. It's basically just a John Hughes shit episode. Fuck you, John Hughes.Lexi  28:37But, no. I've got some redeeming ones.Ben  28:40And your brother, Ron. From John Hughes? I don't agree.Lexi  28:44I've got one. I got a couple that I'm gonna fight for, saying they're good.Ben  28:47What? Okay, you're gonna have to try real hard to make me like john Hughes in any capacity. "Weird Science", let's just get the premise out of the way. These two losers decide that they're going to robo-code their-- I'm just gonna use fake science words 'cause that's what they do in this movie-- they're gonna robo-code their digi-ideal woman and build her to be perfect and subservient to them. The whole premise is fucked up and weird and gross, and then, through the magic of--Lexi  29:11Yeah, the magic of science.Ben  29:12--science, I don't know, this woman comes true. She's there. Suddenly, they built her, and they can do anything they want with their new robo-girl or whatever. [Lexi sighs] Lexi  29:24And... [groans].Ben  29:25The only thing that's redeeming is a nice title song written by Oingo Boingo, the new-wave band from the '80s.Lexi  29:32Ah, Oingo Boingo. Yep. I know that it was this whole, you know, the dorks or the geeks strike back where like Revenge of the Nerds and that was also another popular problematic movie of the era, of just, like, dorks who aren't... You know, it's basically like  these, the nice guys, the incels.Ben  29:52Incels.Lexi  29:53They can't get-- no girls will pay attention to them 'cause they're not popular jocks. Wah, wah, wah. So what we're gonna do--Ben  29:59No, this is great. I like this line we're riding. I like this. This is, we are what's-his-face from It's Always Sunny.Lexi  30:07Dennis?Ben  30:08No. Not Dennis. We're not Dennis. Nobody's Dennis. Dennis is a sociopath. Lexi  30:11I was gonna say.Ben  30:12Ferris Bueller is Dennis. Lexi  30:13He's a serial killer. Ben  30:15Well, that's--Lexi  30:16Mac?Ben  30:16No, not Mac. Goddamn. Charlie.Lexi  30:18Charlie?Ben  30:19We're Charlie at the wall with the line, and we have just gone from John Hughes movies to the nice-guy phenomenon, and then straight on past that to the incel, the current incel disgusting thing that we have going on. Lexi  30:35Well, all of like...Ben  30:36It's all Ron and John Hughes' fault.Lexi  30:39Anthony Michael Hall basically played an incel [chuckling] for, like, his entire teenage youth--Ben  30:46God.Lexi  30:46--of the best friend who's just waiting around. "When's it gonna be his turn, gosh darn it?" because that's what it takes.Ben  30:52Yeah, and if I put in enough, you know, "nice coins" into the Woman Gashapon I will get the sex prize in the little ball. Lexi  31:00Exactly. Ben  31:01Yeah, I mean, fuck, as a white male, this is the kind of shit that I was taught, too. Like, I had some very strong, and I mean that as in of character, women, who... I mean, I could have been a very shitty person if I didn't have people that were better than me that helped me learn to be better. That should have been the responsibility but, like, "Thanks for being in my life to help me not end up like these fuckers." 'Cause I didn't get that from, like, my upbringing and, like, watching this kind of bullshit, or from, like, my religious upbringing. You definitely were taught that, like, the idea was that you put those wonderful little friendship points in, and eventually, you're gonna get what you want back out of it, which is not a relationship with another human being. It's vagina. Lexi  31:46Yeah, they just, the pure physical nature of it. But then, if we can move on to Pretty In Pink, which I think Ducky is the worst character for that, is the most blatant character for that. I mean, like, he's--Ben  32:01Oh, yeah. He's nice guy.Lexi  32:02[groans] He is so horrible, such a, like, you know, kickin' rocks and, "Aw, gee, when's it gonna be my time? Nobody loves you like I love you," like, gaslighting Molly Ringwald's character.Ben  32:15Unrequited love sort of thing is supposed to be, like, romantic, as opposed to creepy.Lexi  32:20Well, and speaking of creepy, then James Spader's creep-ass character is even worse because he's the king gaslighter of pretending to absolutely hate Molly Ringwald's character, Andie, but then, secretly is like trying to get with her and like, "Yeah, there it is. There's the douchebag," and I did know guys like that in high school that would pretend, "Oh, we don't talk when we're at school, but then I'll message you on MSN later tonight."Ben  32:48Yeah, I mean, this this is where I get ranty because this leads me into one of my hot topics and also not a sponsor of the show. [Lexi laughs] Wish they were. Do they still exist?Lexi  33:01Yeah, they do. There's one at Market Mall.Ben  33:04Yeah, you can get, like, records from them, and film. They're the only place that sell record players and film anymore. Lexi  33:09[laughing] Yep. Ben  33:10But this is one of, like, things that gets me kind of passionate is that, when this kind of subject comes up, men get mad at people pointing it out, white males specifically get mad at people pointing out that, like, this was sort of the culture that we were steeped in, what we were built to be like. I feel like men should be super fucking angry that this is what society tried to turn us into, did turn us into. Like, but instead, we double down on this shit. We get mad. We try to defend it. We try to defend that like "culture", but like, we should be fucking pissed all the time about what society, what our society, patriarchal and you know, colonial as it is, like, what it tried, and tries, and continues to try to turn white men into. Like, but dudes just don't get pissed at that. For some reason, they just can't. They can't find that, and it makes me mad on a daily basis. I see myself as, sort of like, this robot that was built by, you know, these fucking people to do this thing, and it makes me mad every day that I almost didn't have a fair shot at being like a normal-ish human being that could treat people with empathy and kindness because of this kind of media, of this kind of culture, this pervasiveness, and yeah, fuck it. It just gets me that other dudes, you know, aren't just constantly pissed off about this.Lexi  34:27Well, when you talk about, like, systemic racism, and lots of people are like, "There's no such thing ," which is bullshit--Ben  34:32Yes. [along with dancehall airhorn] B-b-b-bullshit. Sorry. I hadn't gotten one of those in in a few episodes.Lexi  34:36That's all good. We've gotta have one of those per episode. I feel like these, like, not necessarily these ones but movies like these, this is a part of it, of just like keeping everybody in their place, and telling everybody what role. "You sit on that chair over there. You wear that type of T-shirt." Like, this is-- and even like looking at the '90s movies, it's just as bad because now we have like--Ben  34:59Oh no. Yeah, definitely.Lexi  35:00It's just as bad, and even now, I was thinking like, "What are the current teen movies?" They're not that different, really.Ben  35:08I don't really know. Well, no, 'cause I guess it's still the same machine, and the same systemic system. [laughs] The same systemic system that's still turning this shit out. It hasn't-- like, the decision makers, the money and stuff, are all of a certain, I don't know, persuasion, ilk, build, and so that hasn't changed, so why would the content change? You know, there might be veneers put on things from people at certain parts of the process, but the assembly line is still largely the same and has the same intent. The blueprints haven't changed.Lexi  35:41You know--Ben  35:42Have I mixed my metaphor enough?Lexi  35:45You got a little... They're good. Ben  35:46Yeah. Lexi  35:47Like, just so thinking of the other podcast, "Art Intervention", there was one episode where I found out a lot of research about why the art industry, especially, like, art galleries, and museums, are so white, and one article I found was talking about, they're super white because those types of institutions, typically, they don't have a lot of government support. They don't have any, like, you know, public money coming in that's really keeping the lights on, so you really have to rely on the private sector for donations, and, unfortunately, a lot of the wealthy patrons for a lot of these big, big institutions are, largely, white patrons, and they don't wanna feel uncomfortable, and they don't wanna feel like--Ben  36:38No. It always comes with strings.Lexi  36:40It's always coming with strings, and so they don't want you to be bringing in an artist who is calling out the white patriarchy of the art society. They want someone who's gonna like, you know, ruffle a little feathers, but not be too, you know, radical, and so it's creating this industry that is perpetually keeping people in their place and keeping the dialogue moving along, and I think, like, some institutions are getting a little bit better, but it is a huge problem in the arts, and a lot of times people are like, "Oh, but the arts are... You know there's so many black actors that are very famous," and there's'--Ben  37:19What does that even mean? Lexi  37:21Exactly. Like, it's still an industry and it still has a lot of problems, and I think we're just scratching the surface on the whole like #MeToo" Harvey Weinstein thing, and even the fact that, like, #MeToo was appropriated from a black woman who had been talking about it for years, and all it took was, like, a couple white actresses to be like, "Yeah, I've had similar experiences," and pfff, it blows up. Ben  37:44Yeah. What was that shitty joke, where, like, the white dude is like, "Oh, if I was in charge of equality, you know, we wouldn't need feminism anymore," or something. Or like, "If I was in charge of feminism, we'd all have equality by now," something like that.Lexi  38:03That's a great joke.Ben  38:04The idea is that the joke is in the idea of this guy saying that he could fix a problem that he is the creator of, or part of the system. [Lexi laughs] There's the joke. You're supposed to laugh at the premise of the guy.Lexi  38:17It's so sad, though. Like, "Yeah. There it is."Ben  38:21[Lexi laughs] Speaking of sociopathic white males, let's hit Ferris Bueller. [along with dancehall airhorn] B-B-B-Bueller. Lexi  38:28[along with Yello's song, "Oh Yeah"] Oh, yeah. Bom-bom. Chik-a-chik-a!Ben  38:31I mean... [along with Yello's song, "Oh Yeah"] Oh yeah. Bom-bom. So that basically--Lexi  38:36[along with Yello's song, "Oh Yeah"] Bom. Oh.Ben  38:38That's enough right there. Really, like Ferris Bueller is a sociopath. He manipulates everyone. He can't empathize with other people's feelings. He manipulates his friends into doing things because he thinks it's for their own good. Like, he gets to decide what's best for Cameron. He gets to decide how Cameron deals with his emotionally-abusive parents or like, "Oh, steal the car." Eugh, but, like, Ferris Bueller is just a smug piece of shit, and, you know, Matthew Broderick, I like you enough, but you're much better in Godzilla 2000. [Yello song "Oh Yeah" continues]Lexi  39:06I think the real hero of that movie is Jennifer Grey's character, Jeanie Bueller. Jeanie is the true-- 'cause she's the only one that sees him other than Ed Rooney, Jeffrey Jones. She's the only one that sees him for his bullshit, but she sees it, more or less, like a sister just wanting to rub her brother's face and like, "You're not all that. How about that, kid?" Like, it's more she just wants to prove him wrong, not ruin his life, like Ed Rooney, but she's trying so hard the entire movie to get people to, like, see through his bullshit, and I always felt really bad for her because I was like, "Yeah, he shouldn't be doing all those things." [Yello song "Oh Yeah" continues]Ben  39:49Yeah, he's a terrible character. Yeah, that movie. You know, you've got Ben Stein in there as well, and he hasn't held out well. He's aged poorly, as far as he--Lexi  39:51Has he?Ben  39:52His movies are pretty, pretty shitty. He's a pretty smug asshole most of the time and very-- [Lexi sighs]Lexi  40:11Well, I mean, same with Jeffrey Jones, hey? [Yello song "Oh Yeah" continues]Ben  40:14Oh yes, I know what happened to him. We don't need to discuss that. That's just such a--Lexi  40:17 Yeah, that's--Ben  40:18A disgusting human being, so we're better off--Lexi  40:20There's a couple, like, Charlie Sheen, like that's--Ben  40:23Who, Charlie Sheen was in that?Lexi  40:25Yeah, he's the creepy dude that's hitting on Jeanie in the police station when he's like, "Why do you care so much about what your brother does?"Ben  40:32Oh man, now I remember that.Lexi  40:33He's the one that kind of like helps her, right?Ben  40:35Yeah, yeah. [Yello song "Oh Yeah" continues]Lexi  40:40Controversy comes from us all, Ben.Ben  40:41"Just be more like Charlie Sheen," is a thing that nobody should say. [laughs]Lexi  40:44No. Be more like Jennifer Grey is what I think.Ben  40:49Like, the actor or the character?Lexi  40:53Eh, the character in this one.Ben  40:53I don't know anything about the actor.Lexi  40:56Neither do I. I hope that she's not... I hope that no one is, like, actually.Ben  41:01Do we have anything that can bring us back? Like, we need some redeemable teen movies. I had a little bit of being like Footloose could be fun still. Are there ones we can watch? I've got one more that I sort of like.Lexi  41:11Oh, I've got one I love. Ben  41:12I'll do mine. You're more passionate. I'll do mine first. It's called... [laughing] Oh, god now I'm blanking on the name. Lexi  41:20Uh-oh. [laughs]Ben  41:21It's with Christian Slater, and he is a, like, pirate radio host. Pump Up the Volume. Lexi  41:28Okay.Ben  41:28So, there's some stuff that doesn't do it for me, which is sort of that, like, white suburban kid ennui that you see in, like, the '90s. It's technically a 1990 movie, but it was produced... That's when it was released, so it was produced in the '80s. So it's got a lot of that, sort of like, white teen ennui that we see in the '90s a lot with, like, the navel gazing and, like, "Let's just, you know, not worry about anything except our white privilege problems." So there's a little bit of that, but there's also a lot of like, sort of challenging the way that kids' problems are sort of downplayed by adults, or like, they're tried to be brushed aside when, like, you know, kids are actually suffering with problems. One of the things is a student kills himself and, like, that's sort of an impetus for the main characters to sort of go on and speak out about what's happening and tell the other students not to be quiet and to, like, live their, like... "Talk hard," is his line in the movie. Talk hard and, like, say the things that are a problem for you, and not hold them back, so I feel like I could rewatch that one again. I feel like it probably is watchable. He gets arrested at the end for his pirate radio, which is just such a great idea, a pirate radio, broadcasting illegally on the FM channel. Fuck, can you do that? I wanna broadcast illegally on an FM channel.Lexi  42:52I think it is something that's elite. Like, you have to be allowed to do it.Ben  42:56Yeah, I mean, I just don't even know anybody who'd be interested. Why do that when you can make a podcast? [both laugh] Yeah, I guess, you know, somebody would still have to tune to your pirate radio frequency, so... [chuckles]Lexi  43:11They'd find you.Ben  43:12Yeah. So the villain of the movie or whatever, is like the FCC comes to find Christian Slater's character and shut down his pirate radio.Lexi  43:21The FCC won't let him be.Ben  43:23Yeah, the FCC won't let him be. [laughs] Lexi  43:26Thank you. Thank you for that.Ben  43:27You're welcome. Thank you. I don't know what you're thinking me. You did it. That's great.Lexi  43:31I always like a good laugh, Ben. You know? Ben  43:33Yeah. I think yeah, give Pump Up the Volume a watch if you haven't. I haven't watched it in a while. I should re-watch it, but let us know if I'm wrong about that, and if it's a total trash fire, as well.Lexi  43:44I'm going to end this with a bang, Ben, because I'm gonna explain to you the greatest coming-of-age movie of the John Hughes-era is Uncle Buck.Ben  43:48Okay, so here's my thing with Uncle Buck. Is it a teen movie, though? Lexi  43:58Yes.Ben  43:59You think?Lexi  44:00I think so. I watched it all-- I watched it with my mom, and then I watched it with my friends when I was, like, 15, and I've watched it many times since because, I don't know. It was about, like, to me, it was about connecting with an adult in your life.Ben  44:16That's interesting. I appreciate that take. I guess I just find, like, the centering of John Candy as the main role in that, sort of, takes it away from being a teen movie for me.Lexi  44:24But that's why I think it's key because teenagers are so stuck in their own bubble, that it's hard to see your angst when you're living in it, and I think that was the reason my mom made me watch it.Ben  44:35Oh, interesting. So you were saying, like, the point-of-view character being the adult but having the show and the content geared at a teen gives you some outside of your own situation-ness, some self-awareness.Lexi  44:47Yeah.Lexi  44:48'Cause, see, like his... Oh, gosh, the... bup, bup, bup... Tia, so Tia is 15 and she's the oldest of the three kids and she's like, if you've never seen the movie, she's a cow. Like, the entire movie, she's just being an asshole for no purpose.Ben  44:48Interesting.Ben  45:06No, I've seen it a number of times.Lexi  45:09I watch it every Christmas. That is my Home Alone. Ben  45:11It's been a while, though.Lexi  45:13And it's just because she's so brutal, and then John Candy's character comes in and, you know, she's got a couple of lines that she says that are just horrible, so, so mean and callous, and then, she treats her family like garbage. She winds up shacking up with a dude who's trying to take advantage of her, and I think that this is really key, and a lot of people should watch it that if you are a 15, 16, 17 year old, and you are dating someone who is older than you, it is not an equal relationship. I'm sorry. It just isn't. And that's something that, like, when I was a teenager, I was like, "I can take care of myself," and so many times, like, yeah, to a point and then you pass a line, and then it gets real tricky, and what I like about that is, even though she treated people poorly, like, John Candy came to her rescue and supported her, and helped her to take her power back from this douchebag who tried to hurt her.Ben  46:12Right. So, in a typical John Hughes movie, we'd see her get a come-uppance of some sort of degradation or sexual assault as, sort of, the character arc. Like, "Oh, that'll teach you to be a b-word, though. You got what was coming to you. Haha." But that doesn't happen in this film. Interesting.Lexi  46:29Well, it kinda... Like, it almost does. Like, her boyfriend tries to pressure her into having sex. She's not ready so she leaves the party, and he does, like, make fun of her, and then, John Candy comes and finds her walking away from the party and, you know, she's embarrassed and whatever, and then he basically kidnaps the boyfriend in the back of the car, and then they hit golf balls at him to really, like... [laughs]Ben  46:53Sounds good to me. I'm fine with that.Lexi  46:56I don't know. Like, it's still you're right. Like, she's still like, there's that, like, "Haha, you were almost, like, you know, taken advantage of."Ben  47:02"That will show you."Lexi  47:02"That's what you get for being a little bag," but I just feel like, of those movies, this is probably the one that has, like, aged the best because even John Candy's character is so flawed. Ben  47:15Yeah, yeah.Lexi  47:16And it shows, like, all these redeeming qualities about him.Ben  47:18Yeah. I mean, that sounds like a good synopsis to me. I'd rewatch that. I'll give it a shot. And you all should give that a shot too, see what you think, see if there's some aspects of that film that we forgot that maybe cause it to bump off a little bit, although it sounds like Lexi watches it pretty regularly, so she knows what's up.Lexi  47:38I'm gonna be really sad if someone out there is like, "But, did you forget about the scene?" Because probably.Ben  47:43Maybe, but you know, that's just an opportunity. Yeah, this is an opportunity to appreciate what happened there, and, you know, that doesn't mean you have to stop watching Uncle Buck. It just means we have to somehow create a 15-minute episode addendum to this that people are forced to listen to that, "Okay, so there's this part in the movie and we have to talk about it where things go blah blah, blah." Yeah, I have to imagine that we'll end up doing a lot of retraction or correction episodes. Maybe that should be just a fun off-week thing we do. We do, you know, corrections and just 15-minute episodes every other week when we're not on our regular schedule. "So here's some shit we got wrong last week," and we just list it.Lexi  48:27Yeah. Just, "Sorry about this. Sorry about the following things."Ben  48:30"Said this. Didn't mean to."Lexi  48:32Ben, we haven't done Who's That Pokémon? yet.Ben  48:35Oh, fuck. Let's do Who's That  Pokémon? here. I think we've got another little ways to go. We should do a wrap up, but let's do a Who's That  Pokémon? Is it your turn again to come up with the Pokémon?Lexi  48:46Well, I've done many. I'm happy to keep explaining wet bags of sand to you, but do you wanna take a crack at Who's That  Pokémon?Ben  48:52I didn't come up with one, so it'll be on the fly. Yeah.Lexi  48:54Oh, do it.Ben  48:54I'll do it unless you have one prepared. Lexi  48:56No, no, no. Ben  48:57Okay. Okay, [along with "Who's That Pokémon" theme music] Who's that Pokémon? and I will describe now the Pokémon with which you need to guess. Lexi  49:06Excellent. Ben  49:07It's sort of like a pitcher.Lexi  49:09Okay.Ben  49:11Imagine an upside-down... No, right-way-up, like a pitcher as in, like, a vase. Not a--Lexi  49:18Okay, like, like a pitcher of lemonade. Ben  49:20Yeah, yeah, yeah. Then there's, like, some sort of leaves coming off, leaf-shaped protrusions, one on each side of this pitcher.Lexi  49:30Oh, my god.Ben  49:30And then there's also some sort of circular balls atop the pitcher.Lexi  49:35Are you explaining an actual Pokémon to me or is this like a...?Ben  49:38Yeah, yeah.Lexi  49:39It's an actual Pokémon! Oh, I thought we were being cheeky here and--Ben  49:43No. It's time for us to break out our--Lexi  49:45Anthony Michael Hall. [Ben laughs]Ben  49:47Oh shit. That's not bad. Lexi  49:48Oh, I gotta remember.Ben  49:49I'll change it. It's no longer Victreebel. It's Anthony Michael Hall. You got it. [Lexi laughs] [along with "Who's That Pokémon" theme music] Who's that Pokémon? [Lexi laughs]Lexi  49:59It's Anthony Michael Hall. Ben  50:00I'm gonna Google you a picture. [scratching record, DJ-style]Lexi  50:03Oh, Victreebel. Ben  50:04Yes. It was a real Pokémon.Lexi  50:05Damn it.Ben  50:06I think if I ever do them, they'll probably be real Pokémon.Lexi  50:09We still have to do a Pokémon episode.Ben  50:11It'd be interesting to talk to Mr. Hall and ask him how he feels about his part in the rise of incels.Lexi  50:18I'm sure he probably doesn't see it that way. [laughs]Ben  50:21I don't think many people do, as a child actor. I'm sure there's a lot more going on. I am being glib for the sake of humor.Lexi  50:27Hey, Ben, he had a redeeming role in Edward Scissorhands, where he dies.Ben  50:31He had a lot of good TV roles.Lexi  50:34Yeah, he has. He's had a very big career.Ben  50:37Mm-hmm. This is now the Anthony Michael Hall podcast, where we just talk about--Lexi  50:42Dissect him.Ben  50:43--the different works of Anthony Mic-- Michael Hall. I can't say his name anymore. It's lost all meaning.Lexi  50:50AMH.Ben  50:51AMH. He's been active as an actor since 1977. Is that something you knew? Lexi  50:56Wow. No, That's, that's...Ben  50:58He's 53 years old. He was born in 1968, April 14th, in West Roxbury, Massachusetts. Can we stop and talk about Massachusetts for a second? And how difficult a fucking place that is to say?Lexi  51:10Yes. I have such a hard time with it, I'd rather just be like, "That place," or write it down and point to it because I feel like I can't say it appropriately.Ben  51:17Yeah, and I'm not gonna make fun of the name 'cause I don't know its origins, etymology or anything, and I don't want to step on something, but, like, just saying, "Mass-a-chu-setts", like I've always said, "Massachusiss", or whatever, as a kid. I've always said it wrong, and then I was in New York, and I said, "Massachusiss", and somebody said, "What the fuck is wrong with you?"Lexi  51:35"Mass-a-chu--"Ben  51:35"Mass-a-chu-setts". Lexi  51:37"Mass-a-chu-setts". Ben  51:38Okay, yeah. It sounds wrong. Just say it-- okay, everybody at home listening, say "Mass-a-chu-setts"  about five times, maybe 10 times in a row, and see if you still like yourself.Lexi  51:49That's a tough homework assignment. [chuckles]Ben  51:52Yeah, enjoy. What else do we need to know about M-- Michael Anthony Hall? That's it. I'm good. Let's move on. [along with "Who's That Pokémon" theme music] Who's that Pokémon? We're back. We're back into the regular show, no longer the--Lexi  52:07AMH.Ben  52:08Anthony Michael Hall hour, the AMH hour. Is there anything else we should hit here on the way out? Lexi  52:15I mean--Ben  52:15Like, he produced or something Beethoven, so that's interesting.Lexi  52:18He also did Home Alone, which is a beloved movie.Ben  52:22Produced, yeah. He didn't--Lexi  52:23Oh, I thought... Okay.Ben  52:24But still.Lexi  52:25That's good to know.Ben  52:25He produced Miracle on 34th Street, which, you know, I've always enjoyed.Lexi  52:29He did Mall Rats, which again, like, is a very big movie [Ben groans] that I think a lot of people are like, "That's a cultural icon," but, like, it's also a very, like...Ben  52:39It is. Yeah, it's not a good flick. It does not hold up, and it is one of those ones that, like, yeah, as a rite of passage as a 14 year old, at least around our neck of the woods, you definitely watched, and thought was the greatest thing that ever happened. "Oh, shit pretzels." [Lexi groans] "Ha, ha, ha, ha. In the back of a Volkswagen." Lexi  52:59It's just...Ben  53:00Yeah.Lexi  53:00I feel like it's a really weird mix of, like, heartwarming children's movies and then, like, really problematic teen raunchy comedies.Ben  53:10Yeah.Lexi  53:10Like, well, it's an interesting mix you got there, pal. Ben  53:13Yeah. It's a wild time at Ridgemont High, which is movie I would have-- we should have talked about, but we didn't get to. That's fine, and I don't really remember enough about it except one of the Penn is in it. I think it's Sean Penn who was problematic, as well.Lexi  53:28Yeah. It's Sean Penn. Yeah.Ben  53:30Yeah, yeah.Lexi  53:31Oof. There's... We could... There's a lot of other very problematic teen movies. I mean, like, we've got the whole '90s to stare down. Ben  53:40Yeah.Lexi  53:41She's All That.Ben  53:42I mean, you know, those are movies that I definitely... Can't Hardly Wait. Lexi  53:46[groaning] Oh, I used to love that movie. Ben  53:50Of course you did. We all thought it was great. Lexi  53:51And I watched it recently. Oh, god.Ben  53:54No, I know. There's not a single aspect of that movie that I think holds up.Lexi  53:58Oh, you mean Seth Green's character isn't a redeeming figure throughout history?Ben  54:03It is an absolute travesty that that was allowed to become a thing. Lexi  54:08[whispers] Oh, my gosh.Ben  54:09That... yeah. The racism in that character alone in that, like, sort of characterization that we saw a lot of in the '90s and early 2000s is just wild. Lexi  54:19[softly] I know.Ben  54:19Just wild that that stuff had no critical second thought. Like, I know, we talk about, like, history and culture as these eras, and, like, we didn't have this sort of cultural awareness of these things at the time and, like, it's true, but also like, "So fucking what?" Like, that doesn't--Lexi  54:36Doesn't make it okay.Ben  54:37I just can't see that as an excuse. Yeah. Can't see it as an excuse.Lexi  54:43"Can't Hardly Use it As An Excuse?Ben  54:45[laughs] Yeah, Can't Hardly Wait to use it as an excuse. Like, I just can't use that as a way to be like, "Ah, I can still watch this film and not think of it critically," which I guess nobody's really asking anyone to do. Lexi  54:55But then it, like--Ben  54:56Problematic media is a whole other topic.Lexi  54:58It is, because it does beg the question of, "Do we look at the art versus the artist?" because then, like, we're leading into that era, and even, like, there's a little controversy this week with the old Margaret Atwood and her comments. Ben  55:11Oh, God. Lexi  55:13And I'm not gonna say that "I told you so, world," but I did say that Margaret Atwood isn't a great... I mean...Ben  55:20Well, I mean, she started to swing problematic for a while now. But like, this is also the advent of, sort of like, internet as well, is like, we did not have the information earlier on to know her thoughts on subjects that, you know, were outside of what she'd write about in her books, and maybe more intelligent people than myself picked up more of, like, her problems. I read her books, the ones that I enjoyed, which were like the MaddAddam trilogy, when I was in my early 20s. I don't consider that I was even like a proper adult human with critical thought until I was 25, so like, I still miss stuff all the time, and yeah, that's interesting. Margaret Atwood though. Way to hold my beer, JK Rowling. Jesus.Lexi  56:03Yeah, I did make a couple jokes of like, "Oh, she's really J.K.-ing herself this week." Like, just, if anyone has ever... Like, here's my piece of advice. Just stop. Just don't. Just don't. Like, and, a lot of times, don't weigh in. This is not a place for, "Oh, you know what I think about this?" Nothing. You think nothing about it. Shut up.Ben  56:23Oh, no, trust me that's a lesson I learned as a white dude on the internet that's like, more or less cishet, like, you know, maybe I don't need to offer an opinion on this. There's gonna be a lot of other takes, and I could probably do the most for myself by just reading how this goes out, and if I have questions about things, do some fucking Googling and try to understand these points that I'm having trouble with, and...Lexi  56:48Well, this has been a depressing and sad episode about our failed teenage years of just disappointing racism and sexism. [laughs]Ben  56:58Yeah. Well, you know, and again, this goes back to my really good analogy about, like, conveyor belts and machines or whatever. Like, we haven't fixed the problems with the blueprints and the machinery that's making this shit, so why would we expect it to be different? A different outcome just because, now we're aware that, you know, the shit shouldn't be happening, but apparently, we haven't taken the right action yet to correct where that's coming from, and so that stuff still comes.Lexi  57:29Well, maybe in another couple of decades we'll look at it a little closer. Ben  57:33We'll see. We'll see.Lexi  57:34The rom coms of the future are gonna be more uplifting and diverse and positive.Ben  57:38Okay, well, rom coms are a whole 'nother thing we need to get into 'cause Nora Ephron.Lexi  57:42Teenage.Ben  57:44Nora Ephron, I'm coming for you.Lexi  57:46I don't even wanna talk about rom coms because I don't think that I could say anything other than, "Bleuch."Ben  57:51We broached the subject. I mean, we kind of came into the teen movies thing with the intention of having some positivity to balance it out, [Lexi laughs] but it's hard when you have about 15 to 20 years, dominated by one figure, who has a way of looking at the world that's pretty shitty, and made all the, like, pop culture in that time.Lexi  58:10This is why you need a diverse group of people making content so that you have a wider array of things to look at to form your identity, because, when you're growing up, and the only teen flicks that are out the

Matthew 5:17-20There are 3 parts to your salvation:God saved you.God is saving you.God will save you.For more info on Redemption City Church you can go to our website.If you'd like to connect with us further, please fill out a Connection Card and one of our staff will get in touch with you. 

THE WEEK OF TRINITY XV - SATURDAYLESSON: JAMES 5:1-6“Do not lay up for yourselves treasure on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal.” Matthew 6:19-20There are sins that bring at least some kind of joy; we get something out of them, like gluttony and drunkenness, for example. The same can also be said for fornication; it does at times provide relaxation for the people who practice it. Even anger provides a certain amount of satisfaction. The same could be claimed for other vices as well.But covetousness or greed always claims complete and full service from its devotees. It plagues and torments its victims ceaselessly and never provides anything in the shape of pleasure or joy. There the money lies in a heap and claims your full attention and service. It defies you to buy yourself even a pint of wine out of it. Rust comes along and eats away at it, but it must not be touched; that would make this god angry. And after protecting this god for so long, the servants of this god have no more than any poor beggar.Who brings this about? God, the Lord, arranged matters in this way. They may well be plagued with a sickness which prevents them from eating. They may have something wrong with their digestive processes so that they have no taste for food. They have weak stomachs; their lungs and liver have packed up. They suffer from this or that sickness. Here something is lacking; something else there. They never have a really pleasant hour in which to enjoy eating and drinking.This is how those who serve mammon fare. The true God puts Himself at the service of His own and serves men; mammon never does this. He wants to enjoy perpetual quiet and receive service from men.SL 11:1618 (13-14)PRAYER: Heavenly Father, in Your grace and mercy You supply us with all that we need for our bodies and lives. We thank and praise You for the riches of all Your goodness towards us, above all for all the blessings bestowed upon us in and through our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.Editor's note: No American Edition (AE) equivalent for today's sermon excerpt exists at the time of this publication. For an alternate English translation of this sermon, see Lenker, Church Postil—Gospels, 5:102-117.

The FBI needs to open a bake shop, they'd solve so many crimeshttps://archive.org/download/210822-theres-nothing-cozier-than-murder_202108/210822%20There%27s%20Nothing%20Cozier%20than%20Murder.mp3

Watch the video version of this show on YouTube »Alex Ross is the co-founder & CEO at Gregarious, Inc. Gregarious is the company behind Greg, an app dedicated to helping people grow healthier and happier plants. Greg's community has grown from 100 beta users in August 2020 to over 50,000 monthly active users today.Alex graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles, and studied data science and statistics at MIT. Alex has worked for companies such as Cisco, The Daily Aztec, and Cannon Trading.Prior to founding Gregarious, Alex spent 4 years as Director of Engineering at Tinder. Alex also co-founded Enplug, a digital signage company that was acquired earlier this year.In this episode, you'll learn: The two critical steps in making a successful app An ingenious strategy for partnering your app with retail companies Why you should involve your customers in content creation Links & Resources Tinder Enplug fitbod app Y Combinator (YC) Alex Ross' Links Greg app Alex's Twitter: @AreteRoss Job opportunities at Gregarious Alex's LinkedIn Gregarious, Inc. on LinkedIn Follow Us:David Barnard: https://twitter.com/drbarnardJacob Eiting: https://twitter.com/jeitingRevenueCat: https://twitter.com/RevenueCatSub Club: https://twitter.com/SubClubHQEpisode TranscriptAlex: 00:00:00The two steps in making a successful app business are make something worth using, and then put it in front of the people who would use it.If you have a plant, and you don't know what to do with it, we solve that problem.So, what we did is we reached out to a bunch of plant retailers, “Hey, we will help your customers have a positive outcome with your product.”Can you put in our little QR code? And now when these retailers ship out a new plant, every single one of them has this little QR code in it.It led to our first 15,000 users, I'd say. David: 00:00:30Welcome to the Sub Club podcast. I'm your host, David Bernard. And with me as always, Jacob Eiting. Hello, Jacob.Jacob: 00:00:53Happy to be here. David: 00:00:55You sound incredibly happy.Jacob: 00:00:57It's great. It's a Friday, David. The sun is shining. They're grilling a bunch of chickens in my hometown. I got nothing to complain about. It's gonna be great.David: 00:01:05Our guest today is Alex Ross, founder and CEO at Gregarious, makers of Greg, an app to help you grow healthier and happier plants. Prior to founding Gregarious Alex spent four years as director of engineering at Tinder.Alex also co-founded Enplug, a digital signage company that was acquired earlier this year. Welcome to the podcast, Alex.Alex: 00:01:27Thank you guys. Good to see you. Thanks, David, Jacob.Jacob: 00:01:29Hi. David: 00:01:30So, I'm going to try really hard this whole podcast and not call you Greg, but I've made that mistake.Jacob: 00:01:36I was thinking like, I get like annoying company name questions. Sometimes. I'm like, I'm sure you get more worse than me.Alex: 00:01:43But I'm considering just legally adopting Greg as alias or something. Jacob: 00:01:48Yeah. You know, I mean, that's a news cycle right there. A little bit of earned PR. David: 00:01:55So I wanted to ask you, so obviously, you know, director of engineering at Tinder that's, I mean, what a rocket ship that must've been quite a wild ride. So, tell me a little bit about, about how you ended up at Tinder and then, you know, if you do have any fun, war stories from there, that'd be great to hear. Alex: 00:02:16Yeah, definitely. It was a rocket ship. Definitely some war stories, some wins, some losses. So, I came across Tinder and I was looking to get into like a consumer application. so I was interviewing with Uber and Twitter, and then I came across Tinder on an angel list. Actually the head of recruiting at the time reached out to me and I kind of took it on a whim.To be honest, I had not used the app before, before even interviewing or anything. that's kind of a challenge for Tinder is like, do you, how many of the teammates need to use Tinder? Because a lot of people are married and in relationships, and those are great people to have on the team. And so it makes it odd, and kind of difficult or complicated. But, basically I joined when it was around 70 people, if I recall. So, it was a pretty small team. There was already a global user base, so it was one of the scrappiest, global brands I think probably has ever existed. Because this was all right before Tinder or right around the time that Tinder launched its first monetization efforts.And so there wasn't really awareness as to like, great, there's this like large, global, many millions of people are using this thing, but is it going to make money? Right? That was still an open question at the time that I joined. So, yeah, basically I joined and it was very, it was definitely still a startup.And, so there was not a lot of structure and I think my manager changed on the first day, like the person I was talking about working with's desk changed, but I had a great time and basically I ended up creating the growth team. So I became very focused on, growing the international user base.One of the coolest things that that team did is we decoupled Tinder from Facebook. And this was from Facebook login because like Tinder came to, came to fame by having, you know, you tap one button, it imports your Facebook photos. It basically made online dating as easy as it possibly can be because like you push a button you're in and then you're dating.Right. And by making it that simple, it made it so you felt less than desperate by using it. I think it was like one of the important psychological dynamic, because if you feel like you have to work to start using that application, then maybe it means that like you aren't having as much success in dating in the real world.So, by making it simpler, it made it less stigmatized. More cool. Right? And so when we decided to then allow people to create accounts with a phone number that introduced all this complexity around like, well, are people going to want to do that? Then they have to add profile photos. They have to type in their name.You have to introduce an onboarding process. You have to worry about spam. So, in any case, my team led that decoupling of Facebook and Tinder, and this was like pre Cambridge Analytica, pre GDPR. So it was definitely pressure. And it was like, it was a lot of good foresight and it did lead. It was a very successful project.So, that was kind of what I cut my teeth on it Tinder. And then from there, I ended up creating the trust and safety team. So we then kind of took on anti-spam, which is a major problem for any global consumer or especially a brand that you're introducing people to each other. Like you're introducing strangers to each other.That is a spammer's dream.Jacob: 00:05:32There has got to be just so much abuse on Alex: 00:05:34So much, and it was all stuff. I agree. Yeah. 24 7. and so we ended up creating a team kind of bottoms up. This is a cool effort. Cause it wasn't like an executive side, like, oh, Tinder needs to needs to create this team. But rather. A collection of engineers that were very motivated to solve this problem.So, we created a trust and safety team again, before, before GDPR, like this was before the world was really focused on, privacy and data security and protect users. Very consciously.Jacob: 00:06:01It's it's interesting. Cause now, you know, even with like clubhouse recently have had issues here. I think now the expectation is you need trust and safety from day one, which even five or six years ago, wasn't really the case. It was kind of like, well, I'll just grow and then you'll solve it later.So, that was, I would say early days for even that concept of like a whole dedicated team to those, those, those aspects of, yeah. If you're meeting people in public mind, God, like you need good Alex: 00:06:28Real. Yeah. You really need to continuously try to protect people. Cause there are, there's a rare selection of people that are not great. Right. SoJacob: 00:06:36Yeah. David: 00:06:37So then, tell us a little bit about the transition from being a tender to founding a company, because you had founded companies before and plug, and been at, other large companies before Tinder, but Yeah. What, what led you to, to found Gregarious? Alex: 00:06:54Yeah. I actually saw Jacob and I shared an experience interning at Cisco systems. Is that right? Did you, yeah, Jacob: 00:07:01Wait, when were we at the same? Like onboarding. Alex: 00:07:04No, no. I was actually in the finance organization, so I was doing internal auditing. it was crazy. I was on a team that like investigated other people for like, you know, abusing their corporate cards and stuff like that. So there'd be likeJacob: 00:07:19Interesting. internally. Alex: 00:07:21Internally. yeah. it was a very, Jacob: 00:07:23We've had interns on that team. Alex: 00:07:27It was a unique, it was definitely the only inboard,Jacob: 00:07:29Yeah. Wow. I was testing, I was testing phones, so I'm actually not sure which one of those is more boring. I think actually you might've had me. So Alex: 00:07:38That's for sure. yeah, so I got exposure is Cisco is interesting for anybody who doesn't know cause you have to drive between meetings. Right? Cause the campus is so large. Jacob: 00:07:48Campus. Alex: 00:07:49Yeah, Yeah, Talk about, oh my gosh. Culture. Yeah, so the, the process leading up to, to starting Greg was very deliberate. because I had done a startup before and that company had gone to success a successful outcome, but it was a lot of hard work was honestly grueling.Definitely like, hardest challenge of my life. And so I knew that I wanted to be involved in starting a company and building a culture from the ground up again. but I knew that I wanted to do it differently. and so basically there was a lot of preparation thinking about really the main thing I was thinking about is what is the industry that I want to be working in, because I think that startups often don't go the way you expect.But you can learn so much. And so I was really thinking like, okay, what do I want to become an expert at? Right. Like what do I want, if it doesn't work out in the way we expect, what would I like to have learned four years, five years, seven years worth of information about.And, I really kept coming back to science. and I wanted to, to kind of use my engineering experience and pivot that into, more real world, like physical phenomenon. Right. And like learning how the universe works. David: 00:08:59That's amazing. Alex: 00:09:00And so that's really, a lot of the thesis of Greg is that we apply computer science and software engineering to this specific domain of how to plants work.Right. And, and basically the, the dots kind of connect looking backwards, but it was a process of discovery of like, what's an area that's emerging and like kind of changing, like where is there an opportunity, right. Because I think it's helpful to position yourself at a place where either you can cause change or this change already happened.And, right now, like a lot of people know there's climate change. and there's also a lot of, rapid things happening in plant science world, specifically around like CRISPR and plant genetics and stuff like that, really at the deep end of it, which we can get into, but it's like way deep. but, but basically, this was before the pandemic.So we were actually looking into plants before COVID and already there was like the rate of people bringing plants into their homes was growing by 50 to a hundred percent per year. And we wanted to validate like, Jacob: 00:10:03I really like, that seems like that seems like a thing that would be fairly stable, like, is it, is it, is it a, is it a generational trend, like millennials or younger folks being? I have a lot of people on Twitter. I follow that seem very interested in plants more than I've ever been. Alex: 00:10:20There's a couple converging trends. Yeah. I think that part of it it's associated to like the mental wellness movement. So it's kind of this trend line follows a one that's very similar to like meditation and yoga just five years later. So I think it's a very, it's a lot of adjacent interests there, but then there's also an aesthetic component to plants where like, people are kind of decorating their spaces and they're getting more like trendy in how they, you know, how they, even people who are eating, like you want to have like a space that you invite someone into and it's very nurturing.Right. so yeah, there was definitely a generational kind of tailwind already happening. And then COVID just like crammed that up. Right. Cause then everybody's on zoom and you look in the background, some people have plants and you're like, oh, that looks kind of nice. Like I'd like that.Jacob: 00:11:04I have this. I have, I still have this like barren white wall back here. That is embarrassing. Yeah, I need, that's why I was excited. I, I, I installed Greg today and I was disappointed. I couldn't buy the plants in the app yet. So we'll have to talk about that as we get a little Alex: 00:11:17That's something that is coming. That is the client segment. Yeah, definitely. yeah, so we kind of saw an opportunity and we did some due diligence, some interesting things I think, to identify like, is there a revenue opportunity in my favorite stat that I like to share that blew my mind when I learned it is home Depot, is a publicly traded company.So you can look up their, you know, annual statements and you can see how are they making money. And if you look up their statements, you'll see that they make more money on indoor garden than on any other product segment. Like home Depot sells lumber, paint appliances, all these other the Jacob: 00:11:54That's like, that's like actual revenues. Is that also margin con? Cause I would imagine these are high margin items as well, I would guess. Alex: 00:12:01Yeah. Depending on where you fall on them. But yeah, they're, they're, they're pretty hard margin. and no, we only looked at revenue, but they make like last night, like $11 billion per year in revenue. Which is, and, and they're like 10 or Jacob: 00:12:15Store, right? That's, one. Yeah. And there's like, every town has four of these. Alex: 00:12:19Exactly. Yeah. And home Depot is like 10 or 15% of the plant retail market. Probably. It's hard to estimate.Jacob: 00:12:26Okay. Yeah.So, it's like roughly like a hundred, a hundred billion dollar a year kind of thing in the US. Wow. That's it. That's the size of in-app subscriptions for anybody. Who's curious, like, roughly like in that ballpark.Alex: 00:12:39Yeah, yeah, exactly. Like Apple's app store, subscription Jacob: 00:12:42Oh yeah. Sorry, app store. It's not even subscriptions. I think that's the app store broadly. Yeah.Alex: 00:12:47So we combined the plant Tam with then the app store growth in subscription revenue. And there's our business model.Jacob: 00:12:56There you go. Did you, did you, I mean, yeah. You mentioned like wanting to get into something physical into something science related. Did you have like a passion for plants or was this something that is like deep in you or, or was it more like me and an app subscriptions, which is like, wow, this looks like a good thing I can work on and I actually care about it and know a little bit about it.Right. So how, how did it, how did you go? Like, Yeah.This is what I want to do. Alex: 00:13:17That's a great question. It was like 75% the ladder. So the same as you, where I was kind of, I got exposed to it cause I started getting plants and I realized I did like them, but there was no brand to guide me. And there was definitely no science to help me keep them alive. Right. but I, I grew up in the mountains and so like, I, I, my family, I lived in Mammoth Lakes, California for any of the listeners know where that is.And so I, you know, I, I went on like a solo backpacking trip, like shortly before starting all of this and kind of communed with like being in nature with no people around me. And maybe that put me in touch with the plans a little bit more. but it was mostly, kind of identifying, this is a realm of science I'd like to work in because plants are mostly.Physics-based, this is something a lot of people don't don't realize, but because they're stationary, you can almost view them as like, like a civil engineer would a bridge. so there's not, so you can kind of really think about like the water physics, the light physics. And so they're a really great vehicle for learning, just physics generally, and also how like the sun and earth orbit matters to that plant and that location.There's so much science there that we learned that there's a depth. That was, we were very interested in diving deeper intoJacob: 00:14:31Yeah. Not to mention, not to mentioned biology, right. Alex: 00:14:33There is, but Jacob: 00:14:34As an intersection, right? Yeah. Alex: 00:14:37Yeah. Biology is difficult though, right? Like if you're like an engineer, who's trying to approach it,Jacob: 00:14:41Right. Yeah. Alex: 00:14:42it's messy, you know, I Jacob: 00:14:44Yeah, exactly. Alex: 00:14:46Yeah, yeah,Jacob: 00:14:47But if you think about it, it was a closed system, right? Like yeah. You have it. It's potted, it's planted, you know, lumens in, you know, water in, you know, nutrients in, you can, yeah, you can, you can make some approximations, right. As we like. Alex: 00:15:02The closed system is really important. I can. so what Greg does is Greg predicts when a given plant is going to need to be watered. And that's like the super simple, like simplified functionality. It's one of the main things you need to know. And the way we figured that out talking about closed systems is kind of a fun fact. you can very accurately measure the amount of water that a plant loses by weighing it on one day and then weighing it the next day. And the change in weight is the water lost in grams. And it turns out, so what we did is we did that for like 700 plants for like six months. And we, we then graft what was the grams of water lost per plant per day?And you get this beautiful pattern. It's like it random, like this is a very clear, like almost a heartbeat of a plant, which is a great fit for like machine learning.Jacob: 00:15:56Yeah. So, so, so how did, how did you pull this off? Like practically, did you have like a big garage or warehouse or something like that? That's, that's more work than I usually do for software. So tell me what that process was. Alex: 00:16:09It definitely did. So at one point I had like 150 plants and they all had a plastic, little pots and I had like labels. I named them like a one through nine and then C one through whatever. Cause I had to keep track of it. Right. It's all in our progress database. And but that didn't scale. And so like me and my co-founders, we were all measuring every day, every single day, hundreds of plants, but that didn't scale.So then we went on Craigslist and we started saying like, Hey, we're looking for people to weigh their plants every day, twice per day for a couple of months. And we had hundreds of responses, like people, people care about their plants and they thought that it was cool to be doing like citizen science.Right. And so we ended up with people in Berlin and, and you know, Sydney.Jacob: 00:16:48All right. Cause it doesn't have to be local, right? Yeah. Alex: 00:16:51And actually it needs to be in like Southern hemisphere versus Northern hemisphere because the location of like the sun and solar radiation effects that. Yeah. So we needed a global distribution for sure.David: 00:17:01This is like way off topic for, for subscription apps. But, but if you, if you squint it's, there are a lot of similar problems in understanding user patterns and user life cycle. And like, there's so many hard to understand variables. Alex: 00:17:18Yeah, David: 00:17:18But one thing I'm curious about on the plant science, like how much does like humidity and other things play into that.So if you, if you have, you know, 40% humidity, one day and 60%, the next does that actually impact things. Alex: 00:17:31No humidity. We don't really need to model humidity very much. it's actually, there's a couple of things that are misconceptions. You don't really need to worry about missing or humidity and you don't need to worry about fertilizing. Like all of that is overdone. for the most part, like there's some cases where it, matters, but, I'd say for like 99 out of 100 plant types that you're likely to own doesn't matter.And even more people don't realize that the humidity reading that we see in the weather is what's called relative humidity. And it, it not actually like super scientific way to measure, like how the water in the air relates to a plant. You need to look at absolute humidity, the whole totally different calculation.There's basically relative humidity changes according to the temperature. And so I see as humidity, you can almost, and to be honest, like, ignore, except for a couple of plants, like really evolved to be in, like, you can picture it. you know, in England, like, United Kingdom, like BHAG, right. Where it's just so much water, like, okay, well does like some, some ferns like are from like the Pacific Northwest, like Washington area where it's like constant rain forest, those types of plans.Yeah. You're going to have a hard time if you're not, in a very human environment, but the vast majority of EBI don't have to worry about it.Jacob: 00:18:47I have, I have more questions on the plant physics, but I think, I think I will let, I will, I will have to like save my curiosity.David: 00:18:55Well, we'll have to do the, we'll have to jump on your podcast and talk, talk points. Jacob: 00:19:00Plant Club, just invite V2 to newbies on there. Just to ask questions. We'll be there. David: 00:19:05So from, from all of this, you, you started to alluded to it a bit, but one of the things I was really impressed talking to you a couple of months ago, was just how I'm vicious. Your plans are with Greg. So you're, you're kicking it off with a consumer subscription app. but tell me a little bit about like, where you want to go from there.Alex: 00:19:25Yeah, definitely. That's a part of like, going back to like how we started it, why we started it. I have seen, or like I've worked at companies and like not naming names that are very, very revenue focused. Like just purely prime directive is we just need to make coin and as much of it as possible. Right.And then the question is, well, if you get there, then what do you do? Because if you do accumulate a level of avenue and a lot of influence, you kind of inherit a social responsibility, right? Because like you're accumulating all these resources. If you're like a Facebook or an Instagram, I think there's like general consensus.Like you kind of need to think about the impact that you have. Cause you're too big to not think about it. Right. And so with Greg, like we really thought about if we manage to navigate this very challenging process of getting to scale. Well then what? Right. And our goal what's really interesting that people don't realize is that plants in our homes are just plants that were taken from various places in the world and put in our homes, right?Like there there's no such thing as a houseplant, it's actually just like a giant jungle tree that somebody took a cutting from and then transported it to England and then ended up the United States. Right. so the physical principles that govern, being able to predict how to keep those plants alive is, are the same as the physical principles required to predict how to keep like crops alive.Right. like plants that are grown for our food system of which there are like billions. Right. And those plants, like it turns out plants are really like an infrastructure piece of our planet, right? Like plants are our like big support system on spaceship earth. And it's kind of interesting. Jacob: 00:21:10It's, the, it's the first stage of catalyzing, the sun's resources, right? Like, Alex: 00:21:15That's exactly it. And a lot of people don't realize this, that basically all of life gets its energy from the sun. Like that is the input of all of energy into what we know as life, as you know, maybe there's more on other planets that works differently. But as far as we know, all of life depends on solar energy.Jacob: 00:21:31Yeah, Alex, you're leaving out some very, very, sensitive, bacteria that live by vents. Okay. That, that Alex: 00:21:40I love that you noticed.Jacob: 00:21:43I'm D I'm disappointed in myself that I can't think of what they're called. They're extremophiles some kind of, I Alex: 00:21:47Yeah. Jacob: 00:21:48All, it's all, it's all discovery documentaries, so Alex: 00:21:51There's a vanishingly small number of, like living things that, thrive on geothermal energy from the earth score. Right. But that's like less than like 1% as far as I know. What people don't realize as an example is that like plants. A lot of people think that plants are just taking things out of the ground that is sucking nutrients out, sucking water out. They're actually also putting things back into the ground at all times. And so plants, like, for example, they photosynthesize. So they take energy from the sun and they are the only thing on the planet that takes energy from the sun and then converts it into energy that all other life can use. And it's not only insects and birds and mammals like us, but plants are also depositing sugar into the soil.So it's a bi-directional flow and that sugar feeds the bacteria. Jacob: 00:22:38Is that an active process while they're alive? Is it, or is it during decomposition? Alex: 00:22:42No, that is an active process. Like plants are actively depositing sugar into the soil and that, that those sugars feed the bacteria and fungi and those bacteria and fungi are responsible for breaking down the, inorganic, nutrients like nitrogen into a format that plants can absorb because plants can't just like stop nitrogen.Now they depend on. Those organic, you know, facilitators. And so it's a very symbiotic relationship and there's growing awareness now that like having a quote unquote, living soil is crucial for our planet. And I'll tell you like an example of how, how much awareness there is around this. during my due diligence for Greg, I went to a plant genetics conference.This is like for any engineers in the call, like imagine like AWS reinvent, accepted the geneticists. Right. And so they're like presenting, like how they run their projects. And it's, it's a really cool parallel world, but half of this conference was dedicated to soil like microbiomes, because that's how important it is.It's like truly like a resource. It's an infrastructure for our spaceship earth. Right? David: 00:23:49That's amazing. So, so one of the things, yeah, you and I talked about was not just, you know, consumer subscription to then like funding science, which is kind of what you're talking about now, but then also the potential to take this from, from B2C to B2B. So like you have, nurturing these who have to manage the planets before the people buy ‘em.You have office buildings that have thousands of plants. You have, you know, commercial facilities like there's, you know, plants existed on so many different layers of are of, of, of use, So tell me a little bit about kind of the long and short term plans of potentially transitioning or not transitioning, but, but kind of building on top of what you've done for consumers to then expand into more B2B, use cases.Alex: 00:24:42Yeah, definitely. Some other examples. people don't realize that cities have to like municipalities have to maintain the plant inventories, right? Like there are people who manage the inventory of plants. Exists, you know, or there are small businesses. there are people in most towns, I grow food for their farmer's markets, for example.And so those are like smaller scale farmers and then there's large scale farmers, right? And there's a real dearth of like talented software teams, writing applications for any of those parties. And that's really the long-term opportunity to be spotted. If we can pull together a talented team to make products for those people, that's a longterm opportunity.And my, my thesis on this, which I think we're aligned on is that, like delightful, simple consumer user interfaces, like simple software is appreciated by everybody. Right? Jacob: 00:25:35Okay. Alex: 00:25:35like enterprises don't want to use complicated integrative Jacob: 00:25:40There's tastes now in software, right. And all levels of, employment. I think it's, it's a bit of like our gen my generation aging into the, the enterprise buying world. And, also just like people have enough software experiences in our lives. They've learned to discern like, oh, this is good.And, oh, this is bad. and I think there's, yeah, I think it's really, I mean, we I've, I've done it a ton in making revenue count. I came from the compute super subscription world. I learned a ton of lessons about onboarding and, and, and, and creating delightful experiences and like, you know, playing, playing against and into people's like, you know, habits and things like this that you carry into the enterprise world or B2B world, and it can really supercharge software.And it's probably what we're going to see. Yeah. I think. I think there's still, there's always this like technical leap or not technical in the sense of computers, but technical in the sense of processes and whatnot, when you leap from consumer to, to selling to businesses. But as you said, you bring those teams together, you, you build your data set, you learn more about Alex: 00:26:45Right, Jacob: 00:26:46Act of growing plants, then someday you, you, you can, you Alex: 00:26:49Right. And there are some, some famous examples of this. I definitely see it with RevenueCat. Cause like you compare the UI to a SAS that was created 10 years ago and it's just more of delightful. Right. It's like simple. And I know to use it. I'm not like getting a headache while I'm on it, but it's nice.Right?Jacob: 00:27:05It's very nice. Very nice of you to say Alex: 00:27:07Yeah. Bye-bye But, but like some examples like strike became famous, right? Because like they had a good Jacob: 00:27:14Same. Yeah, yeah. Say my mindset. Right. Just like, make it easy, make it simple, make the, make the shortest possible path to value. Right. Alex: 00:27:25Or, slack would be another example. Right. Whereas it was almost a consumer level application that just took off like wildfire because individuals liked it. Right. Jacob: 00:27:34And then they added enterprise grid, whatever they have now, or whatever to sell it to, to, to Alex: 00:27:39And then nothing is things, Jacob: 00:27:41Need that to begin with.Alex: 00:27:42Right? David: 00:27:43Yeah. So it's just, it's really cool that there's, there's just such a direct path from selling to consumers right now, and then selling to municipalities who are managing their plants in a few years, and then selling to, you know, the, the company should have to manage this at scale and then selling to farmers.That's really cool. One of the things that, again, that you're not talking about, you and I talked for like two hours a couple of months ago. And so there's, there's so much that I would, I would've loved to have recorded that and released it as a podcast. But, Jacob: 00:28:20Glad I can glad I can contribute. David: 00:28:23Yeah, one of the, one of the fascinating things that you talked about was kind of your view on marketing. And so I'd love for you to talk about that more broadly, but then specifically what you're doing with nurseries is just such incredibly smart marketing. Like, I mean, it, let me say tangent for a minute.So it's just so obvious talking to you that you're not the average like app founder, you know, like none of my apps have had even, even like when, when hundredth of the due diligence and market Jacob: 00:28:55Why I was gonna say, I've never, I've never bought some, like, I've never had a physical warehouse of plantsDavid: 00:29:02Yeah. and so it's just, it's just so clear that you, you think about things in a way that, that most, you know, at people don't most software people don't most even founders don't. and, and so I think, you know, we've talked about this on the podcast before, is it just so many apps are trapped in this?You know, we just, we have to advertise on Facebook to grow. We have to do this. And like that clay book, I've just, you know, dumping money, a bunch of money in ads, I think leave so much on the table. And so I just love that you're, you're going to do that. And that we've talked about that, you know, you've got to do paid marketing and, and maybe I've already started experimenting with it, but, but yeah.So tell me about what you're doing with nurseries and then just kind of, you know, some of your thoughts on, on marketing and virality and stuff. Alex: 00:29:51Yeah, definitely. I think broadly, like what I would, I think I'm definitely aligned with that where, your broader point is that like building an app is half technical and UI design and getting the product really, really, really right. Right. But the other half that people are often uncomfortable about is needing to get it in front of the right people.Right. And so in my mind, the way I break this down is the two steps. Like I have a theory that like the two steps in making a successful app business are make thumping worth using, and then put it in front of the people who would use it. Right. And it's like remarkably hard to do either one of those, but, Once we had, the beginning signs of retention.So we got our first, like, I don't know, 5,000 users by like posting on Facebook and on Reddit and like that kind of stuff. Then we started thinking about, what is like the most optimal time for people to be introduced to grade. And what we came up with is, well, we solved the problem of, if you have a plant and you don't know what to do with it, how to keep it alive, we solve that problem.And so the most natural moment would be when you get a new plant, right. Because it's like, that's a moment. And you're like, oh crap, I have this thing. What do I, how do I keep it alive? And, so what we did is we reached out to a bunch of, plant retailers, like online in-person brick and mortar all over the place.And we basically said like, Hey, we will help your customers have a positive outcome with your product. Right. And so let's do this trade where like, we will give them. at this point we had a subscription tier. And so we said, we'll give them free subscription tier for N number of months. At first it was six.And now it's three. and in return, can you put in our little QR code flyer, like nicely designed four inches by four inches recycled paper card that has a QR code and it takes you to download. Great. Right. And so we did that and now like when these retailers ship out a new plant, every single one of them has this little QR code in it.And it's almost like a digital companion to your unboxing experience. Right. And so that was definitely like a very natural fit and it, it led to our first, probably like 10 or 20,000, 15,000 users, I'd say.Jacob: 00:32:10So can I ask, like, did you do that yourself? Did you have somebody on your team? Cause like, yeah. I'm, I'm in the camp that that's outside of my experience. I don't like calling the pizza person. Like I, you know, I, I don't know how to do that. So how, how did you, how did you delegate that and, and Alex: 00:32:24Yeah. Jacob: 00:32:24The resources and a small team to pull that off. Alex: 00:32:27Definitely. so I I'd say I provided the, the oomph behind it. but then I have a good friend, who I've worked with in the past named Colin, who does like growth marketing stuff and that's his comfort zone. Right. And so I definitely did reach out to a bunch of the biggest partners in the beginning.Because the thing is that like with early stage stuff, founder led sales can be great, right? Like you don't always need it. It's better if you don't need it to be Frank. but, we were so early and we had no partners at all that I was like, I ha this is crucial for us. Like, we need to have a better source of user acquisition.That's like our next major challenge to solve. And so I did reach out to them and then call in kind of like took over and scaled that. Right. Cause like, I, I ultimately like I needed to be writing code and stuff. and so now he owns that relationship and he's been able to keep that going further.Jacob: 00:33:22Yeah, it's just one of these unique channels. you know, I don't know, you can, as a, B to C app founder, I think David's points exactly on, I think we've a lot of us have settled into this world where there's one or two channels to like get growth and that's paid, paid marketing.There's a lot of good, growth resources out there. oh yeah, there's a lot of good growth books. I've read, moving into the B2B world that say there's like seven channels or whatever. There's only like so many like ways to get and in and in, and in B to C we tend to be like, well, yeah, there's these two, essentially, but it's not really true.Like you can try seven, I guess the trick is finding stuff that two things, one is approachable. Like, that's why I asked about you. How did you make it happen? Well, you were able to start it off and then you had somebody to work with you to, to, to bring it to scale. But then the other thing is it has to move the needle. Right. And so, and so you have to figure out and like for a price that's reasonable, right? And, and that sometimes is hard to find as well. Because I think with this, you have this adjacent high velocity market of users. You have a place, your users are going every day, which isn't maybe always the case for all apps.Right. It's hard to find there's no meditation store that people are going to day. Right. Alex: 00:34:33Yeah. I thought about this. Jacob: 00:34:34That's your, that's your advantage? You know?Alex: 00:34:37I thought about parallels. Like I wonder if like fitness apps have tried partnering with gyms. I'm thinking like fit. Jacob: 00:34:44I'm sure the gyms wouldn't be as eager maybe. Right? Alex: 00:34:48Well, I mean, possibly I'm just thinking like, if, if like, Jacob: 00:34:51This also like there's also this like benefit right from the, for the Alex: 00:34:54There has to be. Yeah, yeah. But I would just, I just like theory, graph, like I'm thinking if there's an app That helps you track your workouts. Like I use football, I'm a user, it's a great app and, and it's a complete compliment or a gym. Like I can't do gym without, I can't do football about gym. I don't really do gym about that.So, I, there might be a thing there, or like with meditation, I'd be curious if, like yoga studios. Cause here's the thing is Jacob: 00:35:21Find the adjacencies right. Alex: 00:35:22Yeah. And so here's the thing about a mobile app business that I have found is that one of our strengths is that we're building an audience, right? Like mobile apps only really work with retention.And so you're like building up this audience of people that are committed to your app and your brand over time. And these smaller businesses are looking for ways to get audiences. Right? And so in the scale of a mobile app is such that you might actually be able to accumulate an audience that is valuable to those small businesses.That can be a part of that trade. And so we've actually talked about that with our partners where we basically say like, well, you're referring users to us. We can refer users back to you. And our scale is large enough that it could actually be a meaningful number. so I think you can kind of get, it's definitely a B2B strategy where it's like, I'm thinking of the strategic value I can provide to my partners in return for them providing value.Which might be why it's less common in the, in the B2C, like mobile app world, right.David: 00:36:16Yeah. Any other, experiments that you've done or kind of things that you're working on in the, in the marketing realm that you've seen fail or things that are being successful right now Alex: 00:36:27We really want to tap peer to peer referrals and that has not been easy. And so that, that is one Jacob: 00:36:33Have you seen, have you seen the new store kit to stuff? Alex: 00:36:36Not Jacob: 00:36:36Yeah, they did. This is, I don't know when this is going to go out, but they, they dropped in, in, in the dub DC, this, this, this week they announced there's a new API. That's going to make that kind of possible. Now you'll be able to, you'll be able to like extend somebody else's subscription, based on some sort of like action. I think I, I, I don't know if they made it as like, for extending, for like a customer support use case. So there might be a case maybe Apple's like, no, we didn't want you to use it for incentivized referrals, but it could Alex: 00:37:09Yeah, Jacob: 00:37:09Make incentivize referrals work and like a really smooth way. Sorry, I'll derail. But, Alex: 00:37:14I love it. Jacob: 00:37:15It's, kind of a change.Alex: 00:37:17Well, it's probably useful to listeners. we have definitely hacked around incentivizes invites using promotionals that will say RevenueCat has been helpful.Jacob: 00:37:26Oh, so, and so you guys are, you guys are pushing folks, but they have to go through like this, like a user-driven process, right? Alex: 00:37:33They do. Yeah.Jacob: 00:37:34Is friction.Alex: 00:37:35It's friction. It has been fine, but it's not quite as productive as we like. So that one. Jacob: 00:37:39Have a lot of users that get confused about the process. I would imagine. Alex: 00:37:42Yeah. And it's like a deep Linky thing. So it's like not super transparent. the thing that's worked better, the one that I'm most excited about is I love this one. we, created, user generated content loops. so, basically people, there are certain things you can do in our app that like publish web pages on the web.And so for us very specifically, People like Greg, we don't have a database of like every plant in the world yet. Right. There's like 400,000. It's really complicated. And like, that's actually, one of our core IP is, is developing that database. And the only way we can do it is if we allow users to contribute to it.Right. and we need to be like a crowd source, like model and we get really good at curation so people can create new species in Gregg. And then we curate that and then we publish that page on the web and then it starts showing up in Google search traffic for other people searching for information about that species.Right. And so I love the theory of this and like check back in, in a year to see how it turns out. But I love the thing. Because it's like, okay, a user publishes a web page, which then more users find our app through. So then they join the app and then they publish more webpages. And then so more users find the app and then they publish more web pages.Right. And so it's like a very like positive reinforcement loop. And I think those types of recursive positive reinforcing user growth loops can lead to very healthy, growth curves, right?Jacob: 00:39:08Yeah. I mean, that's the, the challenge of these apps. You said it with retention is the big thing. I think you, you you're you're you're you've got some tables. Keeping a plant alive plants live a long time. Therefore, hopefully your app gets used a long time, but then, finding these things that can take what is inherently like a decaying process, which is people leaving your app and turning it into something more stable, which is how you build this, like yeah.Long-term business. And then, you know, for, in your case, like use this as a platform to move into other segments and whatnot. but, but but moving away, from this, like get them in, monetize them, let them go. Right. Model, which like, it seems just like the whole world is pointing us against right. With, with the way that ad tracking is getting less easy to do and all this stuff.Alex: 00:39:54Yeah. Jacob: 00:39:54So I was gonna say SEO, that's one of the seven good channels. Right. So you've hit at least three, Alex: 00:40:01Do end up dependent on, on Google. AndJacob: 00:40:05It's something can change in Alex: 00:40:06Yeah, Jacob: 00:40:07Or. Alex: 00:40:07But like I've been wanting, I've been watching SEO for a while and I think that generally, as long as you're not doing shady things, you don't have to worry about much. Right, Jacob: 00:40:16Content that people click on and find useful it will work. Right? Like, but when I did our blogs for revenue cat, initially the ones that got really good traffic for us kind of got us off the ground. Like I didn't, I didn't think, like I thought a little bit like, oh, what are people going to Google?Whatever. But no, I was just like, I'll just make plus that people will read and spend time on and share. And like that's all it took. And you'll find the posts that some of the posts that I did that were intentionally like, I'm trying to be like, SEO smart. Didn't do that. Well, the ones where they were just really good posts and like contained a lot of really good content and get referenced a lot. Those are the ones that still generate traffic for us. So like, which is nice because you don't have to be like an SEO master anymore. You can kind of just make good stuff and do Alex: 00:40:56Yeah. Jacob: 00:40:56Things. Yeah, David: 00:40:57Yeah, I was going to ask, I think we talked about this, but have you, have you done some paid marketing and how's that gone for you? Alex: 00:41:05Yeah, definitely. We did use paid marketing to like, scale up, by like a two X factor. So did that add a little bit of extra? And, so we've been running on Instagram and Facebook, and it's been pretty productive to the point where it's almost NetSpend zero. it's like we spend a dollar in advertising and then we make a dollar in revenue.We're still very early. And so we haven't had enough months. Like the, the, the pain point is if you do a trial. It's actually a much longer, payback period or like what finance people would call a float. And then a lot of people expect, because let's say you have, we're generous. We have a 30 day trial, which is like a bit much for a mobile app, but we do it.And so 30 days, and then the user subscribes, and then you get paid and then apple will pay you a month later. Right. So you actually end up with like up to a 90 day float. and so that's not as tight as I would like hope for, but it's better than nothing. And I think that's the key is that like, because we're a revenue generating app we're able to do the ad spend in like a reasonable way.I think if that weren't the case, then it'd be very difficult.David: 00:42:12Yeah. And, and at some point, I mean, with, with your other strategies of referrals, of SEO, of building a base of users, that then you can get more and more partners, you know? So, so if you went to home Depot, 10 million active users, then that's a much more attractive proposition to them. so at some point, you know, spending at a loss might actually make sense, but it's amazing that the subscription, model enables you to even spend break even, but keep that flywheel going, which is it's.That's incredible.Alex: 00:42:52And I think the NetSpend break, even that creates an interesting exercise because then it's like, it becomes, we didn't get into like financing, but like if you fundraise That's then a good reason to fundraise because then if you have more capital, you can put that capital to work. Because if you know, you'll make, if you have a dollar, now you'll have a dollar again in 90 days, as long as you can carry that float.Well, then at the end of 90 days you have a dollar and a user Jacob: 00:43:17Yeah, which is like, has, has value, right? Like you've increased the value of your user base has adult, you know, dollar per user active value essentially in the venture market or revalue reevaluate. Right. So, it, it does make sense. So yeah, I w I want to ask, like, You guys, it seems like your apps pretty developed for how long you've been working on it a year and change.Right. and you mentioned, you mentioned this, like finding iterating to like a retention goal. Like how did that go? Did you start with just like the basic function, like the most basic thing and then add stuff until you got, and what, what I guess specifically, like what metric were you looking at to say like, okay, retention is good now. Alex: 00:43:58Hmm. Yeah, that's a great question. So we did start with the most basic core functionality, and I think one of the things that we did that I would do again, We just solved our own problem. So like I, so we, we started at the beginning of COVID, so like New York where I live, locked down basically the day, almost the day that I left Tinder.Right. And so and so I remember I'll never forget things were shutting down. So I ran to the nursery nearby plant nursery, and I bought like 30 plants. Cause I was like, I need to have the problem in order to be deeply motivated to solve it. Right. Cause like, if you actually have like over 10 plants, keeping track of them kind of socks a little bit, it's hard.And so I knew that I needed the problem and that motivated us and, and our whole team really, we basically just wrote like a prototype app to solve our own problem. and once it was working for us is when we started bringing like beta users in, we did like a test flight, version for a month brought in like maybe a thousand or I think it was 2000 beta users total and there in like August, 2020.And. Jacob: 00:44:59Did you, how did you get that list for the beta? Just Facebook and Alex: 00:45:04Facebook. It was, it was mostly Facebook like groups and stuff like that. Jacob: 00:45:07Mm. Alex: 00:45:08Yeah. and it posted on Reddit. Reddit is hard. but, we did a little bit Jacob: 00:45:15Rip off middlemen made easy. That's my favorite. We posted, I posted right. It was where we launched two and I have this, this favorite hater quote that I have like screenshot it on my desktop that I will hold on to until we IPO. Alex: 00:45:27The hater codes or something people should be prepared for, I think,Jacob: 00:45:30Yeah. Alex: 00:45:32But let's see. So we solved that. Here's the key is that we specifically, for our app, we wanted to solve the retention piece first. And so he chose the behavior in the app that would be associated with retention because the way that I personally think about retention is that right.What happens is you have a trigger. So a person needs an external trigger to think about opening your app. Right? So it could be a feeling that they have like Tinder, it's a feeling I'm bored or I'm lonely. And I want to see people, and that's an external trigger that causes a person to think about your app.Then you need value to them to actually open your app. Right? Like, okay, I have this trigger in this app can adjust that trip. Sure. So for us, we didn't have like an emotion, but we did have, the need for reminders. And so basically we, leveraged push indicator very heavily. Our whole app is like a water reminder app right now that's the core value.And so we built that specific functionality, water reminders before anything else, because we wanted to validate, is that a sticky behavior? Is that something that people will actually want to do and use over like six months? Right. And because we knew we wanted to get six months of data, we had to build it first.Right. Because you have to really think about how long it's going to take to get that validation. and we were bootstrapped. And so we knew that like, well, we can't bootstrap for forever. Right. And so we needed to front load the questions that we knew investors would be asking when we went out to fundraise.David: 00:46:57So speaking of which you just raised $5.4 million seed round, how, tell us about the process. It sounds like you were, you know, having been at Tinder and been in Silicon valley and in the industry, that was your goal that you didn't come into it thinking you were going to bootstrap this forever. and you were specifically kind of building up some of those retention numbers and other things that you knew investors would ask for.So, how did fundraising go having kind of iterated into that direction? Alex: 00:47:35It's definitely hard as hell. I don't know, like you don't ever say that it's not. but it wasn't, it wasn't like excruciating. I think recruiting is actually probably a little bit more difficult, especially right now. There's a lot of, a lot of movement in the, in the why people are working, how they wantJacob: 00:47:51It's easier. It's easier. to write a check than it is to take a job. I think, you know, like to give it to somebody to do, do Alex: 00:47:57You can write multiple checks. Right?Jacob: 00:47:58Yeah. It's not your, it's not your every day, you Alex: 00:48:02Exactly. Yeah. So, let's see. We actually, to go back to your first point, we weren't, completely, we hadn't decided that we were definitely going to raise VC capital. and so there was like, like we did work through that as a team and we ended up deciding, various specifically. Our mission is one that we believe would benefit from us being good at raising capital, because we think that if we can bring capital and talent to this industry and this problem domain, that's a good thing.And then even from a life perspective, like we wanted, we want to move quick, we want to be able to grow. You want to be able to like, build delightful things for lots of people. and so that was, that was the main motivation behind the VC capital. I think it's a big trade-off. so we, we definitely did not take it lightly and we did deeply evaluate Jacob: 00:48:49Closes, off a lot of paths, Alex: 00:48:51It does. Yeah, Jacob: 00:48:52You kind of really narrows what your future, I mean, Alex: 00:48:55Yeah, Jacob: 00:48:55You on a trajectory to something potentially much, much bigger, but it Alex: 00:48:58Yeah, Jacob: 00:48:59Of like brings down your, your options. Alex: 00:49:02It does. Yeah. And I think you just have to think about like, am I okay with needing to focus on eventually providing an exit to these people who trusted with their capital, right. Yeah. And I think maybe something that people don't think about is like the CEO, whoever is fundraising. Like you, you build a relationship with your, your, your VC partners, right?Like I consider them like life journey partners at this point. And so it's not that like, it's certainly not an adversarial relationship. It's more like I have a true responsibility to these people because we had a clear, like, this is the agreement is like capital and then they have obligation to their investors too.And so, you know, I'm aligned with that and I think you're right. You just have to think about like, is that, is that aligned with my vision for this, this journey, right. David: 00:49:45And then speaking of, of an exit, you shared with me, you have a very unique approach to employee equity. I'm actually curious to hear at, Jacob's take on this, having gone through the whole thing, himself, but Yeah. Tell us about your equity structure. Alex: 00:50:05Yeah. We, we definitely are, experimenting and trying something different and I think there's pros and cons.Jacob: 00:50:12Investors love that, by the way. I'm sure those were easy conversations. Alex: 00:50:17Surprisingly most investors were, were okay with it. I definitely had a couple that were concerned about, the implications in the medium term, but here I'll get to what it is. So, yeah. Okay. So basically, like we, wanted to distribute as much of the financial ownership of the company across as many of the early teammates as we could.And the reason for that is like the real thought that I had that whether or not other people think about this kind of thing, I would, I would encourage people to ask the best, which is, if I have an exit, how big of an exit would I really want to feel very fortunate about. Right. And like, really think about like how much money do I actually need.Right. Because I think that there's a lot of people who get caught up with like, I want a billion dollars, right. Or like, I want like a hundred million dollars. I've been fortunate enough. Like we pointed out earlier, my first company was acquired for like a fine amount and then Tinder totally exploded. I didn't own as much of it, but it is still a positive outcome.And I can say that like they didn't change anything. And I know it's a very cliche thing to say, but I think it's a productive exercise that if anybody was founding a company, I would recommend asking, at what point am I again, feeling fortunate about the outcome, right? And then what we really thought about is our ability to recruit a great team.And basically the decision that we made is that, there's really two aspects to equity. and I'd be curious again, Jacob's take on this there's there's compensation for risk. So early teammates take more risks, quote unquote. Right? And so that, that's a typical, like reason for, founders taking a large, large Jacob: 00:51:52Costs risk mostly. Right. But Alex: 00:51:54Opportunity cost and risk.And then the other dimension that I think about is. Where, early stage companies are hard for everybody who's involved. And my prior experience pointed towards like the first 20 people who joined the company, or at least definitely 10 or 15, all worked, pretty much as hard. And definitely at least not like 10, it's impossible to work 10 times harder. Right. And so, Jacob: 00:52:19And with less M with less glory, to be honest, Alex: 00:52:22With less boring. Yeah, Jacob: 00:52:23Don't, they don't get all the likes on follows on Twitter or whatever. Right. Alex: 00:52:27Exactly.Jacob: 00:52:28Try to distribute it, but yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's a grindy place to be for sure. Alex: 00:52:33Not getting the glory is like a, it's definitely a double edged sword because I think that that glory is also a responsibility. Right. But, yeah. And so basically we decided to try this approach where we wanted to do this exercise of distributing that equity as equally as possible. And so he set up a mathematical curve where whenever I make an offer, I just look at this math equation.What is the amount of equity that this next person gets. Right. and, and so, and we did that and basically projected out like, okay, each person gets to like, like if we reached a billion dollar company, each teammate should have an outcome of something like $10 million or more, right. Like something, something above that number.And it was really important to map that out because otherwise it can go forward. And, yeah, basically that, that was our exercise. I mean, basically they decided like, okay, can we, can we turn that around a little bit? And, the side effect that I like, so again, we're, we're early in this, like, we're, we're an eight person team we're in a 15 and it may turn out to be complicated.And again, we check in in a year, but what I like about it is it, did enable a completely transparent cap table. Right. And that's nice. Cause like, I don't think it's like maybe required, but I do like being able to show people like this is who owns this Jacob: 00:53:50Who owns with you? Right? Alex: 00:53:53Yeah, exactly. Yeah, so that's a positive side effect.But there's definitely it's complicated.Jacob: 00:54:00Yeah, I well, so David, my take is actually we do something very similar that's I like also like, so interestingly and, and inside, inside baseball, I think, it it's it's we, we did, something similar. No, we weren't as scientific with it for the first, like we had like a rough rule, but it was like the same, like X, each number, like the number like decreased, like, but this backoff curve, I've found it a very, it's a very hard problem to reason about, because you want, you want to think about this, you want the hundredth employee to have some skin in the game.Right. But you, you need to balance that with like, Hey, like come join this company that you've never heard of. And like probably has like worst benefits and you know, who knows it's going to be, it's going to be a mess. Right. And so like, finding that balance is really hard. and, and, you know, Looking at where we're at 30 people now, and the complexity definitely grows. And then I think also you start thinking about like recruiting leverage and like, what, you know, what, how much equity do I need to offer to be able to like, recruit these different types of roles and things like that. And your systems get more complex, but, but, but it's still, did you guys, did you do something special on special on founder equity to create like more, more room on the cap table?Or did you ha how many co-founders do you have?Alex: 00:55:11That's such a blurry line. I don't know if this is just me by name or no, like, well, is that the fourth person? Like, I mean,Jacob: 00:55:18I guess that's true. yeah. Alex: 00:55:20Yeah. Jacob: 00:55:21A, maybe that's a, it's a YC thing is where they're like very clear, like who are the co-founders and who are not But, but yeah, I, I agree. It's probably mostly a, a label.Alex: 00:55:32I feel like we have six co-founders. realistically there were, there were two of us that were like, thinking about this, you know, like that's not true. There were three of us that were thinking about this, like two years ago. so we, I, I called them co-founders and so we're all on this same plans.Like we have this graph where like, I am the first black. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, It's Jacob: 00:55:51Interesting. Alex: 00:55:53Like as much as possible. And so the hardest, this plan is definitely hardest on the first three people and it requires incredible cultural buy-in to that because it means that the outcome, like, I, I definitely worked on this for a lot longer than like the people who are joining today.Right. And like, it was stressful and hard, but here's, here's my, my, my personal take. And, is that I actually think the risk of doing startups and I feel like YC, you may agree with us. The risk of doing startups is like so much lower than most people realize for people who have the fortune of having a safety net.Right? Like if you're, if you, if you have a family and you don't have savings, then like, of course that is a, that is a risky proposition. for people who are relatively early or mid stage in their careers and they have savings and they're not actually gonna end up in a really dangerous spot, then I think that startups are almost always a net positive.If you really apply yourself, because the amount that you learn and grow by solving that many problems, only accelerates your career. Right. And so going back to the risk versus there's also opportunity costs, and then there's effort. I personally discount the risk for people who are fortunate enough to have that safe space.I discount that risk almost to zero, because I think that it's just such a, even this time around for me, my second startup, I have learned so much and it's been such a good life experience that even if it didn't work out tomorrow, net win. For sure. Sure.Jacob: 00:57:17Yeah. David: 00:57:18So part of the reason I brought it up was that I, when I joined and I've told Dick at this, when I joined revenue, this is way inside baseball. Goodness a open, an open enough on the podcast. But when I joined Romney, I thought more along the lines of you, Alex. Like I thought, well, why is Jacob getting so much more of the company and, and revenue Katz, like the first 10 employees and then the next 20 it's actually, it's very generous compared to the industry, like take a, did an incredible job and has been great with equity.So, but, but early on you, you're at a startup and you're like, wow, I'm working really hard. He's working really hard. Like why, why, why is the outcome going to be so different? But honestly, 18 months in and Jacob having raised a series B and like taking a lot of the hardship, like you as a founder are going to have to do things and be under amount of stress.And like, there, there really is. And I, I don't, it's probably somewhat true for maybe those, you know, those first early employees, how carry a little bit of that load, but the F but a founder just has to carry a different load. And so. Jacob: 00:58:29It's always going to fall on that first two, you know, whatever people on the cap table. Right. Whatever it's going to keep rolling until it hits you at some point. And, you know, as it gets bigger. yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, I don't know. It's an, it's an interesting, this could very easily devolve into like the nature of capitalism and ownership.Right. Because it doesn't, it plays very much against this, like, you know, constant, like Marxists debate about like labor versus capital and like, what are the value and what is like value and like, cause you know, you like, you had this whatever period it was one month, one year or whatever. That's like such, you know, if you

The tables have turned as I am interviewed by G2 team member Ben Bullock.Can efficiency and innovation be a spiritual endeavor?  Why did I decide to start this podcast? Why salespeople get the glory … yet receive so little love? Future plans for the podcast … and more. Time Stamps:01:18Inspiration for starting the Origination Podcast4:00This podcast is as an open-source knowledge sharing forum for originators and salespeople8:01G2 as an innovation lab within the lending business12:22Working within your own unique ability19:07A hero to guests and a hero to themselves25:04Future of the podcast30:04Sales from diverse perspectives30:46Technology is best when used to alleviate specific pain points42:16My goal is to help people identify what their unique ability is, but then I want them focusing their time on their unique ability50:20There is so much uncertainty in multifamily lending that cannot be controlled. Our job is to eliminate the uncertainty that we can control.

Check out the latest latest What The Hell Everything podcast with Smitty for June 16th 2021. Smitty ran so hard he peed himself 01:05Introducing the new Facebook group Smitty's SmitHole Slipper Club 03:30Jon Stewart's "Controversial" appearance on Colbert where he said Covid 19 started in a lab in Wuhan. 06:30Some guy said he was swallowed... and spit up by a humpback whale 13:20Smitty is joined by comic book expert Mike Akerley to talk about DC shutting down the Batman going down on Catwoman scene from the upcoming Season 3 of Harley Quinn 16:00Amtrak is offering a rad deal for wanderlust sufferers like Smitty 29:10A lady tried to hire a hitman with 40 monthly installments of $100 32:15The creepy sex doll guy is back 32:35A pizza place in Dayton, OH (Of course it's in Ohio) put cicadas on a pizza. Why? 33:20There will be a Kingpin 2 34:00Some web designer tried to one up Elon Musk in the crazy baby name department 35:15There is an actual petition that wants Jeff Bezos to buy... and eat... the Mona Lisa 36:10Dig the podcast? Become a subscriber. Be a part of the community and join the Facebook group Smitty's SmitHole Slipper Club  https://www.facebook.com/groups/we3smiths/Wanna become a Patreon? Click the link https://www.patreon.com/we3smithsWant to support Smitty's Five Year Plan without the Patreon rigamarole? Click the link https://www.gofundme.com/manage/smittys-fiveyear-planDon't know what the Five Year Plan is? Click the link https://youtu.be/KlmIxK1wUToThanks for watching, and thanks for sharing in the journey!Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/Smittydicks)

Fifth Friday - His Promises are SureReading today is:2 Corinthians 1:20There are many promises in the pages of our Bibles... it is up to us to read and understand them.

Text: James 5:13-20There is no more vital topic to the follower of Christ than prayer. There are many things that we value in the church – worship, preaching, fellowship, giving, encouragement, serving, evangelism, missions, etc. – but none of these are spoken of more in the Bible than prayer. Yet, many followers of Christ admit that they are weak in this discipline. So, why is this important, who should we be praying for, and how does God work through prayer? Please listen to this message to be encouraged and challenged to grow in praying for one another in the body of Christ. Sermon Notes Discussion Guide

Yall done got Keyz pissed off with J. Cole slander NO J. Cole slander 02:50Lyrical breakdown 04:57The conversation we should have had along time ago 13:20There's a time & place, let's get back on track 16:30

Publish Date 3-23-20There's a feeling in air... it's like the whole world is being forced to take a pause... slow down... and re-set. In this episode Chip shares some thoughts about how the circumstances we find ourselves in might be an "opportunity" for a family Re-Set or maybe even a personal one too.Resource Links from this episode:Chip's Live Stream LinkDaily Audio BibleEpisode 79 - "Talking to Your Kids About the Corona-virus"​Episode 32 - "Rest, Shabbat, Sabbath, Manuha's

View the Bulletin for Wednesday July 17, 2019Service Time: 7:00 p.m.Bible Study: 7:35 p.m.1 Samuel 1:1-20There was a certain man of Ramathaim-zophim of the hill country of Ephraim whose name was Elkanah the son of Jeroham, son of Elihu, son of Tohu, son of Zuph, an Ephrathite. He had two wives. The name of the one was Hannah, and the name of the other, Peninnah. And Peninnah had children, but Hannah had no children. Now this man used to go up year by year from his city to worship and to sacrifice to the LORD of hosts at Shiloh, where the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were priests of the LORD. On the day when Elkanah sacrificed, he would give portions to Peninnah his wife and to all her sons and daughters. But to Hannah he gave a double portion, because he loved her, though the LORD had closed her womb. And her rival used to provoke her grievously to irritate her, because the LORD had closed her womb. So it went on year by year. As often as she went up to the house of the LORD, she used to provoke her. Therefore Hannah wept and would not eat. And Elkanah, her husband, said to her, “Hannah, why do you weep? And why do you not eat? And why is your heart sad? Am I not more to you than ten sons?” After they had eaten and drunk in Shiloh, Hannah rose. Now Eli the priest was sitting on the seat beside the doorpost of the temple of the LORD. She was deeply distressed and prayed to the LORD and wept bitterly. And she vowed a vow and said, “O LORD of hosts, if you will indeed look on the affliction of your servant and remember me and not forget your servant, but will give to your servant a son, then I will give him to the LORD all the days of his life, and no razor shall touch his head.” As she continued praying before the LORD, Eli observed her mouth. Hannah was speaking in her heart; only her lips moved, and her voice was not heard. Therefore Eli took her to be a drunken woman. And Eli said to her, “How long will you go on being drunk? Put your wine away from you.” But Hannah answered, “No, my lord, I am a woman troubled in spirit. I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but I have been pouring out my soul before the LORD. Do not regard your servant as a worthless woman, for all along I have been speaking out of my great anxiety and vexation.” Then Eli answered, “Go in peace, and the God of Israel grant your petition that you have made to him.” And she said, “Let your servant find favor in your eyes.” Then the woman went her way and ate, and her face was no longer sad. They rose early in the morning and worshiped before the LORD; then they went back to their house at Ramah. And Elkanah knew Hannah his wife, and the LORD remembered her. And in due time Hannah conceived and bore a son, and she called his name Samuel, for she said, “I have asked for him from the LORD.”Galatians 5:1-26 For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. Look: I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law. You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace. For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love. You were running well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth? This persuasion is not from him who calls you. A little leaven leavens the whole lump. I have confidence in the Lord that you will take no other view, and the one who is troubling you will bear the penalty, whoever he is. But if I, brothers, still preach circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case the offense of the cross has been removed. I wish those who unsettle you would emasculate themselves! For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another. But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.

Three months in a row! Like I've always told you, you put your mind to it you can accomplish anything (points for knowing the quote). In this episode we talk about how it's about time that the incomparable Amy Sherman-Palladino finally got the Emmy recognition that she deserves! We also discuss It's Not A Mint and lament all of the amazing stories they were setting up that we'll never get to see. As always you can contact us through Facebook (Stumbling Ballerinas), Twitter (@drunkballet), tumblr (stumblingballerinas), or gmail (stumblingballerinas@gmail.com). If you cannot see the audio controls, your browser does not support the audio element

You guys. It only took a month. We made a plan and stuck to it. We know, we're shocked, too. In this episode we spend a lot of time actually discussing There's Nothing Worse Than A Pantsuit. Something new and different for us. As always you can contact us through Facebook (Stumbling Ballerinas), Twitter (@drunkballet), tumblr (stumblingballerinas), or gmail (stumblingballerinas@gmail.com). If you cannot see the audio controls, your browser does not support the audio element

Listen HEREI am reluctantly putting a link to the FAQ I talked about although I dislike even promoting their site at all:http://www.ahimsamilk.org/faq/This is the photo of the little bull with the ring in their nose on the Facebook page that I talked about: https://www.facebook.com/266909179987461/photos/a.293516217326757.79424.266909179987461/883563834988656/?type=1Here is the article about nose ringing a bull I mentioned:http://www.lifestyleblock.co.nz/lifestyle-file/livestock-a-pets/cattle/item/21-nose-ringing-a-bull-.htmlHere is the article about artificial weaning of cows I mentioned:http://www.awionline.org/lab_animals/biblio/jaaws7.htmlThanks for listening

Having lived the corporate lifestyle by working twelve hour days for more than six years, Tanya Aliza was starting to see that her “dream job” wasn't in fact so dreamy. Escaping the office for a few weeks she was able to gain some much needed mental clarity on what she truly desired in life. Tanya started to seek out an opportunity that would help her to build financial freedom without sacrificing all of her other freedoms and soon found herself in the multi-level marketing industry. Having built great success and attained the lifestyle of freedom she desired years ago Tanya now share her knowledge and supports others in doing the same. Takeaways: “We have to fail our way to success.” – Tweet This “You miss 100% of the shots you don't take.” – Tweet This “Diversify your leadership and expand your knowledge.” – Tweet This “People often get caught up on the ‘how to' and never get moving.” – Tweet This “The only permanent form of failure is the moment you choose to quit.” – Tweet This “You have to believe in the MLM industry before it will begin to pay you.” – Tweet This “When we're young we don't think about tomorrow, we just think about today.” – Tweet This “You can always make more money, but time once spent can never be regained.” – Tweet This “The multi-level marketing industry is about making friends and building relationships.” – Tweet This “You have to find something that puts pressure on you or you might remain complacent.” – Tweet This “People will tend to put so much effort into someone else's dream and none into their own.” – Tweet This “Freedom isn't a destination it's a journey meant to be enjoyed and appreciated as traveled.” – Tweet This “You get what you give. There is no equation of you getting anything if you don't give anything.” – Tweet This “Celebrate your failures. Each one means you're that much closer to your destination of success.” – Tweet This   Full Post: http://goo.gl/siBSyp Catalyst Community: http://www.catalystmlm.com More Interviews: http://catalystmlm.com/category/interviews Connect on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/catalystmlm Connect on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/catalystmlm Connect on Instagram: http://instagram.com/catalystmlm Connect on Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/catalystmlm

From the moment that he started, Nicholas Caswell knew why he was beginning the journey of building a multi-level marketing business. His focus was unwavering as his definition for success meant having the funds to provide necessary medical care to his family. It was his commitment to be the best husband and father that kept him going far past when others would have given up. After more than two years of focused effort, Nicholas facilitated the largest commercial sale in his company's history and his dreams had been realized. He shares both his story and his step-by-step process as he illustrates that it is never not easy, but it is always worth it. Takeaways: “Stand on the shoulders of giants.” – Tweet This “It's not about sales, it's about building relationships.” – Tweet This “In order to FOCUS, your need to know WHY your are focusing.” – Tweet This “The hardest part is often believing that what you're doing it right.” – Tweet This “Anything you need to learn in MLM will apply to every other facet of your life.” – Tweet This “Find your reason why success comes a lot easier because you're doing it for a reason.” – Tweet This “Every time something happens, remember you have a reason and let that make you stronger.” – Tweet This “The reason for not being in the business is the reason they need to be in the business.” – Tweet This “The easiest way to kill a relationship is to not call them back. There's fortune in the follow-up.” – Tweet This   Full Post: http://goo.gl/i8ZlPF Catalyst Community: http://www.catalystmlm.com More Interviews: http://catalystmlm.com/category/interviews Connect on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/catalystmlm Connect on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/catalystmlm Connect on Instagram: http://instagram.com/catalystmlm Connect on Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/catalystmlm  

A chance encounter with the tallest Oscar-winning actor. https://ia601501.us.archive.org/9/items/PM018ThereAreSomeWhoCallHim...Tim/PM%20018%20There%20are%20some%20who%20call%20him...Tim.m4a

Like a phoenix rising from the ashes (of American flags, OH clever Wilco reference), the Media Moguls have returned with episode 8. Long episode with lots of words this time around, but a three month absence will do that to you. In this episode, the Moguls discuss what they did during their hiatus, current (sort of) events, and the virus known as Major League Gaming. Other topics brought up at one point or another: Hulk Hogan's sex tape, butt-chugging, and how Pokemon promotes animal cruelty. Song of the day: "Skull Cakin'" by PomegranatesListen here

It's been way flippin' long since Sufjan Stevens breached public ears with new music, but alas, the wait is over. Recorded at a show in Ithaca, New York Sufjan debuted three new compositions, all, in my opinion, of hyper epic standard. Below you can watch the videos of Mr. Stevens performing them live, along with links to the downloadable MP3s of each song. Enjoy at your leisure.Sufjan Stevens - "There's Too Much Love" (Live) MP3Sufjan Stevens - "Age Of Adz" (Live) MP3Sufjan Stevens - "Impossible Souls" (Live) MP3

Part 2 of Words that put heart in them!  Email response show. Is my negativity toward 12 step and religion hurting people? From The Bible, Luke 3 The message version. Luke 3:16-17 (The Message) But John intervened: "I'm baptizing you here in the river. The main character in this drama, to whom I'm a mere stagehand, will ignite the kingdom life, a fire, the Holy Spirit within you, changing you from the inside out. He's going to clean house—make a clean sweep of your lives. He'll place everything true in its proper place before God; everything false he'll put out with the trash to be burned."  18-20There was a lot more of this—words that gave strength to the people, words that put heart in them. The Message! But Herod, the ruler, stung by John's rebuke in the matter of Herodias, his brother Philip's wife, capped his long string of evil deeds with this outrage: He put John in jail.

Part 2 of Words that put heart in them!  Email response show. Is my negativity toward 12 step and religion hurting people? From The Bible, Luke 3 The message version. Luke 3:16-17 (The Message) But John intervened: "I'm baptizing you here in the river. The main character in this drama, to whom I'm a mere stagehand, will ignite the kingdom life, a fire, the Holy Spirit within you, changing you from the inside out. He's going to clean house—make a clean sweep of your lives. He'll place everything true in its proper place before God; everything false he'll put out with the trash to be burned."  18-20There was a lot more of this—words that gave strength to the people, words that put heart in them. The Message! But Herod, the ruler, stung by John's rebuke in the matter of Herodias, his brother Philip's wife, capped his long string of evil deeds with this outrage: He put John in jail.

Welcome to episode 20There is not much I can say about this episode,I just listened and I can make no sense of it.Basil Info...Building manure powered rocket.Vegetarian.Girlfriend Rita will leave me any minute.Explorer.NOT a bottler.Contact details...Email  basilbottler@aol.comTel  07928464307 please leave a message.www.myspace.com/basilbottlerbasil is a self taught psychic breast reader - conditions apply.