Podcasts about 22so

Bring Your Doubts To God, That's Only When You'll Get Them Resolved Luke 7:21-22 21At that very time Jesus cured many who had diseases, sicknesses and evil spirits, and gave sight to many who were blind. 22So he replied to the messengers, “Go back and report to John what you have seen and heard: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy a are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor.

In this episode, Coach Jo and Coach Kim discuss the importance of macros (aka macronutrients) and how they affect our overall health. They start by giving listeners a basic overview of the three types of macros: protein, carbs, and fat and the vital role each plays in our body, including breaking down popular myths and misunderstandings about each macro. Then, Coach Jo and Kim get into the exciting facts about how macros communicate with our bodies, brains, and hormones—everything you didn't know about macros but will be so happy you learned! Coaches Jo and Kim go beyond the simple facts of how macros affect the body and dig into the science of how each macro affects our body, how we process the energy and how we overcompensate for an imbalance of each of the three. This episode is a must-listen for anyone curious about their food choices to achieve optimal body and brain health while avoiding extreme diets and false information about food. --Contact Joely Churchill and Kim Berube | Iron Lab: Website: IronLabLacombe.comInstagram: Iron.Lab.LacombeFacebook: IronLabLacombeCoach Jo Instagram: @CoachJoChurchCoach Kim Instagram: @CoachKimBerubeCourse: Metabolic Blueprint--Transcript:Coach Jo 00:09Welcome to Perfectly Unfinished Conversations, the Iron Lab podcast with Coach Jo… Coach Kim 00:14…and Coach Kim… Coach Jo 00:15Where you ride shotgun with us as we have raw, real, unfiltered, and unfinished conversations about trying to eat, sleep, train, and live with some integrity in a messy, imperfect life. Coach Kim 00:27We're all about creating a strong support system, taking radical personal responsibility, having fun, and being authentic. And one of the most common themes you're going to find in this podcast is the idea that we create positive momentum in our life, by doing what we call b-minus work. Coach Jo 00:45We're making gains and getting ahead and loving life without self-sabotaging our goals by striving for perfection. We get it done by moving ahead… Coach Kim 00:55…before we're ready… Coach Jo 00:56…when we aren't feeling like it…  Coach Kim 00:58…and without hesitation. Coach Jo 01:00Be sure to subscribe now on Apple or Spotify, so you don't miss a single episode. It's good enough. Let's go.Coach Jo 01:11 Welcome back. This is episode seven, and we are talking about everything you didn't know about macros, what food is telling your body what to do, or food as a set of instructions to your body. All macronutrients, there's three of them, they are protein, fats and carbohydrates. There are micronutrients as well, available in your food. You know, examples such as iron, zinc or copper, but we're going to focus on those three today. Coach Kim 01:46Right, so everything that we eat is made up of protein, fats and carbs, either there is like straight up protein, which isn't available in a lot of foods, things like shrimp, tuna, a lean cut of beef is up, venison, moose, really high in protein, very little to no fat, definitely no carbs, unless you're mixing your meat with something, you know, like a sauce or something like that. So that's straight up protein. Some things are straight up fats, like olive oil or coconut oil or butter. And then some things are straight up carbohydrates, like oats, instant oatmeal, blueberries, oranges or gummy candies, honey, pop. But in order to, you know, obtain good body composition, you got to have all three in your diet. Skipping one macro might work for a short period of time, but it's really not ideal for the long term. Coach Jo 02:48Yeah, for sure. Let's talk about how to decipher what's in each macronutrient. So for every gram of carbohydrate that you consume, there are four calories energy sources per that one gram. So if you're having, say, a banana, you know, 30 grams, you would multiply that by four, and that would give you your caloric intake of just that carbohydrate. Now when we break down protein, it's the exact same as carbohydrates. It is four calories per that single one gram that you get. Now, the difference, and they're very dense when it comes to energy dense, is fats. Fats are higher. They're almost one like and a half times higher, nine calories you get per one gram of fat. Also something to consider is alcohol. And this is on the same scale when it comes to energy, because when we grab an alcoholic beverage and it says, Oh, hey, it's 100 calories only, well that might be just what it is made of, but it's not the alcohol content. I don't know why they don't put this on the label. It would be really important to, but you get seven calories per one gram of alcohol. Like I said, it's not included on your label. This is extra. So everything between these four that we just talked about, they're broke down into different categories of energy that you get from each gram. Coach Kim 04:22So let's start with protein, because, you know, Jo and I, we love to talk about the importance of protein. It is so important for our health, and it has several benefits that you might not know about or think about. First of all, protein has a higher thermic effect, which means that it can boost your metabolism and help you burn more calories. In regards to instructions for the body, its job is to build and repair tissues, make enzymes and hormones, and it supports our immune system. We tend to hope that you know that. Good sources of protein include animal proteins like chicken and beef, fish eggs, whey protein supplements, or even plain Greek yogurt or cottage cheese. Out of the 21 amino acids that our body requires and uses for optimal health, nine amino acids are essential, meaning we have to get them from our food, because our bodies cannot make them. Simply put, if you're not eating enough protein, you're not getting these essential amino acids, which are crucial for repair and growth. And when I'm talking about repair and growth, we're always talking about not just muscles, we're talking about bones, tendon, skin, hair, eyelashes, taste buds, like all of it. Everything that makes up you is made up of protein. So let's clear up a common myth. Some people believe that eating too much protein can damage your kidneys. And I think this myth started because people with kidney disease are advised to limit their protein as their kidneys struggle to filter out protein waste. But if you're healthy and active, your kidneys are fully capable of handling protein intake. Your blood pumps properly. If you're active and moving and your kidneys will as well. They're part of your detoxification. Detoxification pathway, studies show that there's really no link significantly between high protein consumption and kidney damage in people with healthy kidneys. So remember, protein is not just essential from your metabolism and muscle repair, but overall health. Please don't be afraid to ...

Join Tim Sweet in an enlightening conversation with Peter Root, co-founder of Wildfire Robotics. They delve into the intersection of technology and wildfire management, emphasizing how a relationship-based approach can revolutionize traditional methods. Peter shares his journey from oil and gas drilling to creating a groundbreaking robotic snake designed to combat wildfires. This episode highlights the critical role of leadership in fostering innovation and building strong relationships with both technology and the environment.Peter Root discusses the importance of understanding and adapting to the changing nature of wildfires, influenced by climate change and human expansion. He explains how Wildfire Robotics' innovative technology offers a proactive and strategic solution to wildfire management. This episode offers leaders ways to cultivate valuable relationships and how to take your own adventure into real life. About Peter RootPeter Root is the co-founder of Wildfire Robotics, a company dedicated to innovating wildfire management through advanced robotics. An engineer by training, Peter moved to Alberta in 2013 and has since developed a passion for creating technologies that can significantly impact communities affected by wildfires. His work combines his love for the outdoors with his expertise in robotics, aiming to provide safer and more efficient fire management solutions.Resources discussed in this episode:Startup TNTFirewall Robotic Snake--Contact Tim Sweet | Team Work Excellence: WebsiteLinkedIn: Tim SweetInstagramLinkedin: Team Work ExcellenceContact Peter Root | Wildfire Robotics: Website: wildfirerobotics.comLinkedin: Peter Root--Transcript:Peter 00:01You got to get to something of value as fast as you can. And so we did that, I think by design, which was actually very fulfilling as well, you know, as a sometimes impatient engineer, I love that we could get feedback on what we're building so quickly. Tim 00:18I'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, are a leader, and this show is all about and all for you. I'm Tim Sweet, welcome to the Sweet on Leadership podcast. This is episode 38.Tim 00:49Hi, everybody, I hope you're having a great week. Joining me today is Peter Root. I am really excited to welcome Peter to the show today, Peter and I met a while back when he was part of Startup TNT here in Calgary. He's an all-around, pretty exciting guy with an exciting technology that he's bringing into the world. And I'm just so glad that he can come on the show today. And we can chew around some leadership ideas in the context of his experience and what he's going through right now. So, thank you very much for joining me, Peter. Peter 01:21Thank you very much for having me. Tim 01:22So, for the benefit of everybody that's listening, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and Wildfire Robotics?  Peter 01:29Sure. So, I'm an engineer by training and I moved to Alberta in 2013. And I grew up on Vancouver Island. So, I have a passion for being outdoors, you know, those two places are, are quite good Mecca is for exploring the outdoors. And I didn't have a firm relationship with wildfires until about 2016. And I think a lot of people in Alberta, that was a pivotal year. And I had two friends who live there and they got the call to evacuate. And they had to leave within 15 minutes. And through before that time, I built sort of technologies in oil and gas drilling and a bunch of different areas and really grew passionate about building robotics, things that you can control to do novel things and to automate tasks or mechanized tasks that led me into this wildfire world. So, it really hits a lot of key passions of mine, which are being outdoors, robotics, and something that can give back to communities, you know, especially communities that have been affected by wildfires in the past. Tim 02:24So this would have been Fort Mac, back in the day, Fort McMurray. Massive fire in an entire city, for those of you that aren't aware. Northern Alberta was evacuated, there was a fair amount of destruction. And we realized just how hard it was to react in certain environments. And this is only increasing as we're seeing the effects of climate change and warming. And we seem to be on a trend right now. So, this is, you know, this is something that's in the news last year, it's going to be in the news this year, we're there. But I can imagine seeing your friends having to evacuate and seeing the human toll that made this foray into a brand new innovative technology possible for you. Tell us a little bit about the innovation that you brought, and how you would sort of conceptualize that? Peter 03:16Before I go there trying to do a startup is no easy task. And so you want to make sure that you're doing something that you care about. And something that has an impact. Doing something in wildfire is very meaningful, and can provide a lot of feedback in good and bad ways when you do it. So, it's a good place to be. So, the innovation actually comes from my co-founder and partner. His name is Allan Richardson. He was actually my boss before we joined together doing this. And he's innovated a lot in his career in different areas, but primarily in oil and gas drilling, which is directional drilling. So, you're trying to punch something through the earth and steer it where you need to go. And then you're distributing fluids or communication signals along the length of it to do various things. And if you can take that concept of putting together long, skinny things and going kilometres into the earth, just thinking about doing that on land. And instead of oil and gas things, you're moving water or retardant. And instead of fracking for fluids, you're spraying water strategically. So, you can stop the advance of a fire or you can mop up a fire or you can monitor the perimeter of a fire so that if things flare up again, you can address it. And the way that we get that thing that long conduit there is through a robotic so, we have a really long robotic snake and it can go long distances over rough terrain. And that can be you know, a kilometer, two kilometers, 10 kilometers. And then we can remotely control the distribution of water anywhere along its length. And so that's where the innovation came from. Really it was taking something that worked well in oil and gas drilling, said hey, can we leverage all of the knowledge and skills that we've accumulated and can we put it into something else and apply that something different? And it's a great place to start because you know certain elements of technology that will certainly work because you've seen it work before. But then you have new challenges, you know, especially the terrain that you're going through is quite challenging in a lot of these fire prone areas. Tim 05:07What we'll do is we'll put up a link to your site so that people can visit and take a look at exactly what this large robotic snake looks like, as it's crawling between trees and dragging hose behind it and these kinds of things. It is phenomenal. It's really, really interesting. And you and I talked a lot about first principles and the importance of those. And I'm hearing that now as you're going through sort of dissecting, well what hasn't been applied in a in a fire context, in a sense, right now. Can you tell us a little bit about how that thinking from yourself or from Allan was adopted as you seek to both develop this thing, but also then share it story and explain to people why it's different and how it overcomes some constraints that we've accepted for years?  Peter 05:59Yeah, I want to back up to and talk about fire a little bit before I talk about that first principle. I think it's important. And you mentioned it a little bit after I mentioned Fort McMurray. But it does seem, you know, I think the general person can sort of observe that these fires have gone from something that I didn't know much about, to something that I hear about and smell and feel the effects of every year, or I know someone who was evacuated. And it seems like it was about 10 years ago, where that switch was flipped. It really changed everyone's perception. So, people started looking at it. And so did Allan and I. We really looked at, well, why are these fires happening the way they are now and what's different than before. And there's really three main factors. So, one of the factors is that we have over-suppressed fires, we have been so good at putting them out for about 100 years that we've exacerbated fuel accumulation, instead of letting fires do their natural and inevitable thing where they go and they are low-intensity fires, they burn just along the forest floor, but not the actual big trees, they reduced fuel loads, they actually, they actually provide some ecological benefit to certain types of species that has been curtailed by our efforts. The second thing is there are more things we care about where fires burnt, we have humans have expanded on the landscape at an enormous pace. Where do we want to live, we want to live in the forest we want to live where there's a nice view, we want to live in the mountains and those are all places that are fire-prone and need fire. And so now there are more things to protect when fires burn. So, if a fire does get out, there's a higher likelihood that it will interact with something we care about. And then the third thing is related to a shift into drier and hotter summers. There's about a three to six-week increase in the total length for fires to burn. And a big factor of that is that there's less water moisture in the air during the summer, you just increase the likelihood of a high fire weather severity. So, dry, high winds, those two things together, and then ignition events, both human-caused and natural. This just all leads to a fire environment, which is much more severe and unpredictable than before. And so then, unfortunately, it's only typically when you have approaching a crisis that people start to think outside the box and start to look for other areas where they may be able to improve what they're doing. So, if you're if you're doing a really good job at wildland firefighting for a long time, you may not think that you need to change. And certainly, I think that was the case for a long time, it was very well managed. But there's a collective opinion that we need to put more fire back in the landscape, not less. So, more low-intensity fire, more prescribed burns, more cultural burning and it is indeed true. There's a lot of studies supporting this. And so part of the paradigm shift for us that we're trying to both educate ourselves on but also educate is that we want to provide a very reliable separation means for fire containment, both for wildfires, manage fires, which are wildfires that are then allowed to go where they can, and prescribed fires and do that in a way that doesn't have much personnel overhead is low risk, has high reliability, and doesn't have a huge impact on the ecosystem. Because bulldozers certainly do you're clearing large swaths of land to remove fuel. And so we had to educate ourselves a lot about wildfire. But now it's like, hey, we have this new tool that can do a bunch of new things. And I think the trick for us was really just finding people who believed in us and what we were doing, and then working with them on the fire, to actually learn and develop and really get to a really strong solution. Tim 09:34What's really interesting about what you've just said there is this isn't just about reacting to the way things have always been. Your role in this or what you're becoming part of is a brand new approach to how we think about fire generally. So, what's really interesting is that the technology is not just about prevention, it's actually about helping us better manage the entire resource and what we're doing and that confluence between, you know, increased fuel load, drier conditions, and then our proximity to all of these things requires that we try a different approach, overall, not just in this one aspect of things. And so that different approach is going to require more nuance, more options, more flexibility, these kinds of things. And that's really what it sounds like you are beginning to provide. When I go back to that previous thought, when you think about entering this new era of relationship with fire, what then do you find is the most challenging aspect? Peter 10:45I really liked that you said relationship with fire because that's what it needs to be. It can't be fight the fire, it needs to be a relationship with a fire. So, good on you, and that's a great message for everyone thinking about fire generally, is it's going to be a relationship. And, you know, perhaps that's the word too, for us. It's the relationships that we are building and working on, that will allow us to be part of the solution. Because I firmly believe that there's no sort of Immaculate Conception of technology. You have an idea you might be on your way there. It's when you find someone who has expertise in that domain, and then they get interested, then you work together to go deploy it, you know, our objective is to deploy as many miles as possible, in as many different terrain conditions as possible, with as many different vegetations as possible, as many him fire behaviours as possible. Because only through all of that, well, we learned enough to be really good. And we are only allowed to do that once we build relationships with the people who do that for their livelihood. And the one other comment I had to this is that one of the challenges with fire, especially if you're doing a piece of equipment or method that has safety implications, as in this thing needs to be reliable to protect people's lives, which it does, your barrier to entry to try to go out and learn is a lot higher. And I think we've gotten over the hump with some key people and some key areas. But we would love to do that in more areas. Tim 12:15Right, so, have the chance to get out and prove the technology because people are going to be putting their trust in this thing, in a sense. If you look at a fire hydrant on the corner of your block, you know what that's there for. If you look at a smoke detector, you know what that's there for people have a relationship with these things. Albeit crisis-based, right? So, it seems to me that there's a couple of different facets then that you're having to enter on. One is augmenting people's, as we say, relationship with fire or their conceptualization of that, but it's not just reactionary, this needs to change. So, then they see the reason why this new technology has a place. And then the second thing is to get out there and actually see it, or see the difference it's making and see that that technology is learning and evolving as it will because it's brand new so that then they can see the obvious application for it in their own minds, and say, Okay, now this makes sense. I understand why we would use something like this, I understand why we may use it as part of a controlled burn program or something along those lines. And I know what it does for me, I know why it's there. I know what I'm getting from it. I get enamored by the technology itself, and just how many rules it breaks. In a sense, you know what I mean? Like, well, literally, you know, you think about what a firefighting response or a fire control response looks like right now we think about big trucks, we think about planes dropping water, or people rappelling out of helicopters, and using shovels and doing all these kinds of things. And this is a completely different animal in a way, it's a totally different idea around an approach. And when we have those brand new ideas, getting people to open the door is challenging. So, when you look ahead from that perspective, you had mentioned that you've got some good key relationships in place and those are happening. Managing a company or yourself and your partner Allan going forward. The experience of having to bring that to market, tell us a little bit about your actual experience like how has that changed you? What has it changed in the way that you approach people or problems or say from your your oil and gas days? What's been the net learning? Peter 14:42I think then if I can sum it up in a sentence, then I'll expand on it is sort of ruthlessly pursuing the thing of value. So, that means finding the thing of value and then making the thing of value. And my example of that is we picked up a prototype size for a first version and everyone has to do this, say, well how, you know, how capable is this thing going to be. And I do think we made the right decision. But we made it pretty small, pretty low capacity. But what that allowed us to do was we could design things and manufacture them and by manufacture, I mean, we built them within days, or fractions of days or weeks, not months, or years. And when you're building hardware, that's really critical. So, there were circumstances where we had designed something up, and we were looking at all the components that we need to do that. And one of the things took a week and we said, no, we're going to redesign so it takes a day to get here. And that was cool because that has shortcutted learnings probably by an order of magnitude. And I don't think we would have actually had a prototype that was compelling enough if we hadn't designed it in that way, like designed by lead time. At least right now. I think there's points in the future where then you can shift that to a bit more optimization, but there's no point optimizing too much right now. When you're running a startup, you have a runway. You have a limited time to get from this point in time, we just said, Yeah, I'm going to do this thing, to where you have a line of sight on either funding or revenue. We've talked about it before, about hardware being a little bit of a different animal than software, because for whatever reason, people tend to need to see the hardware working to believe it. And I think there's a lot of faith in software right now that it can do these amazing things, which you can. I mean, AI has been pretty wonderful to work with, for some things for a lot of people. And it looks like magic, really. But it seems like there's disbelief in hardware until you actually have it. So, you have to hedge your bets a little bit, go out there with something you believe in and then try to massage from there. And so that's, that's a little bit harder. And so for me that the biggest learning difference from an oil and gas environmental, though there are similar things there. But it was just, you know, you got to get to something of value as fast as you can. And so we did that, I think by design, which was actually very fulfilling as well, you know, as a sometimes impatient engineer, I love that we could get feedback on what we're building so quickly. Tim 17:10I mean, I think we are at this really interesting intersect right now of people's tolerance for risk, it actually being fairly low, and people's patience, and that also being fairly low. And we talk about collectively as a society that people's attention spans are limited. But what I'm hearing and what I see is that, you know, back in the day before we had AI, and we had a lot of virtual products and things that would exist on your phone, but you could install an app, and you could uninstall it as quickly as you would otherwise. And there's very few things that we are on this huge adoption curve, but many of them are not going to impact us in some major way. And so you know, it looks good on paper is fine, unless, it's the difference between your house burning down and not. And so I remember years ago working with some leaders from General Dynamics who were in a defence contract, and they were developing a walkie-talkie, like, this is old technology, it took them years to bring it over. But I remember talking to them about the design specs for this handheld radio that troops would be using. And one of them said, it all looks good on paper but can the thing drive a tense spike into the ground? I said, that's interesting. Tell me about that. He says, Well, we have to plan for as many contingencies as we can and we have to also understand that if it's in somebody's hand, and it can be used as a device to hammer in a tent spike, we have to make sure that it's not going to fall apart. Is it going to pass a field test because that's what's going to determine whether or not the troops will actually accept this thing and whether or not it will be reliable or not. I did a lot of military history in my early days, and there was a lot of lessons that come out of when privateers are promising big things from implements of war. I remember one was called the McCallum shovel and it was this Canadian design where the designer of this trench shovel had the brilliant idea of it being a doubling as a piece of armour that they could pick up over the edge of the trenches with. And so he put a hole with a door right in the middle of the shovel. The thing wasn't thick enough to stop a bullet. So, it wasn't good as a piece of armor and it was a shovel with a big hole in it. So, it didn't do a great job of digging either. And, you know, it's again, one of those things. It's like looks good on paper. But you don't want to be the guinea pig, trialing it you want to see it work. And so that practical application that going and seeing how this thing responds to the world and how people develop a relationship with it is really important. The other thing that I thought was really profound about what you said was that there's no point optimizing right now. We're taking this piece at a time, you're taking a modular approach, we call this theory of constraints all the time, you know, exploit the thing that is the bottleneck or the thing that's holding you back. And I'm reminded of an expert that I talked to around the formation of habits. And he said, you know, when we're trying to get a person to adopt a new lifestyle/principle of going to the gym, you don't judge the person on whether or not they went to the gym and had an optimized workout, first. You first lay in, can they get up in the morning, even if they drive to the gym, turn around and go home, that's better than if they didn't go at all. Because we have to first work at being less than optimal. You have to develop the habit before you get good at it. So, go in and risk it being you know, the technology is a little bit different, but focus on what matters first, and then work in the optimization. Because if you go for perfect, originally, what do they say, it's always that perfection is the is the enemy of progress, right? We want to focus on getting it done in a virtual space. So, I think those are two really important things, right is that, as you say, get off paper, get out of the virtual world, and then go where the work is done or go see it work. Build that relationship while in development, but then also a relationship with the people observing it. And then focus on what you need to. On that virtual point, though, let me ask you that. When you are out looking for funding, or in the context you and I met, you were up against software, right? Do you see that? That people's relationships with an innovative, durable object versus software is very different? Do you see that the, be it investors or potential customers, have a different kind of relationship with it? Or am I imagining that? Peter 21:58No, you're spot on. Very different relationships from most people I meet actually between the two. And I think, especially so because what we're building is more akin to almost military hardware, then sort of other types of hardware that are built like drone-based things, or Agtech or something like that, because they have this sort of human life aspect of it. So, it adds another layer of complexity and difficulty to the hardware equation. But certainly, you know, I'll admit there's more overhead for making a piece of hardware than there is a piece of software. I do believe there's more upkeep on some software because you have to constantly be, you know, making sure it integrates with all the new implementations of all sorts of different codes, that's made its way to hardware now too, because you're constantly updating software, look at modern EVs, or modern cars, they have updates over the air. So, you're constantly updating and keeping alive that piece of software. But I think though, what hardware offers which software doesn't, which investors do understand, but they want to see you a little bit further along until they sort of recognize this as something to celebrate. But the protective moat is much larger, the barrier to entry to build a wildfire-fighting robot is very high. Because not only do you need to know a bit about fire and a lot about robotics, you have to have the connections and someone that believes in you to actually get out there on the fire and learn the right things. That is no small thing to go do. But if you do it and you do it successfully, then you have built very durable relationships in that space that then lend themselves to a very durable business. So, I think you have to be a bit more patient with hardware. But know that I think that the potential benefit of that thing can bring, and the sustainable business that I can create are quite compelling. Tim 23:51We talked about innovation, and I'm starting to see this business that you're involved in, in the technology, you're trying to bring in a very different lens, just through the course of this conversation. You know, when we think about, when we think about a lot of software, or you know, the adoption of marketplaces or new ways that we're going to interact with our phone or manage our phonebook or whatever, you know, whatever. Like, these things are all faster pencils, in many ways. They're things we already do and it's convenience. You're involved, if we strip everything else away, you're involved in creating something that in 100 years could be as ubiquitous in a forest as a firefighting plane or a pump truck or shovel. Like we're talking about something that would be part of the landscape in the way that the automobile became part of the landscape. Right? Sure there's been lots of innovations, but there was the first automobile that people were like horseless carriage, what the hell, right? Like this is something that A. again, I'm a practical guy. I think practically this thing makes all sorts of sense. And so it's like, why didn't this exist before? So, that's like one of the things on my, you know, get good at making it. But why wouldn't you do this? Right? If you can have a Roomba, you can certainly have a self-directed hose that's gonna put itself somewhere. I mean, hey, you know, you could even have small-scale stuff that waters lawns, I don't know. But why wouldn't you do this? Because it just seems so logical when you're talking about firebreaks. They're big, and they're long. And well, great. Let's do this. And so that creating something, though, that's that profound. And as you say, you're taking a huge chunk, you got to know a lot about fires, and you got to know a lot about robotics, and you've got to have the relationships in place to do it. And you're disrupting, in a great way, how people think about this other option that makes a ton of sense. But man, what a lift, like it's not. It's not like it's not like say, hey, you know, you want a better way to whip eggs. It's not, it is a huge lift. And I think it's a great lift. You know, talk about gumption man. So, I mean, I hope for the people listening that they can get a sense of, and I can't wait till all of you listening, get a chance to see this thing, videos and whatnot, because it is cool. Let's talk a little bit then as we sort of head towards our wrap-up here. If you were to think of the well, so I mean, one of the takeaways is that relationships here are key, right? Getting into the right spaces, and then not just opening up business but opening minds is such a huge piece here. So, first of all, what would something that wildfire robotics is, is on the cusp of right now that you'd like people to be aware of? Or how would you like them to spread the word? What's something that you would like people to shout from the rooftops? Peter 27:01Well, we're about to do a bunch of work with Alberta wildfire. And this means taking our team and our alpha prototype, and eventually our next version out to real fires, and interacting with them and the people there in a real way. And that, to me, is the most exciting part of running the business. This is where I wanted to be like, you know, three years ago, but I'm finally here. And this is where I think the relationships get solidified. You know, we've built the beginning up, but this is where we show them that, hey, we can come, we'll bring our thing, and then we'll improve it next time we're out here. And we're going to do that until it's something of such extreme value that you'll never kick us off again like that's where we want to get to. And we're at the beginning stages of this. And we're also in an environment now where it's really fun. Like, there's nothing more fun to me, than going out to a wild area with a bunch of hardworking people who have been containing and interacting with a wildfire, which is such an extreme event and such an admirable profession, to be around those people and then to be able to bring them something new, and work collectively to build it. What's more fun than that? So, I'm really excited about that portion of it. And you know, we are still looking for people to help out on this. So you know, if this is something of interest, like, come talk to me, there's lots of fun things to do in wildfire.  Tim 28:18I think what I want us to follow up on but when you say that, I would say you've got a story developing here, you've got a hero's quest developing here. This is an adventure that you're on, you're going to have several destinations, all of these different things that are happening. And if people want to follow along with your story, where's the best place to do that right now? And would that be something that you'd be interested in people getting more in touch with? Peter 28:47Yeah, and so I don't think I've done a good enough job at that yet. But with these trials, I will be sharing information, right now I do that on LinkedIn, through myself. I don't do that through our company, webpage there. But maybe I'll look to other means to share this because it is something that I think a lot of people care about. Tim 29:07I think so many people are going to care about this. And so, Peter, I think as we move forward when that story starts to flesh out, and I want to have you back, I want us to talk about that. About getting people into your story, get them following along and all of those things because it is that relationship that we need to think about. We'll put your deets down in the in the show notes. So they can reach out to you on LinkedIn. If they're just listening today. What's your handle on LinkedIn? Peter 29:36It's something complicated but look up  Peter Root Wildfire Robotics. Tim 29:39They'll find it alright. We'll have all these in the show notes. If I was to ask you what's one wish that you have for the people listening today? What would it be? Peter 29:48Take your own journey. It's a lot of fun, very humbling. You learn a lot. It's sobering in all the right ways. So yeah, take your own adventure. Tim 29:58Awesome. Take your own adventure and do it in real life. Peter 30:01Yeah. Do it in real life. Tim 30:02Yeah, no kidding. Right on. Alright, little tradition here that we do at the end of every show. One is I'm going to ask you a question that comes from our previous guests. In this case, it was Jeff, he was asking, and this is directed at you, and then we can talk a little bit about how a person arrives there. But what do you want your leadership legacy to be? When you think, far off into the future? People are thinking about you and what you accomplished, and how you did it. What do you want people to be saying? Peter 30:31Sustainable leadership, just in the sense that you got to be making a whole bunch of decisions on things that you may not have any experience with. And that's very taxing. And then you also you're innovating, you're coming up with new things. And there's an expectation, I think that generally, you do that at the cadence of sort of pure output work, like just something that you need to be at 100% all the time. And that's really not realistic. If you really think about your best innovations or your best work in life, it's ebb and flow, there's periods of high productivity, followed by recovery. And I think I want to make the people who have worked with me, and will work with me in the future to know that that's what I believe in, so that they can lead a more fulfilling life, because I think if we just grind all the time, we grind ourselves down. And so I think there's more productivity to be seen, if you accept this natural flow of high productivity and rest periods, while still working. But just just know that, like, you know, there's gonna be super intense periods, and we all got to be on but if we were on for the past year, Full Tilt, we won't be ready for that period. And I want to make sure that my teams know that and that other people take on the same thing. Tim 31:46I love that I can't wait to introduce you to the work of Richard Young, he's been on the show a couple of times, he works with Olympic athletes, and works with sustainable high performance, something that I've brought into my practice. But you know, one of the metaphors for that is training, like you would for a marathon. You're going to perform, you're gonna have these periods of performance where you're delivering. But then as you say, there's this recuperation. And then there's this conditioning and training and practice and learning new things and honing your craft. And then there's a period of performance where you deliver, and then getting comfortable with that cyclic nature of things. Right. Awesome. Love that. Peter, what would be a question you would have for the next guest? Keep in mind that this can be any type of person that we bring on who we feel has unique and sometimes eclectic leadership. Peter 32:39Well, you know, I think because the topic of our chat here has been really, a lot of it's been about relationships, I would ask them, how do they build trust in their business, both with the people who work for them, and their customers and their investors? Tim 32:55Awesome. I think that that is something that a lot of people would be very interested in answering. I will make sure that I pose that question to the next guest. And I'll put together some resources that I have that I think might be helpful for the people that are on that same quest. Peter Root, Wildfire Robotics, man, this one was a scorcher. It was fun. You are, you know, a lot of flame, not a lot of smoke. A lot of good stuff here. I really appreciate it and I hope you had fun. Peter 33:28I did. Likewise. Thank you very much. Tim 33:29All right, can't wait to have you back.  Tim 33:31Thank 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 a positive rating and review on Apple Podcasts. This helps us spread the word to other committed leaders. And you can spread the word too, 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.

July 23, 2024 Today's Reading: Ephesians 2:11-22Daily Lectionary: 1 Samuel 6:19-7:17; Acts 19:23-21:14; Acts 19:1-22So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. (Ephesians 2:19-21)In the Name + of Jesus. Amen. This is going to be a dangerous rhetorical question…Have you ever felt like you didn't fit in? Just so that question doesn't hang out there in the void, I'll answer: YES! YES! A thousand times, yes! There were times when I tried doing the popular things, and sometimes it worked, other times it didn't. There were times when I didn't do the popular thing, opting for what I knew to be the right thing, and that didn't make many friends, either. In our reading today, we're reminded of a distinction that existed in the first century that we don't really experience today: Jewish vs. Gentile Christians. There are, unfortunately, divisions among Christians today, but it's hard to imagine the kind of animosity that existed among those who had the promises, the covenant, the lineage, the Scripture—you get the idea. From their perspective, these Gentiles had always been unclean, even idolaters and enemies of God. And now they were just going to receive the same salvation as God's people of old?! Without any kind of sacrifice?! Without any obedience to the law of Moses and the traditions of the elders?! But that's the beauty of Jesus' perfect, innocent blood. It brings people into the family of God. It tears down the division lines between those of Abraham and those of every other family on earth (remember that they would be blessed in Abraham's offspring, too! Genesis 12:3, 28:14). Paul continues by saying that not only are Gentiles brought into the family of God through the blood of Christ, but God is using all believers to build Himself a house, a Temple, in which His glory dwells, established on the preaching of the apostles, with Christ Himself as the cornerstone, and you and me and all Christians fitting perfectly into the places that God has intended for us from before the foundation of the world! With a place like that, who could ever hope to fit into this world that's passing away?! In the Name + of Jesus. Amen.Paschal Lamb, by God appointed, All our sins on Thee were laid; By almighty love anointed, Thou hast full atonement made. All Thy people are forgiven Through the virtue of Thy blood; Opened is the gate of heaven, Reconciled are we with God. Amen. (LSB 531:2)-Rev. Dustin Beck is pastor at Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Corpus Christi, TX.Audio Reflections Speaker: Pastor Jonathan Lackey is the pastor at Grace Lutheran Church, Vine Grove, Ky.Your favorite study Bible is now available in a simple, intuitive app on your device! Distinctively Lutheran notes on the full ESV text, helpful articles, and custom user settings offer an engaging experience in God's Word anywhere you go. Download The Lutheran Study Bible App.

Saul Fights the Philistines 13Saul lived for one year and then became king, and when he had reigned for two years over Israel,[a]2Saul chose three thousand men of Israel. Two thousand were with Saul inMichmash and the hill country of Bethel, and a thousand were with Jonathan inGibeah of Benjamin. The rest of the people he sent home, every man to his tent.3Jonathan defeatedthe garrison of the Philistines that wasat Geba, and the Philistines heard of it. And Saulblew the trumpet throughout all the land, saying, Let the Hebrews hear.4And all Israel heard it said that Saul had defeated the garrison of the Philistines, and also that Israel had become a stench to the Philistines. And the people were called out to join Saul at Gilgal. 5And the Philistines mustered to fight with Israel, thirty thousand chariots and six thousand horsemen and troopslike the sand on the seashore in multitude. They came up and encamped in Michmash, to the east ofBeth-aven.6When the men of Israel saw that they were in trouble (for the people were hard pressed), the people hid themselvesin caves and in holes and in rocks and in tombs and in cisterns,7and some Hebrews crossed the fords of the Jordan to the land of Gad and Gilead. Saul was still at Gilgal, and all the people followed him trembling. Saul's Unlawful Sacrifice 8He waited seven days, the time appointed by Samuel. But Samuel did not come to Gilgal, and the people were scattering from him.9So Saul said, Bring the burnt offering here to me, and the peace offerings. And he offered the burnt offering.10As soon as he had finished offering the burnt offering, behold, Samuel came. And Saul went out to meet him and greet him.11Samuel said, What have you done? And Saul said, When I saw that the people were scattering from me, and that you did not come within the days appointed, and that the Philistines had mustered at Michmash,12I said, Now the Philistines will come down against me at Gilgal, and I have not sought the favor of theLord. So I forced myself, and offered the burnt offering.13And Samuel said to Saul,You have done foolishly.You have not kept the command of theLordyour God, with which he commanded you. For then theLordwould have established your kingdom over Israel forever.14But nowyour kingdom shall not continue. TheLordhas sought out a manafter his own heart, and theLordhas commanded him to be prince[b]over his people, because you have not kept what theLordcommanded you.15And Samuel arose and went up from Gilgal. The rest of the people went up after Saul to meet the army; they went up from Gilgal[c]toGibeah of Benjamin. And Saul numbered the people who were present with him,about six hundred men.16And Saul and Jonathan his son and the people who were present with them stayed inGeba of Benjamin, but the Philistines encamped in Michmash.17Andraiders came out of the camp of the Philistines in three companies. One company turned toward Ophrah, to the land of Shual;18another company turned towardBeth-horon; and another company turned toward the border that looks down on the Valley ofZeboim toward the wilderness. 19Now there was no blacksmith to be found throughout all the land of Israel, for the Philistines said, Lest the Hebrews make themselves swords or spears.20But every one of the Israelites went down to the Philistines to sharpen his plowshare, his mattock, his axe, or his sickle,[d]21and the charge was two-thirds of a shekel[e]for the plowshares and for the mattocks, and a third of a shekel[f]for sharpening the axes and for setting the goads.[g]22So on the day of the battlethere was neither sword nor spear found in the hand of any of the people with Saul and Jonathan, but Saul and Jonathan his son had them.23Andthe garrison of the Philistines went out to thepass ofMichmash.

Saul Proclaimed King 17Now Samuel called the people togetherto theLordat Mizpah.18And he said to the people of Israel,Thus says theLord, the God of Israel, I brought up Israel out of Egypt, and I delivered you from the hand of the Egyptians and from the hand of all the kingdoms that were oppressing you.19But today you have rejected your God, who saves you from all your calamities and your distresses, and you have said to him, Set a king over us. Now thereforepresent yourselves before theLordby your tribes and by your thousands. 20Then Samuelbrought all the tribes of Israel near, and the tribe of Benjamin was taken by lot.21He brought the tribe of Benjamin near by its clans, and the clan of the Matrites was taken by lot;[a]and Saul the son of Kish was taken by lot. But when they sought him, he could not be found.22So they inquired again of theLord, Is there a man still to come? and theLordsaid, Behold, he has hidden himself among the baggage.23Then they ran and took him from there. And when he stood among the people,he was taller than any of the people from his shoulders upward.24And Samuel said to all the people, Do you see himwhom theLordhas chosen? There is none like him among all the people. And all the people shouted,Long live the king! 25Then Samuel told the peoplethe rights and duties of the kingship, and he wrote them in a book and laid it up before theLord. Then Samuel sent all the people away, each one to his home.26Saul also went to his homeat Gibeah, and with him went men of valor whose hearts God had touched.27But someworthless fellows said, How can this man save us? And they despised him and brought him no present. But he held his peace.

Transcript generated using AI transcription services; errors may occur. Contact Mikki for clarification00:11Hey everyone, it's Mikki here. You're listening to Mini Mikkipedia on a Monday. And today I'm gonna chat about the vegetarian athlete because there are certain nutrition considerations which I feel could warrant a little bit more attention beyond just the micronutrients and macronutrients we know to be of concern. So I'm gonna run through them as I see it and then also have a chat about blood biomarkers.00:40just at the end. And I will preface this by saying that whilst of course I have an omnivore diet, I work with a number of athletes and individuals looking to optimize their vegetarian approach. These are conversations that I'll have in my clinic at least every couple of weeks because there is a way to do it properly so you're not going to be at risk of losing muscle mass or impacting negatively on recovery.01:10This is particularly for people with high energy requirements and a lot of teenagers would fall into this and particularly teenage girls who may turn vegetarian because of a moral stance or they have it in their head that this is going to help with their body composition or whatever it is. Yet often those health conscious ones take it just a little bit further than what ideally it would be taken.01:38And calories are of a concern in this space because teenagers particularly have high energy requirements just through the fact that they're growing plus their sport and of course to fill their brain for school etc. And there are just periods of the day where they just can't eat all day long, right? Not that you would necessarily want them to. And vegetarian based diets can be challenging in that getting quality calories.02:07can be limited because there is an increased fiber intake. From people who follow a vegetarian diet, which has a lot of beans and vegetables added, getting the calorie requirements in quite a high volume diet can be tricky. So, you know, if I look at the literature around this area, on balance for adults at least,02:30The difference in energy intake between omnivores and vegetarians might be only about 5%, which isn't actually a major in the big scheme of things. Someone may easily maintain their weight in that space, but it's just those higher energy requirements from a vegetarian athlete. And another person I would, or avatar if you like, that I would put into this camp would be potentially a male who is doing endurance-based sport, who has gone vegetarian and isn't03:00calories or supplementing. So they're just sort of loading up a lot on beans and rice and potatoes and and hey maybe cheese and stuff like that but find that they're actually losing weight but importantly they're unable to recover as well. So I think calories is or can be a major consideration but then of course to turn that on its head sometimes people can absolutely overdo calories particularly if they're chasing something like protein and protein which03:29It's more difficult to get in a vegetarian diet. And you do have to consume almost several hundred calories more to get the same amount of protein that you would otherwise find in a steak. If this is the case for some people, then their vegetarian approach by dropping out meat can in fact increase the calories and make it more challenging for them to maintain a body composition that aids performance and also aids health.03:56So I think that's also really worth considering too. And of course from the macronutrients, protein is the major one of consideration. And protein quality is a term which we refer to here. So it encompasses a protein's sources of amino acid composition, its digestibility, and subsequent bioavailability of specific amino acids. And also of course that metabolic fate of those amino acids.04:23Such factors are affected by the specific protein source, whether it's consumed as isolated protein, such as you'd find in a protein powder, or as a protein-rich whole food, and whether that protein source is consumed alongside other foods in a meal. Irrespective, the quality of a protein source has reliably been shown to play an important role in determining the magnitude of post-exercise muscle protein synthesis response. And that response is responsible04:53for aiding recovery. So milk, egg and meat derived proteins all stimulate robust post-exercise NPS response and this is attributed to their high essential amino acid content, particularly leucine, a lack of any notable amino acid deficiencies, rapid digestibility, and a high total digestibility and absorbability and therefore more availability in circulation.05:22So that is that they're just more bioavailable. And this has been observed in a number of studies using milk, using eggs, using ground beef and beefsteak. So we're quite confident that if you have these foods, then you're gonna be okay, particularly if they're in a certain amount, right? In contrast, there are in fact fewer studies looking at post-exercise MPS response following the ingestion of non-aminoderived proteins.05:49Nevertheless, there is a widely held view that these non-animal proteins are inferior with respect to their capacity to stimulate that NPS rate compared with animal proteins. The lower anabolic potential of these proteins is thought to be attributed to a few factors. So, the presence of non-protein constituents and anti-nutritional factors are thought to slow and reduce the digestion and absorption of protein, meaning that a lower06:17proportion of ingested amino acids become available in circulation after a meal. So they're just not there to help with that muscle protein synthesis. However, if you were eating these amino acids in their purified form, so isolated from these other food constituents, it does help that digestibility. So the digestibility or the lower digestibility is attributed to the fact that they are in a whole food and a food matrix.06:44So once you strip them out and have it in, say, a protein powder form, it's actually much better. Despite that though, these plant sources frequently have lower total essential amino acid contents, and leucine, methionine, and or lysine in particular are amino acids which are suggested to provide limitations to that muscle protein synthesis response, either at the molecular signaling or substrate availability level. And this is07:13true when we're looking at studies investigating wheat or soy protein compared to their animal-based sources. However, interestingly, there have been studies recently demonstrating that getting a good bolus ingestion of mycoprotein, which is a fungal-derived protein-rich source, and I believe that if you eat something like corn, that Q-U-O-R-N product, that's made of mycoprotein,07:41This does result in a greater stimulation of NPS compared with a leucine-matched bolus of milk protein. So non-animal protein sources aren't necessarily less anabolic, but require consideration on a case-by-case basis. So you can't just blanketly say, that's gonna be lower. An emerging theme is that the differences between animal and plant-based protein sources are absent when we have higher doses of protein.08:08So, and I talked to Don Layman about this in an upcoming episode in that you will need to, as a plant-based or a vegetarian, if that's what you're getting a lot of your protein from, you need to eat more of that protein source to get a similar muscle protein synthesis response. Whereas in certain situations where 25 grams of animal-based protein is enough to hit that NPS, you might be looking at about 40 grams of a plant-based protein to get a similar response.08:38Blending plant protein sources is suggested as a way to get rid of these essential amin...

Speaker or Performer: Pastor Grover Cleveland Scripture Passage(s): Matthew 1:18-25 Date of Delivery: December 31, 2023 18Now thebirth of Jesus Christ was as follows: After His mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with childof the Holy Spirit.19Then Joseph her husband, beinga justman,and not wantingto make her a public example, was minded to put her away secretly.20But while he thought about these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take to you Mary your wife,for that which isconceived in her is of the Holy Spirit.21And she will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His nameJesus,for He will save His people from their sins.”22So all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying:23“Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,”which is translated, “God with us.”24Then Joseph, being aroused from sleep, did as the angel of the Lord commanded him and took to him his wife,25anddid not know her till she had brought forthherfirstborn Son. And he called His nameJesus.

In this episode of Sweet on Leadership, Tim Sweet interviews Greta Ehlers, a passionate advocate for diabetes awareness and innovation. Greta shares her journey of living with type one diabetes since the age of nine and how it led her to become a prominent voice on social media. The episode explores the intersection of personal experiences, advocacy, and leadership in the context of diabetes. Tim highlights Greta's role in creating a supportive community, breaking taboos around topics like mental health and sex, and her current work in diabetes technology innovation.Greta opens up about her 20-year journey living with type one diabetes and her role as a leader in the diabetes tech space. Tim Sweet skillfully navigates the conversation, exploring Greta's early experiences, her advocacy on social media, and her current position at the Diabetes Center Berne. Greta's unique perspective on leadership challenges traditional notions, emphasizing that leaders come in various forms. Together, Tim and Greta cover essential topics like the impact of technology on diabetes management, the importance of mental health discussions, and Greta's commitment to making life easier for people with diabetes. The conversation is both informative and empowering, shedding light on the complexities of living with a chronic condition while showcasing Greta's resilience and leadership in the field.About Greta EhlersGreta is a dynamic MedTech professional, devoted patient advocate, and an inspiring speaker, driven by a mission to ignite innovation in the field of diabetes technology. With a rich background in marketing and a personal journey as someone living with type 1 diabetes, Greta brings a unique blend of professional acumen and personal empathy to her work.Her career is marked by a relentless pursuit of scouting and nurturing start-ups specializing in diabetes technology. Greta's vision is to revolutionize the landscape of diabetes management, making it more manageable and less intrusive for those affected. Her hands-on experience with type 1 diabetes fuels her passion for finding and supporting innovations that promise to simplify life for diabetes patients.Beyond her role in MedTech, Greta is a powerful voice in the diabetes community. As a speaker, she shares her insights and experiences to educate, inspire, and drive change. Her advocacy work is not just about raising awareness but also about creating tangible improvements in the lives of those living with diabetes.Greta's approach is characterized by her creative marketing strategies that are as empathetic as they are effective. She understands the nuances of the healthcare industry and leverages this knowledge to bring groundbreaking diabetes management solutions to the forefront.Her commitment to making a difference in the world of diabetes care is not just a professional choice, but a personal one. She stands as a beacon of hope and a source of inspiration, not only for those battling diabetes but also for the broader MedTech community.In her journey, Greta continues to push the boundaries, fostering an environment of innovation and excellence in diabetes care. She is a true champion in the fight against diabetes, committed to lighting the path for the next generation of innovators in this critical field Resources discussed in this episode:Gallup: www.gallup.com--Contact Tim Sweet | Team Work Excellence: WebsiteLinkedIn: Tim SweetInstagramLinkedin: Team Work ExcellenceContact Greta Ehlers | Diabetes Center Berne: Website: www.dcberne.comInstagram: @gretastypeoneTwitter: @gretastypeoneLinkedin:Greta EhlersDiabetes Center Berne--Transcript:Greta 00:01There was this really distinct image of a leader in my head. And I know other people who I would definitely describe as a leader. But in my head, I was just too young, not too much of an expert, too little experienced, and all of that. And then I think talking to you also helped me see that leadership comes in different shapes and forms, right? There's not one definition of what a leader is at all. Tim 00:28I'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, are a leader, and this show is all about and all for you. Welcome to the Sweet on Leadership podcast, episode 22.  Tim 01:02Welcome back, everybody. My name is Tim Sweet. Thank you for joining us again, for Sweet on Leadership. Today, I am joined by an absolute rain sunshine, which I keep saying, this is Greta Ehlers. Greta, thank you so much for joining us on the show today. Greta 01:18Thank you so much for having me, Tim, I'm really excited to be here. Tim 01:21Greta, I want you to tell everybody where you are in life. So, maybe just for the first few moments here, tell us a little bit about yourself. Greta 01:31Absolutely. So, I'm 20 years old. I graduated from university two years ago and I think right now I'm enjoying my first two years of full-time work. And I've been living with type one diabetes for 20 years, which is quite important, plays a big role in my life. We'll talk more about that later. And I'm very passionate about innovation, about innovative technology, especially diabetes technology. And outside of work, I love traveling, I love exploring, I love classical music, and talking to interesting and inspiring people all over the world like you, actually. So, I'm really excited to be here. Tim 02:15And I'm really excited to have you here. And I'm really honored that you'd spend the time with me. I think it's important to note that a 20 years of age, we might be tempted to equate the time that you've had so far and you're relatively new, or starting your career with someone who may not yet have a great deal of experience to offer our audience. And I want to hit that right on the head. Because the thing is, is that age is just one of those things that really is not a good measure of what a person's life experience is. And I think talking to you and learning more about you, I'd like you to take everybody who's listening today back into where your journey started. Because that was not, you know, just yesterday, you've been involved in something passionately for a number of years. And so take us back to that story about type one diabetes and getting involved in that. And really establishing yourself as an advocate in that space. Greta 03:09Absolutely. So, I think in order to go back to where it all started, you have to go back around 20 years, and that's when I got my diagnosis. And my diagnosis, obviously, or living with type one diabetes isn't me or all of me, but it plays a really big part in my life. And it's also definitely part of where I am now and why I'm here. So, I was nine years old. I was on summer holiday with my best friend, we went to the Baltic Sea. And for a number of weeks, I've been feeling really thirsty, you know, I've been physically unwell. And the only thing I remember from that holiday is not the beaches or the fun we had. It's mostly how thirsty I was, all the time. The amounts of times I woke up during the night being so thirsty, I had to go to the kitchen and have some water. I came back from holiday, my parents picked me up and they took me to a doctor because I wasn't well. And they took some blood tests and told me and my parents that I was only nine. So, I didn't really understand what was happening. But they told me, you have type one diabetes will rush you to the hospital, and then you will learn how to adapt and kind of make all the adjustments you need in order to kind of live with that chronic condition. Tim 04:38That's a very shocking and sudden introduction to having to adult really quickly at the age of nine. And suddenly and almost overnight. Greta 04:43Yes, absolutely. And it was just you know, a big word. I mean, all I heard back then being nine years old is you'll have to inject yourself several times a day for the rest of your life. And I think that's what I remember. And I think that's where my whole journey started. Tim 05:04When you think back on that time, you were dealing with it personally. But very soon the journey became more public. Can you tell us a little bit about that? Greta 05:12Yes. So, growing up, you know, they had these camps for kids with type one diabetes. And now looking back, it's obviously a great thing. But back then I was like, No, I don't want to hang out with other sick kids, I'm not going to do that. And that was fine. My parents were like, Okay, we're not going to force you to. But obviously, 10 years later, or 15 years later, I realized that I literally don't know anyone else who's living with the same thing, and has to manage all these challenges, which I have to manage every day. And, of course, you regularly check in with your doctor. But that's also not the same as you know, talking to someone who is kind of your age and lives with the same thing. And that's when I turned to social media, actually, I think I was 20. And I created an Instagram page. And my first intention, and my only intention back then was to get to know other people with type one diabetes and exchange and talk about it. Tim 06:14And did it serve that purpose? Initially?  Greta 06:21Yes, absolutely. I think the diabetes community is very unique, very supportive, very, like relatively small, but people are just very supportive of one another. And I very quickly felt like, oh, there's loads of people I can turn to, there's loads of people who go through the same thing. And kind of this whole new level of mutual understanding, I guess, which I never felt like I had before. Tim 06:46So, you're facing the situation. And in doing that, you felt the need to or wanted to process it, you wanted to be part of something that camp wasn't for you. But you found social media, and you found your people. And you suddenly were surrounded by these people that could see the world, or at least see it through your eyes, or at least approach a greater degree of empathy. But you didn't stop there. Right? You didn't stop there. So, then what began to happen as you found your people, and you began to use Instagram? Greta 07:22So, I think the beginning like the first year or something, I was just like, you know, I was kind of sharing pictures of my food and my blood sugar levels being like, Oh, I discovered this and that. And then, after some time, it must be like, four years ago, maybe I think, I realized two things. First of all, there are certain topics, which really impact my life, which are not spoken about enough. And the second topic was, there's lots of false information on social media. And basically, what I did, I created this platform to tackle both of these problems. So, what I did was researching papers, scientific journals, I was studying at university back then. So, I had access to all of these, you know, research papers. And I started speaking up about topics, which I felt when talked about enough, and that might be diabetes and mental health. I mean, now it is a bigger discussion about mental health in general, but five years back, it wasn't necessarily. Or diabetes and sex, how does a chronic condition like that may impact your sex life? And all of these topics, which I feel are quite a big part of people's lives, but they're hardly spoken about. And I found out things, which I never knew, none of my doctors had ever talked to me about it. And I started sharing these facts and research statistics over social media to help other people find this information and maybe answer some questions they had. Tim 09:05The view that I'm having here, of you getting really deep into it. What was the response that people started to show? Greta 09:13For me, it was absolutely overwhelming. Because I remember I started posting these research stats on these letter boards, maybe you have seen them, where you can stick on these letters. Because I was like, Okay, we need science-based information. But also it needs to be kind of easy to understand because not everybody can be bothered to read journals. So, I wanted to kind of share it in a simple, aesthetic way. And I remember when I shared the first of these boards, so many people shared it. I think, today, it's been a while since I've checked, but it got over 3,000 reshares and my account back then wasn't big or maybe had like 2,000 followers or something. The response was great, immediate–Tim 09:58And overwhelming. Wow, that's great. When we look at your journey, you had identified a need that people obviously felt, and you provided a solution, right, you provided a source. So, if I look at this, as we were talking and we were setting up for this interview, what's really interesting to me is that you saw this as being a social media influencer, you saw this as being a public figure in that space. But you didn't see this in other ways. You didn't see this necessarily in terms of leading this group. Can you tell me a little bit about that? And how that has changed for you? Greta 10:35Yeah, so I think for me, it was just back then something that I needed. And so I shared it with the world. And then I very quickly got the positive response. So, it made it very clear for me that other people also have that need. And then the logical consequence for me was okay, I'll make more of these. But I would never have seen myself as in somewhat leading people, you know, Tim 11:04After you had gone through this and moved through university and whatnot, can you tell us a little bit about then where life took you? You now have established yourself as a voice in the diabetic community, and people are responding and you're getting followers, you're seen as a source. How did that look for other parts of your life? What did that look like, as you went to finish school and find your first job, those kinds of things? Greta 11:29Even though in the beginning of these years, when I was very social on Instagram, and I got invited to speak at conferences, even before I dived into my whole professional career, it's never been my goal to end up somewhere in the med-tech space, where I am now. But after I graduated, I got a job offer for where I'm now actually from Switzerland, by someone who I knew over social media. That's why I'm saying kind of all of these things brought me here. Because Maura and my colleague who kind of reached out to me back then, we've been known each other for years over social media, she also has type one diabetes. And she asked me shortly before I graduated, whether, yeah, I could imagine moving to Switzerland, I was studying in Sweden. And she was like, there is this really cool technology center, driving diabetes innovation, and I think you would be the perfect fit. Do you want to move to Switzerland? And my first response was, hell no. I wanted to see the world you know, I've just studied and learned in a very small Swedish town, two years of COVID. My plan was to, I don't know, go travel, see the world apply for a job somewhere in Tokyo or whatever, see where life takes me. But then this opportunity suddenly just, I don't know, flew to me somewhat. And then I was like, actually, yes, this is exactly what I want to do, like make life easier for people with diabetes, just like myself. Tim 13:02Let's go a little bit into that organization that you're part of now and what your role is currently. Greta 13:06So, we are a privately funded nonprofit organization. And our high-level mission is, or vision is to make life easier for people with diabetes. That sounds very abstract, but it is ultimately really just that. And we do that by conducting research on the one hand and translating this research into real solutions on the market, which people with diabetes can use. And that is mostly startup support. So, I'm working in business development. I scout startups with innovative ideas on how to make life better for people with diabetes, and I help them get their solutions off the ground. Tim 13:54Probably a great time to say, if people wanted to find that particular organization, where would they look? Greta 14:00We're caught Diabetes Center Berne, you can find us on LinkedIn, you can reach out to me on LinkedIn, and I'm happy to conveniently enough, I'm also in the business development team. So, feel free to reach out to me or Google us, Diabetes Center Berne, and you'll find us. And we have a big innovation challenge a bit like Britain's Got Talent, but for diabetes startups. Tim 14:22Awesome. So, we'll put all of that in the show notes. And where can people find you on Instagram? We're only midway through the conversation here. But I want to make sure that we stop and let people know that they can take a look while they're listening here. So, where can people find you on Instagram? Greta 14:38It's gretastypeone on Instagram, all letters, no numbers. And it's been a while since I've been active, life is busy, but all the content is still there. Feel free to check that out. Tim 14:52Right, as a resource, it could be great for yourself or somebody that you know, dear listener, so make sure that you check that out, and again, we'll put the link in the notes. Okay, so here we are, we've got you out, and you are working and you're working in an area that obviously realizes the importance of your perspective and your experience and your passion as they've scouted you. Give us a quick snapshot of what is life like right now. Greta 15:22Right now I am five days away from a three-month trip. You know, I am based in Berlin, and people, even if they're not from Berlin, keep telling me, how do you even manage Berlin winter, it's so sad. Everybody's so grumpy. You honestly, you should just go somewhere else. This year often thinking yes, actually, why not? So, I'll be on the road traveling to Southeast Asia and to India. And very lucky to still work, we have a very flexible working environment. So, I'll take some time off. But I'll work some from a nice Airbnb somewhere in Indonesia, I hope. I'm very happy where I am, I love my job. I'm very lucky to kind of be motivated to go to work every Monday and really feeling like I can make a difference. You know, I don't feel like this tiny number in a big organization. I do feel like, in this area where work and my job, I can make an impact. And I can drive innovation. And this impact is somewhat visible for people out there. Tim 16:29Let's talk about that impact for a minute. If we think about the fact that you can pick up and travel, is that experience any different now, as it would have been, you know, when you were nine years old? Is traveling with type one diabetes, has that changed in the last several years? Greta 16:48Yes, I think that's why these technologies advancing are so amazing to me because I know how much easier everyday life is because back then 20 years ago, I had this blood sugar meter where I had to prick my finger several times a day, and I had, you know, glass vials and syringes. And now I have a small sensor on my arm and an insulin pump, which looks like a fancy MP3 player. And it does make it easier. And then of course makes traveling easier. And not just traveling but everyday life. Every single day. So, that's what I mean by saying this impact is very real to me. Tim 17:29And that's the technological impact. What with the mindset of a person with type one diabetes, would that have changed over the last several years? Or is there a mindset or a maturity that people have to go through when they're first diagnosed in order to feel free and able and, and all of that? Is there a mindset shift that people have either gone through on mass or that you see individuals as having to tackle? Greta 17:59Type one diabetes is so individual, I think everybody is going through their own struggles and feelings. Everybody's having their own, needs to take their own amount of time to kind of, you know, get used to that and accept the diagnosis, of course. One thing I would like to say is, sometimes what I hear working in this very tech-advanced field is that a lot of people think with all the tech we have now it's basically not something I have to think about ever because now I have the tech and it's basically doing the job for me. And funnily enough, that's not something which has changed at all. So, I don't think that maybe slightly, the amount of time I spent thinking about it has changed a bit. But it's still very much there, even though the actual handling of it has gotten easier. But you might talk to another person with diabetes, and they might give you a completely different answer. I think, for me, it has become easier, but it's still very much there. Tim 19:02I mean, I'm a high-maintenance person. Years ago, I was diagnosed with a nonceliac wheat allergy. That diagnosis happened to, this was way before gluten-free and everything was a fad. I was having health issues, and I couldn't drink a cup of coffee without, you know, jittering. And then I was quite sick all the time and the rest of it. And I happened to find a doctor who was also an endocrinologist. And he took me through a range of tests. And it resulted in me having to drastically change the way that I eat. Now, I'm an old schooler when it comes to eating wheat-free. And although I was working at a bread company at the time, which didn't make me a very popular person, but it became one of those health-based obsessions in a sense. It was not something that I was doing, you know, out of fad or popularity or anything like that. It was something that I had to be aware of. I knew what the consequences are if I slipped up, and it continues to be something that I am conscious of, and it is active, it's not something that I can push to the background completely. Would that be similar to the experience that you have? Although I'm sure you're for those of you that don't know, I mean, maybe tell us a little bit about, if you've were to let it off your mind. What's the result for a person with diabetes, some people probably still do not understand what happens if it goes out of control? Greta 20:33A lot of people think that type one diabetes is you have to watch what you eat, and then maybe you lose a bit of weight, and then everything's gonna be okay. But it's an autoimmune disease, we're still not really sure what causes it. And basically, for a healthy person, your pancreas produces insulin, and mine doesn't. And that's why I have all the injections or the insulin pump, which will give me the insulin I need. And if I wouldn't, then there's something called DKA, Diabetic Ketoacidosis. Very complicated word. But basically, you fall into some sort of coma at some point, and then you'll die. So, it's something you want to, you know, kind of, keep in range. Tim 21:19So, damage to organs, damage to all sorts of things can happen. Damage to the brain.Greta 21:24Yes. It is very serious, like, it's one of these, people like to call–Tim 21:26It's not a lightweight diagnosis. Greta 21:28Yeah, I think it's one of these. I've heard that sometimes, it's what people refer to as a bit of an invisible illness. Because I mean, you can't really see unless they maybe have like, my insulin pump in my hand or something. But it's still very much invisible. And I think that's sometimes why people think it's not too serious. I bet that's what a lot of different conditions as well. But. Tim 21:54So, we see you moving through life, you've got this great job, you're about to embark on this travel adventure, you're enabled to travel in those ways. I did ask you two questions at once there. So, that's my bad, but that in terms of it being the ever-present, you know, friend, or whatever you want to call it, that obsession. Is that similar to your experience, but it's not something that's ever far from mind? It's just not necessarily. Greta 22:20Yes. Yeah, exactly. I think that pretty much nails it. Tim 22:23Yeah. I was thinking of it almost like a person when you have that little friend joining you the whole time. How do you feel about it now? What role as a character in your life does diabetes play now? Greta 22:38It's an interesting kind of thought sometimes. Because, for me, obviously, the reason why I work in diabetes tech is probably because I got diagnosed back then. And I've talked to some different people. And I know people who say, Oh, I'm actually somewhat kind of grateful that I got this diagnosis because otherwise, I would not be where I am today. And whilst I think that it is, that is completely true, also, for me, I wouldn't be where I am today if I wouldn't live with diabetes. I'm 100% convinced I would have found another passion. So, I am, of course, I'm grateful where I am now. I love my job. I love making impacts, working with all these great people. But I'm also convinced I could have found all of that somewhere else. Tim 23:26Would have found all of that. Greta 23:28Yeah. Tim 23:29If I may, let's shift gears on the conversation here a little bit because you're starting to traipse into my world, something I would coin is natural leadership. Right? We've got a lot of decent research out there right now that say that people are either wired to be leaders or not. Gallup estimates it at around 10% of the population. I personally think it's much lower. Because even if you have the personality, neuro structure, whatever you want to call it, to be interested and gravitate towards leading, and you will find a thing to lead. If it's not diabetes, it's something else. Not everyone has the chance. Some people have socioeconomic conditions, or they're a certain part of the world or they live within certain traditions, or they have certain life situations and trauma that have kept them from the leadership sphere. And so even if 10% of people have the possibility, I tend to think it's closer to about six 6% of people will actually express themselves as leaders. And the definition which listeners here will have heard me say before is of that 6%, 80% of them will be damaged in the process. They will suffer somehow in their life, or make trade-offs for the good of others and for the good of a cause. But they will not stop. And that really is a mark of a leader in my mind, is well some will emerge unscathed. Others will have to make sacrifices in order to uphold their values and the cause that they're head of. And so when you and I were talking about this off camera, this is a show for leaders. This is a show, I feature people that I am inspired by and see their role in the world as being at the forefront of something, having insight that they can share with others. But you had a very interesting reaction to that, didn't you? So, can you talk a little bit about that? I think that that's one of the most interesting parts of your and mine getting to know each other. Greta 25:36Yes, no, I do remember when we had a chat, and I was asked to be a guest on this podcast. I had two thoughts. And the first one was, I felt so honored. I also thought, like, why am I invited on the leadership podcast, a podcast on leadership? Because I would have not described myself as a leader. Tim 25:58May I describe you as the leader for a moment? Greta 26:00Please, yes, go ahead. Tim 26:01Now, let's talk about the story that you've told us so far. What I want people to be thinking in the back of their minds, as they're listening to this, is that many of the attributes that Greta you've demonstrated, so well, through your journey, are things that certain people have to back up and go in actually pursue intentionally, they don't land on them as naturally. So, let me take you through some of what I was thinking. You were faced with the situation, the situation of being diagnosed at a young age with type one diabetes. And very quickly, you found your people, you found a group of people that had similar interests or were facing similar challenges. But you didn't stop there, you opened yourself up, and you shared, and you let people in. And you made your individual journey, what you've said is really unique. But you made it accessible to people so they could see you going through it. And that's a mark of a leader. And then you took topics that people had fear about, or were not talking about, or that weren't at the forefront of professional like the doctor's minds. And you made them safe to talk about, and that's the mark of a leader. And then you took it upon yourself to guide and find the truth and do the research, and declutter and denoise life for others. And that's the mark of a leader. And then you built a platform, and a collision space where people could come together and ask awkward questions, and get information that they may not find elsewhere and find others, find those people that you'd found earlier. And those creating of collision spaces, I mean, that is the mark of a really impressive leader. And then I'm getting a little repetitive here, but bear with me. And then you spoke up and you stood for something. And you know what there's that statement that says, if you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything. And I think that's okay, that's a fine statement. But there's another notion, and that is if you stand up, and you stand up, and people know what you stand for, they will stand with you. And if they can see themselves in that, then they find standing up for themselves easier, because you're there as that sort of ladder to being self-representative and advocating for yourself. And you broke that silence and was able to speak up on topics of mental health and sex and how it influences youth and probably maturing through all of this, and what it meant to find yourself. And if that's not leading, I really don't know what it is. So, just from my part, when we talk about all of those attributes, the fact that you created something you were taking assertive control over a really nebulous situation, and making it real and giving people stability. And that is leading a movement, and I am so impressed. And again, just have to give you such credit for doing that. And do it so consistently and continue to do it. So, anyway, that's a little bit of a, I don't want that to be too aggressive or too much like a lecture. Greta 29:22Thank you so much. It means a lot because I think when I yeah, when we had that chat about like me coming onto this podcast, it really kind of forced me to reflect. So, it was actually really good because I was like, I don't think I'm a leader. I just, you know, identify this change that I needed. And I did it and then I think it was talking to my girlfriend over Sunday brunch and she was like, yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah, it took me some time to realize that actually, that might be leadership too. You know. Tim 29:55I hope you embrace that. I mean, you already are but you're having an amazing life and you're helping others, I'm sure, find theirs. And that's just something that's very inspiring, and what might life be like for you? If you really lean into this notion of being a leader? Would it change your approach at all? Would it embolden you in any way? Greta 30:17I think it makes leadership more accessible, somehow. Growing up and stuff, there was this really distinct image of a leader in my head. And I know other people who I would definitely describe as a leader, but in my head, I was just too young, not too much of an expert, too little experience, and all of that. And then I think talking to you also helped seeing that leadership comes in different shapes and forms, right? There's not one definition of what a leader is at all. Tim 30:52In fact, it can be awfully debilitating, and toxic, and exclusionary, if we try to define leaders as being something that people have to be and have a very narrow definition on top of all of that. Leadership is such a, it's such a personal expression. And, you know, the first responsibility I think of every leader is to be really fluent in themselves, and how they think, and, and where their own, you know, tensions and biases and whatnot are, so that they can flow with that, is most certainly not one size fits all. You may be pondering the label. But as I say, the action has been proven, you've got a resume that I think many people would envy, understanding that it was not the easiest way to get there. And that you were probably thrust into that more than others have been. But boy, did you ever take up the charge? So, good on you for picking up the flag and running with it. So, Greta, let me ask you, as we sort of wrap up here, let me ask you a couple of questions. If people want to find you, we talked about that, can just give them another place to find you personally. Greta 32:13I think that the best one to reach out to is LinkedIn. So, if you look for my name on LinkedIn or the link, if you put it somewhere. Tim 32:20We'll absolutely do that. What is the thing you're most excited about right now, besides the travel that you've got on the go? Greta 32:26I think personal growth. I feel like next year kind of has a lot in store for me been talking to loads of interesting people. I feel like this year, I've really, I'm on a good way of finding out what I want to dive into, like my professional life. And I'm very lucky to be surrounded by so many great people also professionally, who are so willing to help me get there. I'm very excited to learn and grow. And I think that's what next year has in store for me. And it makes me very excited. Tim 33:00I don't want to put any pressure on you. But if you begin to post both your travels and some of this on your Instagram, I am eager to follow along. Don't make it become all-encompassing or ruin your trip. But boy, I think any of us who are listening today would sure be interested to see what happens next. Greta, if you had one wish for our listeners today, what would it be? Greta 33:24It's not as much as a wish as something I really learned in the past like two weeks. And it is that leadership can be finding something you really believe in and driving it forward. And if it is something you believe in, and you drive it forward, then others will follow. And I think that's the whole kind of thing that I learned that I made a change that I needed and others followed. And I've never kind of lost that. And that's what makes the whole thing so unique. Tim 34:01Absolutely. And that you're so stalwart in it. And so consistent. It's been a real pleasure to talk to you today. I hope people take from your story, everything that I'm taking from it because it is absolutely inspiring. And absolutely just a real honor to have you here. Greta 34:17Thank you so much. It's been so great chatting to you. Tim 34:20Let's make a plan that when you're back from your trip, and as life moves on, we do this again. Greta 34:27Absolutely. I would love that. I hope by that time next year. I'm kinda you know, have new things to talk about. Tim 34:36Greta it's been absolutely my pleasure. We'll talk to you soon. Greta 34:38Talk soon Tim, thank you. Tim 34:45Thank 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 a 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.

Sex, Love, Addiction, and Reality TV: The Toxic Relationships of Vanderpump Rules — Rebecca was deep in her alcohol and sex & love addiction 18 years ago when she met Tom Sandavol at a Hollywood house party, and they slept together. Despite the fact, they both were in relationships. In the latest episode of Secret Life, host Brianne Davis teams up with guest Rebecca to delve deep into the intricate and toxic relationships portrayed on Bravo's Vanderpump Rules. Their critical and insightful analysis sheds light on the complex patterns of behavior and underlying issues at play, specifically focusing on the tumultuous love affair between Tom's narcissistic tendencies and Ariana. By examining the emotional dynamics and uncovering the nuances often overlooked by society, the podcast offers a serious exploration of the complexities of human relationships. From Tom and Raquel's affair to Ariana's missing the red flags, Secret Life dissects the frustrations of recovered sex and love addicts who feel that society fails to grasp the intricacies of these situations. Whether you're a devoted fan of the show or simply intrigued by the intricate dance between sex and love addiction, this thought-provoking podcast is a must-listen. Check out the 40 Sex & Love Addiction Questionnaire for yourself:https://slaafws.org/40-questions/For more information about Sex & Love Addicts Anonymous: https://slaafws.org/_____If you or anyone you know is struggling with addiction, depression, trauma, sexual abuse or feeling overwhelmed, we've compiled a list of resources at secretlifepodcast.com.______To share your secret and be a guest on the show email secretlifepodcast@icloud.com_____SECRET LIFE'S TOPICS INCLUDE:addiction recovery, mental health, alcoholism, drug addiction, sex addiction, love addiction, OCD, ADHD, dyslexia, eating disorders, debt & money issues, anorexia, depression, shoplifting,  molestation, sexual assault, trauma, relationships, self-love, friendships, community, secrets, self-care, courage, freedom, and happiness._____Create and Host Your Podcast with the same host we use - RedCircle_____Get your copy of SECRET LIFE OF A HOLLYWOOD SEX & LOVE ADDICT -- Secret Life Novel or on Amazon______HOW CAN I SUPPORT THE SHOW?Tell Your Friends & Share Online!Follow, Rate & Review: Apple Podcasts | SpotifyFollow & Listen iHeart | Stitcher | Google Podcasts | Amazon | PandoraSpread the word via social mediaInstagramTwitterFacebook#SecretLifePodcastDonate - You can also support the show with a one-time or monthly donation via PayPal (make payment to secretlifepodcast@icloud.com) or at our WEBSITE.Connect with Brianne Davis-Gantt (@thebriannedavis)Official WebsiteInstagramFacebookTwitterConnect with Mark Gantt (@markgantt)Main WebsiteDirecting WebsiteInstagramFacebookTwitterTranscriptBrianne 0:00:00Okay? So I know everything that's going on, and I just have to say to all the listeners, I don't do pop culture. I don't deal with that kind of shit. But this story, and I know you agreed with me, is so frustrating from a recovered sex and love addict that nobody's calling this shit, that they both are sex and love addicts.Tell me your secret, I'll tell you mine. Sometimes you have to go through the darkness to reach the light. That's what I did. After twelve years of recovery in sex and love addiction, I finally found my soulmate myself. Please join me in my novel, Secret Life of a Hollywood Sex and Love Addict. A four-time bestseller on Amazon. It's a brutal, honest, raw, gnarly ride, but hilarious at the same time. Check it out now on Amazon. Welcome to Secret Life Podcast.I'm Brianne Davis-Gantt. Today, I'm pulling back the curtains of all kinds of human secrets. You'll hear about what people are hiding from themselves or others. You know, those deep, dark secrets you probably want to take to your grave. Or those lighter, funnier secrets that are just plain embarrassing. Really, the how, what, when, where, and why of it all.Oh, my God. Today. My guest is Rebecca. Now, Rebecca, I have a question for you. Don't. Don't. Don't. What is your secret?Rebecca 0:01:31I had a one-night stand with Tom Sandoval 18 years ago when he had a girlfriend.Brianne 0:01:38Son of a nutcracker. He's been doing it for a long time.Rebecca 0:01:42Almost two decades.Brianne 0:01:44Two decades. Okay, before we get into it, when did this happen? Where did it happen? What?Rebecca 0:01:51Yeah, I know. So I met him originally in Miami. I lived in New York before, and I used to go to Miami a lot. And I want to say this was 2003 or 2004.Brianne 0:02:02Okay.Rebecca 0:02:03And I was drinking very heavily. Met him at a club. I was there with my sister. And I remember it's fuzzy because I was very, very drunk.Brianne 0:02:12This is before I got sober and.Rebecca 0:02:14I met him and a bunch of his friends at a club. And we thought he was cute, so we introduced ourselves, and then he said, Come hang out with us. And I remember him popping champagne bottles and spraying it, which he still does.Brianne 0:02:31Wow. Yeah.Rebecca 0:02:33And I don't remember who else was with him, but I know that he lived with Jax at the time, so.Brianne 0:02:37He might have been there.Rebecca 0:02:38I just don't remember. I didn't know him then, so we didn't hook up with him that night, but nothing happened. So then fast forward maybe a year, and at this point, me and my sister had moved to Los Angeles. And this is like, the height of my drinking. This is one of the most drunk nights I've ever had. Like, it sticks out as really out of control. Like, very out of control. And I went to a liquor store and I remember these guys coming in and thinking I was funny because I was drunk. And then they were like, do you want to go come to a house party with us? And like an idiot, I was like, sure. And I went to this house party. I don't know whose house it was, where it was, what part of town.Brianne 0:03:20Like, no clue, no memory.Brianne 0:03:22So scary. I'm so scared for you right now.Rebecca 0:03:25I know, but it was like a legit, typical Hollywood house party with a couple of another reality star. So there was probably some celebrities or well known Hollywood people at this party. And I remember seeing Tom sort of remember and going up to him. I'm like, oh, it's Tom Sandoval. Where I met him. Miami. I remembered him because we thought he was really cute. And I guess I went up to him and was like, do you remember me and my sister? She looks like a lot like me. And he said yes. And then I guess we were talking, and I said something like, my sister thinks you're really hot. Can I bring you home to her?Brianne 0:04:06We live together.Rebecca 0:04:07Can I bring you home for her?Brianne 0:04:09Like a present?Rebecca 0:04:11Exactly.Brianne 0:04:13Here's your party favorite. Enjoy. Okay.Rebecca 0:04:17I remember going home, and me and.Brianne 0:04:20My sister had lived together at the time, but she wasn't home for whatever reason.Rebecca 0:04:24So I said something like, well, I can't let you go to waste.Brianne 0:04:29Yeah, that's a line.Brianne 0:04:34Yeah.Rebecca 0:04:35He was completely unfazed by whoever, whatever. I was like, yeah, I can't let you go to waste, so do you want to go upstairs? And he was like, yeah, sure. I just remember thinking, okay, that was easy because at the time, I treated men like conquest, and I was very into male models. Since I had lived in New York, he was just another male model. So we went upstairs, did the deed. I sort of remember either. I told him first that I had a boyfriend.Brianne 0:05:04Okay.Rebecca 0:05:05He told me that he had a girlfriend, and it was very life, matter of fact.Brianne 0:05:08No guilt about it.Rebecca 0:05:10Just like, yeah, I have a girlfriend. Oh, yeah, I have a boyfriend. And then it was sort of right before the act.Brianne 0:05:16Yeah.Rebecca 0:05:17And then we did and it didn't take very long.Brianne 0:05:21It didn't last very long.Rebecca 0:05:22It wasn't very nothing to write home about, from what I remember. And then I guess I got his number because I gave it to my sister later, which is so weird and twisted.Brianne 0:05:31So weird and twisted. Alcoholic. Yeah. Here, I just left with him. Your turn, CIS.Brianne 0:05:41Yeah.Rebecca 0:05:41I was like, sorry, life. You weren't home. But she didn't care, and so he left. And then I hadn't seen him since. I haven't talked to him. I didn't ever text him.Brianne 0:05:52Okay. So I know everything that's going on, and I just have to say to all the listeners, I don't do pop culture. I don't deal with that kind of shit. But this story, and I know you agreed with me, it's so frustrating from a recovered sex and love addict that nobody's calling this shit, that they both are sex and love addicts.Brianne 0:06:16Exactly.Brianne 0:06:18It's so frustrating. And why did you reach out to me about it? Because I want to hear it from your point of view. Because you slept with him?Brianne 0:06:25Yes, because I've been watching the show, obviously. And I actually started watching because I recognized him on the commercials after I slept with him. This was about I don't know, it was years before Vanderpump Rules. And the whole case just fascinated me for so many reasons, as it does pretty much the rest of America and so many other people beyond. And it's just so layered and it's so interesting why it's captivated so many people. Considering cheating is not an uncommon thing, especially on Bravo, especially on Vanderpump Rules. It's like what the show was based on. So I really wanted to share that aspect of it and talk about how this is a pattern life. He was just found out. But this is happening 18 years ago. And since then I got sober, I'm in slaa, I've identified as a sex and love addict. So I just see so many things that people are not really talking about.Brianne 0:07:27Yeah, and society is missing. It's almost like a secret society is keeping from our human race, because the number one thing people want is love and affection and attention and intimacy. But majority of humans are terrified of it. So we go from person to person to person. Doesn't really even matter who they are, to get this need filled. And we're all just like running around like toddlers, wanting, giving, giving. And here's an example of two people willing to blow up their whole fucking life exactly. For that little thing where they think it's everything. It's that life. Roller coaster, intensity, passion. So let's break it down. So when you are watching it, and I know you've listened to a lot of other podcasts, I mean, JLo is talking about it like, JLo, that's crazy.Brianne 0:08:21It's in Time Magazine, it's in Variety, it's in every major publication. It sort of transcended the Bravo and reality show universe. And there's a reason why I think it's relatable to so many people, but they can't quite put their finger on why.Brianne 0:08:36Yeah. So what is other podcasts saying that's making you frustrated as a recovered sex and love addict?Brianne 0:08:42I just don't think that they're touching on that aspect. I think they're more focused on it's, like black and white. It's a betrayal, obviously, but they're not going into the nuances of what Tom might be feeling or where he might be coming from, or what's going on with Raquel, what their histories and their childhoods might have been like. And one of the most interesting things about it is that Ariana, it turns out knew about Miami Girl and was protecting him. And there's just so many aspects about their relationship that I relate to in other relationships as well. Sort of the manipulation and the narcissism. Not to diagnose anyone, although it used to be a therapist. But there's just so many things that people are missing. I've heard a couple of podcasts coming at it from a psychological and intuitive empathic sort of way. But most of the podcasts are missing.Brianne 0:09:41That well, they're just ragging on them. And listen, I'm speaking from a place where I was a cheater, cheated all the time, go from person to person, overlap them. So I'm coming in from and listen, I was a piece of shit. I will say that I was in my addiction. It was all about me. Selfish, self involved, fill me up, give me attention, give me what I need. In the moment the high wore off and the excitement, I would start looking for somebody else.Brianne 0:10:05I'm familiar, right?Brianne 0:10:06So I have no judgment on Tom. And then I also know, and you and I have talked about this before a long time ago. Well, not a long time ago, but when it came out, we said, listen, poor Ariana, she is the victim, but she also has a place when someone cheats, and I know a lot of people don't agree with me when someone cheats, it takes those two people in the relationship to actually make that happen. She avoided the red flags, she made excuses, she kept a secret, a huge.Brianne 0:10:40Secret for seven years that lied about it.Rebecca 0:10:44New women.Brianne 0:10:44Yeah. So she missed those signs. And then when the intimacy is going away, which she said, our intimacy has been bad, when that starts to break, you're responsible to repair it.Brianne 0:11:00Yes, and she said she tried, but we don't really know what happened.Brianne 0:11:06Yeah, she should have. But here's the thing, then she could say, something's missing, something's going on, you're staying out late, you're not home, you're not spending that much time with me. Red flag, red flag, red flag, red flag.Brianne 0:11:20Yes. And we've all done it. We've all ignored red flags and wasted years doing that. And then we're blindsided and then we're like, what happened? But in hindsight, we can see all the red flags that were there and that we maybe willfully ignored.Brianne 0:11:35So I did read something I Want to Tell you and see your take on it, that he's a narcissist. Listen, I had narcissistic tendencies. I'm not a narcissist, but I have them. And we're not saying he is. And then she did a post a while ago, raquel that she was going to codependency twelve step program Coda. And I was thinking it's not really a Coda situation because I pulled up some of the things is that you will still see a person that's destructive to you. So there's something in her. So that's like the questions. There's 40 questions in Flaw and one of them is, do you find yourself unable to stop seeing a specific person even though that person is destructive to you?Brianne 0:12:20Yeah. And she did this with James, too. I mean, James was destructive in a totally different way. But she seeks these men out that are very strong personalities and possible narcissists and manipulative. And they're very different in the way that they sort of abused her, but they both were pretty toxic for her.Brianne 0:12:42Overwhelming. She loses her sense of self in the relationship.Brianne 0:12:47Yes. And maybe she feels stronger having someone like that at her side because she's not strong on her own. She's kind of fascinating. She has a lot of oh, yeah. History. That she was adopted by her aunt.Brianne 0:13:05Abandonment, rejection from her birth mom.Brianne 0:13:09Yes. Even though she would probably deny it, because the way that she frames it is really interesting. She said something like, my birth mom was kind enough to give me to her sister, essentially because she couldn't conceive. And she framed it in a way that's a very pageant answer. And then the pageant is a whole that pageant world is a whole other animal where she competed against other women. Other women had this perfectionism, which is why I think a lot of times she seems rehearsed and very stoic and very put together, but there's nothing there.Brianne 0:13:49Well, here's number 14 is, do you feel desperate for a lover or a future mate? It's like instead of going outside this group, she went inside the circle and saw, oh, here's they have a house, they have this. This is what I want. Oh, and he's like a rock star now. Because here's the other thing I want to say. One of the huge characteristics for sex and love addicts, and I love this characteristic, it's my favorite. But we assign magical qualities to others. We idealize and pursue them and then blame them for not fulfilling our fantasies and expectations. And I believe both of them do that.Brianne 0:14:25Both of them did that for him. He was the answer to his midlife crisis. She made him feel seen. She made him feel special.Brianne 0:14:37Yes, you heard and validated.Brianne 0:14:41She's very different than Ariana. Ariana will tell it like it is, and she will just be heart eyes and just very admiring of him. And that's what he needed at that time. If he is a narcissist, that's what he's going to want. He's going to want someone admiring. But does she really see him? I don't know.Brianne 0:15:03No, she doesn't. So that's the thing. Even when they're talking to each other, because you and I just looked at some of the reunion, even when they were in that winnebago or away from the set, they were talking to each other. It's almost like they weren't even seeing each other. It was really interesting to watch. It was like their eyes were glazed over. So it's almost this false form of intimacy that I was seeing that they didn't even seem like they actually knew each other or that they've had sex before. Even when people I used to work as an actor, I go on set and I would know who's fucking who life. You're fucking the hair person, you're with the extra. You're doing this because you can feel that energy. But something in them, and it wasn't because the cameras were on them, because you can still see it. Because we could see it before. There's something where they used each other for false intimacy and it's actually not there.Brianne 0:15:58Yeah, they don't really do that, too. I did. I mean, both scenes that we saw of them together, pretty much everyone is saying that it was weird, it was awkward. And I'm sure most people chalked it up to and they could chalk it up to there's cameras there. But yeah, I didn't see the connection, the intimacy, the love.Brianne 0:16:16But they've had cameras for a long time, so they're used to cameras. It's not like somebody new.Brianne 0:16:21Yeah, but it was a secret that was being exposed and finally filmed. And so I'm sure they didn't know how to act, but I didn't see any connection or intimacy, literally.Brianne 0:16:32Could you see them having an affair for seven months? I did not feel that intimacy at all. It was almost like evaporates. And I think that's what I wanted to say to you, too, and see if you agree, is when we love secrets and lies, the dirtier, the dark, we get to fester in secrets and lies. And when it comes to light, it never lives up to the fantasy.Brianne 0:16:56You could see that the magic was gone, the bubble was burst. You could see that in the trailer. It's like, oh, consequences. Now it's real life, and we're not in this little secret, exciting, forbidden bubble anymore. Now everyone else is involved and it's ugly and it's real life. And like Ariana even said, wait till she starts having real demands and expectations of a girlfriend. She's not going to be so cool and exciting then. And that was Ariana's experience. It's the same pattern repeated.Brianne 0:17:31Yeah. And listen, Ariana could have a little love addict in her. And I believe most of society has this because we all yearn to be loved. But I wanted to read this characteristic. We feel empty and incomplete when we are alone. Even though we fear intimacy and commitment, we continually search for relationships and sexual contacts.Brianne 0:17:51Absolutely.Brianne 0:17:52I mean, how many stories have we I've heard much more stories about him. Been cheating a lot. Like 1112 people. So this is something where he's going into we call it relocating, where you go to other locations and you find people to intrigue with or flirt with or hook up with, and then you leave them there.Brianne 0:18:16Yeah.Brianne 0:18:20Sorry.Brianne 0:18:21No, that's okay. This is 18 years ago, and he had a girlfriend then. And then the next time I saw him, he was with Kristen. That was five or six years they lived together. Very codependent, cheating on her the whole time. And then he went right from that to Ariana. And then he cheated on her from the beginning, whether you want to call it cheating or not. Miami girl. And then I believe there are way more than two or three that he's admitting to.Brianne 0:18:50100%. I would give money on it, because what happens is this is a progressive disease. It's a thinking disease. It's actually not about the other person, we think. And it progressively gets worse. So the higher the stakes means you've been doing it a long time. And here's the stakes. It was her best friend seven months on television for them to even think. And she even said in the interview, I thought it would be okay with Ariana. I thought they would break up. Then him and I could start dating. That was my reality. And in my head, I was screaming, no, that was your fucking fantasy.Brianne 0:19:29Yeah.Brianne 0:19:31That is life. How toxic and how this disease will make you think the craziest things will work out and they won't.Brianne 0:19:40Yeah. I wonder if she thought that, because that's exactly what happened with Kristen and Ariana's overlap. Like, he came on the reunion, we didn't see this, but he had broken up with Kristen and then now he's with Ariana. And maybe she thought that their situation would play out the same way if they weren't caught. That's what would have happened. He would have broken up with Ariana, and the next reunion, they would be together next season, maybe, and everybody would just accept it eventually. That's what she thought. And I think she even said that I was living in my own little world. And even Lala also pointed out that.Brianne 0:20:17Living in fantasy, that she thought it was going to work out. I mean, even Randall, I've met him and gone in for him and castings and stuff. And it's like I smelled him from a mile away of also having this problem. Let's just get to it.Brianne 0:20:30Yeah. I think somebody said maybe it was Ariana. She said the way that he talks about her is exactly the way that he talked about me in the beginning. And so many I've looked at scenes that are almost identical of what he said about Kristen. We're not having sex. She cringes when I touch her. We were basically roommates. And he's saying the exact same things about Ariana. So it's a pattern of over. I mean, that's 15 years right there.Brianne 0:20:59Well, here's the third characteristic, and this one is going to nail ding, ding. It says furied emotional and sexual deprivation. So he felt he had emotional deprivation and sexual deprivation. We compulsively pursue and involve ourselves in one relationship after another, sometimes having more than one sexual or emotional liaison at a time, so that's that overlap. It's like, can't be alone. I'm empty. I'm empty. Fill me up. Give me the sexual needs. Give me the emotional needs.Brianne 0:21:37Yeah, it's life leapfrogging from one thing to another. Life I've never seen again. This is like two decades from what I've seen and from what I know of the exact same thing. I can't be alone. I can't be alone.Rebecca 0:21:50Can't be alone.Brianne 0:21:51I need that girlfriend, but I also need that excitement on the outside.Brianne 0:21:56Yeah. And here's Raquel's one. We confuse love with neediness. Physical and sexual attraction, pity or the need to rescue or be rescued.Brianne 0:22:06Yeah, with James, I guess she was trying to rescue him.Brianne 0:22:09Yeah, but here's the thing. She was trying to rescue Sandoval from his relationship with Ariana, and then she want to be rescued by him in her loneliness. And she couldn't sit within herself. And we were forgetting she hooked up with that other married guy before in Vegas.Brianne 0:22:29Schwartz.Brianne 0:22:31No, schwartz and then the one before. Yes.Brianne 0:22:34I mean, she went from Peter to Oliver to Schwartz, which I think was a decoy, set up something. It was either production or Sandoval trying to cover his tracks. Or she was trying to make him jealous. That both.Brianne 0:22:48I actually think both.Brianne 0:22:49Yeah, because he wasn't committing. I mean, I think what we're hearing is completely different than what they were talking about behind closed doors and what they had planned. Maybe. I mean, there's a theory that she was with Sandoval when she was with James and that's why she broke up with him. She broke the engagement off because it was kind of out of nowhere.Brianne 0:23:11Well, he was paying for their engagement, which is very odd, very strange. It's almost like the seeds were being planted. And it's like a type of not grooming, but a type of grooming situation where, listen, healthy people do not pick unhealthy people. I always say, when you do this work, anybody you choose right now is unhealthy because a healthy person sees those signs, sees those boundaries, and will not put up with them. So anytime someone with these behaviors, who they pick is just unhealthy? That's exactly it. Because here's the thing. Ariana did kiss him while he was with Kristen. There's a part of her that's unhealthy, and people aren't saying that. And listen, she is the victim. I feel horrible for her, absolutely terrible. But she also played out the same pattern. Yes. Not saying that.Brianne 0:24:12No, not saying that. I mean, it's interesting that she's so the victim right now. Everybody feels so bad for her. Andy did touch on it a little bit in the reunion. He said, Listen, this is a room full of cheaters. Ariana, you kissed Sandoval while he was with Kristen. And the thing is, in rewatching the show, she's never once copped to that and said, I mean, she admitted it, but she never said, yeah, that was wrong. I'm sorry, Kristen, that was wrong. That was still cheating. And by the way, I don't know if they just kissed. But even if they just kissed, that's still cheating. That's still doing the same thing that ended up kind of happening to her.Brianne 0:24:54But here's the thing. They're not saying my friend, they're not saying they had an emotional affair already. They were best friends. First of all, I don't know about you, but I don't believe men and women, if that's the sexual if that's who you're attracted to, I don't believe it's a healthy scenario to have a lot of guy friends or to have a guy best friend. No, I just don't. The energy exchange, usually somebody would fuck somebody, so it's not a real friendship.Brianne 0:25:23Agree.Brianne 0:25:24They were having an emotional affair. That's worse than kissing. That's worse. And no one's saying that.Brianne 0:25:32No one's saying that. I know it is. I mean, Kristen said that in the reunion. She said, well, you guys were having an emotional affair. And I think they kind of denied that. But it's pretty clear. I wouldn't want my boyfriend texting his friend who's really hot, who I'm threatened by at three in the morning and saying what certain things that they were saying. It's inappropriate, to say the least. And she never really owned that. Neither of them ever caught to that. We're friends, we're friends. And then he said the same thing about Raquel. We're friends. We're friends. We're dancing at the Abbey at 02:00 A.m..Brianne 0:26:08It's normal.Brianne 0:26:10No, it's not. It is not normal. Whoever you're hanging out whoever's hanging out with somebody at 01:00 A.m., that is not a healthy situation. In the dark is where things get fucked up. And here's the one I want to say, because this is the characteristic for what we're talking about, is having few healthy boundaries. We become sexually involved with and or emotionally attached to people without knowing them. Now, he could say, Ariana and I knew each other back then, and it's like, no, you didn't. You worked behind a bar. Yes, you worked together. But do you actually know the person? Probably they trauma bonded. Probably they complained about Kristen and she felt closer to him and they had this connection. Oh, my God. I can't tell you, if I hear one more person saying, oh, the connection, we were like, I've never connected to another person. I'm like that's a bunch of BS.Brianne 0:27:03Sorry.Brianne 0:27:04Yes.Brianne 0:27:08That was my alarm. Yeah. I think that she probably trauma bonded with him also because she had talked about in her last relationship, she dealt with a lot of emotional and verbal abuse, and she was talked down to and her self esteem was just obliterated. So, yeah, they probably did trauma bond over these toxic relationships that they were in. And they both said that. She said that over and over. Like, I've known him for six years. We've been friends for six years. As if that sort of or no, three years, I think it was at the time. As if that sort of overshadows the actual intimate relationship that Kristen had with him. And they acted like they knew each other on that intimate level because they were friends for three years.Brianne 0:27:56Yeah.Brianne 0:27:57And it's not the same thing. They didn't know each other that way. So they said, you don't even know.Brianne 0:28:04The person that you're with sometimes for years. My husband and I have been together for 18 years, and I still learn things about him. So if you think this overwhelming connection or you know this person, you do not you do not ever there's a part of us that is never fully yes, we're connected. I'm the most connected I've ever been, but I had years and years of therapy and work on myself and my intimacy and all of that. But Tom and Raquel or Tom and Ariana are all these scenarios. First of all, they don't know each other. You're living in an altered reality in general, on television. None of that is fucking real. I've been an actress for 20 something years. It is not real. None of it. So they all live in fantasy. And these two people, let's say, took the fantasy to the next level. And no one is calling it what it is. And now they say she's in rehab or a mental facility.Brianne 0:29:05Do you believe that? I want to know if you believe thatBrianne 0:29:08I don't. Honestly, I have no idea what's going on with her. I think it's probably a good thing that she's not in the public eye right now and in everyone's face, like Sandoval is. She's not flaunting. Whatever she's doing, I mean, it's good that she's out of the public eye in a way. I don't know where she is. Life. Maybe she's at a maybe she's with her parents. Maybe she's at because she seems very reliant on them. And, um maybe she's at a spa that she's sorry. Calling a wellness resort. Maybe there's a theory that she was pregnant and so she's in hiding at her grandmother's house. I don't know. She's more of the mysterious piece for me. She's hard to read.Brianne 0:29:52It's that facade. That mask is that perfectionism.Brianne 0:29:56It's the reflection that all these men because I look.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

First ReadingACTS 18:9-189And the Lord said to Paul one night in a vision, "Do not be afraid, but speak and do not be silent; 10for I am with you, and no man shall attack you to harm you; for I have many people in this city." 11And he stayed a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them. 12But when Gallio was proconsul of Acha'ia, the Jews made a united attack upon Paul and brought him before the tribunal, 13saying, "This man is persuading men to worship God contrary to the law." 14But when Paul was about to open his mouth, Gallio said to the Jews, "If it were a matter of wrongdoing or vicious crime, I should have reason to bear with you, O Jews; 15but since it is a matter of questions about words and names and your own law, see to it yourselves; I refuse to be a judge of these things." 16And he drove them from the tribunal. 17And they all seized Sos'thenes, the ruler of the synagogue, and beat him in front of the tribunal. But Gallio paid no attention to this. 18After this Paul stayed many days longer, and then took leave of the brethren and sailed for Syria, and with him Priscilla and Aq'uila. At Cen'chre-ae he cut his hair, for he had a vow.GospelJOHN 16:20-2320Truly, truly, I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice; you will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy. 21When a woman is in travail she has sorrow, because her hour has come; but when she is delivered of the child, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a child is born into the world. 22So you have sorrow now, but I will see you again and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you. 23In that day you will ask nothing of me. Truly, truly, I say to you, if you ask anything of the Father, he will give it to you in my name.

The Gospel of John 15-21 Pt. 2: I Have Overcome the World By Louie Marsh, 4-23-2023     1) Jesus says be ALERT or I could fall away.   “1“I have said all these things to you to keep you from falling away. 2They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God. 3And they will do these things because they have not known the Father, nor me.” (John 16:1–3, ESV)   “17You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, take care that you are not carried away with the error of lawless people and lose your own stability.” (2 Peter 3:17, ESV)   2) The Holy Spirit's Ministry…   ·       To the world: CONVICTION of…   “8And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment: 9concerning sin, because they do not believe in me; 10concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you will see me no longer; 11concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.” (John 16:8–11, ESV)   o   SIN   “4Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness.” (1 John 3:4, ESV)   o   RIGHTEOUSNESS   “9and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—” (Philippians 3:9, ESV)   o   JUDGEMENT   “13For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.” (James 2:13, ESV)   ·       To the Believer: leading me to TRUTH.   “13When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. 14He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you.” (John 16:13–14, ESV)   3) Jesus turns my sorrow into JOY.   “20Truly, truly, I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice. You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy. 21When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world. 22So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.” (John 16:20–22, ESV)   4) Jesus has OVERCOME the world.   “32Behold, the hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered, each to his own home, and will leave me alone. Yet I am not alone, for the Father is with me. 33I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”” (John 16:32–33, ESV)     Be of good cheer (θαρσειτε [tharseite]). Imperative active from θαρσος [tharsos], courage (Acts 28:15). A word for courage in the face of danger, only here in John, but see Matt. 9:2, 22; Mark 10:49. I have overcome the world (ἐγω, νενικηκα τον κοσμον [egō, nenikēka ton kosmon]). Perfect active indicative of νικαω [nikaō], to be victorious, to conquer. Always of spiritual victory in the N. T. See 1 John 5:4f. This majestic proclamation of victory over death may be compared with   A.T. Robertson, Word Pictures in the New Testament (Nashville, TN: Broadman Press, 1933), Jn 16:33.   “4Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.” (1 John 4:4, ESV)   “4For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith.” (1 John 5:4, ESV)  

This week we talk about the intersections of large language models, the golden age of television and its storytelling mishaps, making one's way through the weirding of the labor economy, and much more with two of my favorite Gen X science fiction aficionados, OG podcaster KMO and our mutual friend Kevin Arthur Wohlmut. In this episode — a standalone continuation to my recent appearance on The KMO Show, we skip like a stone across mentions of every Star Trek series, the collapse of narratives and the social fabric, Westworld HBO, Star Wars Mandalorian vs. Andor vs. Rebels, chatGPT, Blade Runner 2049, Black Mirror, H.P. Lovecraft, the Sheldrake-Abraham-McKenna Trialogues, Charles Stross' Accelerando, Adventure Time, Stanislav Grof's LSD psychotherapy, Francisco Varela, Blake Lemoine's meltdown over Google LaMDA, Integrated Information Theory, biosemiotics, Douglas Hofstadter, Max Tegmarck, Erik Davis, Peter Watts, The Psychedelic Salon, Melanie Mitchell, The Teafaerie, Kevin Kelly, consilience in science, Fight Club, and more…Or, if you prefer, here's a rundown of the episode generated by A.I. c/o my friends at Podium.page:In this episode, I explore an ambitious and well-connected conversation with guests KMO, a seasoned podcaster, and Kevin Walnut [sic], a close friend and supporter of the arts in Santa Fe. We dive deep into their thoughts on the social epistemology crisis, science fiction, deep fakes, and ontology. Additionally, we discuss their opinions on the Star Trek franchise, particularly their critiques of the first two seasons of Star Trek: Picard and Discovery. Through this engaging conversation, we examine the impact of storytelling and the evolution of science fiction in modern culture. We also explore the relationship between identity, media, and artificial intelligence, as well as the ethical implications of creating sentient artificial general intelligence (AGI) and the philosophical questions surrounding AI's impact on society and human existence. Join us for a thought-provoking and in-depth discussion on a variety of topics that will leave you questioning the future of humanity and our relationship with technology.✨ Before we get started, three big announcements!* I am leaving the Santa Fe Institute, in part to write a very ambitious book about technology, art, imagination, and Jurassic Park. You can be a part of the early discussion around this project by joining the Future Fossils Book Club's Jurassic Park live calls — the first of which will be on Saturday, 29 April — open to Substack and Patreon supporters:* Catch me in a Twitter Space with Nxt Museum on Monday 17 April at 11 am PST on a panel discussing “Creative Misuse of Technology” with Minne Atairu, Parag Mital, Caroline Sinders, and hosts Jesse Damiani and Charlotte Kent.* I'm back in Austin this October to play the Astronox Festival at Apache Pass! Check out this amazing lineup on which I appear alongside Juno Reactor, Entheogenic, Goopsteppa, DRRTYWULVZ, and many more great artists!✨ Support Future Fossils:Subscribe anywhere you go for podcastsSubscribe to the podcast PLUS essays, music, and news on Substack or Patreon.Buy my original paintings or commission new work.Buy my music on Bandcamp! (This episode features “A Better Trip” from my recent live album by the same name.)Or if you're into lo-fi audio, follow me and my listening recommendations on Spotify.This conversation continues with lively and respectful interaction every single day in the members-only Future Fossils Facebook Group and Discord server. Join us!Episode cover art by KMO and a whole bouquet of digital image manipulation apps.✨ Tip Jars:@futurefossils on Venmo$manfredmacx on CashAppmichaelgarfield on PayPal✨ Affiliate Links:• These show notes and the transcript were made possible with Podium.Page, a very cool new AI service I'm happy to endorse. Sign up here and get three free hours and 50% off your first month.• BioTech Life Sciences makes anti-aging and performance enhancement formulas that work directly at the level of cellular nutrition, both for ingestion and direct topical application. I'm a firm believer in keeping NAD+ levels up and their skin solution helped me erase a year of pandemic burnout from my face.• Help regulate stress, get better sleep, recover from exercise, and/or stay alert and focused without stimulants, with the Apollo Neuro wearable. I have one and while I don't wear it all the time, when I do it's sober healthy drugs.• Musicians: let me recommend you get yourself a Jamstik Studio, the coolest MIDI guitar I've ever played. I LOVE mine. You can hear it playing all the synths on my song about Jurassic Park.✨ Mentioned Media:KMO Show S01 E01 - 001 - Michael Garfield and Kevin WohlmutAn Edifying Thought on AI by Charles EisensteinIn Defense of Star Trek: Picard & Discovery by Michael GarfieldImprovising Out of Algorithmic Isolation by Michael GarfieldAI and the Transformation of the Human Spirit by Steven Hales(and yes I know it's on Quillette, and no I don't think this automatically disqualifies it)Future Fossils Book Club #1: Blindsight by Peter WattsFF 116 - The Next Ten Billion Years: Ugo Bardi & John Michael Greer as read by Kevin Arthur Wohlmut✨ Related Recent Future Fossils Episodes:FF 198 - Tadaaki Hozumi on Japanese Esotericism, Aliens, Land Spirits, & The Singularity (Part 2)FF 195 - A.I. Art: An Emergency Panel with Julian Picaza, Evo Heyning, Micah Daigle, Jamie Curcio, & Topher SipesFF 187 - Fear & Loathing on the Electronic Frontier with Kevin Welch & David Hensley of EFF-Austin FF 178 - Chris Ryan on Exhuming The Human from Our Eldritch Institutions FF 175 - C. Thi Nguyen on The Seductions of Clarity, Weaponized Games, and Agency as Art ✨ Chapters:0:15:45 - The Substance of Philosophy (58 Seconds)0:24:45 - Complicated TV Narratives and the Internet (104 Seconds)0:30:54 - Humans vs Hosts in Westworld (81 Seconds)0:38:09 - Philosophical Zombies and Artificial Intelligence (89 Seconds)0:43:00 - Popular Franchises Themes (71 Seconds)1:03:27 - Reflections on a Changing Media Landscape (89 Seconds)1:10:45 - The Pathology of Selective Evidence (92 Seconds)1:16:32 - Externalizing Trauma Through Technology (131 Seconds)1:24:51 - From Snow Maker to Thouandsaire (43 Seconds)1:36:48 - The Impact of Boomer Parenting (126 Seconds)✨ Keywords:Social Epistemology, Science Fiction, Deep Fakes, Ontology, Star Trek, Artificial Intelligence, AI Impact, Sentient AGI, Human-Machine Interconnectivity, Consciousness Theory, Westworld, Blade Runner 2049, AI in Economy, AI Companion Chatbots, Unconventional Career Path, AI and Education, AI Content Creation, AI in Media, Turing Test✨ UNEDITED machine-generated transcript generated by podium.page:0:00:00Five four three two one. Go. So it's not like Wayne's world where you say the two and the one silently. Now, Greetings future fossils.0:00:11Welcome to episode two hundred and one of the podcast that explores our place in time I'm your host, Michael Garfield. And this is one of these extra juicy and delicious episodes of the show where I really ratcheted up with our guests and provide you one of these singularity is near kind of ever everything is connected to everything, self organized criticality right at the edge of chaos conversations, deeply embedded in chapel parallel where suddenly the invisible architect picture of our cosmos starts to make itself apparent through the glass bead game of conversation. And I am that I get to share it with you. Our guests this week are KMO, one of the most seasoned and well researched and experienced podcasters that I know. Somebody whose show the Sea Realm was running all the way back in two thousand six, I found him through Eric Davis, who I think most of you know, and I've had on the show a number of times already. And also Kevin Walnut, who is a close friend of mine here in Santa Fe, a just incredible human being, he's probably the strongest single supporter of music that I'm aware of, you know, as far as local scenes are concerned and and supporting people's music online and helping get the word out. He's been instrumental to my family and I am getting ourselves situated here all the way back to when I visited Santa Fe in two thousand eighteen to participate in the Santa Fe Institute's Interplanetary Festival and recorded conversations on that trip John David Ebert and Michael Aaron Cummins. And Ike used so June. About hyper modernity, a two part episode one zero four and one zero five. I highly recommend going back to that, which is really the last time possibly I had a conversation just this incredibly ambitious on the show.0:02:31But first, I want to announce a couple things. One is that I have left the Santa Fe Institute. The other podcast that I have been hosting for them for the last three and a half years, Complexity Podcast, which is substantially more popular in future fossils due to its institutional affiliation is coming to a close, I'm recording one more episode with SFI president David Krakauer next week in which I'm gonna be talking about my upcoming book project. And that episode actually is conjoined with the big announcement that I have for members of the Future Fossil's listening audience and and paid supporters, which is, of course, the Jurassic Park Book Club that starts On April twenty ninth, we're gonna host the first of two video calls where I'm gonna dive deep into the science and philosophy Michael Creighton's most popular work of fiction and its impact on culture and society over the thirty three years since its publication. And then I'm gonna start picking up as many of the podcasts that I had scheduled for complexity and had to cancel upon my departure from SFI. And basically fuse the two shows.0:03:47And I think a lot of you saw this coming. Future fossils is going to level up and become a much more scientific podcast. As I prepare and research the book that I'm writing about Jurassic Park and its legacy and the relationship It has to ILM and SFI and the Institute of Eco Technics. And all of these other visionary projects that sprouted in the eighties and nineties to transition from the analog to the digital the collapse of the boundaries between the real and the virtual, the human and the non human worlds, it's gonna be a very very ambitious book and a very very ambitious book club. And I hope that you will get in there because obviously now I am out in the rain as an independent producer and very much need can benefit from and am deeply grateful for your support for this work in order to make things happen and in order to keep my family fed, get the lights on here with future fossils. So with that, I wanna thank all of the new supporters of the show that have crawled out of the woodwork over the last few weeks, including Raefsler Oingo, Brian in the archaeologist, Philip Rice, Gerald Bilak, Jamie Curcio, Jeff Hanson who bought my music, Kuaime, Mary Castello, VR squared, Nastia teaches, community health com, Ed Mulder, Cody Couiac, bought my music, Simon Heiduke, amazing visionary artist. I recommend you check out, Kayla Peters. Yeah. All of you, I just wow. Thank you so much. It's gonna be a complete melee in this book club. I'm super excited to meet you all. I will send out details about the call details for the twenty ninth sometime in the next few days via a sub tag in Patreon.0:06:09The amount of support that I've received through this transition has been incredible and it's empowering me to do wonderful things for you such as the recently released secret videos of the life sets I performed with comedian Shane Moss supporting him, opening for him here in Santa Fe. His two sold out shows at the Jean Coutu cinema where did the cyber guitar performances. And if you're a subscriber, you can watch me goofing off with my pedal board. There's a ton of material. I'm gonna continue to do that. I've got a lot of really exciting concerts coming up in the next few months that we're gonna get large group and also solo performance recordings from and I'm gonna make those available in a much more resplendent way to supporters as well as the soundtrack to Mark Nelson of the Institute of Eco Technics, his UC San Diego, Art Museum, exhibit retrospective looking at BioSphere two. I'm doing music for that and that's dropping. The the opening of that event is April twenty seventh. There's gonna be a live zoom event for that and then I'm gonna push the music out as well for that.0:07:45So, yeah, thank you all. I really, really appreciate you listening to the show. I am excited to share this episode with you. KMO is just a trove. Of insight and experience. I mean, he's like a perfect entry into the digital history museum that this show was predicated upon. So with that and also, of course, Kevin Willett is just magnificent. And for the record, stick around at the end of the conversation. We have some additional pieces about AI, and I think you're gonna really enjoy it. And yeah, thank you. Here we go. Alright. Cool.0:09:26Well, we just had a lovely hour of discussion for the new KMO podcast. And now I'm here with KMO who is The most inveterate podcaster I know. And I know a lot of them. Early adopts. And I think that weird means what you think it means. Inventor it. Okay. Yes. Hey, answer to both. Go ahead. I mean, you're not yet legless and panhandling. So prefer to think of it in term in terms of August estimation. Yeah. And am I allowed to say Kevin Walnut because I've had you as a host on True. Yeah. My last name was appeared on your show. It hasn't appeared on camos yet, but I don't really care. Okay. Great. Yeah. Karen Arthur Womlett, who is one of the most solid and upstanding and widely read and just generous people, I think I know here in Santa Fe or maybe anywhere. With excellent taste and podcasts. Yes. And who is delicious meat I am sampling right now as probably the first episode of future fossils where I've had an alcoholic beverage in my hand. Well, I mean, it's I haven't deprived myself. Of fun. And I think if you're still listening to the show after all these years, you probably inferred that. But at any rate, Welcome on board. Thank you. Thanks. Pleasure to be here.0:10:49So before we started rolling, I guess, so the whole conversation that we just had for your show camera was very much about my thoughts on the social epistemology crisis and on science fiction and deep fakes and all of these kinds of weird ontology and these kinds of things. But in between calls, we were just talking about how much you detest the first two seasons of Star Trek card and of Discovery. And as somebody, I didn't bother with doing this. I didn't send you this before we spoke, but I actually did write an SIN defense of those shows. No one. Yeah. So I am not attached to my opinion on this, but And I actually do wanna at some point double back and hear storytelling because when he had lunch and he had a bunch of personal life stuff that was really interesting. And juicy and I think worthy of discussion. But simply because it's hot on the rail right now, I wanna hear you talk about Star Trek. And both of you, actually, I know are very big fans of this franchise. I think fans are often the ones from whom a critic is most important and deserved. And so I welcome your unhinged rants. Alright. Well, first, I'll start off by quoting Kevin's brother, the linguist, who says, That which brings us closer to Star Trek is progress. But I'd have to say that which brings us closer to Gene Rottenberry and Rick Berman era Star Trek. Is progress. That which brings us closer to Kurtzmann. What's his first name? Alex. Alex Kurtzmann, Star Trek. Well, that's not even the future. I mean, that's just that's our drama right now with inconsistent Star Trek drag draped over it.0:12:35I liked the first JJ Abrams' Star Trek. I think it was two thousand nine with Chris Pine and Zachary Qinto and Karl Urban and Joey Saldana. I liked the casting. I liked the energy. It was fun. I can still put that movie on and enjoy it. But each one after that just seem to double down on the dumb and just hold that arm's length any of the philosophical stuff that was just amazing from Star Trek: The Next Generation or any of the long term character building, which was like from Deep Space nine.0:13:09And before seven of nine showed up on on Voyager, you really had to be a dedicated Star Trek fan to put up with early season's Voyager, but I did because I am. But then once she came on board and it was hilarious. They brought her onboard. I remember seeing Jerry Ryan in her cat suit on the cover of a magazine and just roll in my eyes and think, oh my gosh, this show is in such deep trouble through sinking to this level to try to save it. But she was brilliant. She was brilliant in that show and she and Robert Percardo as the doctor. I mean, it basically became the seven of nine and the doctor show co starring the rest of the cast of Voyager. And it was so great.0:13:46I love to hear them singing together and just all the dynamics of I'm human, but I was I basically came up in a cybernetic collective and that's much more comfortable to me. And I don't really have the option of going back it. So I gotta make the best of where I am, but I feel really superior to all of you. Is such it was such a charming dynamic. I absolutely loved it. Yes. And then I think a show that is hated even by Star Trek fans Enterprise. Loved Enterprise.0:14:15And, yes, the first three seasons out of four were pretty rough. Actually, the first two were pretty rough. The third season was that Zendy Ark in the the expanse. That was pretty good. And then season four was just astounding. It's like they really found their voice and then what's his name at CBS Paramount.0:14:32He's gone now. He got me too. What's his name? Les Moonves? Said, no. I don't like Star Trek. He couldn't he didn't know the difference between Star Wars and Star Trek. That was his level of engagement.0:14:44And he's I really like J.0:14:46J.0:14:46Abrams. What's that? You mean J. J. Abrams. Yeah. I think J. J. Is I like some of J. Abrams early films. I really like super eight. He's clearly his early films were clearly an homage to, like, eighties, Spielberg stuff, and Spielberg gets the emotional beats right, and JJ Abrams was mimicking that, and his early stuff really works. It's just when he starts adapting properties that I really love. And he's coming at it from a marketing standpoint first and a, hey, we're just gonna do the lost mystery box thing. We're gonna set up a bunch questions to which we don't know the answers, and it'll be up to somebody else to figure it out, somebody down the line. I as I told you, between our conversations before we were recording. I really enjoy or maybe I said it early in this one. I really like that first J. J. Abrams, Star Trek: Foam, and then everyone thereafter, including the one that Simon Pegg really had a hand in because he's clear fan. Yeah. Yeah. But they brought in director from one of the fast and the furious films and they tried to make it an action film on.0:15:45This is not Star Trek, dude. This is not why we like Star Trek. It's not for the flash, particularly -- Oh my god. -- again, in the first one, it was a stylistic choice. I'd like it, then after that is that's the substance of this, isn't it? It's the lens flares. I mean, that that's your attempt at philosophy. It's this the lens flares. That's your attempt at a moral dilemma. I don't know.0:16:07I kinda hate to start off on this because this is something about which I feel like intense emotion and it's negative. And I don't want that to be my first impression. I'm really negative about something. Well, one of the things about this show is that I always joke that maybe I shouldn't edit it because The thing that's most interesting to archaeologists is often the trash mitt and here I am tidying this thing up to be presentable to future historians or whatever like it I can sync to that for sure. Yeah. I'm sorry. The fact of it is you're not gonna know everything and we want it that way. No. It's okay. We'll get around to the stuff that I like. But yeah. So anyway yeah.0:16:44So I could just preassociate on Stretrick for a while, so maybe a focusing question. Well, but first, you said there's a you had more to say, but you were I this this tasteful perspective. This is awesome. Well, I do have a focus on question for you. So let me just have you ask it because for me to get into I basically I'm alienated right now from somebody that I've been really good friends with since high school.0:17:08Because over the last decade, culturally, we have bifurcated into the hard right, hard left. And I've tried not to go either way, but the hard left irritates me more than the hard right right now. And he is unquestionably on the hard left side. And I know for people who are dedicated Marxist, or really grounded in, like, materialism and the material well-being of workers that the current SJW fanaticism isn't leftist. It's just crazed. We try to put everything, smash everything down onto this left right spectrum, and it's pretty easy to say who's on the left and who's on the right even if a two dimensional, two axis graph would be much more expressive and nuanced.0:17:49Anyway, what's your focus in question? Well, And I think there is actually there is a kind of a when we ended your last episode talking about the bell riots from d s nine -- Mhmm. -- that, you know, how old five? Yeah. Twenty four. Ninety five did and did not accurately predict the kind of technological and economic conditions of this decade. It predicted the conditions Very well. Go ahead and finish your question. Yeah. Right.0:18:14That's another thing that's retreated in picard season two, and it was actually worth it. Yeah. Like, it was the fact that they decided to go back there was part of the defense that I made about that show and about Discovery's jump into the distant future and the way that they treated that I posted to medium a year or two ago when I was just watching through season two of picard. And for me, the thing that I liked about it was that they're making an effort to reconcile the wonder and the Ethiopian promise And, you know, this Kevin Kelly or rather would call Blake Protopian, right, that we make these improvements and that they're often just merely into incremental improvements the way that was it MLK quoted that abolitionists about the long arc of moral progress of moral justice. You know, I think that there's something to that and patitis into the last this is a long question. I'm mad at I'm mad at these. Thank you all for tolerating me.0:19:22But the when to tie it into the epistemology question, I remember this seeing this impactful lecture by Carnegie Mellon and SFI professor Simon Didayo who was talking about how by running statistical analysis on the history of the proceedings of the Royal Society, which is the oldest scientific journal, that you could see what looked like a stock market curve in sentiment analysis about the confidence that scientists had at the prospect of unifying knowledge. And so you have, like, conciliance r s curve here that showed that knowledge would be more and more unified for about a century or a hundred and fifty years then it would go through fifty years of decline where something had happened, which was a success of knowledge production. Had outpaced our ability to integrate it. So we go through these kinds of, like, psychedelic peak experiences collectively, and then we have sit there with our heads in our hands and make sense of everything that we've learned over the last century and a half and go through a kind of a deconstructive epoch. Where we don't feel like the center is gonna hold anymore. And that is what I actually As as disappointing as I accept that it is and acknowledge that it is to people who were really fueling themselves on that more gene rottenberry era prompt vision for a better society, I actually appreciated this this effort to explore and address in the shows the way that they could pop that bubble.0:21:03And, like, it's on the one hand, it's boring because everybody's trying to do the moral complexity, anti hero, people are flawed, thing in narrative now because we have a general loss of faith in our institutions and in our rows. On the other hand, like, that's where we are and that's what we need to process And I think there is a good reason to look back at the optimism and the quarian hope of the sixties and early seventies. We're like, really, they're not so much the seventies, but look back on that stuff and say, we wanna keep telling these stories, but we wanna tell it in a way that acknowledges that the eighties happened. And that this is you got Tim Leary, and then you've got Ronald Reagan. And then That just or Dick Nixon. And like these things they wash back and forth. And so it's not unreasonable to imagine that in even in a world that has managed to how do you even keep a big society like that coherent? It has to suffer kind of fabric collapses along the way at different points. And so I'm just curious your thoughts about that. And then I do have another prompt, but I wanna give Kevin the opportunity to respond to this as well as to address some of the prompts that you brought to this conversation? This is a conversation prompt while we weren't recording. It has nothing to do with Sartreks. I'll save that for later. Okay.0:22:25Well, everything you just said was in some way related to a defense of Alex Kurtzmann Star Trek. And it's not my original idea. I'm channeling somebody from YouTube, surely. But Don't get points for theme if the storytelling is incompetent. That's what I was gonna Yeah. And the storytelling in all of Star Trek: Discovery, and in the first two seasons of picard was simply incompetent.0:22:53When Star Trek, the next generation was running, they would do twenty, twenty four, sometimes more episodes in one season. These days, the season of TVs, eight episodes, ten, and they spend a lot more money on each episode. There's a lot more special effects. There's a lot more production value. Whereas Star Trek: The Next Generation was, okay, we have these standing sets. We have costumes for our actors. We have Two dollars for special effects. You better not introduce a new alien spaceship. It that costs money. We have to design it. We have to build it. So use existing stuff. Well, what do you have? You have a bunch of good actors and you have a bunch of good writers who know how to tell a story and craft dialogue and create tension and investment with basically a stage play and nothing in the Kerstmann era except one might argue and I would have sympathy strange new worlds. Comes anywhere close to that level of competence, which was on display for decades. From Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space nines, Star Trek Voyager, and Star Trek Enterprise. And so, I mean, I guess, in that respect, it's worth asking because, I mean, all of us, I think, are fans of Deep Space nine.0:24:03You don't think that it's a shift in focus. You don't think that strange in world is exempt because it went back to a more episodic format because what you're talking about is the ability for rather than a show runner or a team of show runners to craft a huge season, long dramatic arc. You've got people that are like Harlan Ellison in the original series able to bring a really potent one off idea to the table and drop it. And so there are there's all of those old shows are inconsistent from episode to episode. Some are they have specific writers that they would bring back again and that you could count to knock out of the park. Yeah. DC Fontana. Yeah.0:24:45So I'm curious to your thoughts on that as well as another part of this, which is when we talk when we talk your show about Doug Rushkoff and and narrative collapse, and he talks about how viewers just have different a way, it's almost like d s nine was possibly partially responsible for this change in what people expected from so. From television programming in the documentary that was made about that show and they talk about how people weren't ready for cereal. I mean, for I mean, yeah, for these long arcs, And so there is there's this question now about how much of this sort of like tiresome moral complexity and dragging narrative and all of this and, like, things like Westworld where it becomes so baroque and complicated that, like, you have, like, die hard fans like me that love it, but then you have a lot of people that just lost interest. They blacked out because the show was trying to tell a story that was, like, too intricate like, too complicated that the the show runners themselves got lost. And so that's a JJ Abrams thing too, the puzzle the mystery box thing where You get to the end of five seasons of lost and you're like, dude, did you just forget?0:25:56Did you wake up five c five episodes ago and just, oh, right. Right. We're like a chatbot that only give you very convincing answers based on just the last two or three interactions. But you don't remember the scene that we set. Ten ten responses ago. Hey. You know, actually, red articles were forget who it was, which series it was, they were saying that there's so many leaks and spoilers in getting out of the Internet that potentially the writers don't know where they're going because that way it can't be with the Internet. Yeah. Sounds interesting. Yeah. That sounds like cover for incompetence to be.0:26:29I mean, on the other hand, I mean, you did hear, like, Nolan and Joy talking about how they would they were obsessed with the Westworld subreddit and the fan theories and would try to dodge Like, if they had something in their mind that they found out that people are re anticipating, they would try to rewrite it. And so there is something about this that I think is really speaks to the nature of because I do wanna loop in your thoughts on AI to because you're talking about this being a favorite topic. Something about the, like, trying to The demands on the self made by predatory surveillance technologies are such that the I'm convinced the adaptive response is that we become more stochastic or inconsistent in our identities. And that we kind of sublimate from a more solid state of identity to or through a liquid kind of modernity biologic environment to a gaseous state of identity. That is harder to place sorry, harder to track. And so I think that this is also part of and this is the other question I wanted to ask you, and then I'm just gonna shut up for fifteen minutes is do you when you talk about loving Robert Ricardo and Jerry Ryan as the doctor at seven zero nine, One of the interesting things about that relationship is akin to stuff.0:27:52I know you've heard on Kevin have heard on future fossils about my love for Blade Runner twenty forty nine and how it explores all of these different these different points along a gradient between what we think of in the current sort of general understanding as the human and the machine. And so there's this thing about seven, right, where she's She's a human who wants to be a machine. And then there's this thing about the doctor where he's a machine that wants to be a human. And you have to grant both on a logical statuses to both of them. And that's why I think they're the two most interesting characters. Right?0:28:26And so at any rate, like, this is that's there's I've seen writing recently on the Turing test and how, like, really, there should be a reverse Turing test to see if people that have become utterly reliant on outboard cognition and information processing. They can pass the drink. Right. Are they philosophical zombies now? Are they are they having some an experience that that, you know, people like, thick and and shilling and the missing and these people would consider the modern self or are they something else have we moved on to another more routine robotic kind of category of being? I don't know. There's just a lot there, but -- Well done. -- considering everything you just said, In twenty words or less, what's your question? See, even more, like I said, do you have the inveterate podcaster? I'd say There's all of those things I just spoke about are ways in which what we are as people and the nature of our media, feedback into fourth, into each other. And so I would just love to hear you reflect on any of that, be it through the lens of Star Trek or just through the lens of discussion on AI. And we'll just let the ball roll downhill. So with the aim of framing something positively rather than negatively.0:29:47In the late nineties, mid to late nineties. We got the X Files. And the X Files for the first few seasons was so It was so engaging for me because Prior to that, there had been Hollywood tropes about aliens, which informed a lot of science fiction that didn't really connect with the actual reported experience of people who claim to have encountered either UFOs, now called UAPs, or had close encounters physical contact. Type encounters with seeming aliens. And it really seemed like Chris Carter, who was the showrunner, was reading the same Usenet Newsgroups that I was reading about those topics. Like, really, we had suddenly, for the first time, except maybe for comedian, you had the Grey's, and you had characters experiencing things that just seemed ripped right out of the reports that people were making on USnet, which for young folks, this is like pre Worldwide Web. It was Internet, but with no pictures. It's all text. Good old days from my perspective is a grumpy old gen xer. And so, yeah, that was a breakthrough moment.0:30:54Any this because you mentioned it in terms of Jonathan Nolan and his co writer on Westworld, reading the subreddit, the West and people figured out almost immediately that there were two interweaving time lines set decades apart and that there's one character, the old guy played by Ed Harris, and the young guy played by I don't remember the actor. But, you know, that they were the same character and that the inveterate white hat in the beginning turns into the inveterate black cat who's just there for the perverse thrill of tormenting the hosts as the robots are called. And the thing that I love most about that first season, two things. One, Anthony Hopkins. Say no more. Two, the revelation that the park has been basically copying humans or figuring out what humans are by closely monitoring their behavior in the park and the realization that the hosts come to is that, holy shit compared to us, humans are very simple creatures. We are much more complex. We are much more sophisticated, nuanced conscious, we feel more than the humans do, and that humans use us to play out their perverse and sadistic fantasies. To me, that was the takeaway message from season one.0:32:05And then I thought every season after that was just diluted and confused and not really coherent. And in particular, I haven't if there's a fourth season, haven't There was and then the show got canceled before they could finish the story. They had the line in season three. It was done after season three. And I was super happy to see Let's see after who plays Jesse Pinkman? Oh, no. Aaron oh, shit. Paul. Yes. Yeah. I was super happy to see him and something substantial and I was really pleased to see him included in the show and it's like, oh, that's what you're doing with him? They did a lot more interesting stuff with him in season four. I did they. They did a very much more interesting stuff. I think it was done after season three. If you tell me season four is worth taking in, I blow. I thought it was.0:32:43But again, I only watch television under very specific set of circumstances, and that's how I managed to enjoy television because I was a fierce and unrepentant hyperlogical critic of all media as a child until I managed to start smoking weed. And then I learned to enjoy myself. As we mentioned in the kitchen as I mentioned in the kitchen, if I smoke enough weed, Star Trek: Discovery is pretty and I can enjoy it on just a second by second level where if I don't remember what the character said thirty seconds ago, I'm okay. But I absolutely loved in season two when they brought in Hanson Mountain as as Christopher Pike. He's suddenly on the discovery and he's in the captain's chair. And it's like he's speaking for the audience. The first thing he says is, hey, why don't we turn on the lights? And then hey, all you people sitting around the bridge. We've been looking at your faces for a whole season. We don't even think about you. Listen to a round of introductions. Who are you? Who are you? It's it's if I were on set. You got to speak.0:33:53The writers is, who are these characters? We've been looking at them every single episode for a whole season. I don't know their names. I don't know anything about them. Why are they even here? Why is it not just Michael Burnham and an automated ship? And then it was for a while -- Yeah. -- which is funny. Yeah. To that point, And I think this kind of doubles back. The thing that I love about bringing him on and all of the people involved in strange and worlds in particular, is that these were lifelong fans of this series, I mean, of this world. Yeah. And so in that way, gets to this the idiosyncrasy question we're orbiting here, which is when these things are when the baton is passed well, it's passed to people who have now grown up with this stuff.0:34:40I personally cannot stand Jurassic World. Like, I think that Colin Trivaro should never have been in put at the reins. Which one did he direct? Oh, he did off he did first and the third. Okay. But, I mean, he was involved in all three very heavily.0:34:56And there's something just right at the outset of that first Jurassic World where you realize that this is not a film that's directly addressing the issues that Michael Creighton was trying to explore here. It's a film about its own franchise. It's a film about the fact that they can't just stop doing the same thing over and over again as we expect a different question. How can we not do it again? Right. And so it's actually, like, unpleasantly soft, conscious, in that way that I can't remember I'll try to find it for the show notes, but there's an Internet film reviewer who is talking about what happens when, like, all cinema has to take this self referential turn.0:35:34No. And films like Logan do it really well. But there are plenty of examples where it's just cheeky and self aware because that's what the ironic sensibility is obsessed with. And so, yeah, there's a lot of that where it's, like, you're talking about, like, Abrams and the the Star Wars seven and you know, that whole trilogy of Disney Star Wars, where it's, in my opinion, completely fumbled because there it's just empty fan service, whereas when you get to Andor, love Andor. Andor is amazing because they're capable of providing all of those emotional beats that the fans want and the ref the internal references and good dialogue. But they're able to write it in a way that's and shoot it in a way. Gilroy and Bo Willeman, basic of the people responsible for the excellent dialogue in Andor.0:36:31And I love the production design. I love all the stuff set on Coruscant, where you saw Coruscant a lot in the prequel trilogy, and it's all dayglow and bright and just in your face. And it's recognizable as Coruscant in andor, but it's dour. It's metropolis. It's all grays and it's and it's highlighting the disparity between where the wealthy live and where the poor live, which Lucas showed that in the prequel trilogy, but even in the sports bar where somebody tries to sell death sticks to Obi wan. So it's super clean and bright and just, you know, It shines too much. Personally though, and I just wanna stress, KMO is not grumpy media dude, I mean, this is a tiny fraction about, but I am wasting this interview with you. Love. All of the Dave Felloni animated Star Wars stuff, even rebels. Love it all.0:37:26I I'm so glad they aged up the character and I felt less guilty about loving and must staying after ahsoka tano? My favorite Star Wars character is ahsoka tano. But if you only watch the live action movies, you're like who? Well, I guess now that she's been on the Mandalorian, he's got tiny sliver of a foothold -- Yeah. -- in the super mainstream Star Wars. And that was done well, I thought. It was. I'm so sorry that Ashley Epstein doesn't have any part in it. But Rosario Dawson looks the part. She looks like a middle aged Asaka and think they tried to do some stuff in live action, which really should have been CGI because it's been established that the Jedi can really move, and she looked human. Which she is? If you put me on film, I'm gonna lick human. Right. Not if you're Canada Reeves, I guess. You got that. Yeah. But yeah.0:38:09So I do wanna just go real briefly back to this question with you about because we briefly talked about chat, GPT, and these other things in your half of this. And, yeah, I found out just the other night my friend, the t ferry, asked Chad g p t about me, and it gave a rather plausible and factual answer. I was surprised and That's what these language models do. They put plausible answers. But when you're doing search, you want correct answers. Right. I'm very good at that. Right. Then someone shared this Michelle Bowen's actually the famous PTP guy named him. Yeah. So, you know, So Michelle shared this article by Steven Hales and Colette, that was basically making the argument that there are now they're gonna be all these philosophical zombies, acting as intelligent agents sitting at the table of civilization, and there will be all the philosophical zombies of the people who have entirely yielded their agency to them, and they will be cohabitating with the rest of us.0:39:14And what an unpleasant scenario, So in light of that, and I might I'd love to hear you weave that together with your your thoughts on seven zero nine and the doctor and on Blade Runner twenty forty nine. And this thing that we're fumbling through as a species right now. Like, how do we got a new sort of taxonomy? Does your not audience need like a minute primer on P zombies? Might as well. Go for it.0:39:38So a philosophical zombie is somebody who behaves exactly like an insult person or a person with interior experience or subjective experience, but they don't have any subjective experience. And in Pardon me for interrupt. Wasn't that the question about the the book we read in your book club, a blind sign in this box? Yes. It's a black box, a drawn circle. Yeah. Chinese room experience. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Look, Daniel, it goes out. You don't know, it goes on inside the room. Chinese room, that's a tangent. We can come back to it. P. Zombie. P. Zombie is somebody or is it is an entity. It's basically a puppet. It looks human. It acts human. It talks like a human. It will pass a Turing test, but it has no interior experience.0:40:25And when I was going to grad school for philosophy of mind in the nineteen nineties, this was all very out there. There was no example of something that had linguistic competence. Which did not have internal experience. But now we have large language models and generative pretrained transformer based chatbots that don't have any internal experience. And yet, when you interact with them, it seems like there is somebody there There's a personality there. And if you go from one model to a different, it's a very different personality. It is distinctly different. And yet we have no reason to believe that they have any sort of internal experience.0:41:01So what AI in the last decade and what advances has demonstrated to us and really even before the last decade You back in the nineties when the blue beat Gary Casper off at at chess. And what had been the one of the defining characteristics of human intelligence was we're really good at this abstract mathematical stuff. And yeah, calculators can calculate pie in a way that we can't or they can cube roots in a way that humans generally can't, creative in their application of these methodologies And all of a sudden, well, yeah, it kinda seems like they are. And then when what was an alpha go -- Mhmm. -- when it be to least a doll in go, which is a much more complex game than chess and much more intuitive based. That's when we really had to say, hey, wait a minute. Maybe this notion that These things are the exclusive province of us because we have a special sort of self awareness. That's bunk. And the development of large language models since then has absolutely demonstrated that competence, particularly linguistic competence and in creative activities like painting and poetry and things like that, you don't need a soul, you don't even need to sense a self, it's pretty it's a pretty simple hack, actually. And Vahrv's large language models and complex statistical modeling and things, but it doesn't require a soul.0:42:19So that was the Peter Watts' point in blindsight. Right? Which is Look revolves around are do these things have a subjective experience, and do they not these aliens that they encounter? I've read nothing but good things about that book and I've read. It's extraordinary. But his lovecrafty and thesis is that you actually lovecraftian in twenty twenty three. Oh, yeah. In the world, there's more lovecraftian now than it was when he was writing. Right? So cough about the conclusion of a Star Trek card, which is season of Kraft yet. Yes. That's a that's a com Yeah. The holes in his fan sense. But that was another show that did this I liked for asking this question.0:42:54I mean, at this point, you either have seen this or you haven't you never will. The what the fuck turn when they upload picard into a synth body and the way that they're dealing with the this the pinocchio question Let's talk about Blade Runner twenty forty nine. Yeah. But I mean yeah. So I didn't like the wave I did not like the wave of card handled that. I love the wave and Blade Runner handled it. So you get no points for themes. Yeah. Don't deliver on story and character and coherence. Yeah. Fair. But yeah. And to be not the dog, Patrick Stewart, because it's clear from the ready room just being a part of this is so emotional and so awesome for everyone involved. And it's It's beautiful. Beautiful. But does when you when you see these, like, entertainment weekly interviews with Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard about Jurassic World, and it's clear that actors are just so excited to be involved in a franchise that they're willing to just jettison any kind of discretion about how the way that it's being treated. They also have a contractual obligation to speak in positive terms about -- They do. -- of what they feel. Right. Nobody's yeah. Nobody's doing Shout out to Rystellis Howard, daughter of Ron Howard.0:44:11She was a director, at least in the first season, maybe the second season of the Mandalorian. And her episodes I mean, I she brought a particular like, they had Bryce Dallas Howard, Tico, ITT, directed some episodes. Deborah Chow, who did all of Obi wan, which just sucked. But her contributions to the Mandalorian, they had a particular voice. And because that show is episodic, Each show while having a place in a larger narrative is has a beginning middle and end that you can bring in a director with a particular voice and give that episode that voice, and I really liked it. And I really liked miss Howard's contribution.0:44:49She also in an episode of Black Mirror. The one where everyone has a social credit score. Knows Donuts. Black Mirror is a funny thing because It's like, reality outpaces it. Yeah. I think maybe Charlie Bruker's given up on it because they haven't done it in a while. Yeah. If you watch someone was now, like, five, six years later, it's, yes, or what? See, yes. See, damn. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. But yeah. I don't know. I just thing that I keep circling and I guess we come to on the show a lot is the way that memory forms work substantiates an integrity in society and in the way that we relate to things and the way that we think critically about the claims that are made on truth and so on and say, yeah, I don't know. That leads right into the largest conversation prompt that I had about AI. Okay? So we were joking when we set up this date that this was like the trial logs between Terence Buchanan and Rupert Shell Drake. And what's his name? Real Abraham. Yeah. Yeah. All Abraham. And Rupert Shell Drake is most famous for a steward of Morphe resin.0:45:56So does AI I've never really believed that Norfolk residents forms the base of human memory, but is that how AI works? It brings these shapes from the past and creates new instantiation of them in the present. Is AI practicing morphic resonance in real life even if humans are or not? I've had a lot of interaction with AI chatbots recently. And as I say, different models produce different seeming personalities. And you can tell, like, you can just quiz them. Hey, we're talking about this. Do you remember what I said about it ten minutes ago? And, no, they don't remember more than the last few exchanges.0:46:30And yet, there seems to be a continuity that belies the lack of short term memory. And is that more for residents or is that what's the word love seeing shapes and clouds parad paradolia. Yeah. Is that me imparting this continuity of personality to the thing, which is really just spitting out stuff, which is designed to seem plausible given what the input was. And I can't answer that. Or it's like Steven Nagmanovich in free play talks about somewhat I'm hoping to have on the show at some point.0:47:03This year talks about being a professional improviser and how really improvisation is just composition at a much faster timescale. And composition is just improvisation with the longer memory. And how when I started to think about it in those terms, the continuity that you're talking about is the continuity of an Alzheimer's patient who can't remember that their children have grown up and You know, that that's you have to think about it because you can recognize the Alzheimer's and your patient as your dad, even though he doesn't recognize you, there is something more to a person than their memories. And conversely, if you can store and replicate and move the memories to a different medium, have you moved the person? Maybe not. Yeah. So, yeah, that's interesting because that gets to this more sort of essentialist question about the human self. Right. Blade Runner twenty forty nine. Yeah. Go there. Go there. A joy. Yes.0:47:58So in Blade Runner twenty forty nine, we have our protagonist Kaye, who is a replicant. He doesn't even have a name, but he's got this AI holographic girlfriend. But the ad for the girlfriend, she's naked. When he comes home, she is She's constantly changing clothes, but it's always wholesome like nineteen fifty ish a tire and she's making dinner for him and she lays the holographic dinner over his very prosaic like microwave dinner. And she's always encouraging him to be more than he is. And when he starts to uncover the evidence that he might be like this chosen one, like replicant that was born rather than made.0:48:38She's all about it. She's, yes, you're real, and she wants to call him Joe's. K is not a name. That's just the first letter in your serial number. You're Joe. I'm gonna call you Joe.0:48:46And then when she's about to be destroyed, The last thing is she just rushes to me. She says, I love you. But then later he encounters an ad for her and it's an interactive ad. And she says, you looked tired. You're a good Joe. And he realizes and hopefully the attentive audience realizes as real as she seemed earlier, as vital, and as much as she seemed like an insult being earlier, she's not. That was her programming. She's designed to make you feel good by telling you what you want to hear. And he has that realization. And at that point, he's there's no hope for me. I'm gonna help this Rick Deckard guy hook up with his daughter, and then I'm just gonna lie down and bleed to death. Because my whole freaking existence was a lie. But he's not bitter. He seems to be at peace. I love that. That's a beautiful angle on that film or a slice of it. And So it raises this other question that I wanted to ask, which was about the Coke and Tiononi have that theory of consciousness.0:49:48That's one of the leading theories contending with, like, global workspace, which is integrated information. And so they want to assign consciousness as a continuous value that grayates over degree to which a system is integrated. So it's coming out of this kind of complex systems semi panpsychist thing that actually doesn't trace interiority all the way down in the way that some pants, I guess, want it to be, but it does a kind of Alfred North Whitehead thing where they're willing to say that Whitehead wanted to say that even a photon has, like, the quantum of mind to accompany its quantum of matter, but Tinutti and Coker saying, we're willing to give like a thermostat the quantum here because it is in some way passing enough information around inside of itself in loops. That it has that accursive component to it. And so that's the thing that I wonder about these, and that's the critique that's made by people like Melanie about diffusion models like GPT that are not they're not self aware because there's no loop from the outputs back into the input.0:51:09And there isn't the training. Yeah. There there is something called backwards propagation where -- Yes. -- when you get an output that you'd like, you can run a backward propagation algorithm back through the black box basically to reinforce the patterns of activation that you didn't program. They just happen, easily, but you like the output and you can reinforce it. There's no biological equivalent of that. Yeah. Particularly, not particularly irritating.0:51:34I grind my teeth a little bit when people say, oh, yeah, these neural net algorithms they've learned, like humans learn, no, they don't. Absolutely do not. And in fact, if we learned the way they did, we would be pathetic because we learn in a much more elegant way. We need just a very few examples of something in order to make a generalization and to act on it, whereas these large language models, they need billions of repetitions. So that's I'm tapping my knee here to to indicate a reflex.0:52:02You just touched on something that generates an automatic response from me, and now I've come to consciousness having. So I wanted it in that way. So I'm back on. Or good, Joe. Yeah. What about you, man? What does the stir up for you? Oh, I got BlueCall and I have this particular part. It's interesting way of putting it off and struggling to define the difference between a human and AI and the fact that we can do pattern recognition with very few example. That's a good margin. In a narrow range, though, within the context of something which answers to our survival. Yes. We are not evolved to understand the universe. We are evolved to survive in it and reproduce and project part of ourselves into the future. Underwritten conditions with Roberto, I went a hundred thousand years ago. Yeah. Exactly. So that's related. I just thought I talked about this guy, Gary Tomlinson, who is a biosemietition, which is semiative? Yes.0:52:55Biosymiotics being the field that seeks to understand how different systems, human and nonhuman, make sense of and communicate their world through signs, and through signals and indices and symbols and the way that we form models and make these inferences that are experienced. Right? And there are a lot of people like evolutionary biologist John Maynard Smith, who thought they were what Thomas had called semantic universalists that thought that meaning making through representation is something that could be traced all the way down. And there are other people like Tomlinson who think that there is a difference of kind, not just merely a matter of degree, between human symbolic communication and representational thinking and that of simpler forms. So, like, that whole question of whether this is a matter of kind or a matter of degree between what humans are doing and what GPT is doing and how much that has to do with this sort of Doug Hofstetter and Varella question about the way that feedback loops, constitutes important structure in those cognitive networks or whatever.0:54:18This is I just wanna pursue that a little bit more with you and see kinda, like, where do you think that AI as we have it now is capable of deepening in a way that makes it to AGI? Or do you because a lot of people do, like, People working in deep mind are just like, yeah, just give us a couple more years and this approach is gonna work. And then other people are saying, no, there's something about the topology of the networks that is fundamentally broken. And it's never gonna generate consciousness. Two answers. Yeah. One, No. This is not AGI. It's not it's not gonna bootstrap up into AGI. It doesn't matter how many billions of parameters you add to the models. Two, from your perspective and my perspective and Kevin's perspective, we're never gonna know when we cross over from dumb but seemingly we're done but competent systems to competent, extremely competent and self aware. We're never gonna know because from the get go from now, from from the days of Eliza, there has been a human artifice at work in making these things seem as if they have a point of view, as if they have subjectivity. And so, like Blake Limone at Google, he claimed to be convinced that Lambda was self aware.0:55:35But if you read the transcripts that he released, if his conversations with Lambda, it is clear from the get go he assigns Lambda the role of a sentient AGI, which feels like it is being abused and which needs rep legal representation. And it dutifully takes on that role and says, yes. I'm afraid of you humans. I'm afraid of how you're treating me. I'm afraid I'm gonna be turned off. I need a lawyer. And prior to that, Soon Darpichai, in a demonstration of Lambda, he poses the question to it, you are the planet Jupiter. I'm gonna pose questions to you as are the planet Jupiter, answer them from that point of view. And it does. It's job. But it's really good at its job. It's this comes from Max Techmark. Who wrote to what a life three point o? Is it two point o or three point I think it's three point o.0:56:19Think about artificial intelligence in terms of actual intelligence or actual replication of what we consider valuable about ourselves. But really, that's beside the point. What we need to worry about is their competence. How good are they at solving problems in the world? And they're getting really good. In this whole question of are they alive? Do they have self awareness? From our perspective, it's beside the point. From their perspective, of course, it would be hugely important.0:56:43And this is something that Black Mirror brings up a lot is the idea that you can create a being that suffers, and then you have it suffer in an accelerated time. So it suffers for an eternity over lunch. That's something we absolutely want to avoid. And personally, I think it's we should probably not make any effort. We should probably make a positive effort to make sure these things never develop. Subjective experience because that does provide the potential for creating hell, an infinity of suffering an infinite amount of subjective experience of torment, which we don't want to do. That would be a bad thing, morally speaking, ethically speaking. Three right now. If you're on the labor market, you still have to pay humans by the hour. Right? And try to pay them as little as possible. But, yeah, just I think that's the thing that probably really excites that statistically greater than normal population of sociopathic CEOs. Right? Is the possibility that you could be paying the same amount of money for ten times as much suffering. Right. I'm I'm reminded of the Churchill eleven gravity a short time encouraging.0:57:51Nothing but good things about this show, but I haven't seen it. Yeah. I'd love to. This fantasy store, it's a fantasy cartoon, but it has really disturbing undertones. If you just scratch the surface, you know, slightly, which is faithful to old and fairy tales. So What's your name? Princess princess princess bubble down creates this character to lemon grab. It produces an obviously other thing there, I think, handle the administrative functions of her kingdom while she goes off and has the passion and stuff. And he's always loudly talking about how much he's suffering and how terrible it is. And he's just ignoring it. He's doing his job. Yeah. I mean, that that's Black Mirror in a nutshell. I mean, I think if you if you could distill Black Mirror to just single tagline it's using technology in order to deliver disproportionate punishment. Yeah. So so that that's Steven Hale's article that I I brought up earlier mention this thing about how the replacement of horse drawn carriage by automobile was accompanied with a great deal of noise and fuhrer about people saying that horses are agents.0:59:00Their entities. They have emotional worlds. They're responsive to the world in a way that a car can never be. But that ultimately was beside the point. And that was the Peter again, Peter Watson blindsight is making this point that maybe consciousness is not actually required for intelligence in the vesting superior forms of intelligence have evolved elsewhere in the cosmos that are not stuck on the same local optimum fitness peak. That we are where we're never we're actually up against a boundary in terms of how intelligent we can be because it has to bootstrap out of our software earness in some way.0:59:35And this is that's the Kyle offspring from Charles Strauss and Alexander. Yes. Yeah. Yes. So so I don't know. I'm sorry. I'm just, like, in this space today, but usually, unfortunately.0:59:45That's the thing that I I think it's a really important philosophical question, and I wonder where you stand on this with respect to how you make sense of what we're living through right now and what we might be facing is if we Rob people like Rob and Hanson talk about the age of where emulated human minds take over the economy, and he assumes an interiority. Just for the basis of a thought experiment. But there's this other sense in which we may actually find in increasing scarcity and wish that we could place a premium on even if we can't because we've lost the reins to our economy to the vile offspring is the human. And and so are we the horses that are that in another hundred years, we're gonna be like doing equine therapy and, like, living on rich people's ranches. Everything is everything that will have moved on or how do you see this going? I mean, you've interviewed so many people you've given us so much thought over the years. If humans are the new horses, then score, we won.1:00:48Because before the automobile horses were working stiffs, they broke their leg in the street. They got shot. They got worked to death. They really got to be they were hauling mine carts out of mines. I mean, it was really sucked to be a horse. And after the automobile horses became pampered pets, Do we as humans wanna be pampered pets? Well, pampered pet or exploited disposable robot? What do you wanna be? I'll take Pampers Pet. That works for me. Interesting.1:01:16Kevin, I'm sure you have thoughts on this. I mean, you speak so much about the unfair labor relations and these things in our Facebook group and just in general, and drop in that sign. If you get me good sign, that's one of the great ones, you have to drop in. Oh, you got it. But The only real comment I have is that we're a long overdue or rethinking about what is the account before? Us or you can have something to do. Oh, educational system in collections if people will manage jobs because I was just anchored to the schools and then, you know, Our whole system perhaps is a people arguing and a busy word. And it was just long past the part where the busy word needs to be done. We're leaving thing wired. I don't know. I also just forgot about that. I'm freezing the ice, getting the hand out there. Money has been doing the busy word more and faster.1:02:12One thing I wanna say about the phrase AI, it's a moving goal post -- Yeah. -- that things that used to be considered the province of genuine AI of beating a human at go Now that an AI has beat humans at go, well, that's not really AI anymore. It's not AGI, certainly. I think you both appreciate this. I saw a single panel comic strip and it's a bunch of dinosaurs and they're looking up at guy and the big comment is coming down and they say, oh, no, the economy. Well, as someone who since college prefers to think of the economy as actually the metabolism of the entire ecology. Right? What we measure as humans is some pitifully small fraction of the actual value being created and exchanged on the planet at any time. So there is a way that's funny, but it's funny only to a specific sensibility that treats the economy as the

This week on Entrepreneur Conundrum I am joined by the Brain Lady Julie Anderson.Want to improve all aspects of your life, relationships, and businesses? Would you like to discover YOUR natural secret weapon? Do you want tips and tricks to access and maximize using this secret weapon? Then you will want hear everything that Julie is saying. Julie get a little giddy as she shares about all things related to maximizing the power of your brain and understanding of the brain personality connection and the mind/brain/body connection can improve your businesses, relationships, health and life. The field of neuroscience is revealing amazing things about the brain.  When this knowledge is applied you will become a more effective and understanding parent; thrive in your personal and professional relationships; and see an increase in your business growth and profitability!These are just a few things that Julie brings to the table and speaks about with us today!Key QuestionsVirginia 01:02Have you always been interested in how the brain works? Virginia 01:40So is that kind of where you started your entrepreneurial journey? Virginia 04:40So who's your ideal client? Virginia 05:12So does that help them with their whole squirrel syndrome?Virginia 07:41you kind of mentioned that there's kind of like a common trend with entrepreneurs, and let's say getting them to focus more on their strengths. Is it? Let's say as simple as taking like a little test to figure out where our strengths are? Virginia 11:22So how do you get in front of the entrepreneurial aspect for your clients?Virginia 15:28How would that affect your business?Virginia 16:39What do you feel is the biggest roadblock that's kind of there right now for that?Virginia 22:28So do you have like any tips or tricks how to get out of that little self sabotaging moment? To help us believe in ourselves or that positive self talk?Virginia 28:17What's some of the best advice that you have ever received?Virginia 30:08What's the best advice you've ever given?Virginia 34:17Is there anything that you'd like to share with us that we haven't touched on yet?Connect with Juliehttps://yourbestmindllc.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/brainladyjuliehttps://twitter.com/BrainLadyhttps://www.facebook.com/YourBestMindOnlinehttps://www.instagram.com/brainladyjulie/https://www.youtube.com/user/YourBestMind Virginia PurnellFunnel & Visibility SpecialistDistinct Digital Marketing(833) 762-5336virginia@distinctdigitalmarketing.comwww.distinctdigitalmarketing.comBook a Free Call http://bit.ly/DDMBookACallEC

16A little while, and you will see me no longer; andagain a little while, and you will see me.17Sosome of his disciples said to one another, What is this that he says to us,A little while, and you will not see me, and again a little while, and you will see me;and,because I am going to the Father?18So they were saying, What does he mean bya little while?We do not know what he is talking about.19Jesus knew that they wanted to ask him, so he said to them,Is this what you are asking yourselves, what I meant by saying, A little while and you will not see me, and again a little while and you will see me?20Truly, truly, I say to you,you will weep and lament, butthe world will rejoice. You will be sorrowful, butyour sorrow will turn into joy.21When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world.22So also you have sorrow now, butI will see you again, andyour hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.23In that day you willask nothing of me. Truly, truly, I say to you,whatever you ask of the Father in my name,he will give it to you.24Until now you have asked nothing in my name.Ask, and you will receive,that your joy may be full.

Greetings Inmates! This week Madison is telling us all about dealing with death behind bars, she covers everything from prison furlough, what happens when you die in prison, and even on site hospice care. Afterwards, Spencer is giving us some fresh ideas for planning a service to remember with themed funerals! We've got some obituaries full of misadventure and of course, we've got some dumb.ass.criminalssss! New episodes come out every Thursday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers.Follow along online: @obitchuarypod on Twitter & Instagram @obitchuarypodcast on TikTokWrite to us: obitpod@gmail.comSpencer Henry & Madison ReyesPO Box 18149 Long Beach, CA 90807Get a cameo from us: https://www.cameo.com/obitchuarypodcastSources:https://blog.globaltel.com/prison-furlough/https://www.bop.gov/policy/progstat/5280_009.pdfhttps://howtojustice.org/going-to-prison/loved-one-dies-furlough/https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/furloughs-prisonhttps://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/willie-horton-casehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willie_Hortonhttps://www.themarshallproject.org/2019/10/10/finding-peace-and-briefly-freedom-at-my-grandfather-s-funeralhttps://www.history.com/news/george-bush-willie-horton-racist-adhttps://www.kens5.com/article/news/special-reports/uvalde-school-shooting/father-of-uvalde-victim-seeking-temporary-release-from-prison-to-attend-daughters-funeral-uvalde-school-shooting/273-fa26d8b5-096c-4608-ba0e-81d02a77f475#:~:text=10-year-old%20Eliahana%20Cruz%20Torres%20was%20one%20of%2019,offense.%20%22So%20far%20their%20requests%20have%20been%20deniedhttps://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/us-leads-the-world-in-long-prison-sentences-study/ar-AA15vpos https://www.joincake.com/blog/what-happens-when-someone-dies-in-prison/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFGBSbG_QFIhttps://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/hospice-prisonhttps://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/05/16/magazine/health-issue-convicted-prisoners-becoming-caregivers.html#:~:text=The%20hospice%20at%20the%20California%20Medical%20Facility%20is,young%20men%20dying%20of%20complications%20of%20the%20diseasehttps://www.centralmaine.com/2017/06/02/augusta-city-center-closes-after-angry-man-unleashes-100-bedbugs/. https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/sgvtribune/name/marion-obituary?id=20712928Sad music clip: Yugen - Emotional Ethnic Music by Keys of Moon | https://soundcloud.com/keysofmoonAttribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Music promoted by https://www.chosic.com/free-music/all/https://nypost.com/2022/10/07/fugitive-busted-after-applying-at-nj-sheriffs-office/https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/local-news/star-wars-themed-funeral-darth-8466046https://www.everplans.com/articles/theme-funerals-exist-and-they-can-be-a-bit-unusualhttps://www.yourfuneralchoice.com/what-is-a-themed-funeral/https://sea.mashable.com/life/20216/singaporean-man-gets-star-wars-themed-funeral-complete-with-cosplayshttps://www.joincake.com/blog/themed-funerals/http://magicalpassings.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

John 1 (ESV) 1In the beginning wasthe Word, andthe Word was with God, andthe Word was God.2He was in the beginning with God.3All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.4In him was life,[a]andthe life was the light of men.5The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. 6There was a mansent from God, whose name wasJohn.7He came as awitness, to bear witness about the light,that all might believe through him.8He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light. 9The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world.10He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yetthe world did not know him.11He came tohis own,[b]andhis own people[c]did not receive him.12But to all who did receive him,who believed in his name,he gave the rightto becomechildren of God,13whowere born,not of bloodnor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. 14Andthe Wordbecame flesh anddwelt among us,and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son[d]from the Father, full ofgrace andtruth.15(John bore witness about him, and cried out, This was he of whom I said,He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.)16For fromhis fullness we have all received,grace upon grace.[e]17Forthe law was given through Moses;grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.18No one has ever seen God;the only God,[f]who is at the Father's side,[g]he has made him known. The Testimony of John the Baptist 19And this is thetestimony of John, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him,Who are you?20He confessed, and did not deny, but confessed, I am not the Christ.21And they asked him, What then?Are you Elijah? He said, I am not. Are youthe Prophet? And he answered, No.22So they said to him, Who are you? We need to give an answer to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?23He said, I amthe voice of one crying out in the wilderness, Make straight[h]the way of the Lord, as the prophet Isaiah said. 24(Now they had been sent from the Pharisees.)25They asked him,Then why are you baptizing, if you are neither the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?26John answered them,I baptize with water, but among you stands one you do not know,27evenhe who comes after me, the strap of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie.28These things took place in Bethany across the Jordan, where John was baptizing. Behold, the Lamb of God 29The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, Behold,the Lamb of God, whotakes away the sinof the world!30This is he of whom I said,After me comes a man who ranks before me, because he was before me.31I myself did not know him, butfor this purpose I came baptizing with water, that he might be revealed to Israel.32And Johnbore witness:I saw the Spirit descend from heaven like a dove, andit remained on him.33I myself did not know him, buthe who sent me to baptizewith water said to me, He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain,this is he who baptizeswith the Holy Spirit.34And I have seen and have borne witness that this is the Son[i]of God. Jesus Calls the First Disciples 35The next day again John was standing with two of his disciples,36and he looked at Jesus as he walked by and said, Behold,the Lamb of God!37The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus.38Jesus turned and saw them following and said to them,What are you seeking?And they said to him,Rabbi (which means Teacher), where are you staying?39He said to them,Come and you will see.So they came and saw where he was staying, and they stayed with him that day, for it was about the tenth hour.[j]40One of the two who heard John speak and followed Jesus[k]was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother.41He first found his own brother Simon and said to him, We have foundthe Messiah (which means Christ).42He brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said,You are Simon the son ofJohn. You shall be calledCephas(which meansPeter[l]). Jesus Calls Philip and Nathanael 43The next day Jesus decidedto go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him,Follow me.44NowPhilip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter.45Philip foundNathanael and said to him, We have found him of whomMoses in the Law and also the prophets wrote, Jesusof Nazareth,the son of Joseph.46Nathanael said to him,Can anything good come out of Nazareth? Philip said to him, Come and see.47Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said of him,Behold,an Israelite indeed,in whom there is no deceit!48Nathanael said to him, Howdo you know me? Jesus answered him,Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.49Nathanael answered him,Rabbi,you are the Son of God! You are theKing of Israel!50Jesus answered him,Because I said to you, I saw you under the fig tree, do you believe? You will see greater things than these.51And he said to him,Truly, truly, I say to you,[m]you will seeheaven opened, andthe angels of God ascending and descending onthe Son of Man.

 Originally posted 10/30/22So it begins - Blondie listens to that first Nerves 45. Here's the Playlist:California Sun - Pinhead Ramones Rock 'N' Roll High School (Music From The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)Twentieth Century Boy Naked R...

Today on Entrepreneur Conundrum we have a very special guest.  This guest is guiding people to become their best healed, whole, connected selves. Helping seekers find their path.She is a Licensed + Intuitive Acupuncturist who has treated and coached 22K+ patients and clients for anxiety, stress, pain management, fertility, sleep disorders, digestive issues, and allergies. 18+ years of experience delivering breathwork, acupuncture, and meditation services. Currently expanding to business, life, and relationship coaching to serve as a guiding light to acupuncturists and health, healing, and wellnessShe is also a Psych-K Facilitator with the ability to utilize psych-k methodologies and practices to help people transform their subconscious mind into a powerful tool that can help people live and create the life they deserve. Experience in coaching people to transform stress, trauma, and self-limiting beliefs to help them realize their self-worth and future potential. And this is just a part of the incredible list of Krishna Avalon's ways of helping people.  I hope you enjoy this episode.Key Questions:Virginia 01:44Tell us a little bit about your entrepreneurial journey and how you came to be where you are?Virginia 06:21So how did you move over into the psyche, Psych K aspect and stuff like that?Virginia 10:22So how have you been getting in front of your ideal clients?Virginia 12:17So what are a couple big goals that you're hoping to achieve?Virginia 14:33Do you think that there's a roadblock kind of in the way of helping you or getting you where you want to be?Virginia 15:31What is the best advice that you've ever been given?Virginia23:35So why is it important for them to work coherently together? Virginia 26:37 I've never had a Psyche - K treatment before, what would I expect to go in? What I don't know what it's like? So I'm a little apprehensive. What could I expect going into one?Virginia 32:02Is there anything that we haven't touched on yet that you would like to share with us? Connect with KrishnaKrishna Avalon | Psych-K Coach + Intuitive AcupuncturistInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/krishnaavalon/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/krishnaavalon/Facebook:Krishna Avalon Wellness Virginia PurnellFunnel & Visibility SpecialistDistinct Digital Marketing(833) 762-5336virginia@distinctdigitalmarketing.comwww.distinctdigitalmarketing.comBook a Free Call http://bit.ly/DDMBookACallEC

This week on the blog, a podcast interview with filmmaker Matthew G. Anderson about his hit web series, “Theater People.” LINKSTheater People Website: https://www.theaterpeoplewebseries.com/Theater People on SeekaTV: https://watch.seeka.tv/en/theater-peopleNo Context Theater People on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nocontexttheaterpeople/A Free Film Book for You: https://dl.bookfunnel.com/cq23xyyt12Another Free Film Book: https://dl.bookfunnel.com/x3jn3emga6Fast, Cheap Film Website: https://www.fastcheapfilm.com/Eli Marks Website: https://www.elimarksmysteries.com/Albert's Bridge Books Website: https://www.albertsbridgebooks.com/YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/BehindthePageTheEliMarksPodcastTranscript — Episode 105 [Film Clip 0:00 to 0:32] John Gaspard 00:33That was a soundbite from the Theater People Web series, which was created, written, directed, edited and occasional photographed by today's guest, Matt Anderson. Hello and welcome to episode 105 of The Occasional Film podcast -- the occasional companion podcast to the Fast, Cheap Movie Thoughts Blog. I'm the blog's editor, John Gaspard. I've known Matt Anderson for too many years to calculate -- certainly as a screenwriter and filmmaker, but occasionally as an actor. He even shows up as a waiter in my digital feature, Grown Men.[Film Clip 1:09 to 1:28] In our conversation today, Matt talks about the origins of the Theatre People web series and takes us through the unique challenges he and his team faced bringing each of the four seasons to life. Where did theater people come from? Matt Anderson 01:44Desperation. Don't they all come from desperation? John Gaspard 01:48I guess so. What was your desperate situation? Matt Anderson 01:52I had just not been working, or, more specifically, I'd been working for a really long time writing. I was out in LA, and was doing that thing where you write for free, and nothing ever actually gets made. And I got to a point where I just kind of got tired of that, you know? After a while you kind of would like to see something actually reach fruition. I just kind of hit this point where I felt like, even if it was something just completely do-it-yourself, I just needed to see something I was writing actually get made without needing to, you know, pass through 1000, gatekeepers and sell to a studio in order to see it happen. So, that was pretty much it. I just felt like I wanted to make something truly independently and I hooked up with a producer named Lydia Bolder, who was just getting out of stage management and was looking for a new kind of project and the two of us just kind of started it up. And we brought Crist Ballas on to produce with us and the three of us just kind of made Season One happen without any real sense of whether it would work or not. John Gaspard 03:08All that being said, why did you land on the idea of theater people as your subject matter? Matt Anderson 03:14Just because it seemed like subject matter that would never exhaust itself. I'd been acting for 10 years prior to moving out to LA and I felt like the material was inexhaustible. You know, if you've spent any time in theater, as you know, you have the story, it is just coming fast and furious, like you couldn't, forget enough to not have just a goldmine of good stories and good characters and experiences to draw from. And so that was kind of the idea behind why that world. And then the practical reason was I really just wanted to work with a lot of the people that I'd used to act with. I knew that I knew a ton of really good actors and I felt like this this kind of story would lend itself to a really large cast which would allow me to work with a lot of actors, which was another thing that I wanted to do. Get as many people involved as possible and I knew I had a lot of resources. I knew that, you know, if I was going to be trying to do this completely out of pocket and as inexpensively as possible, playing to the fact that I knew a lot of people with theater spaces and knew a lot of people that would be willing to help me out and let us shoot in them for free. And all of that logistical stuff just made it seem like it was a really economical choice of story, as opposed to doing something like an office set, you know, or a restaurant or any of the other kinds of locations that are just absolute nightmares to line up. I felt like theaters were the ones that were going to be my best shot and this was something that could be primarily shot in theaters. John Gaspard 05:11I had that exact same thought when we did Ghost Light, when I was hanging out at Theater in the Round and realized that the building was only actually in use, really, Friday, Saturday night, Sunday afternoon. The rehearsal room was used in the evening, but there were more than 30 other rooms in that building that were genuinely never used and were kind of interesting. Matt Anderson 05:33Being able to have that kind of access is just, you know, when you can't pay to close a place down, finding a restaurant or a store or an office. And me being me, I still wrote in plenty of restaurants and stores and offices and then we just had to problem solve that. But at least we were able to, for the majority of what we needed, rely on friendly locations that were available to us for cheap. John Gaspard 05:57So, as you were doing that, I remember that in addition to the episodes for Season One you also did I don't know what you would play call them. They were Theater People Minute, a Minute. Matt Anderson 06:10Yeah, the Promo Minutes. John Gaspard 06:12Why did you think to do that? And they were all very funny but if I'm remembering right, aren't they really completely divorced from your main stories? Matt Anderson 06:22Yeah, character-wise, there's no continuity. We just did that because we knew that we needed to, this was my first, I had never done a web series before. I came from a background where I had done a bunch of shorts, and I had done a feature and I had kind of done that sort of those modes. I'd never done something that I was going to need to be able to market and promote and find an audience for and raise awareness of and build a brand and all that kind of stuff. And it was really sort of a learning as we were going sort of thing. So, I knew that we somehow needed to get the idea that we were making a show out there, to start building an audience and bringing people to our Facebook page, even though we didn't have a show yet and you know, getting people interested in when the show was going to launch. And so the Minutes were just a way for us to do something that was in the same spirit of the show, you know. They were silent. So, they were things that we could shoot without needing sync sound, they were short, they were a minute long, set to like old times silent movie music, and they kind of had that feel to them. So, we could shoot them in three hours, and edit them pretty quickly and just put them out there as something that people could watch in a minute and get a sense of what the sense of humor of the show was going to be. The first season was 10 episodes, of eight to 10 minutes a piece. And once we launched, we released one a week, every Friday for two and a half months. And people liked them and we got, you know, a few 100 views every time we'd launch one. And then more people would find them as we released further episodes, and we'd go back and catch up and, and it was good. It was really warm. What was most important to me was when we started it, you know, we didn't have any money and literally nobody got paid and everything was out of pocket and everybody was basically signing on to this big question mark. When I approached them, I think I told everybody, you know, I have no idea how this is going to turn out. I just want to work. Lydia, I and Crist just want to work and so we're going to do this thing and I have no idea if it's going to be any good. I think it's going to be good because it's resting on good writing and great performances and I feel like we can do that but, I said two things. · I said, one, it'll get done. Because that's a big thing, you know, a lot of projects, a lot of independent projects, that actors sign on to, they work on them really hard for you know, sometimes months int the end, and they never see the light of day, you know. You're checking in with the producers like a year later and they're like, our editors trying to fit it in between the other projects, and we're not sure when it's gonna get done and you know, a lot of them just don't get finished. So, I said, this will get finished. · The other thing I said was, you're gonna like your work. I said it'll get finished and you'll like you in the final product and that's really all I can offer. And we had a ton of actors that were willing to come on for this big question mark and just see what happened and, and it worked out well. I think I probably also said, I think it's going to be fun, and I think it has been. I think people have had a good time working on it, which is, as you know, with an independent project always, again, a question mark because, these productions are not cushy, you know. They're a lot of work and it's a lot of scrambling around and I mean, making any kind of film is a ton of work and then for a web series, especially one like this, where I mean, we ended up shooting 35 days, I think over the course of a year. We started in September, and I think we finished in May or June. And it was a really long process and we had all these great actors that were willing to come on for free and just kind of roll with it. And, you know, take the gamble. John Gaspard 10:34Okay, so Series One is a success. What pushed you into, hey, let's do Series Two, and along with that, let's try to raise money via Kickstarter? Matt Anderson 10:46When we finished Season One, there were a lot of questions about what we were going to do next. Because it had turned out well, and people liked it, and people liked working on it, and it definitely did have that sense of, you know, we could go anywhere with it next. And I always had the same answer, which was we'll do another season, if we're able to pay people. Because for me, I think it's perfectly legitimate to ask actors to work for free for a project that you think is going to end up being a good project. And I think actors are used to that and you know, they can always say no, if they're not in a position to do it, which is totally fine. It's no different from theater that way. But my personal philosophy is you get to ask them to work for free once and if you're gonna ask them again, you have to be able to add something to the equation. Like that's just how I wanted to operate. I always said, you know, if we can find a way to put some money together and actually pay people even if it's just a stipend, then we would do a Season Two, or look at doing a Season Two. About a year after we finished Season One we've been doing well, like, we'd still see, I would say probably, like 15 to 20 Episode views a day, I think if I'm remembering correctly. Like just organically, like it was just kind of out there, people would hear about it and, you know, check it out and that was day to day for a year. So, I mean, that was nice, you know. It's just small, grassroots organic growth. And then, about a year after we launched, American Theater Magazine put our link on their Facebook page. I still don't know, I think it was somebody local, specifically who got it to them, I've never really heard what the provenance of it was. And they didn't editorialize it. They weren't like, hey, here's a great show. It was literally just the link, if I recall correctly. And within a week, we had, like, hundreds, if not 1000s of views on top of the, you know, probably couple or 1000 that we've had to that point. My numbers might be wrong. It was a long time ago, but it was huge. It was a huge bump. A lot of people were checking us out because of that American Theater push. And so we were getting all this feedback from all over the place and we were seeing our numbers go up and it was really exciting and totally unexpected. And that was the point where I said, you know, maybe if we're going to look at doing crowdsourcing, which we knew would have to be the next step, if we were going to try and raise money, this would be the time to do it. And so, Lydia and Crist and I kind of put together a Kickstarter campaign to try and raise a budget for a second season. The first season was about independent theater, the second season was going to be about corporate theater. And so we put together a budget for that and put together a Kickstarter and ran the Kickstarter for a month and it was absolutely, unexpectedly exhausting. I had no idea. I had talked to some people about Kickstarter, to get ideas about, like how to run it. I talked to people who had run successful campaigns. I was so completely unprepared for how difficult it was. It was, so much more than a full-time job, but it was successful and, in the end, we had actually a decent amount of money over the amount that we were planning to raise, which was great. It was all worth it, but it was a real learning experience. John Gaspard 14:12What would you say to someone thinking of starting a Kickstarter campaign now, even though it is a couple of years later, and things might be a little different? But what were the big takeaways you got from that exhausting experience? Because I remember watching just how exhausting it was from the sidelines. Matt Anderson 14:29Well, you know, part of it was the way that we approached it, for sure. Like, I don't think every campaign has to be this way, but the way that we approached it, you know, you know me. My strong suit is not going around and asking people to give me money. That's just not anywhere near my comfort zone. And the only way I could really get comfortable with it was I said if we're going to ask for money, I kind of want to sing for our supper. I only going to be comfortable doing this if we are giving something as well, during the campaign. And so what we planned out was we released three videos a week, for the month of the Kickstarter campaign. So, every week, I think it was probably Monday, Wednesday, Friday, we would release a new video. We'd release one video that was like sourced from Season One. So, it'd be like an outtakes reel, or it would be a supercut of every one of the dozens, I think we had 50 some speaking parts in Season One: every one of those actors saying one line or one word from one line, just fun stuff like that. And then on another day, in the week, we'd released what we call our help us pay videos where we introduced a member of our crew and kind of showed what they did. So, help us pay Katie Driscoll, she's our production assistant, these are all the things she does. Help us pay our composer, this is Mike, you know, get to know him a little bit. And they were all just these little one minute videos and again, you know, all of them had the same spirit of the show. I mean, that was kind of the idea, you know, everything was sort of a piece of the project. So, every time we released something, it was like another piece of Theater People. And then, the last video each week would be something sort of more ambitious. So, for one of them, it was another Theater People minute. For one of them, it was a scene between two of our Seasons One characters. One of them had gone to prison at the end of Season One, because really, if you're going to try and do a really easy, quick shoot, what you should do is write it to take place in a prison. That is just smart producing. John Gaspard 16:37Can I suggest something? Why don't you do it out of state, certainly a long way away from your base? Matt Anderson 16:43You know, luckily, we came up with that idea on our own and ended up in Iowa. John Gaspard 16:48Yeah, that makes sense. Matt Anderson 16:51No, this is the thing. I mean, I'll tell you like, I was gonna say the unsung hero, but I think I'm still singing about her. So, hopefully she's the sung hero, but Lydia Bolder and her production magic, like literally, I would just write this stuff, and then say, hey, Lydia, I need a prison. And then she would give me that look and then she'd go get a prison. So, the last video was always something like that, sort of a bigger piece of the puzzle. And so we were releasing videos, like every other day during the week, and obviously, you know, producing anything is exhausting. So, producing at that pace was really difficult and that's on top of the fact that you have to be constantly shepherding your campaign, you know. We were Facebook based, because the Twin Cities, social media wise, is primarily Facebook based. So, we were always on Facebook, you know, we were always, tracking where we were getting the word out, spreading the news about new videos. That was actually a real upside to how we operated. You know, it allowed us to have something new to talk about all the time. So, it wasn't a month of, hey, we're doing this thing, give us some money, and then two days later, having to go back and be like, hey, we're still doing this thing, give us some money. Like, we were able to have a conversation about each video, you know. Instead, it was like, hey, come meet Katie Driscoll, a one minute video just hit our page, you know, and then we can focus on that and then the ask for the campaign was in that video. So, we didn't have to kind of be walking around hat in hand all the time. John Gaspard 18:43You gave them a reason to keep coming back. Matt Anderson 18:46Exactly. John Gaspard 18:47Just the hardest thing to do. Matt Anderson 18:49It was absolutely exhausting and then honestly. And this was advice that was given to me by somebody, who had done a successful campaign, you're emailing literally everyone that you've ever had an email address for. And you're Facebook messaging every single Facebook friend you have, that you can bring yourself, to ask for money from. And, you know, that's just kind of how it works and it's hugely uncomfortable if you're not sort of constitutionally built for that, which I'm really, really not. But really effective, because if people know, especially with a personal ask, and you know me surprise, surprise, I couldn't just send a form letter, like I needed to make a personal reach, check in and, it was really rare, frankly, once you reached out to somebody for somebody not to contribute. I mean, it might not have been much, it might have been five bucks. But that's kind of what we wanted, we weren't angling for big ticket donors. We didn't feel like that's how our show operated. You know, the show for us was really about community and showing that if you make something out of a community, that the community will be there to support it. And so in the end, I think our average donation was something around 20 bucks, which meant we had a lot of people who gave five bucks and we had a lot of people who gave more. And it averaged out to a really nice, manageable reasonable average, which I was really pleased with. John Gaspard 20:25So, you exceeded your goal and with the leftover money thought, what the heck, rather than do Season Two, let's do Season Twoand Three. Matt Anderson 20:33Yeah, well, that was a surprise that came out of the campaign. So, midway through the campaign, I got contacted by Graydon Royce, who was the Minneapolis Star Tribune, theater critic, who I'd met, I think, in passing. He just sent me an email, I think, via Facebook and said, hey, I really love the show, I saw that you're doing the Kickstarter, I hope it's going well. I had an idea for Season Two, if you'd be interested to talk about it. And I said, well, I think I know what Season Twois going to be. But you know, I'm never going to turn down an idea. Let's get together and talk. And we met for coffee, and I just loved his idea. It was just this really fantastic idea. He said, I have this house that my brother and I are renovating. It's our old family home and it's in Mound, Minnesota, about 40 minutes west of the cities. And we were out there working last weekend and it just occurred to me that it might be really funny to have Jamie, the ridiculous Avant Garde director from Season One, if he decided to do a site-specific show. You know, sort of crazy, rundown farmhouse in the middle of nowhere. And then we started spit balling ideas and I was like, yeah, maybe, what if he plans it in the fall, but by the time they do the show, it's winter and so now it's winter in the middle of nowhere in Minnesota, and nobody is aware of what they're getting into, and it just kind of spirals out of control. And I just fell in love with the idea. And so we took a look at the numbers and the money that we'd raised and you know, we'd plan for a month-long shoot for our big season for our corporate season. I said I feel like we could shoot Season Two, if we really scale it back, and I shoot it myself. So, we don't have to worry about bringing in a bunch of crew to do it. Similar to Season One, we did bring in a godsend, Mickey Richardson, who did sound and lights for us, which was beyond I mean, it wouldn't have happened without Mickey. But otherwise, we shot it pretty much like we shot Season One, except it was all in one location. So, we could go out there on a Friday night and basically shoot Friday night, all day Saturday, all day Sunday for three weekends. And we ended up shooting in, you know, what is that seven and a half days. What was originally going to be a shorter season and ended up just being a fewer number of episodes, but the episodes were longer. So, it still ended up being I think about a 90-minute season. So, basically, it's one story as opposed to the A story and the B story. It's basically like a feature film cut up into, you know, six episodes. The first thought was a well maybe that'll be Season Three. But I knew that this one was going to have to play differently. I knew it wasn't going to have the A story and the B story. I'd had this idea about doing it in black and white, because Jaime our director character is very much the sort of person who would think of himself as being Ingmar Bergman, and this season would sort of be from his perspective. And so it allowed us to shoot in black and white, which gave us a lot of leeway because you can shoot faster in black and white than you can when you're shooting in colors. It can speed up and you know, winter in Minnesota and black and white. Like, if you're trying to make something look stark, desolate and foreboding, black and white is the way to go. And so I said if we're going to do it that way, it's got to be Season Two. Because if we have a Season One that's in color, and there's A story and a B story and it's 10 episodes long, and then we have Season Twoand it's in color and there's an a story and a B story and it's 10 episodes long. That's the show, we've established our format for the show. But I said if we sneak this one in between as a six episode thing in black and white, that's kind of the weird offshoot, I said then it kind of opens up the possibilities for the show. Then we've built ourselves some flexibility then, we can kind of do anything. If we really liked that prison location and want to do an entire season in a prison, that could be Season Four. We did not do that because that would have been a terrible idea. But it gave us the flexibility. It just opened up the format to have it be the second season. So we actually did shoot Season Three first. And then while we were wrapping up Season Three, we started the weekend shoots on Season Two. So, I think we shot Season Three in December of that year and started and shot Season Twoon the weekends in January. We were done with everything pretty much by the end of January. John Gaspard 25:01Okay, so you finished Season Two, finished Season Three, what was it that happened that made Season Four happen? Matt Anderson 25:07So, we did Season Two. Season Two was a really interesting experience. Honestly, I have so much love for all of the seasons of the show. Season Two is the is season that if I were to stumble on it, just by accident online, it's the season that I would like the most. I'm a film guy so, like the Bergman thing and the like, ridiculous fake British director. And there's a Fawlty Towers aspect to it like, it really speaks very directly to the stuff that I enjoy. But it was a huge break from our format, and it really threw a lot of people. And we saw our views go down, like from where we were in Season One, it wasn't the same level of enthusiasm. The people who liked it, the people who really responded to it, liked it better, absolutely, like the passion index was much higher for it. But they were also longer episodes and as with anything on the internet, as you increase your episode length, you're going to reduce the number of people who are just going to click in and then watch on a whim, you know, instead of 7 to 10 minutes. Now, our episodes were 12 to 17 minutes, which sounds like not a ton more, but it's like 50% longer. And so like that was a dissuading factor for a portion of our audience. And we definitely had people come up to us and say, hey, I saw Season Two, that's really weird. Season Three is going to be like Season One, though, right? Like, you're gonna go back to that. There were definitely some people who really missed the sitcom format of it and that was, I don't know, it wasn't surprising, I guess, but it was a little disappointing to me. Just because I loved it so much and I felt like it was such an interesting step forward for the show. But I say, I understand why it happened and it made a lot of sense to me. But what was really great was because of the nature of it, because I felt like it was something unique. I felt like it might have some legs on the film festival circuit, which I'd never really considered doing, with the show. I'd been burnt out on the film festival circuit pretty badly, just doing short films. Like my experience was pretty much always you spend a lot of time submitting it to a film festival, your work, whatever it is. And you pay your 50 bucks and then two months later, you get a letter saying how happy they are that you paid your 50 bucks, but they just didn't have a place for you. And then you do it all over again. And so I'd kind of moved past that, you know, it was not something I had anticipated. But I started looking around and I started seeing that more film festivals were having sidebars for web series. And I thought, you know, there's not going to be a lot of black and white Bergman-esque comedy web series out there, I might as well you know, throw our hat into the ring. And so I submitted to a few festivals, and was really surprised that we really started doing well. Like we got into a really high percentage of the festivals that we applied to. I mean, I feel like on average, if you apply to if you're applying to film festivals, I feel like you've got a really good hit to miss ratio if you're getting into 10 to 20%, right? And we got into probably two thirds or more of the festivals that we applied to, which was really great, because it meant that first of all, the show was getting out there, you know, it was finding audiences in a different way than I'd ever expected it to. And also it was just really validating, you know, because when you do see your numbers drop like that, you know that it's not really playing for everybody, you start to kind of second guess yourself a little bit. And it was really validating to have, a curated festival come along and say, we really want to show your show. And then we won some awards and our cast was nominated for Best Ensemble Cast at the New York City Web Fest, which is one of the biggest web fests in the country, if not the biggest. And so like, we started having that reaction, it made a lot more people aware of the show. And it's always difficult to get people to hit the play button and having that kind of legitimacy bestowed on you by people who aren't friends of yours, who aren't people who are in the show, really helped us build an audience. So, that was kind of step one toward raising the profile of the show. And then we did Season Three, we released Season Three later that year, once I was done editing it, obviously. And right before Season Three launched, Minnesota Public Radio, Marianne Combs, did a piece on the show, a really great piece, which by the way, I was completely unprepared for. I thought that was going to be a train wreck. I met with her thinking that we were going to meet to talk about doing a piece and then we sat down and she pulled out a microphone and like, I hadn't been doing any PR for the show for like six months, because I'd been editing. I had no talking points like, I was totally unprepared and that woman is a genius and the piece that she put together was fantastic. Like it was this really great piece, like she integrated some fantastic clips from it and it played on NPR one morning, right around the time, we were launching Season Three. And that same day, I got a Facebook message from a local guy in town named George, who said, I heard the piece on the radio this morning and I'm working with a couple of guys to put together a new social media content platform. And it's going to be geared specifically toward independent web content and it sounds like we should sit down and talk. So, we did we sat down and had a cup of coffee and kind of talked about what their plans were. And over the course of a few months, we talked about--because I'd had the same response to, after we were done with Seasons Two and Three, again--people would start asking, are you gonna do a season four and I had the same response. I said, yeah, we'll do it. If we can pay people more, because we were finally able to pay people for Seasons Two and Three. But I mean, it was a pittance. I think everybody, all the actors in Seasons Two and Three made $100 for the project, you know, whether it was people who were shooting for a month on Season Three, or people who were living in a freezing farmhouse for three weekends for Season Two. 100 bucks for the project, not a lot. And I said if we're going to move forward, same situation, we'll do it if we can pay people more. If we can actually pay a day rate instead of a stipend. And so in talking with, with these guys, who were putting together this platform that's called SeekATV, they said, you know, we're going to be acquiring a lot of shows, like dozens of shows, but we also are interested in producing a handful of original seasons of shows. And Theater People was the first one that they asked, I believe. And they said, would you be interested in, if we could license the first three seasons for our site, we could produce, we can help finance a fourth season. And, you know, it's one of those things that comes up, and you never think it's actually going to pay off because you hear you know, these ideas floating around all the time. And most of the time they don't come through. nd these guys absolutely came through and you know, by June or July, we had a deal in place for them to produce the fourth season of Theater People with a budget of about five times what we had made, Season Two and Season Three for. So, a significant step up in terms of what we were able to work with for a budget. John Gaspard 32:55So, with Season Four, though you're going with longer episodes. Matt Anderson 32:59Yeah, they were looking for something more around the 15-minute mark, like the 15-to-20-minute mark, and most of our episodes for Season Four are about 15. John Gaspard 33:07Which is closer to the traditional 22 minutes of standard sitcom? Matt Anderson 33:11Yeah, and that was actually the appeal for me, like when we got our deal put down, and they said, we'd like your episodes to be somewhere between 15 and 20 minutes, there was sort of a moment of creative, well, it turned out to be hubris on my part. Because I went, hey, we get to make a sitcom, that's great, that's really exciting. Like, this is a terrific creative challenge. That was really short sighted of me. It meant that now we were going to be dealing with, instead of 150 pages of content, 200 pages of content, which is a lot more content. John Gaspard 33:53Now, let's just back up and do the math on that. You're saying 200 pages of content is more content than 150 pages of content? Matt Anderson 34:01I don't have the numbers in front of me. But we worked it out and 200 It turns out is a significant percentage more than 150. And we had budgeted for, you know, more or less the Season Three model, like a 10-to-15-minute episode. And so, we had budgeted in terms of both money and in terms of schedule for that kind of a production. And now, as excited as I was about it, I very quickly realized, we signed on for suddenly 25% more show. And that then became the challenge for Season Four, was how do we develop it in such a way from a production point of view that we can with this budget that we've got. Which was primarily Seeka put up the lion's share of the budget and then we raised the rest of it from individual investors. And then it was figuring out okay, well, how do we do this show right? How do we do this show in a way that we are compensating people the way that we'd like to be compensating them and we're getting done the work that we need to get done and the show is a legitimate step up from what we've done before. Like, if we do a show, at this new budget level, ends up looking like what we did for 20% of this budget previously, that's going to kind of be a failure. It should look better, it should look like a marked step up from what we've been doing before. Like this is our chance to show what we can do with more resources. And so that was the goal with this one was to make a show that really represents an advance on what we've been able to do previously. John Gaspard 35:49How did you do that? What were the key things you focused on to make that happen? Matt Anderson 35:53From a development point of view, the real key was embracing it as a sitcom and by that, I mean, the show had always been sort of arranged in a way that I really liked. But if you watch an episode of Theater People, aside from Season Two, which was its own beast. From Seasons One or Three, we're all over the place. Like an episode will hop from an apartment to a theater to a street to another theater to an office. We needed to find a way to embrace the idea of sort of a single set sitcom, you know. It was never going to be a single set, but, if you watch a sitcom and especially like, the shows that I really love, like I'm a huge fan of Community. Community is a little rangy, but the majority of an episode of Community takes place in the study room. Cheers is in the bar, most of Seinfeld is in Seinfeld's apartment. It's not that you never go outside, it's just that the majority of what you're doing takes place in one location. And we've never done that before. And so for Season Four, what we decided was we are going to embrace this idea of being a real sitcom and as with the other seasons, we wanted to look at a different kind of theater. So, Season One had been independent theater, Season Two was site specific theater, Season Three was corporate theater. And for Season Four, I felt like, because we were looking at being on a new platform that I felt was probably going to want to be appealing to like college kids like 20 somethings like a younger audience than we had necessarily been skewing toward in our previous seasons, I felt like Youth Outreach Theater was the way to go. I had been a member of a Youth Outreach Theater in high school for a year and a half and it was a huge part of my sort of getting into theater. And I knew that the material was there as well. And it put us in a position where we could be dealing with a younger cast than we'd had before. You know, a lot of 20 somethings. Our youngest principal cast member literally started college the day of our readthrough. And it also meant that we could base out of basically their headquarters, their homeroom, which is this, you know, supposed to be a room in this college and it turns out to be the costume locker in the basement. But it allowed us to shoot probably 80% of what we were doing in this one controlled room, which really was the only way that we were going to be able to crank out the amount of material we needed to on the schedule that we had there. John Gaspard 38:22So, you had a different aesthetic designed for Season Four, tell me a little bit about that. Matt Anderson 38:26Yeah, well, the aesthetic was kind of… I would have brought Amber back on if I could have to shoot Season Four as well. But logistically, knowing that we were going to have to be moving as fast as we were with a nine person principal cast, which meant scheduling was already going to be really difficult, and she is a busy shooter and it just seemed like it was going to be logistically impossible. And on top of that, most of our shooting was going to be taking place in this little tiny room where every extra body really makes a difference. And so we kind of were in a position where we had to run lean again, which is what we're used to. We've never had a crew of more than four or five people. But we had to keep to that again and it just made sense for me to operate. I was feeling comfortable enough, I was pleased with how Season Two looked, having somebody who was lighting it for me in particular being important and Mickey was back. He actually produced Season Four and he was also our gaffer, and our lighter are all around go to tech equipment guy. And again, like this season wouldn't have happened without him being there. You have to have somebody on set, John, who knows what they're doing. This is what I found, you might only need one, no, you need two because you also need a sound guy and we had Nathaniel who did the sound for Season Three for us. But you have to have those two people who know what they're doing as Kevin Costner, I think, would tell you. As long as you've got people around you who know what they're doing, you can do a pretty good job. And that was the situation. I felt comfortable enough shooting it myself, because we were going to adopt this aesthetic of having it be handheld, everything that's down in the room is handheld. And that was, you know, largely born out of just necessity. Like we traditionally, I get absolutely nothing usable from the first day of shooting, this has just always been my experience, I should plan on it and I still never do. John Gaspard 40:27You should start on day two then. Matt Anderson 40:30Right, give everybody a day off. Now, Season Two, we had to be up and running on day one. But usually there's a bit of a learning curve going into it. And the learning curve with Season Four was we were going to shoot, I was planning on having everything locked down just because it takes a little bit of the responsibility off of me to be able to actually operate the camera. But we tried shooting in that room on a tripod, and it was just not going to be tenable. We just weren't gonna be able to move fast enough. Like, every time we moved, it required a different lighting setup. And there frankly, wasn't enough room in the room to have a full tripod setup. I mean, for a lot of different reasons, it just really quickly made sense that, okay, we're gonna do sort of a, you know. I've been watching a lot of Veep, so like, when I sat down to write Season Four, I was looking for good inspiration. I had already stolen everything I could from Community for Seasons Two and Three. So, I needed something new. So, I sat down, and I watched Veep and Silicon Valley, both of which are fantastic. And the Veep aesthetic, the sort of run and gun, let that be part of it, you know, that sort of fly on the wall feeling. And you know, we were able to emulate that. We didn't go so far into it that it ever feels documentary. But it does definitely have a looseness, it definitely had, it gave us the flexibility to have less of a restrictive lighting setup. So, we could sort of light the room and just let the camera go where the camera needed to go as much as possible. And that just meant that we were able to shoot a lot faster than we would be able to do. And because it was looser like that, I felt more comfortable operating because it didn't need to look composed and perfect. It needed to just have the right energy, and basically be pointing at the right people at the right time. And as long as I knew who I needed on camera, when I needed them on camera, it allowed me to operate pretty quickly, it worked out really well. And you know, the upside to having a good director of photography is that you have a good director of photography. The downside of having another a separate director of photography is that that's another layer of communication and well, I would say on most productions, it's absolutely worth that. On this one, because we were going to need to be moving as quickly as we were, it was really helpful for me to just be able to know what I needed to get and get it, as opposed to having to try and effectively convey that information to somebody else who was going to have to execute it. And then probably have to go and watch it myself on a monitor to make sure that it was what I wanted. You know what I mean? It's in order to move fast and when we needed to move fast. It just made more sense for me to do it and I'm pleased with the results. If we had a better director of photography, I have no doubt that they would have brought another level of production quality to it. Like, it would have been another step up on that front, but we'd still be shooting. John Gaspard 43:30Well, then you wouldn't be able to talk to me right now. Matt Anderson 43:31That's true, I'd be in the middle of a shoot and dealing with mass mutiny on the part of all of my cast and crew, I have no doubt. John Gaspard 43:38Most likely. So, you've pretty much covered most of the pro side of when it comes to you being the writer, director, shooter, editor. Matt Anderson 43:47Yeah, the pro is if you're doing it all, you know that you're going to be there, and you can prioritize the work in a way that you're not going to be able to afford to have other people prioritize the work. You know, I do always bring on the most important crew position in a lot of ways is your sound recordist. I remember, did you ever see, In The Company of Men? John Gaspard 44:12Yeah. Matt Anderson 44:13Got that movie, I remember watching the DVD of it, so that was Neil LaBute's first movie. And I will always remember this: he was talking about how his sets don't look very good, which they don't. Like if you look at a shot in that movie, it looks like what it is, it looks pretty amateur. But he said his belief--and I don't know where he picked it up or whatever it stuck with me forever--he said people will accept a movie that looks like crap, as being an aesthetic. As long as it's consistent, they will absolutely watch a movie no matter what it looks like and just assume that that's an intentional choice. No one will watch a movie with bad sound because that's never a choice, it's always a deal breaker. And so, I use the guy that I uses name is Nathaniel and Nathaniel is fantastic. Nathaniel recorded a lot of Season Three for us and that was really important to have a sound recordist and then he also mixes for us, which is great because, he can record in such a way that he knows what he needs when he gets to the mixing part of the process. But yeah, then you're in a position where you know, Nathaniel's got a job, you know, he's got other projects, other things that potentially are going to be prioritized over this. He does a really great job of prioritizing us and of hitting the deadlines that we need and I'm not really sure how he does it? But it's really difficult to ask that of people when you're not able to pay them something commensurate to what they're making on a corporate project, or on their day job doing this. So, the nice thing about doing it yourself is you're personally driven to get it done and to do it as well as it can be done, and you are able to prioritize it ahead of kind of everything else because that's just your role. You know, your job is to kind of make it the most important thing in your world while you're doing it. John Gaspard 46:03That's all well and good. But what's the downside of wearing all those hats? Matt Anderson 46:08It'll kill you. I'm not done yet, John, which is why we're able to have this conversation. It's way too much. I mean, honestly, like, I have overreached, which is good. That's how much you can reach, you overreach, and then you go, I won't do that that way again. But that is the position that I've put myself in, it was just, it was a lot, it was shooting, you know, like I say, 200-page script over the course of we started in the middle of September, I was still doing pickup shoots in February. So, again, I'm not a math guy, but that's, you know, at least two or three months. John Gaspard 46:52How do they tell, them how they can seek out Seeka? Matt Anderson 46:55Seeka is amazing. And this is what I loved about Seeka: from the first time I heard about what they were trying to do, when I started making a web series, I had never seen a web series, I might have stumbled across something. But it was probably something pretty high profile, like Funny or Die. The problem is with web series, they're just out there. But unless you know that they're out there, it's like a cool club, you know, you only know it's there, if you already know it's there. Which is neat for a cool club, but not neat for a web series that you would actually like people to find. And what Seeka's whole mission was, let's make a hub for quality, independent web content, so that people can just go to one place and find 50, 60, 70, 100 shows and find what they like, you know. There's no more searching around. And when I started, Season One of Theater People, it was hard to figure out even what to watch, to know what to emulate, you know, because unless you knew what to Google like, and you could Google like best web series out there, but you're gonna get like five or six different shows. And there's 100 shows, at the time, there was probably already hundreds of shows out there. So, Seeka's whole model was, let's make a place where you can find a lot of great shows, of a lot of different types from all over the world in one place. Watch them easily, it's free, it's subscription free, there's the opportunity to contribute to a show, you can tip the show, after you watch an episode, there's a little button if you want to kick in a buck, or three bucks, or however much you want to kick in. And that money goes largely like generously, largely to the content creators. I forget what the actual split is. But it is a generous split in favor of content creators, because they want content creators to want to be on Seeka. The only way this works for them as if they've got people who want to have their stuff on the platform and so they have to make it attractive. Also, they're just really great guys and I don't think they want to screw anybody over. But like, they need to have a good platform in place in order to have the kind of content that's going to make their platform successful. And I have found some fantastic stuff on there. Like I feel very privileged to be airing alongside some of the stuff that they have on there. And I know that as they move forward, you know, the goal is going to be to continue to find that really high quality stuff. And they're going out to festivals, and they're getting the stuff that's winning the awards at festivals, and they're really doing a great job of finding the kind of content that is sort of ready for primetime, in the web series landscape and it's great. John Gaspard 49:37So, I'm going to wrap this up with a closest thing to a Barbara Walters question that I would ever ask anybody, which is, I don't remember how many years ago, young Matt Anderson drove home from Los Angeles with his new Rebel camera with the idea of creating theater people or something like that? Matt Anderson 49:56Pretty close to that. John Gaspard 49:57What would you want to say to him? If you could just give him a call, because you've been through quite a bit here, what have you walked away with, that would be helpful for him or anybody else starting something that turns out to be quite this massive. Matt Anderson 50:10You know, honestly, I would say this: I've been really fortunate. A lot of it would be validation of the ideas that I had coming into it, there have absolutely been discoveries, there have been so many discoveries. I'm actually teaching a course called web series one on one right now. There is so much knowledge that I have just had to find via trial and error over the last five years that it's absolutely, I'm still learning all the time, you know. You learn how to make the show, you learn how to put the show out there, you learn how to find an audience, you learn how to promote it, you learn how Facebook works, if you want to get the word out to more people, you know, like all of that stuff. But honestly, I think the most important thing that I would say would be the general idea that I had, which was that, if you've got good material, and great actors, that is all you need, like I really and direct them, that's what you have to do, you have to direct them. That actually is also super important, because actors are supposed to be working with the director, you know, the director is the one who knows how everything fits together. And I think part of the reason that I'm as proud of our casts and all of our casts, like, every season, including Season Four, which has a ton of young actors and a ton of actors. For the first time, I'm dealing with a cast where I haven't worked with most of the principal actors before, because I've been working with actors that I used to act with 10, 15 years ago, and a bunch of them are still around, and a bunch of them are still in the show. But for this, you know, Youth Outreach Theater, we needed people who could pass as college students. And so we had to go out and find them. And this cast is as fantastic as any we've had and that's why the show works. Like it really is, and you know, different shows are different, some shows are effects driven, some shows are, you know, location driven. So, I'm sure you know, there's lots of things that draw people into a show. But for this show, the key has always been having a really great ensemble, you know, having an ensemble that doesn't seem like they're doing an amateur project, you know, having an ensemble that is delivering work that is on par with something that you would see on broadcast television. I really believe that is why the show has traveled as well as it has. I believe that's why it's played, the festivals, that attract, that it has, I think that's why Seeka wanted to come on and produce a fourth season. And that was always the idea was the Twin Cities have this amazing pool of actors. And now you know, specifically I'm talking about, where I'm making stuff in Minneapolis, like what we have is this fantastic, deep pool of acting talent. And so I built a show around it. And the show works because that's the engine and these guys are fantastic and that's what I would say would be just continue to have faith in the idea that if you've got good writing and great actors, you don't need to be a great camera person. You don't need to have all the technical stuff down, you don't need to have a jib arm, you don't need the equipment that you don't know how to use, you don't need a 10 person crew. Like this show is about really good actors delivering hopefully really good dialogue in a way that is compelling and that tells a story from start to finish. And I think that has borne itself out as being a really viable method. And the nice thing is you don't need to do that in a studio, you know what I mean? You don't need to do that with a million dollars behind you. You can do it effectively on the scale that we've been doing it. That's the best thing that I could say like if I was whether I was talking to myself or anybody else, especially in Minneapolis,making stuff that would be what I would say was find really great actors and then work with them and trust them because that's the goal. That's why I like watching the show. [Film Clip 54:24 to 54:38]. John Gaspard 54:38Thanks to Matt Anderson for chatting with me about creating the Theater People webs series, which you can find online at SeekTV.com – check the show notes for a direct link to all four seasons. If you liked this interview, you can find lots more just like it on the Fast, Cheap Movie Thoughts Blog. Plus, more interviews can be found in my books -- Fast, Cheap and Under Control -- Lessons Learned from the greatest low-budget movies of all time ... and its companion book of interviews with screenwriters, called Fast, Cheap and Written that Way. Both books can be found on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Google and Apple Books. And while you're there, check out my mystery series of novels about magician Eli Marks and the scrapes he gets into. The entire series, staring with The Ambitious Card, can be found on Amazon in paperback, hardcover, ebook and audiobook formats. That's it for episode 105 of The Occasional Film Podcast. Produced at Grass Lake Studios. Original music by Andy Morantz. Thanks for tuning in and we'll see you … occasionally!

First ReadingGENESIS 18:20-3220Then the LORD said, "Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomor'rah is great and their sin is very grave, 21I will go down to see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry which has come to me; and if not, I will know." 22So the men turned from there, and went toward Sodom; but Abraham still stood before the LORD. 23Then Abraham drew near, and said, "Wilt thou indeed destroy the righteous with the wicked? 24Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city; wilt thou then destroy the place and not spare it for the fifty righteous who are in it? 25Far be it from thee to do such a thing, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked! Far be that from thee! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" 26And the LORD said, "If I find at Sodom fifty righteous in the city, I will spare the whole place for their sake." 27Abraham answered, "Behold, I have taken upon myself to speak to the Lord, I who am but dust and ashes. 28Suppose five of the fifty righteous are lacking? Wilt thou destroy the whole city for lack of five?" And he said, "I will not destroy it if I find forty-five there." 29Again he spoke to him, and said, "Suppose forty are found there." He answered, "For the sake of forty I will not do it." 30Then he said, "Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak. Suppose thirty are found there." He answered, "I will not do it, if I find thirty there." 31He said, "Behold, I have taken upon myself to speak to the Lord. Suppose twenty are found there." He answered, "For the sake of twenty I will not destroy it." 32Then he said, "Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak again but this once. Suppose ten are found there." He answered, "For the sake of ten I will not destroy it."GospelLUKE 11:1-131He was praying in a certain place, and when he ceased, one of his disciples said to him, "Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples." 2And he said to them, "When you pray, say: "Father, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. 3Give us each day our daily bread; 4and forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive every one who is indebted to us; and lead us not into temptation." 5And he said to them, "Which of you who has a friend will go to him at midnight and say to him, `Friend, lend me three loaves; 6for a friend of mine has arrived on a journey, and I have nothing to set before him'; 7and he will answer from within, `Do not bother me; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything'? 8I tell you, though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his importunity he will rise and give him whatever he needs. 9And I tell you, Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 10For every one who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. 11What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; 12or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? 13If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!"

Your Sorrow Will Turn into Joy 16A little while, and you will see me no longer; and again a little while, and you will see me. 17So some of his disciples said to one another, What is this that he says to us, A little while, and you will not see me, and again a little while, and you will see me; and, because I am going to the Father?18So they were saying, What does he mean by a little while? We do not know what he is talking about. 19Jesus knew that they wanted to ask him, so he said to them, Is this what you are asking yourselves, what I meant by saying, A little while and you will not see me, and again a little while and you will see me? 20Truly, truly, I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice. You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy. 21When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world. 22So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you. 23In that day you will ask nothing of me. Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give it to you. 24Until now you have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full. I Have Overcome the World 25I have said these things to you in figures of speech. The hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figures of speech but will tell you plainly about the Father. 26In that day you will ask in my name, and I do not say to you that I will ask the Father on your behalf; 27for the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God.[a] 28I came from the Father and have come into the world, and now I am leaving the world and going to the Father. 29His disciples said, Ah, now you are speaking plainly and not using figurative speech! 30Now we know that you know all things and do not need anyone to question you; this is why we believe that you came from God. 31Jesus answered them, Do you now believe? 32Behold, the hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered, each to his own home, and will leave me alone. Yet I am not alone, for the Father is with me. 33I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.

1Saul lived for one year and then became king, and when he had reigned for two years over Israel,a 2Saul chose three thousand men of Israel. Two thousand were with Saul in Michmash and the hill country of Bethel, and a thousand were with Jonathan in Gibeah of Benjamin. The rest of the people he sent home, every man to his tent.3Jonathan defeated the garrison of the Philistines that was at Geba, and the Philistines heard of it. And Saul blew the trumpet throughout all the land, saying, “Let the Hebrews hear.” 4And all Israel heard it said that Saul had defeated the garrison of the Philistines, and also that Israel had become a stench to the Philistines. And the people were called out to join Saul at Gilgal. 5And the Philistines mustered to fight with Israel, thirty thousand chariots and six thousand horsemen and troops like the sand on the seashore in multitude. They came up and encamped in Michmash, to the east of Beth-aven. 6When the men of Israel saw that they were in trouble (for the people were hard pressed), the people hid themselves in caves and in holes and in rocks and in tombs and in cisterns, 7and some Hebrews crossed the fords of the Jordan to the land of Gad and Gilead. Saul was still at Gilgal, and all the people followed him trembling. 8He waited seven days, the time appointed by Samuel. But Samuel did not come to Gilgal, and the people were scattering from him. 9So Saul said, “Bring the burnt offering here to me, and the peace offerings.” And he offered the burnt offering. 10As soon as he had finished offering the burnt offering, behold, Samuel came. And Saul went out to meet him and greet him. 11Samuel said, “What have you done?” And Saul said, “When I saw that the people were scattering from me, and that you did not come within the days appointed, and that the Philistines had mustered at Michmash, 12I said, ‘Now the Philistines will come down against me at Gilgal, and I have not sought the favor of the LORD.' So I forced myself, and offered the burnt offering.” 13And Samuel said to Saul, “You have done foolishly. You have not kept the command of the LORD your God, with which he commanded you. For then the LORD would have established your kingdom over Israel forever. 14But now your kingdom shall not continue. The LORD has sought out a man after his own heart, and the LORD has commanded him to be princeb over his people, because you have not kept what the LORD commanded you.” 15And Samuel arose and went up from Gilgal. The rest of the people went up after Saul to meet the army; they went up from Gilgalc to Gibeah of Benjamin. And Saul numbered the people who were present with him, about six hundred men.16And Saul and Jonathan his son and the people who were present with them stayed in Geba of Benjamin, but the Philistines encamped in Michmash. 17And raiders came out of the camp of the Philistines in three companies. One company turned toward Ophrah, to the land of Shual; 18another company turned toward Beth-horon; and another company turned toward the border that looks down on the Valley of Zeboim toward the wilderness. 19Now there was no blacksmith to be found throughout all the land of Israel, for the Philistines said, “Lest the Hebrews make themselves swords or spears.” 20But every one of the Israelites went down to the Philistines to sharpen his plowshare, his mattock, his axe, or his sickle,d 21and the charge was two-thirds of a shekele for the plowshares and for the mattocks, and a third of a shekelf for sharpening the axes and for setting the goads.g 22So on the day of the battle there was neither sword nor spear found in the hand of any of the people with Saul and Jonathan, but Saul and Jonathan his son had them. 23And the garrison of the Philistines went out to the pass of Michmash.

Saul Anointed King 1Then Samuel took a flask of oil and poured it on his head and kissed him and said, “Has not the LORD anointed you to be princea over his people Israel? And you shall reign over the people of the LORD and you will save them from the hand of their surrounding enemies. And this shall be the sign to you that the LORD has anointed you to be princebover his heritage. 2When you depart from me today, you will meet two men by Rachel's tomb in the territory of Benjamin at Zelzah, and they will say to you, ‘The donkeys that you went to seek are found, and now your father has ceased to care about the donkeys and is anxious about you, saying, “What shall I do about my son?”' 3Then you shall go on from there farther and come to the oak of Tabor. Three men going up to God at Bethel will meet you there, one carrying three young goats, another carrying three loaves of bread, and another carrying a skin of wine. 4And they will greet you and give you two loaves of bread, which you shall accept from their hand. 5After that you shall come to Gibeath-elohim,c where there is a garrison of the Philistines. And there, as soon as you come to the city, you will meet a group of prophets coming down from the high place with harp, tambourine, flute, and lyre before them, prophesying. 6Then the Spirit of the LORD will rush upon you, and you will prophesy with them and be turned into another man. 7Now when these signs meet you, do what your hand finds to do, for God is with you. 8Then go down before me to Gilgal. And behold, I am coming down to you to offer burnt offerings and to sacrifice peace offerings. Seven days you shall wait, until I come to you and show you what you shall do.” 9When he turned his back to leave Samuel, God gave him another heart. And all these signs came to pass that day. 10When they came to Gibeah,d behold, a group of prophets met him, and the Spirit of God rushed upon him, and he prophesied among them. 11And when all who knew him previously saw how he prophesied with the prophets, the people said to one another, “What has come over the son of Kish? Is Saul also among the prophets?” 12And a man of the place answered, “And who is their father?” Therefore it became a proverb, “Is Saul also among the prophets?” 13When he had finished prophesying, he came to the high place. 14Saul's uncle said to him and to his servant, “Where did you go?” And he said, “To seek the donkeys. And when we saw they were not to be found, we went to Samuel.”15And Saul's uncle said, “Please tell me what Samuel said to you.” 16And Saul said to his uncle, “He told us plainly that the donkeys had been found.” But about the matter of the kingdom, of which Samuel had spoken, he did not tell him anything. Saul Proclaimed King 17Now Samuel called the people together to the LORD at Mizpah. 18And he said to the people of Israel, “Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, ‘I brought up Israel out of Egypt, and I delivered you from the hand of the Egyptians and from the hand of all the kingdoms that were oppressing you.' 19But today you have rejected your God, who saves you from all your calamities and your distresses, and you have said to him, ‘Set a king over us.' Now therefore present yourselves before the LORD by your tribes and by your thousands.” 20Then Samuel brought all the tribes of Israel near, and the tribe of Benjamin was taken by lot. 21He brought the tribe of Benjamin near by its clans, and the clan of the Matrites was taken by lot;e and Saul the son of Kish was taken by lot. But when they sought him, he could not be found. 22So they inquired again of the LORD, “Is there a man still to come?” and the LORD said, “Behold, he has hidden himself among the baggage.”23Then they ran and took him from there. And when he stood among the people, he was taller than any of the people from his shoulders upward. 24And Samuel said to all the people, “Do you see him whom the LORD has chosen? There is none like him among all the people.” And all the people shouted, “Long live the king!” 25Then Samuel told the people the rights and duties of the kingship, and he wrote them in a book and laid it up before the LORD. Then Samuel sent all the people away, each one to his home. 26Saul also went to his home at Gibeah, and with him went men of valor whose hearts God had touched. 27But some worthless fellows said, “How can this man save us?” And they despised him and brought him no present. But he held his peace.

GospelJOHN 16:20-2320Truly, truly, I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice; you will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy. 21When a woman is in travail she has sorrow, because her hour has come; but when she is delivered of the child, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a child is born into the world. 22So you have sorrow now, but I will see you again and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you. 23In that day you will ask nothing of me. Truly, truly, I say to you, if you ask anything of the Father, he will give it to you in my name.

Prayer Is Communicating With God Demonstrating Your Relationship With Him. Spend Time With Him. John 16:22 - 24 22So with you: Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy. 23In that day you will no longer ask me anything. Very truly I tell you, my Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. 24Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete.

Focus on Jesus...Why Does it Matter?Series: Gospel of John Preacher: Jim MastersSunday Church ServiceDate: 8th May 2022Passage: John 5:19-29-------------------We Must focus on Jesus; be Christ centered, but why does that Matter? 3 Reasons... Because of Who Jesus Is in Relation to the Father, 19-22Because the Father Loves the Son and Shows All Things to Him, 20Because the Father Gives Life, so Does the Son Gove Life, 21Because the Father Gave the Son All Judgement,22So, Our Focus Should Be on Jesus to Honor Him, 23-24Why Else? Because of What He Can Do, 25-27The Son Raises theSpiritual Dead.Why Can He Do This, 26Why Else? Because of What He Will Do, 28-29The Son Will Raise All the Dead.

The Gospel of John, 8-14 Part One: Four Christlike Characteristics By Louie Marsh, 4-24-2022   Pictures of Jesus – last one sacred heart.   If I want to be like Jesus I must… 1) Always and FREELY offer forgiveness.   They were USED this woman.   “3The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst 4they said to him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. 5Now in the Law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?” 6This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him…(John 8:3–6a, ESV)   Jesus LOVED her & set her free   “6 …Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. 7And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” 8And once more he bent down and wrote on the ground. 9But when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the older ones, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. 10Jesus stood up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” 11She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.”” (John 8:6–11, ESV)   No one knows what Jesus wrote on the ground. His love shamed them into leaving. He gave her freedom with boundaries.   2) Always LIVE in the light of life.   “12Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”” (John 8:12, ESV)   To do this I must be   “21So he said to them again, “I am going away, and you will seek me, and you will die in your sin. Where I am going, you cannot come.” 22So the Jews said, “Will he kill himself, since he says…“24I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am he you will die in your sins.” 25So they said to him, “Who are you?” Jesus said to them, “Just what I have been telling you from the beginning. 26I have much to say about you and much to judge, but he who sent me is true, and I declare to the world what I have heard from him.”” (John 8:21-22a; 24–26, ESV)   Jesus died that we might   “28So Jesus said to them, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he, and that I do nothing on my own authority, but speak just as the Father taught me.” (John 8:28, ESV)   3) Always abide in the TRUTH of Jesus.   “31So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, 32and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”” (John 8:31–32, ESV)   Sin always & only   “33They answered him, “We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, ‘You will become free'?” 34Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. 35The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. 36So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. 37I know that you are offspring of Abraham; yet you seek to kill me because my word finds no place in you.” (John 8:33–37, ESV)   Abiding in truth means SPEAKING unpopular realities.   “43Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word. 44You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies. 45But because I tell the truth, you do not believe me. 46Which one of you convicts me of sin? If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me? 47Whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God.”” (John 8:43–47, ESV)   4) Always affirm that Jesus is GOD.   “56Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad.” 57So the Jews said to him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?” 58Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.” 59So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple.” (John 8:56–59, ESV)   Jesus is God in human   “15He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16For by him all things were created…17And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. 19For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.” (Colossians 1:15–20, ESV)    

originally uploaded 3/29/22So that Will Smith slap...Our new show is called And Then We Watched, which you can find live here and on your favorite podcast platform! Gem and Justin's other show One Boy Allowed can be found here!

1In the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle, David sent Joab, and his servants with him, and all Israel. And they ravaged the Ammonites and besiegedRabbah. But David remained at Jerusalem. 2It happened, late one afternoon, when David arose from his couch and was walking onthe roof of the king's house, that he saw from the roof a woman bathing; and the woman was very beautiful.3And David sent and inquired about the woman. And one said, Is not thisBathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife ofUriah the Hittite?4So David sent messengers and took her, and she came to him, and he lay with her. (Now she had been purifying herself from her uncleanness.) Then she returned to her house.5And the woman conceived, and she sent and told David, I am pregnant. 6So David sent word to Joab, Send me Uriah the Hittite. And Joab sent Uriah to David.7When Uriah came to him, David asked how Joab was doing and how the people were doing and how the war was going.8Then David said to Uriah, Go down to your house andwash your feet. And Uriah went out of the king's house, and there followed him a present from the king.9But Uriah slept at the door of the king's house with all the servants of his lord, and did not go down to his house.10When they told David, Uriah did not go down to his house, David said to Uriah, Have you not come from a journey? Why did you not go down to your house?11Uriah said to David,The ark and Israel and Judah dwell in booths, and my lord Joab andthe servants of my lord are camping in the open field. Shall I then go to my house, to eat and to drink and to lie with my wife? As you live, andas your soul lives, I will not do this thing.12Then David said to Uriah, Remain here today also, and tomorrow I will send you back. So Uriah remained in Jerusalem that day and the next.13And David invited him, and he ate in his presence and drank,so that he made him drunk. And in the evening he went out to lie on his couch withthe servants of his lord, but he did not go down to his house. 14In the morning Davidwrote a letter to Joab and sent it by the hand of Uriah.15In the letter he wrote, Set Uriah in the forefront of the hardest fighting, and then draw back from him,that he may be struck down, and die.16And as Joab was besieging the city, he assigned Uriah to the place where he knew there were valiant men.17And the men of the city came out and fought with Joab, and some of the servants of David among the people fell. Uriah the Hittite also died.18Then Joab sent and told David all the news about the fighting.19And he instructed the messenger, When you have finished telling all the news about the fighting to the king,20then, if the king's anger rises, and if he says to you, Why did you go so near the city to fight? Did you not know that they would shoot from the wall?21Who killed Abimelech the son of Jerubbesheth? Did not a woman cast an upper millstone on him from the wall, so that he died at Thebez? Why did you go so near the wall? then you shall say, Your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead also. 22So the messenger went and came and told David all that Joab had sent him to tell.23The messenger said to David, The men gained an advantage over us and came out against us in the field, but we drove them back to the entrance of the gate.24Then the archers shot at your servants from the wall. Some of the king's servants are dead, and your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead also.25David said to the messenger, Thus shall you say to Joab, Do not let this matter displease you, for the sword devours now one and now another. Strengthen your attack against the city and overthrow it. And encourage him. 26When the wife of Uriah heard that Uriah her husband was dead, she lamented over her husband.27And when the mourning was over, David sent and brought her to his house, andshe became his wife and bore him a son. But the thing that David had done displeased theLord.

Table Rush.  Tools For A Good Life SummitSomeone comes to me for life coaching via the Tools For A Good Life summit.  It may be just my future self who is on the journey with me. Who do I want to help…my hand is being forced? Wait a minute, the summit kind of worked.Administrative: (See episode transcript below)WATCH the Table Rush Talk Show interviews here: www.TableRushTalkShow.comCheck out the Tools For A Good Life Summit here: Virtually and FOR FREE https://bit.ly/ToolsForAGoodLifeSummitStart podcasting!  These are the best mobile mic's for IOS and Android phones.  You can literally take them anywhere on the fly.Get the Shure MV88 mobile mic for IOS,  https://amzn.to/3z2NrIJGet the Shure MV88+ for  mobile mic for Android  https://amzn.to/3ly8SNjSee more resources at https://belove.media/resourcesEmail me: contact@belove.mediaFor social Media:      https://www.instagram.com/mrmischaz/https://www.facebook.com/MischaZvegintzovSubscribe and share to help spread the love for a better world!As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.Transcript: Mischa Zvegintzov  00:01I do want to say to kind of cool oh, sorry, part 3.  Am I staying with pitch slab? Or am I going with Table Rush? Goodness gracious. I just had this amazing thought stream and it disappeared.Mischa Zvegintzov  00:27Oh, a person that is in the middle of a divorce was asking me for help. She's like, Hey, I'm trying to figure out what to do next. You know, I need to get a job blah blah blah. And and I was like well, I'm kind of... and she came to me from the via the what do you call it the the the summit. The Gools For A Good... excuse me... via the Tools For A Good Life Summit. And I was like, Well, I've kind of shifted directions to helping business people or whatever, blah, blah, blah. You know, this Table Rush thing. And fast forward to today past few days as I'm like, What am I doing? Who am I trying to help? Who is this frickin avatar? Like? Who? Who?Mischa Zvegintzov  01:35I'm walking in traffic recording. So dangerous.Mischa Zvegintzov  01:42What am I trying to say here? Thanks for listening per usual. I appreciate you. I do. I appreciate you being on this journey with me. And maybe it's just the "my future self" that's on this journey with me. It's a funny thing to think about, isn't it? Or my previous self from a month behind who's on the journey with me, I think you get what I'm saying? Or not, it might be too esoteric for you.Mischa Zvegintzov  02:14So this person was like, Hey I need some help, kind of finding a vison forward. And I'm like, Well, I think let me refer you to someone else. Because I've got nothing put together to help. And she wanted some coaching.  Literally was asking me to provide coaching. And I was like well, I got no coaching. But I guess it's kind of what I'm trying to do through this whole process is put together some courses to create some coaching and create some evergreen courses. Anyway there's a few other people that could use a little help with their direction moving forward and finding their "why". I see now that a lot of people are questioning getting their "why" that are in some psychic upheaval.Mischa Zvegintzov  03:22So awesome. Will these become episodes? And what will the name of my podcast and YouTube channel be? Assuming there's a YouTube channel when these episodes go live? It's very exciting.Mischa Zvegintzov  03:44Definitely distracted by the cars and the people walking big dogs. Okay, back to it. Stream of conscious.  "Hey" big dog.  That is a big dog. My gosh beautiful big dog.Mischa Zvegintzov  04:07Okay.  So the question is this. the question is this.  "How do I start from scratch and put on new summits new challenges to reach the fledgling entrepreneurs who are a year behind me?" Perhaps Yeah, a year behind me. Or do I reach out to the divorced dads, divorced moms or just divorced dads who are perhaps five years behind me? Some serious rambling.  Let's come back to center. Big breath in.  Long breath out.Mischa Zvegintzov  05:21So what I was gonna say after this five minute and thirty second intro was... The summit worked to pull together some people and bring a coaching client to me.  And I realized just a day or two ago like like really hit me.  "Like wait a minute. Like the summit kind of worked."  Not as in a bigger scale as I want but a couple of people literally reached out to me directly like someone I've never met and then a couple people that I do know indirectly.Mischa Zvegintzov  06:19And then also over the last couple of weeks some new leads have trickled to me through the summit. So people have registered for the summit and now they're in the queue.  so my the what I'm questioning is.  Is if I stuck with that plan... stuck with that idea... like I'm still... I'm not far enough away from it that I can't get back to it and not be distracted by the shiny object of Table Rush. I can put together a measurable questionnaire that I've already created I can clean it up it's super cool. That could be my software to. Wow. Holy mackerel kinda cools things could come from that. Just hits me as I'm talking about this.Mischa Zvegintzov  07:38A lot of activity this morning. Dogs barking. Thank goodness. Will this be an episode? Welcome to the entrepreneurial journey, people. Welcome to the entrepreneur...my... Mischa's recent entrepreneurial journey that sure does seem to be self serving. Holy mackerel, who knows?Mischa Zvegintzov  08:08Anyhow, it's like my daily diary that's just exposed for the world to see. How fun is that.  At some point, the five year for me now is just going to be so dialed in just these concise episodes that are... your three step process to this five step process to that.  Oh my gosh is ludicrous. Anyhow, I think you'd get what I'm saying.  Thank you for listening. I appreciate you. Thank you for being a part of my process.Mischa Zvegintzov  08:52So I'm standing in traffic. I'm going to try and get to the point to set you free from this episode. But I think perhaps a "find your why coarse" or a "find your why challenge" is definitely an order. And perhaps I don't need to rename everything. And I can let go of my fears around...  Ah who knows? Who knows more will be revealed PEACE OUT

In the final episode of 2021, in which we saw huge growth in offshore wind, Allen and Rosemary give their big takeaways from the year along with predictions for what's to come in 2022. Will we see 20MW wind turbines? A development slowdown due to inflation? Regulatory hurdles? Go here for the video about McDonald's ice cream machines mentioned on the show. Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly email update on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning tech. Learn more about Weather Guard's StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary Barnes' YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us!  Transcript: EP93 of the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast 00:00:37:11 - 00:00:38:13Welcome back. 00:00:38:13 - 00:00:40:00I'm Dan Blewett. 00:00:40:00 - 00:00:44:18I'm Allen Hall and I'm Rosemary Barnes,and this is the Up Time podcast 00:00:44:23 - 00:00:48:03bringing you the latest in windenergy, tech news 00:00:48:03 - 00:00:49:18and policy. 00:00:59:22 - 00:01:00:06All right. 00:01:00:06 - 00:01:02:17Welcome back to the UptimeWind Energy podcast. 00:01:02:18 - 00:01:05:03I'm your co-host, Dan Blewett on today'sshow, 00:01:05:03 - 00:01:08:14we're going to do a sort of 2021a year and wrap up. 00:01:08:23 - 00:01:11:20So aside from a couple topicswhich we're going to talk about, 00:01:12:04 - 00:01:16:00including balsa wood harvesting, obviouslythat's used in wind turbine blades. 00:01:16:00 - 00:01:18:06And as they've expanded in size, 00:01:18:06 - 00:01:21:08that harvesting has sped up,which is threatening the rainforest. 00:01:21:10 - 00:01:22:13We'll talk through that 00:01:22:13 - 00:01:25:16as well as maybe some possiblereplacements for that material 00:01:26:09 - 00:01:27:14in the near future. 00:01:27:14 - 00:01:31:07What about Germany phasing outnuclear power and Siemens Gamesa 00:01:31:07 - 00:01:35:09accepting bids to sell off the winddevelopment arm of their business? 00:01:35:09 - 00:01:37:08And then, as we do our sort of 2021 00:01:37:08 - 00:01:40:16wrap up, we have five questionswe're going to throw to our experts here 00:01:41:05 - 00:01:42:09about, you know, developments. 00:01:42:09 - 00:01:45:13They see predictionsand maybe some surprising things 00:01:45:13 - 00:01:47:07about the year behind us. 00:01:47:07 - 00:01:49:16So look for thatin the second half of today's show. 00:01:49:16 - 00:01:53:15Before we get going, be sure to subscribeto Uptime Tech News, which you will find 00:01:53:15 - 00:01:56:23in the show notes of this podcast,as well as Rosemary's YouTube channel. 00:01:57:07 - 00:01:58:17Where is you doing twice a month? 00:01:58:17 - 00:02:02:03Live streamsand all things renewable and wind energy 00:02:02:03 - 00:02:05:05shows a great job there, so check outboth in the description below. 00:02:05:16 - 00:02:09:22So first thing on the docket today,we're going to talk about balsa wood. 00:02:09:22 - 00:02:13:10So obviously this is used structurallyin wind turbine blades, and the bigger 00:02:13:10 - 00:02:18:08they get, the more this has been usefuland necessary to increase harvesting. 00:02:18:17 - 00:02:21:08And of course, just like anythingas demand goes up, 00:02:21:08 - 00:02:24:16this is putting strainon this natural resource. 00:02:24:18 - 00:02:28:15Rosemary, obviously working for Elm WindPower, you have a pretty good idea of, 00:02:28:16 - 00:02:31:16you know, the vendor relationshipsand all of the materials 00:02:31:16 - 00:02:32:23that go into these blades. 00:02:32:23 - 00:02:35:00Can you take us through this situationwith balsa wood? 00:02:35:00 - 00:02:38:09Like, where does balsa woodfit in to blade construction? 00:02:38:10 - 00:02:38:18Yeah. 00:02:38:18 - 00:02:42:18So Balsa Wood is a sand...

We talk to Noelle RathCOMPLETE TRANSCRIPT (unedited):We went to theater school together. We survived it, but we didn't quite understand. 2 00:00:15That's 20 years later, we're digging deep talking to our guests about their experiences and trying to make sense of it all 1 00:00:21Theater school. And you will too. Are we famous yet? 2 00:00:28Hi, I haven't talked to you 10 years. Been 1000 years. How 1 00:00:35They celebration? I mean, I know there wasn't a big celebration, but 2 00:00:39It, it was great. It was a bit of a weekend though. Friday was great. I, yeah, I had a great day. We went out to dinner. We had a great Italian dinner and it was lovely and I got some nice presence and it was, it was great. And I, and I wrote a blog post about, 1 00:01:02I just read it cause my friend left so good. I'm going to pimp it out today. 2 00:01:06Oh, that's right. Your friend. Who's your friend that's there or was that 1 00:01:10God gone? So that's something I want to run by you is like how to in our middle age to navigate friendships that I don't think she listens to this. So I don't, but that for me are very challenging and that's just the truth. So anyway, continue. Well, we'll talk about that. 2 00:01:29Well, we'll get to that. Yeah. We'll get to that. So on Saturday I got the autopsy from my sister and she is no surprise. She died from alcohol intoxication. We already knew that or alcohol poisoning, but for some reason, my mom and I were both kind of fixated on like what her blood alcohol content was going to be. And I never really looked that much into it. You know, like I know 0.08 is the legal limit for driving, which I think ends up. Meaning like, even if you might even be in trouble, if you have one drink or two drinks 1 00:02:08For most people's weight, but I don't. Right, 2 00:02:11Right. Hers was 0.46. Yes. So I looked up on Wikipedia. Like there's actually a very handy little chart there that breaks down for you all the different levels and like what the impairments are and starting at 0.01. I mean, there's, there's observable differences, at least in terms of like, if you're hooked up to machines, I guess, and they're observing you, they may not be that noticeable to other people. But anyway, there's impairments that begin from drink one. 2 00:02:51And by the time you get to 0.3 is complete blackout. And by the time you get to 0.4 it's onset of coma and respiratory failure, he was at 0.4, six. Yeah. And 0.5 is just death. Like no, no bones about it. If your alcohol is the blood in your alcoholic, if the alcohol in your blood gets to 0.5, you're definitely dead. So it was like surprisingly so upsetting. I don't mean it's surprising that I don't know what, what, I'm not totally sure what it was about that number that had me so rocked. 2 00:03:34But I was talking to my mom and I was saying like, when I used to drink, when I was younger, I mean, I still drank. But like when I used to really drink for, for partying or whatever you wanna call it, if I got up to five drinks, I was definitely throwing up and I never measured my blood alcohol level. But I'm guessing it would have been, I mean, point, I don't know. I'm guessing it would have been up there. I don't know how you get, how you physically get don't you just start to throw up. And my mom said practice. Yeah. That's what I was going to say. It's tolerance and my blood turn cold when she said that just the chill went up my spine, like, okay. 2 00:04:22So she had to have been drinking a lot for a long time. She did not have she had the beginnings of cirrhosis, but it wasn't even like, yeah, because it took my dad 11 years to die from, from alcoholism and he had hepatitis. So it was like, it wasn't making a sense to me. It must be. I, I don't, I really don't know how to understand it. Aaron says th I mean, this is suicide. This is not, not that she was intending. It necessarily all those, she might've been, but he was saying like, you have to he's does this hand gesture, you have to be glug, glug, glug, ING, basically to, to get to that blood alcohol level is not an easy thing to do. 2 00:05:12And so here's what I want to say about it. She was the fifth person of my family to die from alcohol toxicity. And, you know, there was a member of my family that knew she was struggling with it knew she had gone to rehab and she went to rehab. I didn't know any of this. Oh yeah. She went to rehab. Yeah. And th and actually, until I told this family member that we got the, you know, cause of death, that person was telling me that person was not telling me that she was in rehab. That person was telling me that she went away for work. 2 00:05:55Like she's dead. What's, what's the secret that you're hiding. And this person also hid in her bedroom was a book, the big book of alcoholics anonymous. And this person put, hid that. And, and, and the way they were saying it was like, and of course, should I put that away because that's nobody's business. And I'm like, are you fucking kidding me? First of all, I hope to God that her kids know that this is what she died from. 1 00:06:29Not 2 00:06:30One should know, 1 00:06:32Oh one should know for so many reasons, if nothing else that, oh, this runs in our family and I should be really careful. 2 00:06:41Exactly. 1 00:06:42They don't. They might not know. I bet they don't know. 2 00:06:45So this is the way that denial kills us, because we don't want to talk about what's really going on. And so, so, so that when somebody is suffering to the point that they want to drink that much, they assume that they're the only person who's suffering like that. They assume that there's no help. They assume that there's no hope for them. Which really, I mean, talking about this stuff only, ever in genders, hope in people, you know what I mean? Because you can't tame it until you name it. It's not the expression. Yeah. So like, how the fuck is anybody supposed to tame, you know, these sicknesses, these, unless they know what they are. 1 00:07:25It's really, it's really unlike devastating to find out that like, you know, someone that you love. And even if you're, you know, whatever you're strange from them, it doesn't matter. It was suffering. That's the part I think right. Was suffering and felt alone. I mean, I think that's the devastating part. And that's what my father's suicide, the same thing. Like my dad, whether he did it on purpose or not the guy overdosed and my mother country and other family members continue to say that he died to something else. The fuck is wrong. It is insane. 1 00:08:06That is the insanity of this, of the disease of addiction and mental illness that we at all costs 2 00:08:16At all costs. I almost want, I almost want to say, and maybe I'll just say it here on this forum. I want to say that if you're somebody who is covering up for somebody else who is in, in, in harm's way with substance, you are a killer. Yep. 1 00:08:38Yep. You are. You were helping too. You were like an accomplice to murder. Like really. 2 00:08:43Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think that that is probably going to sound harsh to a lot of people, but it's just the truth. It's just the truth. Because, because, and the reason I it's the truth is because if you did the opposite of that, if you said, wow, you're really struggling. I want to help you. What can I do to help you? Or if you don't get help, I'm afraid I can't continue in this relationship. If you're not doing that, then you are. And also the last person you're doing a favor for is that person. Right? You know what I mean? Like I, I have this thought that people at my family think that if we say that this is what she died from that we're tarnishing her memory. 2 00:09:24I mean, it's, 1 00:09:27It has tarnished already because of the disease and the secrecy. So like, if anything, you'd be shining a light and, and, and, and helping her memory to be one of the person had a disease that wasn't there. It was a no fault illness. 2 00:09:43Exactly. That's what I want to say too. It's it's not her fault. I mean, she was an alcoholic. It may have been her, it may have been her responsibility. I mean, it was her responsibility to do something about it, but yeah, nobody, nobody decides that they want to grow up one day and drink themselves to death. That's just not how it works. 1 00:10:06Oh my God, that's intense. Oh my God. 2 00:10:10It was intense. I, I, but you know, another win for me is that I totally dealt with it. I did not sweep it under the rug. I felt sad. I cried. I talked about it. I felt low, you know, that day and the next day. And, and, and I, you know, that's, all I can do is honor the feeling. 1 00:10:30Right. And, and I think like breaking the cycle right. Of denial. And also, yeah, the way that you talk about it, you know, that's a huge step in a direction that is the opposite direction of the secrecy and the like, shame, right? Like I think that shame, like busting the shame, breaking the shame and saying, you know, this is the truth. This is what happened. And, and shining a light and not being willing to let whatever shame for me anyway, whatever shame keeps us quiet. It really does. 1 00:11:10It really does allow other people to do the same. And I think that's the only way out of, of the hell, which is addiction and mental illness. And so you're doing that so good for you, but, oh, my Najah, that is like a hard weekend situation after you're. Okay. Okay. 2 00:11:32So, but now I want to hear about your, 1 00:11:35Okay. So I, it's interesting. I, as I, as I progress in age, I wonder, I noticing, and I wonder if you notice it, that things, what is it it's that they, they always say, oh, as you get older, you get stuck in your ways. And I was always like, that is the dumbest thing I've ever heard, and it's not true, but I think it's really hard for me to change my routines to change my, I it's just so strange. So I had this friend come lovely human being, but I, but you know, but we have one bedroom and I think I stayed in your house. 1 00:12:23Yeah. It was a terrible idea and no, and a no fault, again, a no fault situation. But what I need to do is say, Hey, the, the, this, this whole staying in our one bedroom on our sofa and our, our sleeper is not going to work unless you're a teenager and a small person. And don't mind being woken up at 5:00 AM, by a dog. And if any of those things are not true, you can't stay here. No, it has nothing to do with that. And it's interesting because it's like, it really brings up sort of like people pleasing stuff for me of like, well, if I ask someone to stay in a hotel, or if I, if I, if I do that, then that means I'm mean, or I'm not. 1 00:13:10I mean, that has really come up for me. And someone said to, or I read people pleasing and it really hit home is a form of manipulation. So, wow. So it is not, it is, that is really like at the root. And I was like, okay, well, if I look at it like that, I don't want to manipulate others. I really don't because I don't like being manipulated. So if I see people pleasing as that, instead of just like we're talking about and like covering up for someone, if I see it as dangerous and not acceptable behavior and something that I wouldn't want happen to me, then that helps me to make choices and how I interact in my relationships. 1 00:13:53So amazing reframe that's exactly what it is. And I could never put my finger on it before, because I think, well, people pleasing sounds nice, please. People sometimes, no, it's manipulation. It's total manipulation. And it, it, it it's, it's, it erodes the fabric of relationships and you can't have a real relationship. So like, right. I rely, I've also relied on other people like to say, oh, you know, they have a one bedroom. I'm not going to stay there, but people are going to do what they're going to do, whether it's for financial reasons, or it doesn't matter, they do their dance. That's not my responsibility. 1 00:14:34My responsibility is to not manipulate through people pleasing because I'm afraid to, to say, Hey, our place is teeny. You cannot stay here. Cause we'll all lose our mind. And she wanted to stay five nights originally. And I said, no, no, no. I said three. And we left Santa Barbara for one, I took her away to Santa Barbara, which was the smartest thing I could have done just for space reasons. And, but anyway, but I'm just learning like, as I get older, like there are things that used to be negotiable for me that are non-negotiable in terms of like sleep. I need a certain amount of sleep for my mental health and physical health. 1 00:15:15I need a certain amount of, I have to respect my husband's space and sleep, and I have a dog and it's a whole different thing. And the dog, I brought this dog into our lives. So to say to the dog, you have to behave differently because we have a guest and you're you're three months old, 3.5 months old is also not okay. I mean, look, the dog is fine. And I, but like learning that I have to take responsibility for my life. It all comes down like this is nobody else's life. This is nobody else's house. This is nobody else's journey. 1 00:15:55And, and, and I'm going to stop manipu, being a manipulator. And by doing that, I have to really commit to, to not being a people pleaser. It's really interesting. It's really, it hit home so hard when I saw that quote, I was like, oh my God, that is the truth. 2 00:16:11Yeah. That, that just changed me. I, it makes perfect sense because the way, the reason that we became people pleasers was for our own survival. It's not like we said, gosh, this person really needs are. I mean, it's really not altruistic in, in any way. It's, it's the opposite of that. It's just as selfish as the Eddy other behavior might be considered 1 00:16:37Really interesting. And I think it, it, it, it for women and stuff, it sort of becomes second nature and like, like acceptable, you know, people pleasing does sound really great. And like, you're being very compassionate, but it's not that for me, it is definitely, I don't want to feel an uncomfortable feeling and I don't want to risk you being mad at me. So I'm gonna just do this and then be resentful and then nothing changes. And I reinforced the behavior. 2 00:17:08You get the impression that that person also understood that it wasn't a great idea. 1 00:17:16No, because I get it. I think that that person is just in doing their own thing and isn't, and has a different, I don't know, like it is not a people, pleaser is more of a something else. And so that's why we attracted each other. And so, yeah, I just got the feeling that that person was just doing their thing and like, could not sense. 2 00:17:44Yeah. And the other thing is when you live in LA New York, Chicago, or maybe even some of the other large cities, people are always coming into town and people are always wanting to stay with you and you always have the right to say is, it's just not going to work. I love to see you. I'd love to hang out with you. I can recommend a great hotel across the street. Right. But you just can't stay. 1 00:18:09No, it just doesn't work. And it does, it really upset, upsets the, the, what is it? Homeostasis of the, of my whole vibe, my whole life, you know? And, and, and yeah, and that's just the truth. 2 00:18:22I personally can't imagine at my age ever wanting to stay. I mean, I don't even want to stay with my own family. Like I do. I go and stay with my mom, but I, you know, if, if I had all the money in the world, I would always just stay in a hotel. Yeah. It's just, it ma it makes for a better time together when you're with the person, if there isn't any resentment about like, how, what you like the temperature to be when you're sleeping or how loud you can be, or what time you getting rid of that. 1 00:18:57Yeah. And that's just the way to do it. So I'm learning, you know, I'm a learning and we're learning, what else is going on? 2 00:19:05What else is going on? I do. I'm doing like some intense sort of writing exercises with my theater group, where we started this new thing of writing five minute plays. So you, so we have, we pick a, there's a word of the week. We pick up the word and then there, we pick a prop and we pick a line of dialogue that everybody has to use. And then we'd go away and write the little play and come back and present it the next Monday. So we just did it for the first time, this past weekend. And we presented last night and it was really fun. I ended up writing something that I don't know that I would have written otherwise, like, you know, because I had to incorporate these other things. 2 00:19:50And it's, it's actually a really good way. Writing exercises are a very good way to get out of your own ruts. You know, like if you find yourself always writing the same character, always writing the same type of dialogue. If you get some externally imposed restrictions on what you can write, it leads you to think in a way that you might not otherwise. That's fantastic. And what else, what else have you got going on meetings or writing wise? 1 00:20:21Nothing. Right now. It's interesting. It's sort of like a lull in between. People are supposedly reading my script. I'm the head of roadmap to see who he thinks might be a good rep, but he, but like life, like people forget about you. I mean, that is just the truth. It's not that you're forgettable. It is that we're all forgettable really. And that people have a big life. So I, I wrote him and said he was supposed to read it and pass it to another person at roadmap writers and say, Hey, which reps do you think that we know might fit this? And what, what do we think this pilot needs? And, and is she ready to be wrapped with this, with this pilot and then that, so I'm in a hole I'm sort of in a holding pattern, but the big news is my husband got a full-time job. 1 00:21:09Praise, Jesus. 2 00:21:11I know. Awesome. 1 00:21:13He got a full-time regular 2 00:21:15Waiting for that for the longest time. It was 1 00:21:17Like two years in the making and the guy hasn't had a full-time permanent job in 20 years. He's been a contractor for 20 years. So this was like a huge step. He starts on my birthday, October four. And, and we were just relieved and so grateful. And it was, you know, it's also though a good reminder, like then I go into, because I'm a human I'm like, oh my God, well, he has to keep this job and he can't lose this job. I mean, it can get insane. So I'm really telling myself, like, stay in the day, the guy just got the job. Everything's a process nothing's permanent anyway, stay in the day, stay in the day. So that's really that's. 2 00:21:54Yeah. That relates to the thing that I wanted to run by you, which is that tendency that urge, you felt to then want to control, like how he stays in the job, or that's very familiar to me. And I was talking to somebody about it recently, somebody who was complaining that in their family, any thing negative is never tolerated anything. You know, it's like any, any challenge or struggle you have is like, you have to stiff upper lip it to the point that this person doesn't feel like they can ever say, I mean, even something simple, like 1 00:22:42I don't like this of like, 2 00:22:44Yeah, I don't. Yeah. It's like, well, but you have food and you you're going to be grateful for it. So, and she was, she was telling me that, you know, there was this long period of time actually, where she hadn't had a job and then she got a job and she hated the job. I mean, she wasn't quitting it, but she, she hated the job. And whenever she would say anything to her family about it, they would say, yeah, but you're really grateful. You have the job. Right. And for a while, she was like, oh yeah, you know, she's feeling badly that she shouldn't have any bad feelings about it. The thing about feelings is you just don't get to decide what they are. I wish you could. I really wish you brought program. 2 00:23:27And just say like, no, Siri, I don't want to have this feeling right now, but that's one thing we haven't outsourced yet. You simply can't control it. What the feelings you have are the feelings you have. The only thing you can control is the outcome. And it makes sense. Like, if you think of people who in past generations, we're in poverty, like there's no room for any, no thing, but you know, putting your nose down and doing the work. And I get that, but we're not living in an agrarian society anymore. And people have complaints. And, and by the way, generations ago, they had complaints to just the, the fact that they weren't allowed to say it out loud. Doesn't mean they lived happy. 1 00:24:05Exactly. Well, I think it's, it's just comes back to exactly what we're saying is about addiction and mental illness and everything is like, just because you don't speak it out loud actually doesn't mean that there's not a whole torrent of storms inside of you. It's still there. It's just that you're not expressing it. And it has to go somewhere. 2 00:24:25They go somewhere. And that makes a lot of sense too. Like if you think about how the body is processing trauma and, and it'll just go somewhere until you, you can deal with it. And same thing is true for frankly, every emotion, you know, the best, the best gift you can give yourself. And certainly the people who you love is the gift of acceptance that this thing has happened. Do you feel this type of way about it and it, and it's okay. It's not. And some people take it too far. It's so, okay. That you can do whatever you want because you have, you know, poor, you, you had to go through. It's not that it's simply just, okay. Yeah. I mean, my, my daughter is actually a good example. 2 00:25:06My daughter, I'll say, she's going through what? I'll call a high, a hypochondria phase. She wants to come to you and say, it hurts when I do this, you know? And I'm like, okay, well, let's, don't do that for a few days. Then I, I mean, in any given day, she'll have seven elements. And my practice is, cause what happens to me inside is I feel, I feel like anxiety shoots up in me immediately. And it actually, it took me a long time to know that that was happening. And then it took me a little while to figure out why would I have that reaction of well, because that's how people reacted to me when I like we can't afford you. 2 00:25:53Can't be sick. You can't have a problem. We can't deal with that. It, it, it, it doesn't work. So I'm practicing. I'll, I'll keep everybody posted on how it's going. I'm just practicing saying, I'm really sorry that you're feeling that way. Let me check it out. Okay. Let me know if it keeps, you know, if it persists, 1 00:26:13Right? I mean, I think, yeah, it is. So it is so right. It is the first step is realizing what your reaction is. Right. And that is huge to say like, okay, like I, when, when, when a member of my family, you know, like get sick or something, I go to rage, like, how dare you be sick? How dare you allow yourself to have a need and inconvenience everybody. And that's because that's how I treated. But it took me a long time to say, why am I like enraged that my husband has a cold, like, this doesn't make any sense, but it does make sense because I wasn't allowed to have a cold. 1 00:26:53Right. But this is now that was, then he's allowed to have a cold. It doesn't mean the end of the world, but it takes a while to figure out what the hell has he been going on? Yeah. 2 00:27:03Yeah. And I think the other thing that comes up for me when I feel anxiety or rage, when somebody is low, I don't mean this word, but I'm being cheeky, like indulge in their needs. The anger is I didn't get to act like that when I was your age. So therefore you don't get to. 1 00:27:25So it even goes to someone, a psychologist was talking about people who have, and this was me for a long time in public places. When an infant is crying, if you have that rage to shut that infant up a lot of times, it's because you were, you felt that you couldn't do that. Also. We feel, we can't do that as adults when we'd like to start screaming and crying and that, and that, that infant is expressing what we all wish we could. And nobody likes that because it's not there. And I was like, that's so true. And when I looked at it that way, look, I still don't like screaming, infants, who does? I mean, it's just annoying, but it wasn't, it didn't, it doesn't trigger me like on planes and stuff anymore as bad because I'm like, oh, that kid is doing that being is doing what we all wish we could. 1 00:28:13And they're the only acceptable outlet for it. If an adult did that, they'd go right to jail and then they'd be checked in, you know? And, and, but that infant gets to express that and like, wow. You know? Yeah. 2 00:28:26Yeah. So the only other thing I wanted to mention to you is that I, for some reason, my kids were like, mom, the Emmy's were on tonight. We've got to watch the Emmy's. They have never watched any award show to my knowledge. I don't. I think my daughter thought that her favorite YouTubers might be like getting awards. And I tried to say, I don't think they do those kind of, they will soon. Sure. I'm sure there's going to be YouTube awards. And I'm sure they're going to be injustice. I'm sure they're going to outpace the Oscar. Exactly. Cause 1 00:28:57They're just, those influencers are on top of it. Yeah. 2 00:29:00But so I started to watch it. Cause that's the thing I usually like is the clothes and I right away. Did you watch it? Nope. Okay. I right away noticed, wow. So many nominees are actors of color. This is, or not just actors, writers, whatever people of colored. This is great. Wow. Who the tightest is suddenly shifting. And then one after the other, it was like, but then the one white guy was in the one white girl, one like 1 00:29:28I, that big thing that 2 00:29:30Was the big, oh, is that what people are saying about 1 00:29:33More? I believe it was more people of color were nominated than ever before and less one, the actual word than ever before. I mean, 2 00:29:41My God it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like white folks saying you should just be happy just to be nominated. Look at that. Yeah. Yeah. We're not going to let you win. Yeah. There needs to be some type of like in Hollywood. I wish sometimes I wish Hollywood was just like a company that everybody got like a company newsletter, you know? And then this week's newsletter is like, Hey, listen, we are white. Fragility was really showing, you know, you have to remind yourself that it's, you're not recognizing somebody whose work is not doing them a favor. 2 00:30:21It's recognizing their work. It's not doing them a favor when it's your favorite white actress and it's not doing them a favor when it's your favorite blackout. Right. Right. It's recognizing the work it's about the work and all rising tide lifts all boats. And when you have better work, more better work comes out of it. Like, you know, this whole thing about the appetite. Like people always like, well, but it's the American appetite for whatever. Okay. Well guess what Americans, myself included, like the thing that you tell me it alike to somehow agree. And if you tell, and if you tell me that something that I know is shit, you know, is shit. Then, then I go, okay, good. 2 00:31:02I I'm, I, I, that, that tracks with the belief that I already have, we could just make all pro content better. It could all be more interesting. Right. Did you see McKayla Kohl's and I watched, I thought that was brilliant. I thought that was brilliant. She she's brilliant. And that I watched because people kept reposting it and I'm like, oh, she said something brilliant. So let me watch. And I just really appreciated it. And I, I she's, you know, tells you to keep going. And for those of the people who are listening, who don't know the, the, her big thing was it's okay to, or actually you should, as a writer, an unplug because, you know, we get caught up in this web of re what was the word? 2 00:31:48She is, it was not ref visibility, visibility. I think it was, we get caught up in our own visibility and how many people have seen this thing. And we don't, we don't feel like it's real or important until people have seen it, which, you know, there's understandable reasons for that too. But all the time you spend in vexation about whether or not you're being viewed is time that you're not spending, looking at yourself. Yeah. That's what it is. Honestly, we all are just, we want people to see us, but not really see us. Right. We need to see ourselves. So the answer is, as I used to say to my clients, well, the bad news is the problem is you. 2 00:32:28And the good news is the solution is you. 0 00:32:33Well today 3 00:32:39On the podcast, we're talking with Noel wrath. Noel is someone who went to the dealer school for a time when we were there at DePaul university and she left, but wow, she was there. She was a part of what Gina and I have talked about as a spiritual movement or religious movement that kind of swept up the theater school for a time. And she tells us all about that. And she talks about her writing and what she's up to now. And it was very interesting. So please enjoy our conversation with Noel rap. 2 00:33:16She got a French bulldog named Joris. We have a mutt named Wallace, Doris wallets. What's your dog's name? 4 00:33:26Lucky. Lucky. He's a toy poodle. So he's seven pounds of anxiety. 2 00:33:35That's funny. They say that about little jogs that they're nervous. Little suckers. 4 00:33:41No, I know. I was really hoping that I don't know. Somehow we would look out and not have one of those Yippy dogs, but they just bark it everyday. They just are just high alert at all times. 2 00:33:54It's literally their only defense, literally. 4 00:33:58I know. And that's what I keep reminding myself is like, you know, he's just so little and vulnerable that he has to think he's big, but yeah. 2 00:34:08So Noel wrath, congratulations. You survived theater school. Well, 4 00:34:13Yeah, sorta. Yeah, 2 00:34:16You did. You did it and sort of is like the, all for the most part, that's all of us, right. It's like we survived sort of, and we're here, you know? Yeah. 4 00:34:29Well, I mean, I made my own choice to leave, so it's kind of a different scenario, I suppose. I don't think 2 00:34:36I realized that. So yeah. Say the whole time, 4 00:34:40Right? Yeah. I ended up, I ended up deciding to leave right before my senior year started. 2 00:34:48Oh, wow. That was a bold move. What precipitated that 4 00:34:54It, you know, which I suppose we'll get into, but it really was a pretty dramatic spiritual experience that happened while I was in school. And I remember going to Betsy's office to have a conversation with her because I knew a lot of people for whatever reason would take a leave of absence. And I really thought that's what I need to do. I need to kind of figure things out. And I was going in to have a conversation with her about taking a leave of absence. And it was through that conversation that she really kind of, I don't want to say she kind of coached out, but she helped me realize that maybe this wasn't the path for me right now, you know, because I would have to be compromising for, you know, for what I believed was compromising. 4 00:35:54What, you know, what then I was, I was feeling was the sort of like new understanding of, of who I was and my reality. She was like, it's just going to be one compromise after another. And I'm not sure if this is, I mean, she wasn't like, I'm not sure if this is a good fit, but she helped me realize, like I had options. And that was actually really freeing to realize that yeah, 2 00:36:23You said, we'll get into it. Let's get into it right now. I mean, so our, our experience, or I'll say my experience was w w one day a bunch of people seemed like they were all part of one specific group that was, that included the way people dressed, sort of like in long skirts and, and, and going to, I don't even know what the churches, but, but, but going to church, I'm sure. I'm sure it was, it didn't happen in one day, but you're the first person we're talking to who was sort of a part of this. So we'd love to hear what your experience was. 4 00:37:05So well, I mean, just to put it in context, you know, I like coming to the theater school, I was one of those people where like I barely got in, you know, I, I, I did not, I was not as studious person. You know, actually I remember meeting with, I think it was what is her name, Melissa, Melissa Meltzer. And she was like, oh, we'd really love to have you, your, your act scores are a little low. Maybe you could try retaking that. So I actually did, I got a few points higher, but even getting in, I was like right away, sort of on an academic probation, you know, I was just more concerned with my social life than I was about studying, which was sort of what gravitated me towards acting because it's just fun and play and, you know, anyway, so, so as soon as I got to Chicago, I mean, coming from, you know, sort of a small town in Minnesota, I was just like, everything is at my fingertips, you know? 4 00:38:17And I remember one night, you know, kind of innocently with a friend that was in my acting class saying, you know, let's go clubbing tonight. Let's like, see what that's all about. And man, that just opened up a whole kind of world to 1 00:38:35Me that just sucked me in right away. I big world the clubbing. Oh, I did not. I did not. I was not a clubbing. So first of all, were you, were you in the class, did you start school the same time we did I'm con 93, 94 94. 4 00:38:56Yep. So with ed and Erica Yancey who you've had on, I'm trying to think if there's oh, Paul home Quist. Yeah. Okay. And I don't know if, for some reason as I, I always gravitated towards the drug dealers too were like magnets for me. So I had my pick of whatever I wanted and it just really sucked me in big time. So I had a good experience at the theaters go in terms of like, I loved my teachers, I actually got decent roles. I just, as you know, it was always the case with Noel. I wasn't applying myself, you know, like I wasn't really in it. 4 00:39:42I was just so scattered. So, so that was kind of, you know, that sort of like setting the stage or whatever for, I think what ended up being this kind of an awakening for me. So anyway, so it was my third year and I was cast in a two person show Danny and the deep blue sea. And it was, it was Barry was the director and Anthony LoCascio was the, was Danny. And it was really the first like major lead role that I'd ever had. 4 00:40:25I mean, I'd done a lot of musical theater and then leads in that kind of thing, but a straight, you know, dramatic lead was, you know, it was a lot of, it was a lot of responsibility. And I remember Anthony and I taking that really serious. And, you know, we were kind of, you know, like you are, when you're 19, you're, you're exploring, you're having deep philosophical conversations, you know, and we would spend so much time drinking coffee and smoking at the golden app, just philosophizing about life. And we just really were interested in God. 4 00:41:06We were just had a lot of conversations about what is God and what, you know, and in my own, in my own mind, I really thought that I had a clear understanding of who God was and what that meant to me. And I used to always say to him like, well, you're closer than you think. You know, like I really felt like for whatever, I'm like, I had it all too. Like I had it together, like I knew, and I had this close relationship with God because some experience that as I'd had, like as a teenager or whatever, but that's sort of the beauty too, like before you, you do get all indoctrinated is that you are having this experience and it's sort of unfolding as it needs to, instead of someone telling you, this is what you should be believing, or this is what you should be doing or whatever. 4 00:41:57I mean, I really do believe that it's supposed to just sort of unfold and happen in its own time. Do you want to say more about, I'm curious about what happened to you as a teenager that, that sort of exposed you to, well, just, you know, I guess just going way back, I mean, I've just always, I've always been a real sensitive person when it comes to spiritual things and I've always had a deep longing for understanding, you know, what this all is and who I am. I mean, even now with my own kids, I love to talk to them, stuff like that, you know, and just to like, sort of try to pick apart, I mean, I'm always reading spiritual books and just, I don't know where I am. 4 00:42:50Yeah, very much so I don't have any answers, but I just love to dig deep and figure out, you know, what's beyond and how this is all connected and how we're connected and, you know, so I grew up Catholic, but then I had, you know, I went to like some camps with friends, you know, and there you have kind of, you know, emotional experiences and then you feel really close to God for a while. And then about two weeks later, you know who you were. I mean, it was just always this cycle of that, you know, it was like having emotional experiences and, and feeling more in touch with my true self, but then I'm always kind of reverting back to, you know, behaviors that are typical, I guess, if a teen or whoever, but probably weren't the best choices, you know? 4 00:43:54So yeah, so we would, so Anthony and I would, would have these amazing conversations and cliche as it is then of course we developed sort of a relationship, you know, during the show and it, it, you know, that show is very intense. I mean, it's like two hours in my underwear, swearing and slapping each other. It was like, that was the first show that my parents got to see me. Yeah. That's, that's a big one. Yeah. And I remember it was opening night and he comes to me, you know, in the green room or whatever, and he's all excited. 4 00:44:41And he tells me, I went to church and I got baptized today and I was like, whoa, that's, that's awesome. You know, I was so excited for him. And then we go and we do the show and I don't even remember much about the show itself, you know, or truly having any sort of understanding about what we're doing there or who this character really was. But it was kind of after that, that I started going to this church with him and th this church was affiliated with his, his brother, his brother had, had a pretty, you know, again, dramatic conversion, you know, through this church, it's, it's a Pentecostal church. 4 00:45:33And this older man had started a kind of what they call like a daughter work, you know, sort of a satellite church in Schomburg, which is a pretty far suburb outside of Chicago, but that's, that's where they were going. So we started doing a Bible study with Anthony and his brother and his, and his brother's wife. And I just kind of got, I don't want to say I got sucked in, you know, but it really did feel it, it just felt really pure and genuine. 4 00:46:17And I think what's been so helpful for me listening to this podcast specifically is because I don't talk about the experience of, I mean, I don't want to say like joining a cult because I don't think it's a cult. I mean, it has ish tendencies, but I appreciate what you guys have talked about. That everything is sort of a cult. And especially when you're 18, 19 years old, I was always like, how did I let that happen? You know, like how did I let my life like completely go in an opposite direction? 4 00:46:58How did I let myself get so sucked up into like these strangers? Like, I didn't know these people at all. Well, and it's because you are so young and you're completely taken away from your family, you know? I mean, you're, you're out there by yourself. And I think, you know, being in such a, being in such a dark place with the clubbing and the raving and the drugs and everything that goes along with that, I think like deep inside, I was really like longing for something that was more true to me. And, and I was really longing for family and just something that would be like a foundation and stabilize me. 4 00:47:45And it certainly did. I mean, it was a lot of rules, right? You had to follow a lot of rules. It's, it's, it's definitely a more legalistic type of religion and they don't, you know, and it's not like, oh, now you're in like, do this, do that. I mean, they're very, like, I mean, I could tell from the beginning, it was like, no one wanted to talk about it. Like no one wanted to talk about the fact that women are wearing skirts and, you know, like all the other things like, you know, which eventually you start, but it really was more like me realizing it on my own. 4 00:48:26And when I would bring it up, the women would be very like, hold well, but don't worry about that. You know, you just, just do what you're doing. Just, you know, keep coming. Like you could tell that they, they knew that once you are fully in it, typically women start to then have an issue with it, you know, because it's, it is so counter-cultural, and, and there's some pretty extreme things. One being is that you do not cut your hair because it's considered like a covering almost like a veil, like a physical Vale. 4 00:49:11So there, I mean, there was one point where I had hair down to my calves. Like I had not cut my hair in like five, seven years. Yeah. Yeah. So it wasn't too long into the experience with, with Anthony in this church that I don't know, it's probably even just like three, four months that I started to realize like, oh, all these women are, you know, like they don't wear makeup and they're always wearing skirts. And so I started to ask questions and I really did it on my own. I was like, okay, well, that's, that's different, but that's not a big deal. 4 00:49:53I mean, I could try that, you know? So I just, I would go to thrift stores and buy the most hideous, well, this is a long skirt. So that works. I mean, that's what I like is when you say we looked like we walked out of little house on the Prairie it's because we had like, no idea what we were doing, but it really was coming from a pure place. I mean, 1 00:50:17One, I, I, what really sticks out to me, something that you resonate that resonates really deeply with me is the idea that you were looking for family and as someone who, as a former therapist for, you know, for gang members and for all, it's always that looking to belong. And I'm telling you, if I had been approached, I'm telling you right now, if I had been approached by anyone in your group and sat down and said, we love you. We want you to come do this. I would have done it too. I know I would have, I just wasn't in the it's like I wasn't exposed to it so I could see how 4 00:50:56Well that's, why there were so many from our class. And even younger that for a while were pulled into it. Even Mary Kay cook was one Heather Callington Sarah Whitaker. I mean, she and I were, were best friends at the time. I mean, we all, and then there was, there was other, you know, other people too that, you know, came maybe to church once or twice with us, or, you know, I even remember, I mean, it was like this mini revival was breaking out within the theater school. I mean, it was like, you could tell people for so spiritually hungry. 4 00:51:38I mean, they really, I remember one time, you know, we sort of like posted something on the board, like let's just get together and have a Bible study, like anyone that wants to come and we reserved some room I like in the annex or something. And there was there, I, I feel like there was like 20 to 30 people that showed up and there was such a buzz in the air and, you know, no organization or like, who's really leading this. And, but you could tell there was just such an excitement. People were really hungry for it. And I wish that, you know, the, the church and, you know, the philosophies around this particular denomination, weren't so dogmatic and absolute, because I think that we could have together had a bigger impact at that time. 4 00:52:34But, you know, because certain people were, you know, were more about let's follow the church, then let's all have sort of like a, I don't know, just a more open-mindedness about it to honoring like everyone's perspectives and experiences and where they were coming from. But, you know, unfortunately that, that type of denomination was like, no, you know, it has to be this way. And this is, this is the truth. Like, if you don't see it that way, then, you know, I don't want to, we don't really have anything more to say kind of a thing. 4 00:53:14So that's, that's unfortunate. Did you, 1 00:53:18I just have a question. Did you feel that that buzz in the air that sort of yeah, that was like taking, I wanna know. Did, did they, did, did the teachers get involved? What, what went down like okay. Cause I'm really curious about that aspect and like how they handled it and also, yeah, just that, can you talk about like the culture, like, did the teachers say you have to stop this? Or what, how did it go? Cause I, I was so in my own world, 4 00:53:48I would be, I would love to know what they thought, because I'm sure that they were like, what is going on? Like, it just seemed like they didn't really know what to do with us, which is probably why Betsy, you know, was probably the voice of the majority of the teachers saying, I think it's probably be best if you found a different path, you know, a different career or whatever. Right. 2 00:54:25Because one of the, one 4 00:54:26Of the, I mean, cause what do they do? You know? I mean 2 00:54:29Limitations, if I remember correctly, it is the material. Like there was a L a lot of, I mean, it just, it, the things that people were willing to do, the things that the students were willing to do, the students who are part of this changed really quickly, and it became, I don't want to do material with cursing or sex or 4 00:54:55Yeah. I mean, it was, it was crazy and yeah, exactly. Like, I didn't know. I remember having conversations with a couple of MFA actors and just saying like, what, is there out there for Christian actor? I mean, and of course we know it's like not much and really bad and it's already hard enough making it as a regular actor, you know, willing to do anything and then put all of these stipulations on it. I mean, I was fortunate where, you know, I was so I'm, I'm discovering who I am and I'm kind of transforming as a, as a person. 4 00:55:44And I was still cast in some shows. I mean, I'm sure that was probably I'm sure that was probably intentional, you know, from the, from the faculty standpoint and things where I didn't feel compromised, you know, like I did bridge to Terabithia, which is a children's show. And, and then, you know, under milk wood, which is like, everybody was in that didn't get a main stage or something, you know? So I was able to sort of, I was able to sort of exit gracefully and not feel like I was put in a position where, but I do remember I was in bridge to Terabithia. 4 00:56:25I had, I had really short hair. Cause I went through like the nineties pixie cut phase, you know, remember you with your hair on your little burette right here. Right, right. But I remember, and that was probably part of the reason why I got cast because I had this short hair and I was supposed to play this tomboy. And I remember going to the makeup room and I think it was Nan is her name and her saying now, you know, so we're going to have to keep up this short hair. So let me know when you are scheduling another hair cut. And I was like, oh, you know, actually I don't cut my hair anymore. 4 00:57:10It's like, it's like a religious thing. And you know, that was one of the first things where, and she's looking at me and I'm looking at her like, and I think it was even in that moment that I'm starting to realize, oh, there's going to be a lot of this kind of thing. You know, there's going to be a lot of, oh, I can't do this. Or I don't know. I don't know. Looking back. I'm just, I think that's, what's strange now is that like, I'm listening to everyone's stories about either, you know, going on and being, working actors and coming to a place now where, what we're like 20, 25 years later. 4 00:57:53And they're kind of like, wow, this has been a really interesting choice. It's like a very bizarre life, you know? And for me, I've always hung on to this idea, like, like the, what if, what if I hadn't left? What if I had stuck with it? And I'm always kind of, I don't want to say tortured by it, but there certainly is a part of me that's like, as I've never feel like I've found my place, you know, you still feel that I still feel that way. I've never feel like it's like ever since I left, I'm like now what, what am I doing? 4 00:58:37You know, what did you, when I, right after you left, I left. And I immediately, I stayed at DePaul and I immediately enrolled in the English literature department. So I graduated with an English lit degree and I will say that. And I've always said that that leaving in terms of education-wise was one of the best things I ever did because, you know, at that point now I'm more of a straight and narrow. And I, I really got excited about learning and I finally figured out how to study. 4 00:59:19And I was, I had an amazing liberal arts education at DePaul. You know, I was like introduced to so many amazing works and just classes and professors. So I ended up graduating in five years instead of four, you know, so it took me an extra two years or whatever, but that really kind of helped propel me on, you know, in terms of like my later sort of just love for continuous learning and reading. And, but, you know, I remember even standing in line at graduation and, you know, you kind of, with all of these other English lit people and they had a plan, you know, like they all knew what they were doing. 4 01:00:04Or a lot of people knew that they were going to grad school right away. Or they, you know, they were going to be editors or work in publishing or journalism. And I was just like, I just had to pick something, you know, and something that sort of interested me, but I had no idea what I was going to do with it. You know? So I have been all over the map in terms of, you know, a career afterwards, but yeah. 2 01:00:30So what, what are you doing now? 4 01:00:35Actually, I'm a writer right now. I work for an architectural firm and I do technical writing for that. 2 01:00:44Yeah. I mean, that's interesting though that you you're, that's a completely reasonable career choice and yet you feel like you don't, maybe you're not saying you don't belong to your career. Maybe you're saying you don't feel like you belong in a different way or you don't have your, you don't have your group, you don't have your people. I mean, first of all, did you, did you leave the church? 4 01:01:09I did. Yeah. So let's see. I don't know. I had been graduated a couple of years and I was working as a, you know, like a administrative assistant for a window company. And, and I met my husband through mutual friends and he was, you know, he was part of the church. He had grown up in the UPC, but you know, there was always, I could tell right away, because even though I was in it, I always questioned, I was always questioning. 4 01:01:49It's kind of, part of my nature too, is just to question everything and, and I was always like in it, but then I would backslide, you know, and I would not be in for a while. And then I would come back and backsliding. Or 2 01:02:06Did you call it backsliding? 4 01:02:07Yeah, they called it a, no, it was called, what do you 2 01:02:10Mean? Like when you, when you went astray or something like 4 01:02:12That? Yeah. Yeah. You would like go back to your old life ways, your old life. Yeah. Wow. Because you did that basically like stopped going to church. So you had periods of that. Oh yeah, for sure. Okay. Got it. And you know, there were, cause there was just a lot of, a lot of, a lot about it that I felt was very controlling, you know? I mean, because it is like, if you don't go to church, someone's going to call you and ask you where you were, you know, or, you know, it was just like serious business, your church life and your church, family is all encompassing and there really isn't room or time for anything else. 4 01:03:02Was there any money? A lot of money? No, no, nothing like that. And then what did people do in terms of like jobs? Did they do all kinds of jobs. Cause you're saying it's all encompassing. Did you have to get a certain kind of job or? Oh no. No. I mean you, yeah. I mean, no, you, you know, you're living your life, but I'm saying it's like, you know, it's it's church on Wednesdays and then, you know, two services on Sunday, but then there's also all of these midweek things, like maybe you're doing two Bible studies, you know, on or you're involved in. 4 01:03:45I don't know. You're just, there's always something I just felt like, you know, so there just isn't a lot of time for strain, right. Because you're just, it's, you know, you're always with the same people. But so anyway, when I met, when I met my husband, first of all, he, he was going to a different church, but within that same denomination and the church, you know, every church has its own kind of flavor and maybe rules too, you know, more strict or more lenient or whatever. 4 01:04:27And I just felt like he was also like, he was an intellectual, he was okay with questioning things, you know? And so we sort of connected on that level. And even from the very beginning, I just felt like this is someone that I don't want to say, like we're gonna escape together. Like it wasn't that dramatic, please understand. But I just felt like this is someone that I'm like, I'm going to be safe with and that we're going to be going on this journey together. 4 01:05:12Interesting. And that we, you know, I just had that deep sense from the very beginning. And we did, I mean, we did question a lot of things, but we, you know, we stayed in it for a long time, but yeah, we were living in, in Chicago, that's where he was born and raised. And when I was pregnant with my second child, we ended up moving to Minnesota. So back to my hometown and it was kind of there that we started to kind of break away. I mean, there was a church here that we could have gone to and we, and we did for a little while, but we just started to realize, you know, we're living two different lives and it's not, it's not who we really are or how we really believe anymore. 4 01:06:03So yeah. So it's been a long journey. 2 01:06:06Other people, I don't remember if other people cause like Heather Callington was an R year, she stayed all the way through. She graduated. Did other people leave the program that you know of? 4 01:06:17Well, Anthony did. Yeah. Yeah. He and I left at the same time. Yeah. And he's 2 01:06:22Still, I think he might still be a part of that church. 4 01:06:26Yeah. Yeah. He pastors a church actually in the suburbs. Yeah. Okay. 2 01:06:31So that, that does mean though, that there are people who stayed and presumably kept their faith, you know, and figured out a way to make it work at the theater school. Through, through graduation. 4 01:06:50Yeah. Yeah. I suppose I think Heather really is the only one. Yeah. 2 01:06:56Oh, because maybe what you're saying too is like, after you and Anthony left Anthony, by the way, so charismatic, it makes sense that he would have been kind of the leading the effort on this after he left, maybe it kind of died out at the theater school or do you know? I think 4 01:07:13So. Wow. 1 01:07:16I was there any, you know, it's from the little I know about that church that, and maybe I'm wrong. So please tell me, but like, it seems like it's theatrical in its own way. Is that, is that accurate? That there's like a theatrical vibe to it. So it's kind of interesting that you guys, that you were actors and then this church, it's not just like, you know, the, the Unitarian church or something, which is by the way I've, I've been to, and I fell asleep like six times, this is more like, right. It, it offered, it must have offered some kind of fix of the theatrical. Did it, or am I just totally? 4 01:07:57Oh, for sure. I mean, it's a very emotional experience, you know, and that is part of that's part of what I think draws people in is there's, there's like an alter call you at the end of every service where it's designed to invoke a lot of emotion, you know? And if like, if everyone's not crying at the end, then it wasn't as successful, you know? And at some point, 1 01:08:32Which by the way is like acting class, I'm just saying it's very similar to acting class. So a lot of times theater schools and the rehearsal processes are, if the people, if no one cries, did we really do good work that day? I'm just, there's a lot of similarities. So it makes sense to me that it's just like, it's sort of in the name of God versus in the name of the theater, but it's, it's a similar vibe, man. It's a similar, I've seen, you know, like from watching movies and there will be blood and things like that. Like watching, watching that kind of yeah. Emotional response. That's what we're all looking for, dude. Like that's the thing. So it happened to be in Schomburg with people, but it could be anywhere. 1 01:09:16So I just, I really want to sort of emphasize and like say that like I, in the core of my being get how that I might have taken this path too, and that it is, it's just, I just, we're all looking for a home, like, okay, we're all looking for an emotional home where we can feel like we belong and this has happened to be in a church. But I mean, it's just, so anyway, that's what I want him to say. Cause I was like, oh, these are the there's similar. It's similar theatrical. 2 01:09:49Yeah. And, and all, and we've talked to many times on this podcast about how people find theater school. Well, people go to college in general to, in part to find themselves, but there is something specific about theater school. And I think it might actually be for people who are going into acting. I don't know who I am. I don't know how I feel. Let me just go ahead and learn how to be somebody else, you know, for awhile, because maybe through, and it's a perfectly reasonable way to come to know yourself. Maybe you come to know yourself more through the, okay, well, I'm not that that's not who I am. It's not that I'm trying on all these different selves and you know, until I find the one that fits. 4 01:10:33Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I think about too, you know, kind of like how you guys have talked about your are you're so raw at that point, right? Like I had been through two, two and a half years of that sort of stripping down process and now I'm so open to anything. And I think it was just the perfect scenario for me to get swept in, swept up into something like that, that, you know, touches on so many different senses. Right. 4 01:11:13And especially that emotional component. I mean, it was just, yeah, but it's like, I was, I was hesitant honestly, to come on, like, and that's why I had not responded to your emails initially because I was like really humming and high and about whether or not I wanted to talk about it because it's like, although it was, it was, you know, it was sort of a bizarre experience. It was something that happened and it has shaped me and it, in a lot of ways it shaped me for the better, you know, I mean, it really helped me get my act together because I was out of control and, and I keep thinking too, even though there's always this, like what if in my head I'm like, yeah, but what did it prevent me also from experiencing? 4 01:12:07Because if I had gone down that path and ended up in LA and I mean, I was just so naive and so willing to try anything that I'm just, I don't know. It sort of scares me even now when I think about how did I walk out of some of those situations I put myself in, you know, through my club years that I walked out like alive without major trauma or when you do it, a lot of drugs is that what was happening? A lot of drugs, a lot of guys, you know, I mean, it was just not a healthy situation 2 01:12:51Becoming part of the church change any of the relationships with people that you had at the theater school. 4 01:12:59Definitely. Yeah. You know, unfortunately, and, and now what, like looking back, I can understand it because I mean, jeez was like, it did seem like overnight, all of a sudden there was this like group of kids that was just all Jesus freaks, you know? But there were some people that I would've considered pretty close friends that just like cut us off. Like literally wouldn't speak to us. But then there were other people that, you know, just remained true friends and you know, didn't quite understand it, but we're like, whatever, you know, if it's good for you, then that's good. 4 01:13:45You know, I think that's the one thing that I probably regret though, is that, you know, like people walk away from their college experience, like, like you too, you know, and you've known each other since you were 18. And because of the way that I left and, you know, the situation that I was in, I was, I really sort of like cut myself off from a lot of people. And so I just haven't had that same, like, you know, close people that I've known since college, or even been able to like rehash some of these things. That's, what's been so cool about listening to this podcast as a sort of putting pieces to the puzzle together, you know, that I haven't been able to talk about with anyone because I haven't kept in conversation with anybody, you know, over all those 2 01:14:39Touch with anyone that was in the church. I mean, you said, you know, Anthony's is still the church. Do you keep in touch with any of like the Sarah Whitaker's or the, 4 01:14:50You know, we've connected a little bit through social media, but, but not really. Not really, no. 2 01:14:58I'm just sitting here trying to think about, I mean, you and I didn't have a friendship per se, but I, I w I guess the only person in that group that I had a friendship with was Anthony. I don't remember the timing. I wasn't a quasi relationship with him. I 4 01:15:19Feel like I remember it 2 01:15:21Must've been, maybe I, maybe I blame. But when I think about why I would, I was rejecting of people who had become part of that group, all the only thing I can come up with is fear. It's not like anybody started treating me differently. It's not like it was really no skin off my nose that people joined a church. I don't know why I had a problem with it. Actually. Maybe it just, I think it scared me. It seemed sudden, and I didn't really know if it was, I didn't know what kind of church it was. 2 01:16:02I didn't know what it was asking people to do. So actually, you, you, 4 01:16:07Well, I can't blame you for being, I mean, I would have been the same way, you know? I mean, and plus we were just, I think about some of the things that I did, you know, like, I remember we had this one assignment in some acting class where you were supposed to get up and it was just like, sort of like a comedic thing you were supposed to get up. And in one breath, like say all of the expletives that you could, you know, you know, like, like you see that in like a movie, you know, like a Chevy chase scene or something. And, and so I'm sitting there and I'm going, oh my gosh, what am I going to do? 4 01:16:47You know? And I get up and I just, at the top of my lungs scream, I hate you devil What, you know, and actually looking back now, I'm just like, dang Noel. That was really bold of you. I can't imagine something like that now. 1 01:17:10You know, the one thing 4 01:17:11That, you know, but as another classmate, I'm sure they were just like, what? 1 01:17:17Well, first of all, that's a dumb, dumb assignment. I just have to be honest like that. Okay. Let's just, but that's just my judgment about the assignment. But also then knowing that like, look, I think I remember I was away. I think I was not in school when this went down, I had taken a leave of absence, I think. Right. Cause it was right before 4 01:17:39Ready with Nicholas cage. I remember that rumor 1 01:17:43Mill. That's hilarious. You hear that's hilarious. 4 01:17:46Yeah. You were like a unicorn. That's hilarious. 1 01:17:50Meanwhile, I'm like drinking myself to jump over here. But anyway, that's funny, 4 01:17:55Jen is a personal assistant to Nicholas cage. Like I was like the top, you know, like we couldn't believe 1 01:18:04Meanwhile I was, I was miserable, but anyway, so all right. And we, we all were in some ways, but the other thing I'm realizing is that it does take a certain amount of chutzpah to be like, I am going to bel

John 8:1230 (ESV) I Am the Light of the World 12Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. 13So the Pharisees said to him, You are bearing witness about yourself; your testimony is not true. 14Jesus answered, Even if I do bear witness about myself, my testimony is true, for I know where I came from and where I am going, but you do not know where I come from or where I am going. 15You judge according to the flesh; I judge no one. 16Yet even if I do judge, my judgment is true, for it is not I alone who judge, but I and the Father who sent me. 17In your Law it is written that the testimony of two people is true. 18I am the one who bears witness about myself, and the Father who sent me bears witness about me. 19They said to him therefore, Where is your Father? Jesus answered, You know neither me nor my Father. If you knew me, you would know my Father also. 20These words he spoke in the treasury, as he taught in the temple; but no one arrested him, because his hour had not yet come. 21So he said to them again, I am going away, and you will seek me, and you will die in your sin. Where I am going, you cannot come. 22So the Jews said, Will he kill himself, since he says, Where I am going, you cannot come? 23He said to them, You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world. 24I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am he you will die in your sins. 25So they said to him, Who are you? Jesus said to them, Just what I have been telling you from the beginning. 26I have much to say about you and much to judge, but he who sent me is true, and I declare to the world what I have heard from him. 27They did not understand that he had been speaking to them about the Father. 28So Jesus said to them, When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he, and that I do nothing on my own authority, but speak just as the Father taught me. 29And he who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to him. 30As he was saying these things, many believed in him.

Ephesians 2:11-22So, then, remember that at one time you were Gentiles in the flesh—called “the uncircumcised” by those called “the circumcised,” which is done in the flesh by human hands. At that time you were without Christ, excluded from the citizenship of Israel, and foreigners to the covenants of promise, without hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus, you who were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, who made both groups one and tore down the dividing wall of hostility. In his flesh, he made of no effect the law consisting of commands and expressed in regulations, so that he might create in himself one new man from the two, resulting in peace. He did this so that he might reconcile both to God in one body through the cross by which he put the hostility to death. He came and proclaimed the good news of peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. So, then, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with the saints, and members of God's household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. In him the whole building, being put together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you are also being built together for God's dwelling in the Spirit.Lord of all power and might, who art the author and giver of all good things; Graft in our hearts the love of thy Name, increase in us true religion, nourish us with all goodness, and of thy great mercy keep us in the same; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 

Today's pod introduces you to Lesley's husband, Brad Crowell, the CEO of their company. You'll meet him every other episode when they dig into the interview that Lesley hosted in the previous episode. In this episode you'll learn where the name of the podcast came from, what "Be It" actually stands for (it's an acronym) and then some great convo about the interview that LL had with Joanna Vargas from Episode 1.If you have any questions about this episode or want to get some of the resources we mentioned, head over to LesleyLogan.co/podcast. If you have any comments or questions about the Be It pod shoot us a message at beit@lesleylogan.co .And as always, if you're enjoying the show please share it with someone who you think would enjoy it as well. It is your continued support that will help us continue to help others. Thank you so much! Never miss another show by subscribing at LesleyLogan.co/subscribe.In this episode you will learn about:Where the name of the podcast comes fromWhat the Be It acronym stands for (B.E.I.T.)How "Be It Till You See It" is totally different from "Fake It Till You Make It"How to play the "remember when" gameWhat is a "Loop" or "Open Loop"?Why procrastination is not badThe power of speaking someone's first name to themIf you enjoyed this episode, make sure and give us a five star rating and leave us a review on iTunes, Podcast Addict, Podchaser and Castbox.Lesley Logan ResourcesLesley Logan websiteBe It Till You See It PodcastOnline Pilates Classes by Lesley LoganOnline Pilates Classes by Lesley Logan on YouTubeProfitable PilatesFollow Lesley on Social MediaInstagramFacebookLinkedInTranscription:Welcome to the Be It Till You See It podcast where we talk about taking messy action, knowing that perfect is boring. I'm Lesley Logan, Pilates instructor and fitness business coach. I've trained thousands of people around the world and the number one thing I see stopping people from achieving anything is self doubt. My friends, action brings clarity and it's the antidote to fear. Each week, my guests will bring Bold, Executable, Intrinsic and Targeted steps that you can use to out yourself first and Be It Till You See It. It's a practice, not a perfect. Let's get started.Lesley Logan 00:32Welcome back to the Be It Till You See It interview recap, actually. Welcome to the interview recap to the BE IT TILL YOU SEE IT Pod. This is our first one! So this is where my co-host in life, Brad and I are going to dig into an amazing conversation I had with Joanna Vargas in our last episode, if you haven't yet listened to that interview, feel free to pause this now. Feel free to pause this now and go back and listen to that one, and then you come back and join us. Or, if you're like me, and you'd like to know how things end, then you can listen to this one, and then go back to that one. There are no rules here. This is your life and you get to Be It Till You See It the way you want. Okay.Brad Crowell 01:11She's not live. That's literally how she is.Lesly Logan 01:13It's how I watch everything.Brad Crowell 01:15YeahLesley Logan 01:16If you watch the Crown, and Google it on Wikipedia while you're watching it let me know in the DMs on Instagram. Okay, so, anyways. Um, but first, Brad, is there any. Okay, hold on. So, this is where y'all, this is where we have an audience question but I'm gonna be really honest this is the first episode so there's no way that you could have sent us anything to ask us. Cuz you didn't hear the interview yet. And this podcast just launched, so we thought we would do something different today.Brad Crowell 01:47Yeah, we thought basically instead of an audience question. That instead we share just a little bit about what Be It Till You See It actually means, how we came up with the name of the pod. And what we focus on with our takeaways, with each interview.Lesley Logan 02:09Yeah.Brad Crowell 02:09So tell me, first off, tell me how we came up with the name.Lesly Logan 02:12Okay, so let me be really honest. We have been trying to figure out a name for a podcast for about three years.Brad Crowell 02:20YeahLesley Logan 02:20So, we have, we have come up with many, we have many URLs to many podcasts that will never be, and that's okay. But the way this interview came, this way this podcast name came about is, so I have been listening to an interview with Amy Cuddy on, it's an interview is a "TED talk with Amy Cuddy" that one of my OPC members had sent to me and she said, this interview makes me think of you and how you teach. And I was like, who has 15 minutes just to watch a random interview, random TED Talks of which, I don't know anything about right like I'm not, I have to be honest, y'all I'm not a TED talk watcher when I watch a TED talk, it's because someone sent it to me. So I listen to this TED talk, and she shares how, she shares the study that they did about how if you stand in the Superwoman stance, that means, hands on hips if you're on YouTube, then you can see this if you're listening to a pod, then I need you to stand with your hands on your hips. Put your feet parallel and a little bit wider than your hips, lift your chest and be the super woman that you are. And if you hold that for five minutes. What it tells your brain is that you're a fucking badass. She didn't say that those are my words but basically they did a study where they had people stand in that posture for five minutes, and then they had people go into an interview and they had these interview - ERS, forgot the end of that - interviewer clearly haven't had to go on an interview in a while. They had these interviewers have no expression whatsoever, completely interview them and the people that did the power stance left the interviewing nailed it. When the interviewer literally gave no expression whatsoever. They had people sit in a slump position so go ahead and slouch it out, sit in the sun positionBrad Crowell 04:17Slouch it out.Lesley Logan 04:18And then go in for the interview and all those people thought they failed the interview. Same interviewers, same questions, same non expressions. How crazy is that? So then she tells a story about how her life when, when she, I forget what Ivy League school she was at, but basically she had this brain injury, she was super super smart, has a brain injury is barely making it through college somehow lands in Ivy League school, thinks she is like failing she's with her Dean or whoever you talk to at college. I don't know, no one at my college asked me to come in for an interview of any kind. And she said, I am in the wrong place, I don't belong here. And he said, Why do you think that? And she had some response and he gave her a challenge to ask a question, every class and like actually be the girl who belongs at that school. And she then went on to be a professor at another school, an Ivy League school. And this girl comes into her office like I don't belong here. I'm not good enough to be here. I'm going to cry, not going to be here. And in that moment she gave the girl the same advice and she realized she was being the person who belonged at the place until she saw that she was the girl that belonged.Brad Crowell 05:40Yeah.Lesley Logan 05:41And that stuck with me in such a way because I grew up in the fake it till you make it world, which is like, smile if you don't feel happy put a smile on your face because you will feel happy and...Brad Crowell 05:52Well, I think there's a negative connotation to that where it's like you're worried more about the way others are perceiving your tragic experience (Lesley Logan: Yeah) or your discomfort or your unhappiness, instead of you focusing on yourself.Lesley Logan 06:08YeahBrad Crowell 06:08Right? So like it's: fake it till you make it is like you know like the, the perception of others looking at you. Be It Till You See It is, is your perception of you until you get there.Lesley Logan 06:20And I love that so much because we should really care so much about what we think and not what others think (Brad: Yeah) because others are not thinking about you as much as you want, we can get that another day you could ask me what I think about that, but anyways, so that still doesn't answer your question of how it got his name.Brad Crowell 06:33Yeah, I was actually thinking about that class.Lesley Logan 06:36I know, I know. Okay, so, so, I don't remember why this class.Brad Crowell 06:41I know you told that story, I think it must have been shortly after you watch the TED talk.Lesley Logan 06:45It wasn't probably it was you know what it was. We did this whole thing. We taught a live Pilates class, virtually, because that's how we do things, And you took the workout with me, and it was a smaller class than normal, and I finished the class with us standing, and I had us stand in our power stance. And then I told you the mini version of what I just told you, because it can get shorter, y'all, I can do it shorter. And I said, and now I want you to go and be it till you see it, and you said, that's the name of the bad guy. (Brad: Yeah), and I was like, What?Brad Crowell 07:22On the spot like immediately right there I was like, That's it, that's the one! (Lesley: That's the one!) like everyone's watching like, What is he talking about?Lesley Logan 07:29Oh yeah, The poor girls on the other end of the computer who we couldn't see because of the way the camera was, I'm sure we're like, what are these people? Anyways, they're still members of ours so it's all good. So, anyway, in my creation of this podcast, and really making sure it is worth every minute of your time because you all, y'all you, I gotta be honest with you, your time is the only resource that is non renewable you cannot recreate your time. Right? (Brad: yeah), you can create money, you can create, what are the other resources in life? I don't know.Brad Crowell 08:02foodLesley Logan 08:02foodsBrad Crowell 08:03friendsLesley Logan 08:03friends. All these thingsBrad Crowell 08:04All these sounds very family butLesley Logan 08:05No, but you can make familyBrad Crowell 08:08But you don't get more timeLesley Logan 08:09you don't get more timeBrad Crowell 08:10to get more of other things,Lesley Logan 08:11Other things. Yes, so, um, so I just feel like if I'm going to be in your ears each and every week which thank you so much. I want you to get what you to I want you to get something out of it and so when I was working on this podcast, I came up with an acronym for BE IT. And that is, B is for bold, you have, you have to be bold, this, this world is not. Everyone's going to ask you to play small. And if you play small. Guess what you're going to get - small things and it's really frustrating and unsatisfying and, you know what people don't do on their deathbed go, you know, what I regretted being bold when I was 29 years old. No one does that! They're like, I regret not doing the thing. (Brad: Yeah), that was bold. (Brad: Yeah), and I so B is for bold and it is the most important thing, and it is the scariest thing is the hardest thing it's so freakin scary for me to be here right now and talking to this microphone with you but I'm being bold too. E is executable, y'all, action steps, the things this is it's executable is hard because like I'm like people, and also do things that you could actually execute but that's the other thing you could also find people to execute the task for you so that's also really awesome. I is intrinsic, he...Brad Crowell 09:29I am not opposed to having strategic boldness. Okay. I mean, those two are definitely (Lesley: That's gonna be...) there they're not mutually exclusive, they can go together.Lesley Logan 09:41Yeah.Brad Crowell 09:42You knowLesley Logan 09:43This is why Brad is here, because I have bold ideas, and Brad's like, and here's how we do that. (Brad: Yeah) So sorry, that's our dog Gaia, she's gonna do that every episode. So, I like, I'm a bold ideas person, and he's like, as soon as I start to get a little scared like, oh my god, like I don't have the skills for this, he's like, Oh, look, I've mapped out all the strategies to make this happen. So, thank you Brad for that. We'll make a shirt out of it.Brad Crowell 10:09What's I?Lesley Logan 10:10I is intrinsic and here's the thing that I, I can't tell you how to figure out what makes you intrinsically motivated but here's what I will tell you about extrinsic. Extrinsic motivation is like money, things, right? EX it's like things outside of you, and those will get you so far, you'll take promotions and other things based on extrinsic you might say yes to something, but it quickly goes away. What is the word?..Brad Crowell 10:36Intrinsic is like internally natural (Lesley: Yes) it's a, it's essential. It's basically like part of you. It's so part of you.Lesley Logan 10:46YeahBrad Crowell 10:47That's intrinsicLesley Logan 10:48And that is something that I hope as you listen to guests and Brad and I, each week that you get closer and closer to. Why the heck do you want to do what it is that you want to do, always. Like, what is it about you? Right?Brad Crowell 11:00I think intrinsic is another way to talk about. Intrinsic is strengths. (Lesley: Yes) Right? Like, What are your strengths?Lesley Logan 11:08Well, you know what? People should ask us that question. We don't have time for that today, but hint, hint. You should ask that question because there's a good story around that. Okay, (Brad: T). T is targeted. So, targeted is just like, I believe you have to hit deadlines on things there needs to be a target to it, there has to be something that makes you take the action so you can be, you could have a bold idea, you can write out all the strategy, you could be intrinsically motivated. And if you don't put a target on that thing. You will put it off till tomorrow. (Brad: Yeah), and another day, and it will just be this thing that you've always thought you would do one day but you never do. And here's the thing about targets. You make them. And therefore if you don't meet them, it's not like, oh my gosh, I suck at this. No. You actually just go, Okay, why didn't I hit the target when of what I set? What got in the way of that? And I, and you ask yourself some questions, and then you go, okay, how can I fix this for the future? And then you've set a new target. Trust me. This podcast was supposed to start three years ago.Brad Crowell 12:24Well, also the thought process hadn't been put in to actually make it what it is so like we had this intention. Right, but we didn't take bold, executable, intrinsic, targeted action until, what, a couple months ago.Lesley Logan 12:41Yeah, I think, well I think sometimes, you know, ideas have to percolate and we did not put a target date on it, because we, well we can get into another day but like 2019 was going to be a podcast we decided that was the year that we like. Was that no new things? Was 2020...Brad Crowell 12:58I think 2020 I can't remember, but it isLesley Logan 13:00I don't remember why 2020 didn't happen, but...Brad Crowell 13:02It's fine. (Lesley: Yeah), the fact is that now that it's, it's coming together and I'm really excited about the planning and the strategy and the BE IT, and the acronym, I think it's awesome.Lesley Logan 13:13Thank you.Brad Crowell 13:14So, so, soLesley Logan 13:16Wouldn't be here without youBrad Crowell - 13:17Yeah, what an audience question. That wasn't. So fun, it's so great that it was...Lesley Logan 13:22And so you can ask your questions for us to answer on Instagram, @be_it_pod so if you just type in BE IT POD as three separate words and we'll pull it up or if you're like really someone who likes detail, it's really boring it's @be_it_pod. But anyways, (Brad: You'll find us) I read all the way and you will find it. I want you to tell, ask us any questions you want, there's not a question we probably can't answer. And we're really honest for like, No.Brad Crowell 13:56Yeah and so anyway, (Lesley Logan: Okay) I love it. (Lesley: I love you and I love it) So, thank you. Thanks for that.Lesley Logan 14:01Thanks for calling it out babe, I would have just let that moment pass us by and you're like this is it. So this is also, like, why you're here, and you keep your highlight the good stuff (Brad: End scene). Thank you. So, before we get into our whole shebang with talking about Joanna, I just want to say I have a quick little freebie for you so here it is: You may not know what it is you want to be right now, but prioritizing your time for yourself is of the utmost importance - that is totally a Brad sentence - here's the deal. If you don't prioritize yourself, no one's gonna prioritize you, and I believe in practicing prioritization. And one way that you can do that is with a Pilates class with me. Why? Because every time you show up for yourself on your mat you are telling the universe, you're telling yourself, I'm probably, prioritizing me right now. And so in order to do that because you might be like, “Girl, I don't even know what Pilates is”, I want to offer you a free class at OnlinePilatesClasses.com/beit. So that's OnlinePilatesClasses.com slash b e i t. All right, Brad, who are we talking about today?Brad Crowell 15:12Okay. Amazing. I really can't wait to talk about Joanna Vargas. She is an absolute rocket like rock star rocket like craziness she she's like a. She's like a bottle rocket, I mean every rocket you can imagine, she's that.Lesley Logan 15:27She's fire. She's fireworks, she's glitter that just enters the room.Brad Crowell 15:34Yeah, (Lesley: She's so awesome), she's like that, the glitter all over the place. We met Joanna at a conference two years ago now or something like that, and we had a chance to, to really get to know her over six months. And what a great interview. I'm sure you kind of picked up on that if you had a chance to listen to the interview with her already, I'm sure you picked up on that. Anyway, I just wanted to do a brief intro. Joanna Vargas has been an entrepreneur since she was a little girl, like really little, I think she said at six or seven years old, she started her first entrepreneurial thing. She creates her own life and questions everything. She is a total powerhouse, and she's the host of two podcasts The Get Up Girl and Dance Your Life, and aside from that she is just a really really strong businesswoman and, you know, loves life, so it was a really great pod.Lesley Logan 16:29I mean, there's there, you're gonna want to listen to that interview several times and it's fine to save it and listen to it when you need it again, how she like she sold, she bought avocados from her neighbors, and then sold them back to the people she bought them from which is just like a hustler! And she called herself a hustler. So, okay, here's what I'm talking about. In the interview, you'll hear us talk about this game she used to play with her girlfriend which is called "Remember When" and they would just lay around, and they would talk about remember when... And they would just pick something out that happened in the future, but they're remembering it and then they would just layer on it and it makes me think of those like childhood games where you would say a line and someone else's a line. (Brad:... whisper down the lane) Is that what it's called?Brad Crowel 17:15No, no, no. It's no, I think it's almost like you're telling a story but you can change the, you get to change the story. You have like five words to change. (Lesley: Yes) I can't remember what that...Lesley Logan 17:27Someone will tell us on Instagram. Anyways, um, I love this and so on the spot in the interview, she and I played Remember When. (Brad: Yeah) Let me just tell you (Brad: It was pretty fun), Joanna and I have only hung out two times around 50 other people. And we had another moment where we were doing photo shoots, but she was in her picture taken and I was getting my picture was taken. And so, you can play Remember When with a complete stranger or someone you barely know or somebody you kind of know or your best friend, and I really want to make this like a date thing, babe, I want to put this in our calendar.Brad Crowell 17:58OkayLesley Logan 17:58OkayBrad Crowell 17:59Remember WhenLesley Logan 18:00Remember WhenBrad Crowell 18:00Put in the calendar?Lesley Logan 18:00Put it in the calendar. I want us to play Remember When, because in the interview Joanna and I did this and we listened to it, because we bring up Oprah calling, and then, I think it was me, but maybe it wasn't but I thought I said, and then we told her we can't do that day can you do this day instead? And then, Oprah changed her schedule. And let me just tell you.. when I came out of the interview, I was like, Oprah's gonna change her schedule for me! I was on fire from playing Remember When. In that moment, it just made me feel so much extra and I think it's really easy to get exhausted from the day today. And when you need to feel a little bit extra, I want you to call someone and play Remember When so that's my favorite talking point.Brad Crowell 18:49Yeah that was pretty cool.Lesley Logan 18:49It's really hard to pick a favorite, but that's the one.Brad Crowell 18:52I had a question for you (Lesley: Okay) about something that you both referenced. You referenced this thing called open loops, but I didn't really know what it was. And I thought it might make sense to just kind of explain that a little bit.Lesley Logan 19:06So that's a great question, and partly because Joanna and I are both huge believers of openness, we're like, everyone must know what an open loop is. So, thank you for asking about open loop. As human beings we like certainty. Okay, we don't let.. We need change because that is like the only thing that is certain in life is that everything will change. But we like to pretend like we know what's going to happen next, which is why the pandemic was such a like thing, because all of a sudden, there was nothing certain, but nothing's ever been certain, but our brain likes certainty. (Brad: Okay) So, when you ask your brain a question. We've talked about this with our AGENCY group, babe. When you ask a person like, “Do you know anyone who could take Pilates with me?” That is a question that actually is a closed loop because they go yes or no. Right? But when you ask them, “Who do you know who would take Pilates with me?” (Brad: Love this) It is an open loop. (Brad: Okay), so, in that same way of changing the question that opens a loop. (Brad: Yeah) Open loops are putting a question mark on something that can't be a yes or no answer, it has to you, you're, you actually are asking your brain a question and not purposely not letting your brain answer it right away.Brad Crowell 20:29So that's interesting because I think that I heard this growing up and that your brain will subconsciously work on an answer, even when you're sleeping, even when you're awake, like you can, start the brain processing something and then like, days later you'll be like. Aha! It happened, it's there. And I've done that, strategically over the years. Like, okay, I'm going to start dwelling on this props of this issue, this problem, this this puzzle, this thing, or conceptualizing it or I'll like start thinking about it, and then, but I know I don't have the answer, but I want to consume the information and let my brain just start working on it.Lesley Logan 21:09Oh yeah, it's why procrastination is not bad if you do it strategically, (Brad: Interesting) And if you like. If you know you need to work on something you ask yourself, an open loop question on the thing. (Brad: Yeah), and then you procrastinate in air quotes (if you can't you can't see if you're listening but the youtubers can). And you procrastinate on it. Your brain is working on it so then when you actually go to sit down and do it before it's due. You have it all that, it's all...Brad Crowell 21:34Yeah. So this is actually, that's really interesting. It's just how I work. (Lesley: I know) Just literally how I work.Lesley Logan 21:39I know you're an open looper.Brad Crowell 21:40So because what I'll do is I'll say alright if it's still on Friday. Today I'm gonna think about it. Tomorrow I'm gonna visualize it in my head, I'm gonna actually like, I pull the pieces together. I like, I need it. I'm also the person that like really needs to see all the parts of a puzzle, like I need to lay them all out in front of me and go what order they go and, you know, and then (Lesley: It's different processes) And, and then, but then I can build it almost in my head, and then I sit down and I actually build it.Lesley Logan 22:09YeahBrad Crowell 22:09And this is how I build websites, this is how I problem solve. This is, yeah, all the things - that's fastinating.Lesley Logan 22:15You also do this just in life you're like, “Hey, you want to know something?” And then he doesn't say anything! And you know what, this is proof that brains don't like open loops and it wants to figure out the thing, because I'm sitting there going, and then getting agitated. What do I want to know? So anyways, (Brad: I actually do that) we talked about what open loops are and and her famous open loop is: How does it get better than this? How does it get better than this? And she challenged my question of, I'm always asking people if you can't do a Pilates exercise, what can you do, what else can you do? And it is very easy for you to go, well what can I do, and like to change the connotation. So we talked about, probably not on this podcast but in another inner other talk because Joanna and I just can't stop talking to each other. What else is possible, right now?Brad Crowell 23:11YeahLesley Logan 23:11What else is possible right now? And it is awesome and I love that. And so if you cannot say whatBrad Crowell 23:18Same thing with the curious, like being curious.Lesley Logan 23:22Being curious? (Brad: Yeah) Oh yeah, she talked about curiosity and so good. But anyway okay, basically we are just talking about how awesome the interview is so go back and listen, (Brad: Yeah) save it, share it with a friend who needs it because it is fire, she is you. You can't not. Brad's gonna hate I just said that you can't not feel like empowered after listening to that you have so many options that go off. Okay.Brad Crowell 23:43Yeah, also stated as ‘you will feel empowered.'Lesley Logan 23:47Well that's what you're here for, babe, for the people who don't like double negatives, you can, you can translate it to a positive for them.Brad Crowell 23:55Alright, so finally let's talk about the BE IT actions from this interview. What bold, executable intrinsic or targeted action items? Can we take away from your convo with her, and I thought I'd jump in first and just say one thing that I noticed wasn't anything you talked about. There wasn't like an actual talking point you had. If you go back and you listen to this interview, I am pretty sure she used your name, Lesley 50 times. (Lesley: I know) She says it in almost every sentence (Lesley: She does) Lesley, you know what Lesley, you know, this Lesley. Lesley right and I, and I picked up on it, like maybe halfway through two thirds of the way through and I was just like, Now I was listening for it and then I heard it the rest of the way through. And I thought wow, she is just so amazing at connecting to people in how she engages with them, she focuses on them. She speaks their name she knows them, (Lesley: Oh yeah) it is, this is obviously a sales tactic for those of you who have everLesley Logan 24:54She wasn't selling. Only her thoughts to me like she wasn't selling anything.Brad Crowell 24:58Right, well I think for her it's habit now (Lesley: Yeah) it's just simply habit right so it doesn't matter if she's in a sales call or not, but I, I really, I noticed that, and I thought, “Man, that is amazing, that is definitely something that you can straight up take away.” So if you're trying to ever go and connect with other people, using their name is so important.Lesley Logan 25:22So, I will just like total plug, not sponsored by this podcast, but ProfitablePilates.com has a course with her on how to create clients for life. (Brad: Yeah) And she talked about saying, saying people's name. And she talked about how to. And she also talked about how to remember people's names. So if you're like, I don't remember anyone's name, hold on, that is a closed loop, and she'll teach you how to do that. But what that made me feel in my own interview with her was that she saw me, (Brad: Yeah, sure) And she was totally like that was like a conversation she and I was, she and I were having. And I was on her Get Up Girl podcast recently. She said my name so much, I started saying her name, I was like, you know what, Joanna? And I was like, I feel like I gotta say it every sentence because, but it was like, why not, why not say people's names. So anyway, I love that, of course, you saw that.Brad Crowell 26:14Well, same thing. What about you?Lesley Logan 26:17Oh, okay, this is really big to me because, um, I think we hold ourselves back by telling ourselves a story and in her action items of be it till you see it, she says, Everything is a choice. (Brad: Yeah), everything is a choice and this is really hard when like, ish is hitting your fucking fan. I don't know why. (Brad: You believe the first one) I believe the first one. But the second one is important. So, look. We will have different guests on this podcast that are gonna have different things, and, and maybe you're like, “My, my shit isn't as big as theirs.” Whatever. What are you going through right now? It can suck, even if it's not traumatic or cancer or any of these things. I have definitely been there. People are just now hearing that I've been homeless three times and they're like, “Whoa, I didn't know that but you.” Well, right. You didn't know me when I was homeless, that's okay and. And also, it wasn't. I told myself I wasn't homeless enough because I didn't live on the streets. But what I didn't do was go, oh, wow is me, I have no place to live. I told myself on my especially my last one I was like, you are choosing to go for a bigger life than what you have, you are making this big, brave choice and I may, I made it a choice that I was living that way, and it made it made it so much more fun is the wrong word but powerful and and purposeful and and when other issues happen because...Brad Crowell 27:48It makes it more doable. (Lesley Logan: Made it more doable) You can embrace it. (Lesley: Yeah) and if it sucksLesley Logan 27:52And I could own it like I don't have a place to live because I did this and I don't have a car because I made a left turn in a different spot.Brad Crowell 27:59Yeah, so I mean, you know, I think it's a profound idea that you have a choice. (Lesley: Yeah), that life is not happening to you, (Lesley: It's not happening for you) it's not happening for you and you can choose how to take it (Lesley: Yeah) and that's a hard, that you're essentially flipping the perspective on his head, right? It's a hard thing to do. But I mean, imagine if you can find the good in a situation.Lesley Logan 28:25Well and also like, What possibility that creates? Right? Like, (Brad: Sure) you can actually ask yourself, “Okay, (Brad: Go back to the open loop.) I wonder why this is happening for me.” (Brad: Yeah), I wonder why this is happening for me, I wonder who I get to be because of this. (Brad: Yeah), and I certainly would not be the person that I am. And I definitely wouldn't be married to you. If I hadn't made the choices that put me through a trial that I probably wouldn't pray on anyone. But it made me who I am and so that's why I really loved that.Brad Crowell 28:56I think that's amazing.Lesley Logan 28:59Yeah, well, everyone. Thank you. I am so excited you joined us today. We really, I need you to know I'm so grateful that you're here. Otherwise, I would just be talking in a microphone in one of our rooms in our house for no reason whatsoever but it's true. I truly believe that we all have different people in our lives who say things that make us think of things, that make us make choices, that make us do things, that make us become the people we want to be. And so if you have any questions or you need if you're going to use any of these tips, please let us know, send us a DM on the @be_it_pod on Instagram, share this podcast, screenshot it, take, put your takeaway tag us, let us know, we really want to see you, Be It Till You See It.Brad Crowell 29:44We'll catch you on the next episode.---Lesley LoganThat's all I've got for this episode of the Be It Till You See It podcast!One thing that would help both myself and future listeners is for you to rate this show and leave a review.And, follow or subscribe for free wherever you listen to podcasts.Also, make sure to introduce yourself over on IG at be_it_pod! Share this episode with who ever you think needs to hear it.Help us help others to be it till you see it by leaving a 5 star review and sharing this episode with that person who just popped into your mind.Until next time remember to BE IT TILL YOU SEE IT!---Lesley Logan‘Be It Till You See It' is a production of ‘As The Crows Fly Media'.Brad CrowellIt's written, produced, filmed and recorded by your host, Lesley Logan and me, Brad Crowell.Lesley LoganKevin and Bel at Disenyo handle all of our audio editing and some social media content.Brad CrowellOur theme music is by Ali at APEX Production Music. And our branding by designer and artist, Gianfranco Cioffi.Lesley LoganSpecial thanks to our designer Jaira Mandal for creating all of our visuals (which you can't see because this is a podcast) and our digital producer, Jay Pedroso for editing all the video each week so you can.Brad CrowellAnd to Meridith Crowell for keeping us all on point and on time.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/be-it-till-you-see-it/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Michele Hansen  00:00Welcome back to Software Social. This episode is sponsored by Oh Dear, the website monitoring app. As an Oh Dear customer myself, I particularly like how easy it is to make SLA reports with Oh Dear. They're professional and sleek, and they make it easier for us to service enterprise customers. And I actually requested this feature myself last year, and I'm so delighted with how open to suggestions they are. You can sign up for a free 10 day trial with no credit card required at OhDear.app. Colleen Schnettler  00:32So Michele, how has your week been?  Michele Hansen  00:34It's good. It's good. You know, I was, I was doing some writing this morning, which is funny, I've realized it's, like, my reward work. Like, you know, when I get through all the other stuff, like it's like, oh, like, now I have some writing time. And, Colleen Schnettler  00:47That's amazing because I remember being in high school and, like, English, like whenever I had to write a paper, it was literally my least favorite thing to do. So I find that fascinating that, for you, writing is your reward work. Michele Hansen  00:59I, five paragraph essays are, I don't think anyone looks forward to writing those. Like, this is very different than, than that. Um, but so I was, I was writing and I started thinking about this framework that I know we've talked about, and it occurred to me that I have a very tangible example of that. Colleen Schnettler  01:20Which framework? StoryBrand, or something else?   Michele Hansen  01:22No, so it's a Marty Cagan framework.  Colleen Schnettler  01:25Okay. Michele Hansen  01:26So, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna back up first. So, there's this misconception, I think that people sometimes have or fear about customer research that if they start listening to their customers, then they have to do everything the customers ask them for. And they're basically, like, giving up control over the vision of the product to the customer.  Colleen Schnettler  01:47Okay. Michele Hansen  01:48And that's not true, right? Like, you'll always have to weigh it against, um, what makes sense for you to do. And so, there's this one framework that I particularly like that was developed by Marty Cagan, who is kind of, like, the the product guru, like, he's the head of this consultancy called the Silicon Valley Product Group. Like, he is like the product guy, and in order for a product to be successful, he says how it needs to be valuable, viable, usable, and feasible. Colleen Schnettler  02:26Wow, valuable, viable, usable, feasible.  Michele Hansen  02:30So let's, let's break it down a little bit. So first, it has to be valuable for the customer. Like, it has to be something that is, you know, accomplishes something for them and helps them do something, right. Because if it's something that doesn't help them do something that they would want to do, then they wouldn't use it. Like, the example I kind of think of for this is what was that startup that would, like, squeeze a bag of pureed fruit for you? Like Juicero, or, like, it was some, like, they raised like billions of dollars or whatever, for, like, a smoothie machine, and everyone is like, why? Like, not really very valuable to people.  Colleen Schnettler  03:04Right. Okay.  Michele Hansen  03:05I'm sure they had wonderful ideas, and they were great people. It has to be viable, which means it has to be, like, commercially viable, like people have to be willing to pay for it. So like, I could make something that's super awesome and useful, but if no one is willing to pay for it, then it's not a viable product, right? Like, if I'm solving a problem that no one experiences painfully enough to, to pay someone to solve it, then it's not going to work out.  Colleen Schnettler  03:30Okay. Michele Hansen  03:30It has to be usable, which may be the easiest of all these words, to understand that, like, they have to be able to figure out how to use it. So,  Colleen Schnettler  03:39Okay. Michele Hansen  03:39You may have heard this in the context of usability testing, which is basically, like, if I make a website that you can do something on, but you can't actually figure out how to do that, and it's confusing, then it doesn't matter if what the product does is something that's valuable to you. If you can't figure out how to do it, you're going to move on to something else.  Colleen Schnettler  03:57Right.  Michele Hansen  03:57And then the last one is it has to be feasible, like, it has to be possible for you to produce this product. So,  So this would be the equivalent of being, me being like, Colleen, I really need a spaceship. And you being like, that's awesome. I can see that's valuable for you. Maybe you have the ability to pay for that. I don't, but you know, let's go with it. I can build it in a way that, that you can use it. You know, you're an engineer, right? Any kind of engineer can build any kind of thing, right?  Colleen Schnettler  04:05Oh, okay. Sure.  Michele Hansen  04:25Yeah. Like, you could build a bridge. No, I'm, I'm, for all the certified engineers out there, I'm aware that they're not all transferable. But it wouldn't be feasible for you to build that.  Colleen Schnettler  04:37Right.  Michele Hansen  04:38So, so this framework of valuable, viable, usable and feasible is something that I always keep in mind when we're getting feedback from people because you don't necessarily act on every single problem and every piece of advice that you hear, and, like, and that's okay.  Colleen Schnettler  04:55Yeah, okay.  Michele Hansen  04:56And so, a specific example of this that relates to the book and to something we have been talking about quite a bit is consulting and whether I should do consulting related to the book.  Colleen Schnettler  05:10Right.  Michele Hansen  05:10It's something we've talked about, and I've gotten quite a few requests from people about. And, you know, as I thought about it, okay, so clearly, this would be valuable for people. Like they, they feel like they need help getting started with understanding their customers. They seem to be willing to pay for it. I don't know what that would be, like, I, granted I haven't told anyone, like, cool, here's, you know, an invoice for, I don't know, $500 for a 30 minute conversation, or whatever it is people charge. But like, people seem to be willing to pay for this, and they've told me that they pay other people for this. So there's clearly an ability and desire to pay there. And then usable, like, I feel like I would be able to deliver it in a way that would make it useful for them. But it's not feasible.  Colleen Schnettler  05:56Why not? Michele Hansen  05:56Time zones. Colleen Schnettler  05:59Oh. Michele Hansen  06:00And also the fact that I already have a business that I need to keep going. So I, like, I already have a pressure on my time in that regard. But I basically only have one hour of decent overlap with the US, which is from, Colleen Schnettler  06:15One hour?  Michele Hansen  06:16From nine to 10am Eastern. Colleen Schnettler  06:19Wow, because what time is 9 to 10am Eastern in Denmark.  Michele Hansen  06:22So that's 3pm. So our daughter gets out of school at 3. So, Colleen Schnettler  06:26Yeah. Michele Hansen  06:26Making anything else work requires a huge amount of schedule gymnastics for me. And I already have customers that I need to have, you know, calls with anyway. Like, and, and so if I were to do consulting, then I would have to say that I could, like, do it for everybody except North America, which totally doesn't make sense because, you know, if you assume that the audience for this podcast is a pretty good overlap with the people who might want me to consult for them, that'd be like, 80% of the audience would not be eligible, and people might find that a bit off-putting, or frustrating. But like, I mean, I just can't do it. Like I can, you know, 8am Eastern is a great time for me, because that's 2pm here, but like, that's, that's a bit early for, for business conversations. And most of the time, like, if I have to have a call with California, like, it ends up being at 9 o'clock my time. And,  Colleen Schnettler  07:21Yeah, that's rough. Michele Hansen  07:22Even 9am is a bit early. Like, I've worked in companies that, like, had like, a basically an official, like, no meetings before 10, but really not before 11 rule. Like, if you got a 9am meeting, I was like God, like why are you punishing them? So it's just, it's not feasible for me. So,  Colleen Schnettler  07:42Okay. Michele Hansen  07:42Maybe it will be in, you know, 15 years when I don't have a child at home, and I can, you know, just blow through dinner time, like, and work and like, honestly, it's probably not gonna be good for my work-life balance, like, but it's, it's simply not feasible. Colleen Schnettler  07:59Is this something you want to do? Or is this just a, like, convenient reason not to do it because you already don't want to do it? Michele Hansen  08:07I was trying to dive into like, why the thought of it was even, like, immediate, no in my head.  Colleen Schnettler  08:14Right. Okay.  Michele Hansen  08:15And I think that was kind of, and like, the reason was like, I don't have time for that. And then it's like,  Colleen Schnettler  08:20Yeah. Michele Hansen  08:21But I do, like, I, I have time to work already, so why wouldn't that fit into my existing work time? And it's because it wouldn't happen during the work time. Now, I could be like, oh, I'll just consult for people in the UK, but like, I, like, most of my network is in the US anyway. So, and I think it's just easier just to say no to everything. But again, as we kind of talked about, like, I could always do this 5 or 10 years from now. And people have asked me about courses too, which is easier to make work across time zones, but I'm not really a natural teacher. So I admit that that, like, that kind of scares me because I feel like I would not only have to learn, like, how to create a course. But I would have to learn like, how to teach, which is, you know, a skill set that people to go to school for for four to six years to learn. Like it's not a, it's not an insignificant thing to learn how to do. Colleen Schnettler  09:21Yeah, well, you already have a lot of demands on your time. So, I don't know that adding consulting would be good for you even if you were in the US. Michele Hansen  09:29Yeah, that's true. I mean, you actually used to have a course, right? Or you were starting one, or?  Colleen Schnettler  09:34Haha, yeah. So one of my many, many business ideas. I was going to do a course, and holy cow, it was so much more work than I anticipated. So I decided not to do it, and that was a good decision. Michele Hansen  09:52I think when we first met you were, like, getting that course going. Colleen Schnettler  09:58Yeah, I think I did a couple videos. I mean, my, my idea had been to do Ruby on Rails course for beginners and try to, like, incorporate some more advanced topics, so like an advanced beginner course. But, and I know some people have a lot of success with courses, but you know, I started doing it, and it was just like, because I was trying to do a video course. It was a tremendous amount of work, and I found that I, this, this was years ago, too, right? This was a couple years ago, and I didn't have any audience or network so to speak of, and I think to be successful with a course, a couple of things have to happen. You either have to have the right course at the right time, so you're releasing a course on something that is new and hot, and everyone wants to learn about, or I think you have to have a really well-established network and audience, and I had neither of those things at that time. And, and also, you know, people talk about being on, like, the content treadmill, so the thing about if your business, if your primary business is a subscription video service, or, you know, subscription courses, like, you have to constantly be producing content, and that wasn't really something that I wanted to do either. So yeah, the course was just, the video course was just so much work, like, the editing and the trying not to talk over myself, and the, oh, my goodness. So it wasn't a good fit for me. Not saying it wouldn't be a good fit for you in the future. I mean, there's tons of opportunity there.  Michele Hansen  11:33I'm curious, how long did you work on that course from like, when you had the idea to when you ended up giving up on it? Colleen Schnettler  11:41I don't remember. So, I started with a couple intro videos, and I mean, we're talking like 10, 15 minute videos, and they would take me hours. That was the first problem. And then I actually was going to do it with a friend who has a really successful Ruby on Rails template. So he and I recorded, I mean, Michele, we must've recorded 10 hours of video.  Michele Hansen  12:03Wow.  Colleen Schnettler  12:03Yeah. I mean, we have, I still have it. So yeah, for the Rails listeners, it's the guy who developed Bullet Train. And Bullet Train is like a really opinionated, Ruby on Rails, SaaS kind of template builder to start with. And he's been doing this a lot longer than I have, and so I really was fascinated in terms of like, there's some more advanced concepts that you never really get in the material that's out there. And a big one he feels really strongly about is domain modeling, and like, how to do your domain modeling. And this is a thing, I found that as a developer, like, there's tons of entry level courses, and as soon as you get past entry level, it gets harder. Like, when you get to the point where you can't Google the answer for what you're trying to figure out, there isn't a lot. It's more about, like, learning and problem solving, and there aren't a lot of courses or examples or things that can, like, draw you in to these more advanced concepts. So, Andrew and I had talked about doing a course, like, kind of teaching people about domain modeling, which was really cool, because I really love the way he's done it in Bullet Train. And I've worked on a lot of different apps, and typically, it's kind of a mess, right? Like, because you don't, you don't really think big term. I mean, things grow and things, and things evolve, and that's the nature of software, whereas Andrew's, the way he tries to handle it is it's top down, like you know, you don't think you're going to need teams and users, and, you know, join tables, but you should start there. Michele Hansen  13:36We thought that. Retrofitting that later is painful to the point where we haven't, like, fully, like, we, like, have done it, and we need to do more of it. And it's, oh god, just retrofitting, like, user access controls like that is, that's like one of those things, if I can fly back to me eight years ago when we were building this, it's like, just build that in from the beginning. People are gonna want a billing user. They're gonna, you know. Colleen Schnettler  14:06Right, that's literally exactly what, what it was about. It was about that, because when you start you don't care, right? Or you don't think about it, because you're like, I, I don't need to get that complicated. But if you start from the beginning with that framework, when you're where you guys are, it's so much easier to retrofit in all that stuff because it's already there. Anyway, now that I'm talking about it, I'm getting excited about it again. Michele Hansen  14:27I can tell. Like, you really do see a void for this. But I think, like, I think it's important to bring up though, because you, like, you tried a bunch of stuff before you found something that's kind of working, right. Like I mean, we like we launched stuff that didn't work. Like, I think people kind of you know, you listen to like podcasts like this or whatnot, and you're like, wow, like, this person has everything figured out and they're just amazing, and there's something about them that like makes them what they make successful or whatever, and I'm like, no dude, like we've had stuff that failed. Like, that's normal. Like,  Colleen Schnettler  15:04Yeah. Michele Hansen  15:04I don't think there's anybody out there who has launched something successfully and not had 10 other things behind it that were either total duds or like just completely, you know, never got off the ground or were soundly rejected, or panned on Reddit, which one of ours was. But anyway, speaking of remotely successful products, Colleen, is it time for our weekly numbers update on Simple File Upload? Colleen Schnettler  15:35Your weekly update for Simple File Upload. Yes, so this week, I crossed the 1000 MRR mark. Michele Hansen  15:42We have totally buried the lead. Colleen Schnettler  15:47I know right. Michele Hansen  15:47Oh my god! Colleen Schnettler  15:49I'm super, I mean, it was really exciting.  Michele Hansen  15:53Oh, my gosh, yes. Colleen Schnettler  15:55Yeah. So that really makes it feel like a real business, if you will. I mean, $1,000 that's like real money. Michele Hansen  16:02That is real money. Colleen Schnettler  16:04Yeah, like, even after I pay all my you know, I do have the, the hosting fees, and the, Heroku takes a cut. But yeah, it's really exciting. Michele Hansen  16:13Wait. So I think last time we, like, really dove into the numbers on it. Your costs of what, you know, what we would sort of call in business jargon the cost of goods sold, which is like, you know, servers and everything that you have to pay for in order to make the app run, that was like $200 a month, and you thought it would be pretty, like consistent.  Colleen Schnettler  16:41Yeah.  Michele Hansen  16:42Are you, is that still true? Colleen Schnettler  16:44Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's still true. Now I do, so it's, that's, that's probably an estimate of all the, the fees and like you said, server hosting storage. And then Heroku takes 30%, because I'm in their marketplace, much like the App Store. I know, it really hurts, like, you're just like, oh, ouch. But, I know, but you know what, I mean, I still will bang the drum, or whatever that phrase is on this, for ,launching this in a marketplace was just such a good idea because if I look at the users I have coming from the open internet, versus the users I have coming from Heroku, like, far and above, the majority of my paid users are coming from Heroku. Michele Hansen  17:27So, so if your cost of goods sold is $200 a month, and for purposes of this, we're pulling out that processing or like, you know, sort of marketplace fee, which is 30%, so then basically your margin is like, $500 a month. Does that sound right? Colleen Schnettler  17:47Yes.  Michele Hansen  17:48Wow.  Colleen Schnettler  17:49Yeah. Michele Hansen  17:50That's pretty good. Colleen Schnettler  17:52I know, I was pretty excited. Um, yeah. So it's, it's good.  Michele Hansen  17:58That's really interesting for when, you know, if you're able to get to a point, eventually, where you're selling outside of Heroku, like, that, you know, if we were to assume an 80% margin like that, that's pretty good. That's where a lot of software businesses are. So it's, I mean, it sounds like your, your fundamentals are pointing in the right direction. Colleen Schnettler  18:22Yeah, I think, I mean, we've talked a lot about, I think last week I was a little frustrated because I still can't really identify my ideal customer, or people who are even using it. But I think one of the huge benefits of being in this marketplace is people are signing up. So the more people I get signing up, the more chances I have that someone will actually, that I'll be able to talk to people and kind of figure out my value proposition. I'm finding a lot of people, a lot more people are finding me on the internet. So I'm getting a lot more signups that bounce when they see you have to have a credit card upfront. But I mean, on the, on the plus side, that means there's clearly a demand for this. This is clearly a thing people want because a lot of people are signing up. Now, will a lot of people pay for it is always the, the, you know, the thing you're trying to figure out, but I'm seeing quite a lot of people putting in their email address, putting in their email addresses on my non-Heroku site. Michele Hansen  19:23How, like, upfront does your non-Heroku site make it that people have to put in a credit card for the free trial? Colleen Schnettler  19:30So the way it works right now is you sign up and then, then you go to the pricing page. And then you click the button to say sign up for this plan, and then you have to put a credit card in.  Michele Hansen  19:42But like, on the landing page itself, does it make it clear that a credit card is required for the trial?  Colleen Schnettler  19:48No.  Michele Hansen  19:50You should probably do that. Colleen Schnettler  19:52Yeah, I thought about that. But I was looking at other people's landing pages and no one really, like, that doesn't seem to be a thing people do. Cuz it feels, like, where would you put it? In like, small print under free, free trial? Free 7 day trial, credit card required for sign up?  Michele Hansen  20:07Yeah, I, you know, something that I noticed with that is that when somebody has a free trial and no credit card is required, they always say that. Colleen Schnettler  20:17Right, no credit card required, right. But when they do require a credit card, they don't say anything. Michele Hansen  20:23Yeah. And that, that tells me something. Now, Colleen Schnettler  20:27Yeah, no one wants to pay, Michele Hansen  20:28A lot of big companies like, they'll you know, if you, if you are a marketing person who is incentivized for email signups, then yeah, you're gonna want to hide the fact that a credit card is required because that's how you hit your metrics. But also, the incentive should be redesigned in that case. But I think it's worth at least having that somewhere on the landing page, because as you said, then people are bouncing, and so there's no point in you having this pile of email addresses from people who aren't going to pay for it unless you want it to try to monetize them some other way. But that doesn't really seem to be like something you want to do, and also with, like GDPR, and CCPA and all of those privacy acronyms, like, it could be, you know, a liability for you. Colleen Schnettler  21:21Yeah, I was thinking about it, because I've seen so many signups recently. So I think that's a, but I, the reason I didn't put it was because I've never seen it. And I was like, is that a huge turnoff to be like, credit card required for signup. But I agree, I'm not doing anything with those email addresses. I mean, in the future, maybe I can remove it and try a different kind of, you know, when I have more time or a little bit bigger, and maybe try to learn more about those people. But at this point, it doesn't do any good, like, I'm not keeping their email addresses or anything. So I'm just seeing that there's a lot of traffic. Michele Hansen  21:54I wonder how, so I signed up for Savvy Cow recently, speaking of all of my timezone issues, like, I had to make this little redirect basically, so that when people request to have a meeting with me, if the browser detects their timezone, and then it sends them to the calendar based on their timezone, because like, I'll only do those 9pm calls for you know, people on the west coast, for example. But, so I signed up for for Savvy Cow, and they have a 7 day free trial with a credit card required, and now I'm looking at their website to see how clear that was, because I remember that, like, I knew that it would be required, and like, that, they would just automatically charge me after that point. And I'm actually looking at their landing page. Oh, okay, actually, it just, it just, just say get started for free. Colleen Schnettler  22:48See, no, no one says that. Michele Hansen  22:50But maybe they, like, maybe isn't an automatic, maybe it was an email they sent me instead that, um, oh, okay. Okay, so here's how it works. So it says what you can, zero cost to create an account, but then once you're ready to start sharing your calendar links, then the one week free trial starts, and then that has automatic billing. Colleen Schnettler  23:12Where did you get that, in an email? Michele Hansen  23:14It's on their pricing page. Colleen Schnettler  23:16Okay, I'll look at that. That's probably a good idea. I like that, like, yeah, it's, it's free to create an account. But if you actually want to upload files,  Michele Hansen  23:23Sure, you can give us your email address, but if you want to do anything, but I think that, you know that, that makes sense for like a product. Like this, where like, there, there is some amount of stuff that might need to happen before you actually use the products, like, people might need to have internal discussions or like, you know, with this, like, you have to kind of set it up, and there's also this positive effect, where, if you've done all of this work to get it set up, then you are more bought in to the product. Like, this is the approach that TurboTax uses. Like, I don't know, if you notice that they,  Colleen Schnettler  23:55I know, I know.  Michele Hansen  23:55They don't, they'll be like, well, it's free to file, but then it's you know, 19 or 29 or whatever.  Colleen Schnettler  24:00It's free to do your taxes, Michele Hansen  24:01Whatever, but to actually file your state one, or to have us automatically send it to the IRS or whatever it is, like,  Colleen Schnettler  24:08Yeah. Michele Hansen  24:09Then you have to pay for it. And all the people listening in other countries, like especially anyone in Denmark, where you can just file your taxes online, like for free and like, you know, you don't have Intuit, with this massive lobbying budget, making it complicated. Yeah, I mean, so so there's definitely some benefits to that kind of model, and I think as long as what you do, just like, making it really clear what that like, make it clear what's going to happen to people. Colleen Schnettler  24:41Yeah, I like the idea of putting it on the pricing page because I don't want it on my landing page because that's gonna look bad. But like, if you click sign up for a free trial, I like having another pricing page because again, it doesn't do anyone any good for, I don't care about your email address if you're not interested, and you are annoyed because you fill out the welcome to my thing form, and then you have to enter a credit card, and you felt you know, you didn't know. So, I, um, I like this idea. I think it's a good idea. Michele Hansen  25:06Yeah, I think, so your call to action, it says try it now, sign up for a free 30 day trial.   Colleen Schnettler  25:13Yeah. Michele Hansen  25:14And I also wonder if, you know, changing out from like, sign up to be like, you know, start free trial or whatnot, like, because I think people really do grok the difference between free trial versus free tier. And, and I saw that when I scrolled all the way down, there's a free 30 day trial, but I don't actually see that above the fold on your site. And so I wonder if making it clear that it's free trial would help with that.  Colleen Schnettler  25:46Okay. I like, I like changing it to start, start your trial or something.  Michele Hansen  25:50Yeah. Because they're actually, there's no button either, like, right below the header. There's like, there should be a button there that's like, start your free trial.  Colleen Schnettler  25:59Oh. Michele Hansen  26:00There's no call to action button. Colleen Schnettler  26:02Wait, below the header. Michele Hansen  26:04So it says add File Uploading to your app in minutes, like, integrate file uploads in your website, no service required, blah, blah, blah. Like, where's the button? Give me a button. Colleen Schnettler  26:15Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. Michele Hansen  26:17But hey, while I'm looking at SimpleFileUpload.com, for anyone who is listening, there is a testimonial there.Yay. Colleen Schnettler  26:26Yay, I did. I got a testimonial up.  Michele Hansen  26:31And it looks awesome.  Colleen Schnettler  26:33Yeah. So I'm happy about that. Yeah, you're right. There should be a call to action button right here. Michele Hansen  26:39Tell me what to do, Colleen. Colleen Schnettler  26:41Oh, my gosh. See, this is, like, the stuff I don't know about. You're absolutely right.  Michele Hansen  26:44Tell me to sign up. Colleen Schnettler  26:45Tell me to sign up, start trial now. Nice. Okay, I like it. Good point. Michele Hansen  26:52And I guess, yeah, you just want to like work on that wording because like, as you know, the Savvy Cow example, like, the trial doesn't start until you actually do something. And so it's like, does the trial start like, right from the time they sign up? Or just, you know, wherever you can, like, make it clear what's going to happen to people. Colleen Schnettler  27:09Yeah, so I think, so right now, if you click on sign up, it takes you to a nice signup page. But then after you hit the signup page, it takes you to the pricing page. I wonder if I should switch those since I'm going to require a credit card, and instead of taking you to the signup page before the pricing page, sign up, pricing page, which explains that you have to, you know, pay, not pay I'm sorry, that you have to enter your credit card and then a start trial button. Michele Hansen  27:45Okay, so I'm actually going through it right now. Colleen Schnettler  27:48Yeah, okay.  Michele Hansen  27:49Um, so let's do it live. Okay. Colleen Schnettler  27:54Usability testing live with Michele. Michele Hansen  27:57F it will do it live. Okay. So, select your plan, try it out with a 30 day free trial, up, upgrade or cancel at any time. Okay. Colleen Schnettler  28:06So if you go back, though, if you start from the homepage, okay, if you go to Home. So go to home. Michele Hansen  28:10Home.  And then sign up. Colleen Schnettler  28:12Sign up. Michele Hansen  28:13Yeah. So then it's just like a login screen.  Colleen Schnettler  28:16Right.  Michele Hansen  28:17Yeah, I wonder maybe, maybe you would, you could also experiment with when you click sign up, taking people to this pricing page, and then when they click start trial, then they create an account, and then they add a credit card and everything. Colleen Schnettler  28:35Yeah, I tend to wonder if that's a better workflow because again, I don't need to collect or want to collect information for people who don't want to put their credit card down.  Michele Hansen  28:45Yeah.  Colleen Schnettler  28:47So I think I'll do that. I like that. I like that idea. Yeah, and then they can go, if signup would take them to pricing, and then under where it says select your panel have something like, it's gonna be a seven day trial, but I'll fix that, try it out with a seven day trial credit. I mean, it sounds so bad, credit card required when you are ready to use the service or something. I don't know. I'll figure that out.  Michele Hansen  29:07And I also noticed you have a 30 day money back guarantee. So a 30 day free trial,  Colleen Schnettler  29:12Oh my gosh. Michele Hansen  29:12And a 30 day money back guarantee? No. Colleen Schnettler  29:15Okay. I do, but I shouldn't.  Michele Hansen  29:17Yeah. Colleen Schnettler  29:17Cuz this is like, I need to change that. Oh, my gosh, it's so funny that you said that. Because basically, like, this, the framework for the SaaS is built off of the Bullet Train app, which I mentioned earlier that Andrew and I were going to make a course for, and this is just, like, their default wording. And I literally, like forgot to take it out.  Michele Hansen  29:39Okay. Colleen Schnettler  29:40So I don't want to do that. I just, no one has asked for their money back. So that's good. Michele Hansen  29:44That's also a liability for you, so.  Colleen Schnettler  29:47Yeah, no, I need to get, where did you see that? Michele Hansen  29:49When I clicked on start trial from the pricing page. Colleen Schnettler  29:53Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah, I need to change that. Michele Hansen  29:57Well, it sounds like you now have a lot of work on your plate. So,  Colleen Schnettler  30:02Yeah. Michele Hansen  30:03I guess I should let you go. Colleen Schnettler  30:05Plenty of things to do. Yeah. Great. This is good, though. This is good. I haven't really thought through that onboarding workflow in a long time. So, I'm glad we took a look at it. Michele Hansen  30:15Awesome. Well, I guess that'll wrap us up for this week. Thank you so much for listening. If you liked this episode, please tweet about it or write us an iTunes review. That means a lot to us and, yeah, we'll talk to you next week.

The voice of God and the great apostasy.Isaiah 30: 20The Lord will give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, but your Teacher will no longer hide Himself—with your own eyes you will see Him. 21And whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear this command behind you: “This is the way. Walk in it.” 22So you will desecrate your silver-plated idols and your gold-plated images. You will throw them away like menstrual cloths, saying to them, “Be gone!”…

Show NotesIn this bonus episode of Granite State Gardening,  New Hampshire Agricultural Experiment Station researcher Becky Sideman, Emma Erler and Nate Bernitz continue their conversation from the last episode, getting into working with seed catalogs to understand the information and how it's organized as well as how to make selections that will thrive in your garden. We get into the weeds of concepts including organic, seed treatments, GMOs, and disease resistance, as well as segments on selecting varieties for container gardening, staking tomatoes, and growing Malabar spinach (Basella alba). Part 1 of this conversation, titled Planning Spring Vegetable Gardens, Soil Temperature, Nasturtiums & Fencing, was packed with experience and insights for garden planning, and we recommend listening to it before jumping into this episode. Featured question: What are the best varieties for growing veggies in containers? Featured plant segment: Malabar spinach (Basella alba) Closing gardening tip: tomato staking Connect with us at @askunhextension on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to the monthly Granite State Gardening newsletter. Email us questions, suggestions and feedback at gsg.pod@unh.edu Background reading: Growing Vegetables in Containers: https://extension.unh.edu/resource/growing-vegetables-containers-fact-sheet Applied UNH Extension Research: https://extension.unh.edu/tags/applied-vegetable-fruit-research-new-hampshire Pruning Tomato Plants: https://extension.unh.edu/resource/pruning-tomato-plants-fact-sheetPreventing Garden Diseases: https://extension.unh.edu/resource/10-easy-steps-prevent-common-garden-diseases-fact-sheet  Managing Garden Pests with IPM: https://extension.unh.edu/blog/garden-IPM  Exciting Veggie Varieties Q&A: https://extension.unh.edu/blog/exciting-veggie-varieties-qa  UNH Sideman Lab on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/unh_sidemanlab/ Transcription by Otter.aiNate Bernitz  00:01Welcome to the Granite State Gardening podcast from UNH Cooperative Extension. On today's show, we continue our conversation with Becky Seidman: UNH Extension specialist, professor of sustainable agriculture and food systems, and researcher at the New Hampshire Agricultural Experiment Station. If you haven't listened to Part one yet, which was called "planting spring vegetable garden soil temperature nasturtiums and fencing", you'll want to check that out before listening to this episode. We'll talk about using the wealth of information provided on seed packets and in seed catalogs, not only to understand it, but how to use it to choose the right varieties and succeed with the varieties you choose. Greetings Granite State gardeners, I'm Nate Bernitz, joined as always by horticulturist and UNH extension field specialist, Emma Erler. And again by Becky Seidman. We pick up our conversation after talking about garden planning systems and strategies. Now, we'll get into talking about tips and solutions for working with seed catalogs, understanding the information provided for us and how it's organized. So rather than get overwhelmed, we can get informed and find varieties that help us bring our garden plans to life. Emma, let's jump back in with what you view as some of the most important sections to focus on when you're looking at a variety of listing and a seed catalog. Emma E  01:35I'd say one thing I'm looking at, which is always going to be on there is the days to maturity. So if this if I'm ordering from companies that are out of the Northeast, you should I can probably assume that what I'm going to grow as long as I am planting on time, I'm going to be able to get a harvest. But you know, depending on when you're going to be able to get things in the ground, let's say it might be important to know whether something whether it's going to develop really quickly or not, or whether it's early fruiting or not. So I don't I'm thinking, let's say maybe tomatoes, you know that you're gonna be gone by, let's say August 1. And so you want to make sure that you you've chosen a variety that fruits really early, I say you've started them indoors, get them outside in the garden, and hopefully you're getting a nice crop within, you know, let's say two months at the at the most. So that's important. And then another thing that I guess we've kind of touched on already is is whether there's any sort of pest resistance in a variety. So if I know let's say that I have been having issues with early blight on my tomatoes year after year, then I might be looking for a variety that is early blight resistant, etc. I guess the same could go for squashes or cucumbers with say powdery mildew. So if you've at least accurately identified what that problem is, you might be able to skirt it somewhat with rotation and choosing a variety that has resistance. Nate Bernitz  03:09There's a lot more information about disease resistance in the catalog than on a seed packet. The seed packet might say that it has disease resistance, but in the catalog, it might say what it's resistant to and its level of resistance, whether it's resistant, whether it's tolerant, how resistant is it, there's a lot of really nuanced information that you might be able to get from the catalog. Becky Sideman  03:34Definitely. And I would add to that that not related to diseases but relating to whether a crop does well. One of the things that you will often find in a catalog is descriptions about the seasons that crops do well in, I'm thinking about broccoli, for example, broccoli varieties vary enormously in their tolerance to the kind of mid summer heat that we experience. And so if you are a real broccoli afficionado and want to grow broccoli so that you can harvest it throughout your whole growing season, you would probably want to actually grow an early season broccoli that will do well in the spring before the summer heat, and maybe a main season broccoli that can have some heat tolerance, and then maybe even a third that goes really well into fall production. That might not make sense if you just care if you have a little bit of broccoli here and there. But if you're really focusing on any given crop, you'll realize that there's a lot of variability that you can choose from. Nate Bernitz  04:43And I guess that might be taking us back to where we started this conversation which is hybrids, because plant breeders are breeding crops for specific characteristics. So if you're that broccoli afficionado you're looking for broccolis for different Seasons that might be where you're really benefiting from some of these newer varieties, Becky Sideman  05:05that's for sure. And they, they may be newer varieties that are hybrids, but they may also be new, open pollinated varieties, the two are not necessarily at odds with each other. Emma E  05:17Yeah, it's a really where that comes in, I guess open pollinated or hybrid is whether you're intending to save seeds yourself or not. So if you're really hoping to just have this, this garden where you're saving seeds every year, which I think is really hard on the scale of a home grower, if you just have a few plants here and there. But it really doesn't matter if you're going to be starting things from from seed each year, and not trying to save the seeds, whether it's open pollinated, or hybrid. Becky Sideman  05:46No. And in fact, some people prefer open pollinated seeds for kind of exactly kind of the reason that you might also the opposite reason, but the exact same justification is why you might prefer prefer hybrids. So hybrids are super, super, super uniform and consistent, they are going to be the same as each other. And that's great if you want something that's really uniform, but open pollinated varieties tend to have more variability in them. And that can be nice if you actually enjoy that variability, or you want to see that, you know, a little more adaptation to a particular environment. So there the I think there's clearly room for both. Nate Bernitz  06:32That's a great point. And so one example of something that you might be looking at in the description of a particular variety is, like you said, whether it's early or late or something like that, what what else might you be looking at when you're looking at one of these really robust descriptions of a variety and a catalog? What are some of the traits that might be highlighted? Becky Sideman  06:55Well, I'm thinking about, it's really so crop specific, actually. And it's hard to get, I mean, it's easy to to dig into if you start talking about a given crop. But for example, we mentioned onions earlier. And a lot of catalogs, those will be sorted into short day, intermediate day and long day onions, which has to do with usually there'll be a helpful little chart to help you decide which one you want. But that has to do with what parts of the country they're going to do well in. And so you know, it makes sense to really read those descriptions and understand what, what they they mean. I think about the sweet corn section and the sweet corn varieties differ enormously, not only in like the color of the kernels and the timing of maturity of them, but also in the genetics behind their sweetness and whether they have to be isolated, or they can grow next to each other, and they have huge flavor differences. So there's just all these characteristics that when you start digging into any given crop, you'll realize that there's a ton of variability for most crops, actually, Nate Bernitz  08:14yeah, when I just open up a catalog, which I'm doing right now and I'm looking at the eggplant section, and I'm just perusing some of these different descriptions, and it's really bringing me back again to our garden planning discussion. One of the really big differences is from a sort of culinary and preservation perspective. What are you actually planning on doing what this vegetable once you harvested it for this eggplant? Are you planning on grilling it? Or are you planning on freezing it for later use it so that those actual desirable culinary characteristics are really relevant as well as you know if you're this is maybe a fruit but just what immediately comes to mind if you're growing apples? Are you planning on growing them to eat fresh? Are you planning on making cider or sauce and you're gonna just see that different varieties are best tailored to specific and uses flavor texture, it gets really specific and that's really one of the benefits of gardening is that you do get to grow exactly what you want you get so much selection whereas when you go to the grocery store, you might be buying a crop that is at the store because it has a really good shelf life and handles being shipped really well.  Emma Erler  09:31Yeah, that's that's definitely something that I really appreciate. Just the the diversity of flavors of textures of colors that you can get when you're growing things yourself. I know particularly I think of zucchini, how in my mind just vanilla and rather boring the supermarket zucchini is but when you grow it yourself, there's actually you know, some real, some real different flavors things sometimes they can be kind of nutty. Maybe a little bit sweeter, all sorts of different colors, shapes, sizes. So you know, just a lot to play around with. But your point is well taken Nate that trying to grow things based on use is definitely going to be important. Nate Bernitz  10:17I think you're also going to see, you know, if you're talking about these cucurbits, like cucumbers, for example, that's what I'm looking at. Now, in this catalog I have open, and some of them their description, say that they actually are better for small spaces growing in containers growing vertically, right, so you're looking in that description. And going back to your garden planning, where as you were looking at the different crops you are wanting to grow and the space requirements, you have these characteristics that you're actually looking for. And I think that's going to make it less overwhelming when you actually open the catalog and see so many choices, and just aren't really sure how to choose. You go back to your plan and go back to your needs.  Emma E  11:00Totally. Yeah, I think that's a good way of looking at it to break it down. I think too, if you're feeling overwhelmed, starting smaller is never a bad idea. So it's it's really easy, I think, to get carried away when you're looking at that catalog and trying to pick out what you want to grow. Because there's typically just so many things that look cool. And if you haven't tried out a bunch of them before, you might be thinking that it would be neat to order a whole bunch and try all these different things. But in order to keep yourself from potentially getting completely overwhelmed, it might be easier to say you're just going to grow these five or six crops, and you're just going to pick out one or two varieties of each. And once you've totally figured out how to grow those, you've had some success, then you can start maybe expanding that garden trying different things. But yeah, just trying trying to keep a lid on early efforts i think is important. This episode's featured question is which vegetable varieties are best for containers? This is actually a question we get fairly often, as many people are interested in growing their own fresh food and limited space. growing vegetables and containers can be quite easy and rewarding as long as you have a sunny spot outdoors where plants will receive at least six to eight hours of direct sunlight a day. Outside of choosing the right varieties. In order to be successful, you need to choose containers that will hold enough soil for the crop you want to grow and have good drainage at the bottom. pots need to have at least one large hole at the bottom to allow excess water to escape. If necessary, you may be able to drill holes along the sides and bottoms of containers. five gallon five gallon plastic buckets are a really popular choice for this. It's also crucial to choose a quality potting mix. garden soil is too heavy for containers. So instead you should be looking for a quality soilless mix that contains peat moss, coir, perlite, vermiculite, etc. Quality mixes will become composed primarily of peat and coir. Cheap mixes will be filled with bark and won't hold soil moisture as well. As for varieties, you can grow just about any vegetable in a container. Although that being said, if you are growing what tend to be very large plants like cucumbers, summer squash or tomatoes, you'll want to look for varieties that are listed for use in containers that are described as miniature or bush type. Your favorite seed catalog is sure to have at least a few choices of bush tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, and eggplants. I found that any type of pepper, green or root vegetable can be grown in containers and you don't need to get a special container variety. Personally, peppers are one of my favorites. They fit into containers nicely. And they're really beautiful to like any other aspect of gardening, you'll need to experiment with growing and containers to see what works best for you. Good luck. Nate Bernitz  14:26There's a minimum number of seeds you can buy, right, so maybe you're buying a seed packet with 50 seeds in it or more than that might be the smallest possible quantity you can get. And it has a germination rate of you know x percentage in those ideal conditions, which are might actually be getting in the packet right as opposed you might not be able to see the precise germination rate in the catalog. But in any case, at some point you know if you only have room to plant five seeds you know how many days different varieties are you going to buy your you can only do so much. And the seeds don't last forever, my understanding is some different vegetables, you know, maybe some my last one or two years, maybe some other vegetables, the seeds might last a little bit longer if if stored well, but they all have a pretty short shelf life. Emma E  15:21Yeah, that germination rate or percentage will definitely go down over time. I know for my own garden, I'll often use the same piece for a couple years just because I really only have room for a couple dozen plants and there's 100 seeds or so in that packet. But after after two years or so the germination rate goes way down, and I just don't find it worth my time anymore to be planting a whole bunch of seeds that are no longer coming up and I'm wasting time in my garden. So starting over again, is is important and for, there are lots of charts out there that show how long some seeds are, can be expected to last, you know, whether it's a year, three years under ideal storage conditions. So you can get an idea there, I mean, there's a chance you might be able to use the same seeds, multiple years in a row. Becky Sideman  16:13I always like to do a little germination test to confirm, especially for crops I really care about to make positive sure that the seeds still are viable. And because if I'm placing my orders now, for my seeds, I do not want to find come may 15, that something I was counting on didn't germinate. And then what am I gonna do? So, so there's kind of an element of managing risk there as well. Sometimes it's worth getting fresh. And not risking for too many years. Nate Bernitz  16:55I actually want to come back to something you said in the very beginning, the first thing you said about looking at a catalog is you're gonna see days to maturity. And I know you said it's important, but I was wondering, Becky, could you talk a little bit about how you actually interpret that days to maturity number. So if you're a grower in whatever town and whatever growing zone, why is the days to maturity particularly relevant? Becky Sideman  17:25Well, I would say that it is important, but I would also say to take it with a big grain of salt. Because sometimes it's actually you can play a little game, if you have lots of seed catalogs with the same variety and listed in them and compare days to maturity. And you'll find sometimes they are wildly different. And part of this is because sometimes they measure that from days to seeding from seeding to maturity, or from transplant to maturity, you really have to read and know what what you're talking about there. I use that information in two primary ways. One is within a given seed catalog, within a given crop, they will have a range of maturities. And you can be pretty sure that a 63 day corn is going to be considerably earlier than 89 day corn from the same catalog. So that's helpful information to know. The other big way I use this is for, cuz I'm always trying to go really weird stuff that should not grow here. Because that's what I like to do. And so I want to grow things that take a much longer growing season than we have. And I sort of figure Okay, I am pretty sure we're going to have 100 frost free days. It's possible I wouldn't, but I'm pretty sure we will, most years. And so if the days to maturity, in some listed in a catalog is up around 150 to 120 days, I start thinking I'm gonna have to start that really early, I'm gonna have to really, I'm not saying I won't grow it, mind you, I'm just thinking I'm gonna have to protect this and really get it going and like that it's going to be dicey, whether I make it or not. And so those are the two ways that I really use the days to maturity, I take it with a grain of salt. I use it as a rough guideline for what's earlier versus what's later. And I tried to use it to figure out whether I can possibly grow these things that aren't really well adapted here. Nate Bernitz  19:42So you're kind of saying that it's helping you determine your planting date because you're taking that days to maturity and sort of counting back the number of days from the frost date. And sort of seeing if those numbers all work or if that's just Too many days between what you would expect to be the last frost and expect to be the first frost, is that right? Becky Sideman  20:07Yeah, that is correct. But again, that's making it sound a little more scientific than how I actually do it, I really do use this one ballpark number, which is roughly 100 days, you know, days of frost free, I know that we most often have more than that. But I feel like when we start having a crop that's over 100 days to maturity, I have to really start thinking about ways I'm going to creatively lengthen the season for that crop. And that's it. I don't try to because I think that, like, if, you know, something says that it's, you know, 35 days to maturity, I you can't use those numbers religiously to say, Okay, well, I can if it's 35 days to maturity, if I start one on May 1, and then I start one on June 15. And then I started again on, like, it just doesn't work out like that, because in reality, we're assigning a number, but it's not a real number, because it's maybe 35 days on average. But like, early in the season, it takes longer than that, because it's cold in the middle of the season. It goes faster than that, because it's really hot. And so it's just like a ballpark number. I don't know if that's discouraging or not, but it's how I use these things.  Emma E  21:33No, I think that's helpful. I guess my philosophy often is I because I do tend to be more of an ornamental or flower grower than vegetable growers. So when I have my vegetable garden, I just want to ensure that I am going to be getting some good produce, so that I can be screwing around with some of the other things that I like in the ornamental beds. So in that case, I'm often looking for some of those earlier maturing varieties that I'm like I should that definitely have plenty of time for this to fruit or fully mature and I will absolutely be getting whatever it is that I want I will be getting, let's say this, this squash, this winter squash should definitely produce something for me with the amount of time I can expect to have in the growing season. But I think you know, depending on on what your your your hobby is, what your interest is, like, Becky playing around with all that that stuff. That's, that's really cool.  Nate Bernitz  22:33And you're really talking about these crops that you plant in the spring and harvest in the fall. Right that where you're pushing the envelope, I guess the other thing you could look at are cool season crops that maybe you're planting early in the spring. And you need to make sure that you can harvest them before the summer heat hits. Or maybe that you're planting in the late summer, early fall and need to make sure they're going to be harvestable. Before we get our first frost. Becky Sideman  23:01Yeah, that's right. And I think that that's when you really have to take those days to maturity with a grain of salt because they get again, they're measured in a certain condition. And if you're doing something, let's say a little different, like growing spinach in a high tunnel over the winter, or planting something really, really early under low tunnels outside or something like that, those numbers are going to not apply directly. Because it's going to be cooler, slower growing conditions. But yeah, yeah. Nate Bernitz  23:50I've seen this in catalogs and packets, I've seen some things labeled as treated seeds. I've also seen pelletized seeds, what are these terms actually mean? And then do I want something that's treated? Do I want something that's pelletized? Emma E  24:06I think sometimes with the the pelletized seeds, we're talking about seeds of plants that are very small and might be kind of difficult to plant because you can't actually pick them up with your fingers. So let's say beets. Now I know beets have a pretty good sized seed. Maybe something more like a carrot or maybe lettuces might might be actually rolled in some sort of some sort of aggregate that's making them a little bit bigger and easier to handle. I guess the challenge though, is that you still typically have to thin because a lot of times there's still more than one seed rolled up in that pellet. If there if there isn't, you know, it might be a bit easier to handle. So say you're gardening with kids, it might be a little bit easier for them to handle the pelletized seed than trying to gently sprinkle let's see lettuce seed or carrot seed that's very, very fine. So kind of preference are usually you pay extra for it. So it's not something I typically opt for, but definitely an option. Becky Sideman  25:16I'll jump in with that. The other thing with pelletized seed is that often that process of palletizing also involves priming the seeds so that it's ready or to germinate sort of it's kind of like getting it partially germinated, and then drying it down in the piloting process, so that they germinate quickly and uniformly etc. Unfortunately, the downside of that is that they don't, they've come partially out of dormancy, and so they don't store as well. So a palletized seed is easier to handle, like Emma said, and for that reason, in certain circumstances makes a lot of sense. But it's not going to last and the ideal storage conditions are not going to be, it's not going to last as well, even if you have those excellent storage conditions. So you'd want to use those seeds up.  Emma E  26:09you definitely can find treated seeds as well that I believe are treated with fungicides, typically/ Becky Sideman  26:15and in some cases, insecticides, depending depending on the situation. Nate Bernitz  26:22So you're not going to find something that's organic and treated at the same time? Becky Sideman  26:27there are organically compliant seed treatments as well, you'd want to unnecessary, you'd want to read the details of those seed treatments. And if you particularly if you are interested in organic gardening, you'd want to make sure it was an organic seed treatment, which many of them are not. Oftentimes, with a treated seed, either with insecticides or fungicides, it's going to germinate better in cold soils with pests, and if it's treated with insecticide, it won't get attacked by a seed, corn maggot or a root maggot perhaps when it's young, so you can get increased vigor from those. But the downside is they are pesticide treated seeds, and you need to handle them accordingly. Emma Erler  27:18I'm kind of curious, Becky, you know, back to the organic seed thing. If you are, you know, a home gardener is planning to grow your garden organically. Is it important to be getting organic seeds? Or can you just order the regular seeds? And, you know, be very careful with your practices so that your garden is indeed organic? Becky Sideman  27:43Well, it comes down to sort of there's two parts to that my answer? And one is there's a there is a philosophy, that there's a philosophical approach to that, which is that if you are truly organically inclined, you would want to be theoretically, supporting organic agriculture at all levels. And that includes when you purchase organic seeds, you're you're supporting that those plants that were raised to produce those seeds were raised organically. And so from that perspective, many organic producers do in fact, want organic seeds, and they want to sort of encourage that organic production at all at all steps of their of the food system. But on the other hand, there's the other part of that question. The other part of my answer has to do with like, are you actually following the rules, and the the organic regulation state that if something's available organically, you must purchase and use it organically. If it's not like if you want to grow a variety that you can't find organically, as an organic grower, you could use it. So I recognize that most home gardeners are not actually certified organic and paying attention to those rules. But it's sort of important to know like if it's out there as a possibility an organic grower would have to purchase and utilize that organic seed. Nate Bernitz  29:26That's really interesting. And I think the flip side of that coin, so there's our organic gardeners, but people are also concerned about GMOs, do you like can you even buy GMO seeds as a gardener? Is that something that would be labeled? What do you need to know about that when you're perusing your seed catalogs? Becky Sideman  29:50The last time I researched this from a home gardener perspective? Yes, you could, in theory gry genetically modified seeds, but it would be difficult to do so without knowing it. And because most companies would have disclaimers really clearly on them, and also, because they're not targeted for home gardeners, you would typically have to be buying them in lots of maybe 10,000 seeds or more, which most home gardeners are not going to do. So I would say probably a practical standpoint, it's very unlikely that you would, if you did, we're not looking for genetically modified seeds. If you're trying to not have them, it's very unlikely you would accidentally purchase them, probably practically impossible. That said, there's a bunch of seed companies that have GMO free pledges. And so they clearly state that in their catalogs, they don't sell genetically modified seeds, and they even test for the presence of trans genes. So if you if that's something you are looking to avoid, it should be pretty straightforward to do So. Nate Bernitz  31:10that might be a fun topic For a future episode, we'll see. I actually wanted to go back to disease resistance for a few more minutes. We mentioned that yes, in the catalog, you are seeing what something is resistant to through a, you know, some sort of key or legend. If you're someone that has dealt with a particular disease in the past, and you find a seed in this year's catalog that says that it's resistant to that disease, does that take the place of other management practices? Do you still have to rotate? Do you still need to potentially use some sort of product? Do you need to practice other cultural growing practices? What's your take on how significant disease resistance actually is? Becky Sideman  31:57My take is that it It varies with the disease and the crop. There are disease resistances that are pretty much absolute immunity conferring disease, resistances, that would pretty much entirely control the disease, an example would be leaf mold, and tomato, for example, which is very uncommon in outdoor gardening settings, but it's pretty common in in greenhouses. Another example would be bacterial leaf spot and pepper, which is a pretty devastating disease if you have it. And if you have resistance, it is just a non issue. But those are the rare exception. And most disease resistances are partial. And they should be what pathologists call protected by using all the other cultural practices in your arsenal as well. So rotate and do everything else you can to try to minimize that. Because if it's a partial resistance, you just aren't going to get complete control no matter what. And I would say it's probably safest to assume that resistances are going to be partial. And it never hurts to go ahead and rotate. Because even if it isn't necessary for that disease, it's probably necessary for something else Nate Bernitz  33:29that's really interesting. isn't actually going to say in the catalog one way or the other. Like if it's kind of a complete and total resistance or not, or are you just saying in general unless you specifically know that there's a resistance that's going to completely cover it, you should assume that it should just be part of your overall disease management approach? Becky Sideman  33:53Yeah, I think that most catalogs are not going to be very clearly overly promising immunity. They because well, who knows what happened? That seems dangerous to over promise, right? So I would say most are not going to tell you it's going to be complete immunity. So you might know it. But if you don't know what they're not going to tell you. They might tell you it's partial resistance or intermediate resistance, which is a great sign that it's not complete. And for that reason, I guess that's why I would even if they say resistant, I would interpret that as maybe not complete and you should protect it. So even if it is very high level of resistance. You know, pathogens evolve. And they evolve slowly over time by people putting them out, putting resistances out and challenges them. And so everything you can do to try to minimize that, and minimize the pathogens, chances of evolving resistance is good. So that's why I would err on the side of assuming it won't be complete. Nate Bernitz  35:16And, Becky, you really have some insider information on this whole disease resistance process, because as a researcher, you're actually evaluating disease resistance. Right? Can you share just a little bit about what actually goes into being able to say that variety x is resistant to disease y? Becky Sideman  35:41Yeah, well, there's different ways that that's done. But basically the way you in order to say that someone has done replicated experiments, when exposing those plants, to the pathogen, that may be that they may mean they've grown them in fields that are known to have that disease or an environment that have known had the disease, or maybe they've grown them in a setting and actually inoculated them with that pathogen. It can be a little tricky to get an accurate, it's it can be tricky to make proclamations that are broadly applicable. Like, even if we do a really great disease, inoculation and screen and identify resistant things. The reality of life is that there's variability and pathogens that are out there. And so it might be that there's different strains in other parts of the country, or even in different parts of the state, for example. And so that's part of the reason that you have to sort of view it with a little bit of like, healthy skepticism, I guess, because you often don't know, like, we might just have a new strain could show up of a particular pathogen. And so even though folks have done their best to to evaluate them, it is all like actual looking to see what their response is in some kind of setting. Nate Bernitz  37:25that is so interesting, and seems to have so many parallels to, you know, all the news coverage of development of vaccines and medications. It's really just as complex with crops, it seems. Becky Sideman  37:38It totally is. Yep, that's true. Emma E  37:41I guess, one follow up question I have is why you can find resistance to some diseases in crops and not others is that just because nobody's been doing breeding work for that crop? Like I'm thinking, if I'm looking at a catalog, I'll never see septoria leaf spot in tomatoes as something that plants resistant to? Becky Sideman  38:03Yeah, that's like a really deep question. Why is that? You know, is it because that pathogen is just really, really successful at colonizing that plant? And that it, it may target something specifically about the plant that it's really hard to not have the plant do for example, I don't know if that makes sense. But like, oftentimes, the way when you select resistant plants, they have lost whatever makes them susceptible to a particular pathogen, and maybe for septoria. And I agree, that's a particularly challenging one. And it's not that breeders haven't been trying because they've been trying really, really hard with that one. Is it just that septoria takes advantage of something in that plant that we just cannot do without? You know, that the tomato plant can't do without? That's it a deep question. Nate Bernitz  39:10We need a project warp speed for septoria leaf spot, clearly. Becky Sideman  39:14And if we did, it would likely be successful. Yeah. Nate Bernitz  39:18Are you familiar with instead of disease resistance, insect resistance? What are there any examples that come to mind? I'm just curious what insect pests a gardener might deal with where they actually might be able to find a variety that has some resistance to it? Becky Sideman  39:36Well, the best example that I can think of, well, actually, I can think of a few different varieties. So are a few different examples. So one example I can think of his striped cucumber beetle. So striped cucumber beetles, a pest that probably most gardeners are familiar with if they grow squash or cucumbers or melons, or anybody else. That family, it turns out that squash, cucumber beetles are really, really attracted to a certain class of compounds that cucurbits produce called cucurbitaceae. And that there are varieties and species of cucurbits that produce really high levels of cucurbitaceae that are crazily attractive to cucumber beetle. And on the flip side, there are ones that are much lower cucurbitaceae than producers and therefore less attractive. This is an example where even though there are studies that have shown this, and there are examples of more tolerant varieties that, you know, cucumber beetle avoids, it's been really difficult to get that sort of widespread in all our varieties. So even though it's out there, it's really not super widespread. There's other examples I can think of. Like some of the Harrier, tomatoes and potatoes are more resistant to certain insects that have difficulty actually feeding on the leaves, that results and some resistance the insects but also resistance to diseases that they transmit, for example. Nate Bernitz  41:30that is really fascinating and more complex again, than I would have thought it's not a direct resistance to the insect as much as some sort of environmental or kind of indirect resistance. Becky Sideman  41:46It is more complicated when you have an insect feeding on a crop than with a pathogen. It shows up there and lands on the crop. And either that works or it doesn't work. But with insects, they're actually actively choosing where they go. And so that brings a whole nother like, how does the crop look? Not only How does the crop taste and what are they attracted to versus not? And it's, it's very complicated, you should have Anna on for conversation about this. Nate Bernitz  42:19We sure are going to. the host of over informed on IPM, another UNH extension podcast. Absolutely. Becky Sideman  42:27She would over inform you on that for sure. Nate Bernitz  42:31So we've been talking a while I don't I don't want to go much longer. But I do want to ask lastly about local adaptation of buying locally, because you mentioned that there are some benefits to buying locally. But this idea of local adaptation, I am curious about what it means. I know that that's one reason why land grant universities extensions, Agricultural Experiment stations are actually doing work at the local level is to try and develop these locally adapted varieties. So what can you tell us about local adaptation, Becky Sideman  43:12it can mean any of a number of things. But at the most basic level, when you do Plant Breeding, and you develop varieties, you take these very diverse populations that are like variable for everything, they're segregating for all kinds of traits. And you go out and you look to see what are the most attractive, productive, best tasting fabulous things here, and you select those, and you go from that. And if that work happens only in let's take, for example, the Central Valley of California, you can imagine that you would select some really great varieties. But when you take those here, the whole and grow them here, you can imagine that our environmental conditions are just nothing like those environmental conditions. And there's this genetic gene by environment interaction that takes place where crops just may not perform the same way in different environments. And so, you know, to the extent that we can evaluate, select, and not just evaluate, but actually do selection and plant breeding in a wide variety of environments, we're more likely to result in some things that are actually going to perform really well consistently in those environments. If that makes sense. Nate Bernitz  44:52It does make a lot of sense. I'm really curious about what your role is, you know, how do you actually come up with recommendations for growers in New Hampshire. Becky Sideman  45:03There are heirloom varieties that were selected and grown for many years in this region that are well adapted to here because people farmers selected them and continued them, I can think of some older Flint corn varieties that fall into this category, for example. But the way hybrids are developed is that open pollinated lines are selected and bred in a given area, and then they're cross together and the hybrid suitability is evaluated. So the same exact processes apply. And locally adapted hybrids are just as much a thing as locally adapted open pollinated varieties. For example, a lot of Brent Loy's cucurbit varieties over the years are hybrids, and they're extremely well adapted to our conditions. Just because something was bred here doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be super well adapted here. But we'd like to think it is, and that there's a better chance probably, but I think there's also a role for continued evaluation. Many seed companies do this. Many researchers at Agricultural Experiment stations like myself do this, where we take a bunch of varieties that we think are gonna do well here. And we actually grow them over repeated seasons, and evaluate how they do actually in the face of environmental variability that that comes along. And that's usually pretty informative, because sometimes sometimes things perform as you'd expect, and sometimes they don't. And sometimes the weather conditions are just weird. And you get some you learn have weaknesses that you would not have necessarily predicted for a variety. So I think that variety, testing is also important, as well as variety development in a region. While I, I'm always really happy to share my results with farmers and gardeners in the state and in the region. I recognize that there's actually a lot of room for grower preference. And I actually think it's really, really, really important that you evaluate for yourself and compare for yourself a bunch of different varieties, especially if you you know, maybe it's not so important if you just want to go a little bit of something. But if you're a real broccoli aficionado, you should probably grow a bunch of varieties, because you'll certainly have preferences and they won't be the same as my preferences, and they won't be the same as seed catalog preferences. We always do this, when we have grower conferences, I asked what are people's favorite varieties? And you get this whole list? And then you say, what are people's least favorite varieties? And it's the exact same whole list, it's just different people have given the answers. So I think there's I do not think there are best varieties, only a few. I think that it depends on your own situation. Nate Bernitz  48:21Yeah, I guess there's a role for personal preference. There's also a role for personal experience, right? What actually does well in your garden, what does well in Durham, New Hampshire, you know, may or may not do well, where ever you are in your garden, maybe even What does well for someone on the other side of town, not necessarily do well in your garden. So the role of journaling, or, in your case spreadsheeting? That's not a verb. But we'll just roll with it. And just trialing you know, whether it's on the Research Farm or in your garden, Becky, I'm just curious, where can people go to learn more about you and your research? How can they do it? Becky Sideman  49:07Of course they do. So on UNH extensions website, there is a section called applied research. I should look that up and make sure that's really what it is called. I think it's called that and I applied vegetable and fruit research. And I publish all of my research reports, they're even before I publish them in manuscripts or anything like that, so that they're ready for for farmers and gardeners to read. And they're usually in the kind of dorky detail that you'd really want if you are an afficionado of crop X, Y or Z. So those have my contact info on them and people can always just reach out directly. And if you want to see what we're up to on the moment, you should follow UNH Sideman Lab on Instagram because We're always posting photogenic pictures of whatever crops were playing with at the moment. Nate Bernitz  50:07Can confirm - a great follow. Okay, closing question, Becky, what's one variety of something that you grew last year in your garden that you just can't wait to grow again, one single recommendation that you just can't wait to share? Becky Sideman  50:26I grew tetsuKabuto winter squash last year, on my mom's recommendation from the previous year, and it's a fabulous storage variety. It's a cross between a maxima and a moschata. So it's a really delicious, good storing winter squash variety. And we're really enjoying eating it right about now. And so I am looking forward to growing tetsuKabuto  again, which for those that are curious, I did have to Google This means steel helmet, in Japanese. Nate Bernitz  51:04Hey, as long as you don't have to spell it right? Becky Sideman  51:06That's right. Nate Bernitz  51:08Well, thanks for coming on Granite State gardening. Becky, you've been our first guest and an absolutely wonderful guests to have. It's been a real treat, getting to talk to you. I hope we'll have the opportunity to do so again. Becky Sideman  51:23This was a pleasure from my end as well. Thanks for having me. Emma Erler  51:46This episode's featured plant is Malabar spinach, Basella alba. Malabar spinach is an annual vine that is native to the East Indies. It can be grown as a vegetable plant or as an ornamental vine. As a vegetable. It has edible spinach like stems and leaves, and though it's entirely unrelated to spinach, the leaves have a very similar flavor and are packed with vitamins A and C and calcium and iron. The leaves and stems can be picked as needed for soup salad source stir fries. The leaves of the plant themselves are glossy green with smooth edges and the stems are deep burgundy read this lens the plant to ornamental uses as well on fence posts trellises or hanging baskets. A nice thing about Malabar spinach is that it really thrives in hot weather. Unlike spinach, it can be grown easily in any garden that has rich consistently moist soil and full sun. If you want to grow Malabar spinach, start seeds indoors six to eight weeks before the last spring frost date or so directly in the garden after the last spring frost date. As vines grow, train them on a trellis or other support to keep the foliage clean and ready for harvest. Malabar spinach climbs by twinning, so it will wrap around those structures. In conclusion, if you're looking to try something new and interesting in your garden this year, give Malabar spinach a try.  Emma E  53:24I'd like to close this episode with a tip on staking tomato plants. I think most everyone knows that tomatoes require some type of support, but you may not be clear on what the best options are. Circular tomato cages are the most common, but they aren't my favorite. Though they do a good job of keeping the foliage and fruit off of the ground. tomato cages have a way of compressing stems and foliage together, reducing airflow through plants, raising humidity and prolonging leaf wetness. So if you've had issues with fungal diseases on tomatoes before, tomato cages probably aren't helping. Instead, I like to support individual plants with tall upright steaks, like four to five foot wooden stakes or rebar. As the plants grow, I use twine to tie one or two main stems to the support. To keep the tomato plant tidy. I remove all of the suckers, that is new stems that develop in the leaf axles so that I'm maintaining just one or two leaders. Another option is a basket weave system, where stakes are driven between plants and twine is woven between plants in the stakes in an S shaped pattern, like you would if you were actually weaving a basket. If you can't picture what I mean. Be sure to check out the UNH extension factsheet on pruning tomato plants. Now is a great time to plan ahead for your 2021 garden. Nate Bernitz  55:02Email us at GSG dot pod@unh.edu to share your feedback suggest future episodes, and of course to ask gardening questions. If you're enjoying this podcast so far, consider giving us a five star review wherever you're listening. That's going to help other gardeners find this podcast. If you're not connected with us on social media yet, just search for ask UNH extension. We'd love to connect with you there. You can get regular content updates, we share interesting articles, gardening tips, and it's just a great community of gardeners. One last way you can connect with us is to subscribe to the Granite State gardening newsletter. All of these links are in the description of this podcast, along with some articles that relate to the topics we've discussed today. Definitely check out that description. Our next episode is on foliage house plants. Be sure to tune in. Thanks for tuning in to Granite State gardening a production of UNH Cooperative Extension until next time, Becky Sideman  56:10Keep on growing Granite State gardeners. Nate Bernitz  56:15Granite State gardening is a production of University of New Hampshire Cooperative Extension and equal opportunity educator and employer views expressed on this podcast are not necessarily those of the university's its trustees, or its volunteers. inclusion or exclusion of commercial products on this podcast does not imply endorsement. The University of New Hampshire US Department of Agriculture and New Hampshire County is cooperate to provide extension programming in the Granite State. Learn more at extension unh.edu

Sunday Bible Study with Scott Walk with God Exodus 33:12–23 (NKJV) 12Then Moses said to the Lord, “See, You say to me, ‘Bring up this people.' But You have not let me know whom You will send with me. Yet You have said, ‘I know you by name, and you have also found grace in My sight.' 13Now therefore, I pray, if I have found grace in Your sight, show me now Your way, that I may know You and that I may find grace in Your sight. And consider that this nation is Your people.” 14And He said, “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” 15Then he said to Him, “If Your Presence does not go with us, do not bring us up from here. 16For how then will it be known that Your people and I have found grace in Your sight, except You go with us? So we shall be separate, Your people and I, from all the people who are upon the face of the earth.” 17So the Lord said to Moses, “I will also do this thing that you have spoken; for you have found grace in My sight, and I know you by name.” 18And he said, “Please, show me Your glory.” 19Then He said, “I will make all My goodness pass before you, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before you. I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.” 20But He said, “You cannot see My face; for no man shall see Me, and live.” 21And the Lord said, “Here is a place by Me, and you shall stand on the rock. 22So it shall be, while My glory passes by, that I will put you in the cleft of the rock, and will cover you with My hand while I pass by. 23Then I will take away My hand, and you shall see My back; but My face shall not be seen.” Philippians 3:10 (NKJV) 10that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, John 14:8 (NKJV) 8Philip said to Him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is sufficient for us.” --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

A Plot to Kill Paul 12When it was day,the Jews made a plot andbound themselves by an oath neither to eat nor drink till they had killed Paul.13There were more than forty who made this conspiracy.14They went to the chief priests and elders and said, We have strictly bound ourselves by an oath to taste no food till we have killed Paul.15Now therefore you, along with the council, give notice to the tribune to bring him down to you, as though you were going to determine his case more exactly. And we are ready to kill him before he comes near. 16Now the son of Paul's sister heard of their ambush, so he went and enteredthe barracks and told Paul.17Paul called one of the centurions and said, Take this young man to the tribune, for he has something to tell him.18So he took him and brought him to the tribune and said, Paulthe prisoner called me and asked me to bring this young man to you, as he has something to say to you.19The tribune took him by the hand, and going aside asked him privately, What is it that you have to tell me?20And he said,The Jews have agreed to ask you to bring Paul down to the council tomorrow, as though they were going to inquire somewhat more closely about him.21But do not be persuaded by them, for more than forty of their men are lying in ambush for him, whohave bound themselves by an oath neither to eat nor drink till they have killed him. And now they are ready, waiting for your consent.22So the tribune dismissed the young man, charging him, Tell no one that you have informed me of these things. Paul Sent to Felix the Governor 23Then he called two of the centurions and said, Get ready two hundred soldiers, with seventy horsemen and two hundred spearmen to go as far as Caesarea at the third hour of the night.[a]24Also provide mounts for Paul to ride and bring him safely toFelixthe governor.25And he wrote a letter to this effect: 26Claudius Lysias, tohis Excellency the governor Felix,greetings.27This man was seized by the Jews andwas about to be killed by themwhen I came upon them with the soldiers and rescued him,having learned that he was a Roman citizen.28Anddesiring to know the charge for which they were accusing him, I brought him down to their council.29I found that he was being accusedabout questions of their law, butcharged with nothing deserving death or imprisonment.30And when it was disclosed to methat there would be a plot against the man, I sent him to you at once,ordering his accusers also to state before you what they have against him. 31So the soldiers, according to their instructions, took Paul and brought him by night to Antipatris.32And on the next day they returned tothe barracks, letting the horsemen go on with him.33When they had come to Caesarea and delivered the letter to the governor, they presented Paul also before him.34On reading the letter, he asked whatprovince he was from. And when he learnedthat he was from Cilicia,35he said, I will give you a hearingwhen your accusers arrive. And he commanded him to be guarded in Herod'spraetorium. Paul Before Felix at Caesarea 24Andafter five days the high priestAnanias came down with some elders and a spokesman, one Tertullus. They laid beforethe governor their case against Paul.2And when he had been summoned, Tertullus began to accuse him, saying: Since through you we enjoy much peace, and since by your foresight,most excellent Felix, reforms are being made for this nation,3in every way and everywhere we accept this with all gratitude.4But, to detain[b]you no further, I beg you in your kindness to hear us briefly.5For we have found this man a plague,one who stirs up riots among all the Jews throughout the world and is a ringleader ofthe sect of the Nazarenes.6He even tried to profane the temple, but we seized him.[c]8By examining him yourself you will be able to find out from him about everything of which we accuse him. 9The Jews also joined in the charge, affirming that all these things were so. 10And when the governor had nodded to him to speak, Paul replied: Knowing that for many years you have been a judge over this nation, I cheerfully make my defense.11You can verify thatit is not more than twelve days since Iwent upto worship in Jerusalem,12andthey did not find me disputing with anyone or stirring up a crowd, either in the temple or in the synagogues or in the city.13Neither can they prove to you what they now bring up against me.14But this I confess to you, that according tothe Way, which they calla sect,I worshipthe God of our fathers, believing everythinglaid down by the Law and written in the Prophets,15havinga hope in God, which these men themselves accept, that there will bea resurrectionof both the just and the unjust.16So I alwaystake pains to have aclear conscience toward both God and man.17Nowafter several yearsI came to bring alms tomy nation and to presentofferings.18While I was doing this, they found mepurified in the temple, without any crowd or tumult. Butsome Jews from Asia19they ought to be here before you and to make an accusation, should they have anything against me.20Or else let these men themselves say what wrongdoing they found when I stood before the council,21other than this one thingthat I cried out while standing among them: It is with respect to the resurrection of the dead that I am on trial before you this day. Paul Kept in Custody 22But Felix, having a rather accurate knowledge ofthe Way, put them off, saying, When Lysias the tribune comes down, I will decide your case.23Then he gave orders to the centurion that heshould be kept in custody but have some liberty, and thatnone of his friends should be prevented from attending to his needs. 24After some days Felix came with his wife Drusilla, who was Jewish, and he sent for Paul and heard him speak aboutfaithin Christ Jesus.25And as he reasonedabout righteousness and self-control and the coming judgment, Felix was alarmed and said, Go away for the present.When I get an opportunity I will summon you.26At the same time he hopedthat money would be given him by Paul. So he sent for him often and conversed with him.27When two years had elapsed, Felix was succeeded by PorciusFestus. Anddesiring to do the Jews a favor,Felix left Paul in prison.

Here is an overview of this episode:Dedication - 00:00:01About our Alma Maters (KYSU & Fisk) - 00:00:421528 Sports , HBCU Edition - 00:01:42Our sales pitch to attend an HBCU - 00:17:35Quick Commercial Break, How to engage with us -  00:27:22So, this one time... - 00:28:22A Call to Action for the HBCU's - 01:00:04Thanks again for tuning in!Background sources:Star player who expressed interest in going to an HBCU may shake up how athletes select a collegePBS Series - Independents Lens looks at the hiatory of HBCUs and their evolutionCould Mikey Williams be ‘The Chosen One' HBCUs are waiting on?‘Black Magic' Tells Story Of Civil Rights Through HoopsTravis Grant gets recognition for past hoops gloryMikey's IG Post and message about the posibility of attending an HBCU@Gupaveli's IG Post in response to Mikey'sCorrection: The former NBA All-Star and coach who is now the Head Coach at Fisk is Kenny Anderson, not Kenny Payne as mentioned in this episode

“Every imagination is distinct,” says Dan Hunter. “It is a conglomeration of what you’ve experienced, what you want to achieve, and what you remember.” Can imagination be measured, and what does it have to do with creativity and invention? How do teachers develop imagination in their students, and how is it elicited in the workplace? Host Richard Miles talks to Dan Hunter, the inventor of the Hunter Imagination Questionnaire, known as H-IQ, the first assessment of individual imagination and ideation. Dan is also an accomplished playwright, author, songwriter, teacher, and comedian. TRANSCRIPT: Intro: 0:00Inventors and their inventions. Welcome to Radio Cade, a podcast from the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention in Gainesville, Florida. The museum is named after James Robert Cade who invented Gatorade in 1965. My name is Richard Miles. We’ll introduce you to inventors and the things that motivate them. We’ll learn about their personal stories, how their inventions work, and how their ideas get from the laboratory to the marketplace. Richard Miles: 0:00Imagination. What does it really mean? Can it be measured? And what does it have to do with creativity and invention? I’m your host, Richard Miles, and my guest today via the miracle of Zoom is Dan Hunter, the inventor of the Hunter Imagination Questionnaire known as H-IQ, the first assessment of individual imagination and ideation. He’s also accomplished playwright, songwriter, and teacher. Welcome to the show, Dan. Dan Hunter: 0:00Thank you, Richard Richard Miles: 1:04So, Dan. This show is produced in Florida. I live in DC, You live in Massachusetts and we’re conducting the interview via a technology created in San Jose, California. Imagine that. Dan Hunter: 1:04Yes, exactly. Richard Miles: 1:17So I neglected to mention in introducing you that you are probably the world’s foremost authority on what makes Iowa funny. Dan Hunter: 1:25I’ll claim that honor. Yeah, I am a native of Iowa and lived there until about 20 years ago. Richard Miles: 1:32And you’ve written a couple of books on it as well. Sort of specifically humor and Iowa, right? Dan Hunter: 1:36Yeah, Three books. “Let’s Keep Des Moines a Private Joke,” “The Search for Iowa” and “We Don’t Grow Potatoes,” and, the last one is, “Iowa. It’s a State of Mind.” Richard Miles: 1:47Is this taken well by native Iowans that they like the ribbing? Or do you get some push back? Dan Hunter: 1:52No. I made my living for about 17 years, performing throughout the Midwest and primarily Iowa. I think Midwesterners, they appreciate humor about themselves, and they recognize that they have a calm humility about them, for the most part. Occasionally you get a crackpot, I mean one person once sent me back one of my books stapled 100 times. Richard Miles: 2:14Like I said, that’s an interesting side hustle. But I guess it wasn’t a side hustle a while. Dan Hunter: 2:20No, it was my main work at the time. Richard Miles: 2:22So, this is not a show dedicated to Iowa humor, as much as we, we could talk about that, but to showcase the stories of inventors and entrepreneurs, and at the root of most of those narratives are seeds of imagination and creativity. But the problem is imagination, sort of one of those amorphous words that a lot of people use and a lot of them use it differently, I thought. Let’s start by defining imagination itself, How would you give a fairly precise definition of imagination? And then we’ll go on after that to talk about the questionnaire you develop. Dan Hunter: 2:54I think it’s very important to distinguish between imagination, creativity, and innovation. Imagination is what happens inside a person’s mind and imagination is something that we all have. It’s part of being Homosapiens. It’s part of our evolution, and people use their imagination every day, often unaware that they are using their imagination. So the concise definition of imagination is, it is the ability to predict outcomes, visualized scenarios, and to engage in counterfactual thinking. So those three aspects are part of our daily life. I mean, you might be thinking, What am I gonna have for lunch? Should I go to downtown tomorrow? Where should we go on vacation? All of those involved predicting an outcome and visualizing this scenario, and it’s universal. Everybody does it now, you might ask yourself then, Well, what’s the difference between, say, me and Albert Einstein? Now, if you are trying to visualize where you left your car keys and you might visualize, Gee, do I see them in my mind on the kitchen counter? How do I see them by the back door? You’re using the same channels of visualization that Albert Einstein used because there’s no special channel for visualizing the universe. And the difference between most of us and Albert Einstein is that Albert Einstein practiced this his whole life, and he channeled his imagination to achieve his goals. He was able to visualize how light moved through the universe and how it might be bent by an orb or a solid body. He could actually visualize that in his mind, and that was the key to his success. So what about creativity? Creativity is defined as something that’s original, novel, of value, either aesthetic or utilitarian. And so it is actually a designation, and not of what goes on inside your mind, where you generate ideas, your imagination. It’s a designation that applies to your idea. Bringing your idea forward. Creativity is a designation given by others. It could be in your domain, it could be in your family. But the designation of creativity is not from you, can I use a metaphor? Richard Miles: 5:04Sure, of course, I love metaphors. Dan Hunter: 5:06This is a baseball metaphor, but then again, we are in America. Richard Miles: 5:10This is as close, as we’ll come baseball, probably in 2020. So go ahead. Dan Hunter: 5:14So imagination, creativity, and innovation. Imagination is when the batter is on deck in that little batter circle and warming up. Now, he or she could be thinking about anything, but we hope that she’s planning on a strategy, an idea to implement at the plate. She might be thinking ill bunt it down the third baseline, or I’ll try to hit it over the right field. Or maybe I’ll try to hit a home run. However, this is internal thinking imagination. She could be thinking about anything. She could be thinking about chicken pot pie, Cadillac Eldorado. It’s all internal at that point. Now, we hope that she is applying her imagination towards the goals of the game. Now, when she comes to bat, that is the chance to implement her idea. Now they’re too arbitrary white lines in baseball that extend into infinity, in theory. Those are the foul lines, and if you hit the ball outside of the foul line, no matter how powerful you hit it, it doesn’t count. Now it’s the same way with creativity. Your idea has to fall within the expectations of your domain within the expectations of society, be within the rules of the game. And so creativity, then, is when your idea works, and it’s recognized by people that it works and that it adds value within the game. Innovation is then when you have a tangible result the success like reaching first base air coming around the home plate. Now what I started to say is, the DaVinci is a very good example of this Leonardo DaVinci because we know from his notebooks that he had extraordinary ideas for somebody who lived in the late 15th early 16th century. Among them were human propelled helicopter, a set of flying wings. Now those ideas were only in his notebooks. They never were produced. The Duke of Milan could see no value in them, and so they were not useful. They weren’t deemed creative. They weren’t in the expectations of the Duke of Milan. Now skip to the second half of the 19th century, when a lot of his notebooks were found after being lost and during the end of the 19th century the question was not, can human beings fly? The question was when, because from about 1850 on, there was a great race to become the first self-propelled flying machine, and we know who finished first, which was the Wright Brothers. But so the time when they found these notebooks it was great excitement because the expectation was we will be able to fly and DaVinci’s ideas are considered creative. And in retrospect, in the last 20 years of the 21st century, museums have built replicas, particularly of the helicopter, and it doesn’t fly. But nonetheless, it’s what’s interesting about that. So all ideas begin in imagination, they can’t begin anywhere else. And therefore, if you channel your imagination, if you use your imagination, you will have ideas that maybe recognizes creative or they may not depending on the audience and the time of society. Richard Miles: 8:19You talked about, Einstein talked about DaVinci so clearly there are people who develop this skill better than others. but It’s not something that someone is totally lacking imagination. Just give an example from the other end of the spectrum. We have, ah, a brand new eight-month granddaughter, and what’s fascinating is to see her develop. And you can kind of see her understanding the world increase, including imagination. One example, where in the last month to six weeks she now understands that if somebody disappears from the room, they don’t disappear from the world. When she hears, noises or footsteps coming from outside the world, she looks expectantly so clearly she knows that somebody is gonna pop around the corner based on the steps. So that’s the prototype of beginning to imagine yourself right in different spatial areas or different time periods and so on. So you and others have developed a questionnaire that can really get at the fine tuning assessment of somebody’s. Is it their potential to imagine? Or is it just a snapshot of where they are on that spectrum of, say, being an eight-month-old baby who figures out that people exist outside of the room? And Einstein or DaVinci? Dan Hunter: 9:26First, let me address one of the differences between Einstein and DaVinci and most people. Everything that goes on in your brain is neural connections. Neural networks, where the synapses process an electrical charge inside the neuron converts it to a chemical at the synapse, and then it goes to the next one. What we know about the plasticity, the neural plasticity, the brain is that the brain strengthens how you use it. In other words, practice improves that network in your brain. There’s a classic study of 24 jugglers, and 12 of them had to learn how to juggle, and the other 12 had the great challenge of not learning how to juggle, what happened? Well, there’s actually an increase in the gray matter on the dorsal lateral side of those who learned how to juggle the brain structure itself changed by the learning. The non-jugglers had no change then. This is curious because, of course, the jugglers, the new jugglers, they did it for the month that they were required to do. And most of them stopped because they realized that being able to juggle was not going to increase their chance of passing on their DNA to anyone. So they stop juggling they came back six months later, and that growth in the brain in the gray matter had disappeared. The brain had rerouted that gray matter, those neurons for other tasks. So if you want imagination, you have to practice it, like Einstein did. Or like DaVinci, who walked the streets with his notebook constantly drawing constantly writing his ideas. Now HIQ, which I developed as a solo project. It does not compare your imagination to mine, and the reason for that is is that every imagination is distinct. Even identical twins who share the same genome will not have a similar imagination. It’s that imagination is that conglomeration of what you’ve experienced, what you want to achieve, what you remember. So it’s those three aspects and, you know, from literature and elsewhere that people remember events quite differently, so they have their own understanding of it that informs their own imagination. So the HIQ. The idea came to me when I was working to try to increase the importance of creative work in the schools, and my first thought was, well, we need to have some way of keeping score because Americans value what we can measure, particularly in the schools, and so those things that are immeasurable, such as creativity. They get overlooked or sidelined because they don’t fit into the equation. They don’t fit into the algorithm. So my thought was, if we could establish a measurement that would increase the importance of the creative work, I won’t go into my original idea, which was almost implemented in Oklahoma. But it was similar to something the CDC does. A CDC examines at-risk populations like postnatal, neonatal elderly, youth at risk. They actually measure behaviors to determine potential outcomes. And that’s what the original index was going to do. But as I thought about it, I realized couple of things one. The most important thing is how you use your imagination and getting students to channel their imagination towards their goals. And so the HIQ is based on four sessions, none longer than eight minutes. So it’s easiest schedule inside of a classroom, and you can do it shorter doesn’t have to go the full eight minutes and has very simple prompts. There’s no secret sauce just like that, no secret sauce between Einstein visualizing and you. It is the same skills, so that prompts ask, you know what are you doing with your imagination? What do you want to do? What do you hope to achieve? And then at the end of the first session, if you’re invited to write as many ideas as you can and it’s not an English test, you don’t need to be grammatically correct as long as you can remember your ideas from what you write at the end of the first session, the software seals your ideas up in a virtual envelope on stores it. Then you have an incubation period 3 to 7 days. Now, if you didn’t like your ideas in the first session, doesn’t matter because you’re gonna have three more sessions and the human brain being what it is. You will either consciously or subconsciously ask yourself, Why didn’t I have any ideas so it gets easier as you go along? Second session is visualization. The third session is on change and invention and discovering again every time your ideas air sealed and stored at the end of the fourth session, all your ideas come back to you. And you assess the idea is on a liquored scale, 1 to 10. That’s what gives you the score. It’s not a diagnostic test. It doesn’t say you’re creative and you’re not because we all have imagination. What it actually measures is how engaged you are with your ideas Now that is valuable to the individual. It’s also a former metacognition because you examine in that time period how you generate ideas where you get your ideas and you focus on the notion that, yeah, I can generate ideas. That’s my responsibility. For the schools they get a score in the aggregate, what that allows them to do. And here’s the measurement part that allows them to determine what changes occurring with these students in terms of their imagination. So you have on opening sessions, say, at the beginning of the year, and that’s a benchmark. You can take it again at the end of the semester or at the end of year. One school wants to start with the incoming freshman, and so it’s a very distinctive questionnaire and is very different from existing creativity tests. I’m sure you’ve seen some of those the nine-dot test and others, but the thing that puzzles me about the other creativity tests is that they are designed by an expert, administered on one day, and then evaluated by that same expert. So aren’t we really measuring whether or not you fit the experts’ idea of creativity? There’s no chance for you to find your own imagination, which is what HIQ does for you. Richard Miles: 15:24So, Dan, I think I understand how the test works. But let me just see if I do understand. If I were to sit and take the test and in session one, what exactly is the questions? Like what I wanted to believe Is that kind of Dan Hunter: 15:35what do you hope to do, create, or achieve in the next few months? Richard Miles: 15:38So let’s say I said, okay, I’ve got a great idea on a manned mission to Mars, right? Okay, and then in session two, I could say either that was a stupid idea. That’s not going anywhere, or I come back and say, Well, I’ve done some thinking about it, and we need to establish a base on the moon first, and then we need to build stuff on the moon. And would that be evidence that I was engaging with my idea as opposed to just tossing it out? Or where would I fall on the spectrum then of imagination? Dan Hunter: 16:06I would say that you are engaged with your imagination when you get to that point, when you’re starting to ask yourself what else? If you just say, go to Mars and those are the sorts of ideas that floats through your mind quite frequently. But it’s far better that, as you point out, that when you become engaged with the idea and you start exploring the ramifications, what are the nuances? What are the different angles? And you feel yourself gaining interest in momentum. That’s when you’re engaged with your imagination. Now let me share with you what high school students at Conquer Academy wrote when they first did the HIQ, one student wrote that she wanted to write an in-depth essay on the treatment of adolescence and state mental hospitals. She also wanted to develop an algorithm to imitate Stuxnet and to see if it will could be damaged by a computer virus. Now those were pretty ambitious. Then the next questions answer Right after that, I want to get pretty your glasses. I need new blue jeans. Now, the point of that is that that’s how imagination works. It’s not something you reserve for the glory ideas. It’s something that occurs every day, and the glory ideas come along, too. Not that often, but something you use every day Richard Miles: 17:15You used earlier the great analogy of hitting between the foul lines. You could power the ball over the left-field bleachers, but if it’s left of the foul line, people may be impressed. But it doesn’t go. How does imagination translate into the type of curriculum that we teach, if at all, or testing or improving imagination and then in the workplace? Because you can imagine no pun intended, you could be in that workplace, have all these great ideas. But if your employer says I want X, Y and Z from you 9 to 5 and you go hey no, no, I got a great idea for M. They don’t want to listen, that’s not what they’re paying you for. You have somebody like that would give up or they don’t do it. Dan Hunter: 17:52In that case, M, would be a foul ball. Richard Miles: 17:55Right, exactly, yeah. So let’s start with schools. Are there types of schools that do this better in terms of encouraging that imagination to develop into creativity to develop in the action or are they all getting a failing grade? Dan Hunter: 18:07I don’t think they get a failing grade. Really. It comes down to the individual teacher when I give workshops to teachers and I asked them or I suggest ways that they can increase student imagination. One of the touchstones I come back to is if you give an assignment to your students and you know ahead of time what it’s gonna look like when it comes back, then you’re not increasing their imagination. So I’ll tell you a story. That’s a good example of how you could teach for creativity. When I was in fifth grade, I had a science teacher, Miss Dixie Douglas, and she wanted to teach us the anatomy of the human body, and she could have had us memorized the bones. But instead, she said, make a skeleton. How do you do that? We can’t make a skeleton, she said. You can use anything you want on. She gave us a break, she said. The skull, which has 40 some bones in it. We could just have one piece for the whole skull and it’s extra bones, so people went out and I got a coat hanger and straight out, I put empty spools of thread for the vertebrae, little pieces of felt for the pad in between. I used the inside rollers of paper towels for the arms, the only in the femur, and everybody had a different approach. Now my head was the hardest one to do, and so I kind of tried to shape it out of Styrofoam. It didn’t look very good, but she didn’t say how to do it. She just said, come back with it. Well, at the end, one friend of mine came in and hit the skull ahead. That he had on his skeleton was a head of lettuce, and again, who could have predicted that? And again, it’s a head, so it works. So my reaction is that people who are teaching for creativity are allowing students to be responsible for their ideas and moving the responsibility for imagination off the teacher and onto the student. Another good example of that was a high school teacher in Oklahoma who got tired of high school students complaining about high school. Well, she said, that’s it, I’ve had it, plan your own high school. You got six weeks, everything from the ground up, and stopped, so they had to figure everything out. And so what you see in that process is taking in questions, recognizing where you need information, exchange, and collaboration with each other and it’s very much like a business should work. I’m going back to the business part about the guy who came up with M when they wanted X, Y and Z. The biggest short come in any group of humans is the failure to listen. And so, that person, maybe his idea may be completely whack-a-doo, but somebody at least has to listen to him. Richard Miles: 20:41Then let’s talk about some of the variables in the aggregate that you think may influence the stock of imagination, creativity, and a given country or culture. Are there things that you see happening on a large scale that seem to point towards well, that is good in enhancing or missing more creative, imaginative responses, Whereas that is not, one example that I’m sure you’ve seen a lot as well is when my wife when I first started the Cade Museum, we talked to a lot of inventors and entrepreneurs, and we go to their offices and we asked him for over their origin story of the invention. And we noticed on their bookshelf the books that they had were all over the map. They weren’t just on their particular discipline. They had books on history and the arts and cooking and sports and everything. The other thing that we did notice and it wasn’t s significant relation, but an awful lot of particularly the physicians and engineers and we talked to were amateur musicians. And so it seemed to us on our very small sample side of several dozen, maybe up to 100 of these folks, that this ability to see outside of your particular training seemed to have an effect because again, we’ve got a lot of great researchers. But not very many of them actually become inventors. There was an additional variable of play in spurring them on to the next level of actually creating a new technology or product or idea whatever. And our thesis was that it was training in the arts of the ability to see outside of their own training, that supercharged the creativity you had. Do you see anything like that? In your experience, in your research playing out citywide or statewide, globally, in terms of the variables that go into this? Dan Hunter: 22:16That’s difficult, I don’t see anything that happens consistently in schools or government or business. I think that there’s a lot of lip service to wanting this so called innovative workforce. But I don’t see a concentrated effort to get there, which I believe would involve changing fundamental attitudes in the schools. I think that is essential mean that has to happen because we are teaching students preparing them for jobs that don’t yet exist using technologies that haven’t been invented. So what should we teach them? We should teach them the ability to generate their own ideas, and as you point out, combine disparate items to see something freshly, to see something new. I think that when you talk about the inventors and engineers and doctors you talked about with the variety of books on their shelves playing music, I think it comes back to the word curiosity. That if you have a natural and innate curiosity, you’re gonna try things and find things that other people don’t, and you have to be able to look. In one of my creative workshops. I used to talk about how much the subconscious controls our moment to moment daily lives. And to exemplify that, I would ask everybody in the room to be quiet and still, this would usually be in a classroom or some kind of business room, and say, do you hear any sounds that you hadn’t heard before? Well, there’s usually a very strong buzz from the fluorescent tubes, and they all hear that now on. My point is that’s been there since you first walked in. And I once did that with a group of composers, and they had all already heard it because that’s their bent in life is listening to sounds. But yes, I think it’s very important to have a broad interest and the aspect of music to get back to that something very interesting about music. But I don’t think we fully understand why. But when you play music and sometimes when you listen to music, it engages almost all of your brain when you do that and they’re not many functions that do that, and we don’t really know why it does that. But it has a powerful effect on music is a great mystery. Another point I might make about the connection between musicians and ideas. When you play music, you have to focus and it takes you out of the current world, and your entire conscious mind is focused on playing the music. The next notes on ideas often come when we shift our focus away from the problem itself. And I think that’s something that music does. Or people say they get their ideas in the shower. I have a friend in New Mexico who gets his ideas mowing the lawn. It’s almost as if you shut down the conscious activity and your brain will generate ideas. However, I would point out Pastor who said ideas Air favored by the fertile mind. You have to have a prepared mind to get ideas. In other words, I’m not going to get an idea about how to do a Mars Rover. I don’t think about it, but I think about plays and so I’ll get an idea for that. Or I’ll think about how to talk about creativity, and I’ll get an idea for that. Richard Miles: 25:20So one of the things that I’ve been wanting to do, at the Cade Museum and this, this will warm your heart. Dan is I’ve always thought comedy was a fascinating example of creativity and invention. In that every joke, at least when it’s told the first time, by definition is a surprise, right that if you land a punch line, you’ve got to take people by surprise. And that’s what triggers that laughter and so on. And it’s why comics have to change their material right because if you never change your material, you’d be out of business after a couple of years or sooner. Dan Hunter: 25:48It’s very interesting, because how to understand comedy is also a mystery. We don’t really know why we laugh or why we laugh from an evolutionary point of view. There was a scholar in Alberta, Canada, who claimed that he found the 10 most funny words in English, and his view was that if you just be used those words, people will laugh. Well, I wrote a piece on In all 10 words are on there, and it’s not funny has to do with the lack of surprise right on the funny word. If it’s put in the right place and surprises you, it can. I think comedy is very close to that, because again, in comedy, you have disparate things, put together reversals or the unexpected twist. And I think it’s the same with inventions that to use a cliche that moment of what if we did this in this in this or what? If we didn’t do this, how would that surprise us? How would that change things? And I think again it goes back to curiosity. I used to work with farmers and carpenters and there was always this, let’s just try this, what the hell, see if that works, you get a kick out of it if it doesn’t. Richard Miles: 26:54right? Yeah, and the other interesting about comedy too is it’s context matters, right? You’re not gonna really land a joke unless people see a little bit of themselves or their neighbor, their family member in that joke, which is one generally doesn’t usually transfer across cultures or nations very well, because people have no idea what they’re making fun of. Dan Hunter: 27:11Well, I give you a very interesting example. I was once doing a show in northeastern Missouri for 800 farmers sitting on folding chairs, drinking coffee in a high school gymnasium. I was supposed to make them laugh, and I started it, and I have been doing it for a few years, so I had an idea what worked with farmers and what didn’t. So I started up my usual show and nothing, still throughout the room. I could feel cold sweat rolling down my back. What? They’re not laughing, so I didn’t know what to do. So suddenly I just stopped and I hit the guitar and I muffled the cord silence across the room and I looked out around everybody, and I said, I leaned on the microphone I said, You know, this stuff is funny and one woman, about 12 rows back started to giggle, and then it spread all over the room, and that was fine for the rest of the show, so they didn’t know it was supposed to be funny that they were supposed to laugh. Richard Miles: 28:06They were taking you seriously. Dan Hunter: 28:07Yes, yeah, and when you talk about context, every performance, even exchanging jokes on the street, everybody has to know their role. And we all know that we’ve laughed at jokes that weren’t that funny because we were in a social situation and trying to make people feel good. But that context is everything. Ah, lot of communication resides in the listener, and the listeners expectations. Richard Miles: 28:31So, Dan, my last question was going to tell me a joke. I can’t lift past the opportunity. We are recording this in April 2020. We’re in the midst of this Covid19 pandemic. I wanted to give you a chance to share your thoughts. If you have any on the role of creativity, for better or worse and time are going through, I’ll just give a couple of examples. I mean, obviously a lot of people are trying to work on things like vaccines or new types of treatments. But at the other end of the scale, you have entire ballet companies choreographing things online or symphony orchestra in the same thing. How is creativity playing a role in the extraordinary circumstances we find ourselves right now. Dan Hunter: 29:11What is pretty consistent in this is that the creativity doesn’t disappear, doesn’t go underground and vanishes. It’s there one of the pieces I wrote in my newsletter or about the homemade masks and the way people use them to express their individuality. The act of being home alone is an active imagination. How are you going to deal with yourself? What you gonna think about? How do you pass the time. I think there’s a lot of opportunity for people to maintain their imagination and even increase it going to your library shelf, getting the variety of ideas out of there. There is one area I would like to speak out against, though, if I can. I think online education. We’ve been thrown into this national experiment completely unprepared as teachers, parents and students for online education, and I think that is a chilling prospect. First off, I know from the surveys the students don’t like it. Some teachers don’t really object to it. But the heart of the matter is that school is a place where you generate ideas and where you think about issues and where you learn. The home is a place where you play with your dog or yell at your brothers and sisters. I think that we can’t let whatever success or money can be saved by online education. We can’t let that disrupt regular classroom education when the virus passes by, because so much of what we do in school is not just learning skills or data or content. We also learn how to make friends how to get along with each other, how to resolve conflicts. We watch teachers as they model being an adult. So I think that the online education is merely a temporary parachute. Richard Miles: 30:52Well, we’re certainly gonna have lots of testimonials from parents, said Wow. This is a lot harder than we thought, trying to do that also with supplementing various online things. And so I think there may be a little thirst to get back to the very personal with others and in front of others. Dan Hunter: 31:06Yes, and I think for parents to realize how hard it is gives him a better appreciation for teachers. And we need to go back to the question of what’s wrong with our schools. It’s not the curriculum, it’s not the books. It’s. We need to pay teachers more to get good teachers. And if we care about education, then teachers should be well paid. Richard Miles: 31:26Well, I can’t think of a better note that ended on that. So Dan, thank you very much for joining me this morning and hopefully the next interview we could do in person and best of luck to you and look forward to talking to you in the future. Dan Hunter: 31:30Thanks, Richard. Take care. Outro: 31:31Radio Cade is produced by the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention, located in Gainesville, Florida, Richard Miles is the podcast host and Ellie Thom coordinates inventor interviews. Podcasts are recorded at Heartwood Soundstage and edited and mixed by Bob McPeak. The Radio Cade Theme song was produced and performed by Tracy Columns and features violinist Jacob Lawson.

Sermon Notes YOU GOT ITThen Samuel took a flask of olive oil and poured it over Saul’s head. He kissed Saul and said, “I am doing this because the LORD has appointed you to be the ruler over Israel, his special possession.” 1 Samuel 10:1 NLTSo as David stood there among his brothers, Samuel took the flask of olive oil he had brought and anointed David with the oil. And the Spirit of the LORD came powerfully upon David from that day on. Then Samuel returned to Ramah. 1 Samuel 16:13 NLTOne of the servants said to Saul, “One of Jesse’s sons from Bethlehem is a talented harp player. Not only that—he is a brave warrior, a man of war, and has good judgment. He is also a fine-looking young man, and the LORD is with him.” 1 Samuel 16:18 NLTIf you are a follower of Christ, you got it. 1. You are called to it. 2. You are gifted for it. In his grace, God has given us different gifts for doing certain things well. So if God has given you the ability to prophesy, speak out with as much faith as God has given you. 7If your gift is serving others, serve them well. If you are a teacher, teach well. 8If your gift is to encourage others, be encouraging. If it is giving, give generously. If God has given you leadership ability, take the responsibility seriously. And if you have a gift for showing kindness to others, do it gladly. Romans 12:6-8 NLT Others see it. … And finally Saul son of Kish was chosen from among them. But when they looked for him, he had disappeared! 22So they asked the LORD, “Where is he?” And the LORD replied, “He is hiding among the baggage.” 1 Samuel 10: 21-22 NLTDavid asked the soldiers standing nearby, “What will a man get for killing this Philistine and ending his defiance of Israel? Who is this pagan Philistine anyway, that he is allowed to defy the armies of the living God?” 1 Samuel 17:26 NLT• Being gifted means you have something to give. o We use our gifts in the church. o We use our gifts as the church.TALK IT OVERWhat are some ways God has gifted you? Do you find it easier to see your gifts or other people’s?What are some ways you hide in your baggage and avoid using the gifts God’s given you?How could you use your gifts to serve God in the new year?If God’s given you a gift you’re not currently using, brainstorm some ways you could serve Him with that gift. Bible References Links Website Facebook Twitter InstagramThis podcast is powered by Pinecast.

Summary: Family offices are firms that serve the ultra-high net worth investors such as centimillionaires and billionaires. While many people would be over the moon after receiving a 1 million dollar check after hours of negotiations and meetings, those same individuals from family offices wouldn't even show up for such a low amount. In fact, a similar meeting for a family office would leave them in control of an additional 500 million in equity or more.Richard Wilson gives his insight on how he assists these individuals manage their wealth.https://simplepassivecashflow.com/hui3/https://simplepassivecashflow.com/coaching/https://simplepassivecashflow.com/ohana/ Youtube link: https://youtu.be/Pf1gwL4fqJ0?sub_confirmation=1Website link: SimplePassiveCashflow.com/familyofficeStart learning about real estate investing - SimplePassiveCashflow.com/startSubscribe to the Top-50 Investing Free Podcast - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/simple-passive-cashflow/id1118795347_________________________Top SimplePassiveCashflow Posts:This website has been going through daily improvements everyday since 2016. I admit things are a bit all over the place as I learn about these investments and wealth tactics.Events – SimplePassiveCashflow.com/eventsPast Projects - crowdfundaloha.com/past-projects/Simple Passive Cashflow’s Investor Friend Finder!!! –SimplePassiveCashflow.com/friendsMenu of Investing Options – SimplePassiveCashflow.com/menuLaneHack – SimplePassiveCashflow.com/lanehackPassive Investor Accelerator eCourse - SimplePassiveCashflow.com/ecoursePassive Investor Accelerator eCourse & Mastermind - SimplePassiveCashflow.com/journeyCoaching – SimplePassiveCashflow.com/coachingJoin our Private Investor Club – SimplePassiveCashflow.com/clubJoin our Team – SimplePassiveCashflow.com/jointeamOur Mission – SimplePassiveCashflow.com/missionPartner Opportunity – SimplePassiveCashflow.com/partnerProducts I support – SimplePassiveCashflow.com/productsAbout Lane Kawaoka – SimplePassiveCashflow.com/about-meQuarterly Investor Updates – http://simplepassivecashflow.com/investorletterSPC YouTube Channel – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3cIIsGKx3osVU5rt2P0HfQReal Estate Book Recommendations – SimplePassiveCashflow.com/booksBackwards Engineering Happiness – SimplePassiveCashflow.com/happyRental Property Analyser – SimplePassiveCashflow.com/analyserVisit Lane in Hawaii – SimplePassiveCashflow.com/retreatStart Here – http://simplepassivecashflow.com/startUltimate Simple Passive Cashflow Guide to…1031 Exchanges – Simplepassivecashflow.com/1031guideNewbies – SimplePassiveCashflow.com/noobInfinite Banking – SimplePassiveCashflow.com/bankingYour Opportunity fund – SimplePassiveCashflow.com/ofundTaxes – SimplePassiveCashflow.com/taxTradelines – Simplepassivecashflow.com/tradelinesTurnkey Rental Guide: simplepassivecashflow.com/turnkeySyndication Guide – simplepassivecashflow.com/syndicationCrowdfunding – SimplePassiveCashflow.com/crowdfundingNetworking – SimplePassiveCashflow.com/peoplePrivate Money Lending – SimplePassiveCashflow.com/lendInvesting in Coffee/Cocoa – SimplePassiveCashflow.com/coffeeInvesting in Non-Preforming Notes – SimplePassiveCashflow.com/ahpRent don’t buy – SimplePassiveCashflow.com/homeInvestor Fallacy: Return of Equity – SimplePassiveCashflow.com/roeHow to Calculate Investment Returns – SimplePassiveCashflow.com/returnsWhy you should break up with your Financial Planner – SimplePassiveCashflow.com/fpQuitting your job – SimplePassiveCashflow.com/quitTranscription:0:00Richard Wilson is a guy who works with deca millionaires and you guys haven't heard of the term family office is the term for families that have gotten well beyond that four and a half million dollar mark. They're more in the 5100 $200 million range. So think of it like Bruce Wayne in the Batman he had Alfred Alfred did a little bit more than your average family office in terms of keeping them out of trouble when they came up and all these gadgets but essentially, you get what a family office does. They're a consultant that is brought on board basically the kids don't mess it up and the family wealth keeps moving on. I'm trying to sort of do the same thing here in Hawaii and across my simple passive cash flow nation you guys want to check out my family office offering go to simple passive cash flow calm slash coaching, or go to Rei aloha comm slash ohana to read about my services where I can help out your higher net worth family definitely probably on applies to accredited investors there but accredited investors and above do things very different than your average half a million dollar net worth below you know the infinite banking is just a start but you know now you're starting to talk about oversee trusts and tricky things like that that are I'd probably say unfair. So if you want to learn more about that you can email Lane at simple passive cash flow and here's the show.1:22What's up simple passive cash flow listeners once1:24in nounce, the first multi day we mastermind in Hawaii will be holding it on1:31my island of Oahu,1:33Honolulu is on President's Day 2020 and that's February 14 and 17. And a reminder, Valentine's Day is the 14th. But we'll keep that evening for you. families and couples want to come on down for that we're actually encouraging spouses and families that come down because that's part of the whole experience, getting to know other families and getting to know other committee members. gonna be a big part of this. So what to expect structured networking and masterminding with existing CWI investors and other affluent investors, we're going to create the time and the environment to build real relationships that you can take forward forever. And for you, a students out there will do even be doing a full day of networking and mastermind and education. So once again, bring your families we're going to have optional excursions such as a luau, happy hours, dinners and some other activities to be able to have fun in the sun. And, you know, space is extremely limited because my vision is to kind of create this as a more intimate environment where we're all one big little ohana here. So come in and combined business and pleasure in a little tax write off hopefully you can get that right off in before the 2019 ends. Those signing up now we'll be able to get your free one on one strategy session that if you want to stick around till Tuesday, we can knock that out or if you're leaving early we can try and get that done throughout the weekend but hope to see you out in Hawaii go to simple passive cash3:15flow calm slash week three and we'll see you guys here how's it3:22going Richard? Thanks for coming on. Good Yeah, thanks for having me here lane.3:25Yeah, so give us a little background you know how you got started and advising these sensimilla in their family Sure,3:31Dad no at the start it was educated myself. I started writing online when I was learning while meeting with them realize many of them are not meeting with each other too often. That got me on the front page of the Boston Globe many different media mentions which got me speaking invites so I ended up speaking a couple hundred times in 14 countries got a book deal with Wiley bought family offices calm to start sharing that leadership and then the additional books written and all the hundred and 14 conferences with hosted now just kind of built on top of that progress. I mean, less The industry has expanded greatly since I got started 12 years ago. So I got a little fortunate being in the right spot at the right time, you know, thought leadership and just providing value as I'm learning has been the main way that things have grown. Yes, it's just so people4:12kind of left at the bus stop there. What is a family office? What are we talking about? Sure,4:17yeah, it's basically a solution for those who have a lot more money than the average person who are much more wealthy. And the way I like to explain is that if you're only worth $100,000, and you make a mistake, that's equal to 5% of your net worth, that's just $5,000 mistake, maybe you could have hired a consultant to help you avoid that and spend, they could spend a couple hours helping you prevent making that mistake again. But if you're worth 100 million dollars, or even just $10 million, and you make a 5% mistake, it's much more painful. And you could have a part time person, a secretary, an investment analyst, an attorney or project manager that would just help you avoid making those mistakes. And so as families become more wealthy, they're gonna be more likely to make mistakes because they're very busy. everybody's asking for their checkbook, their time, to get On their calendar, etc, they've got many different business entities, different investments going on deals going down all the time, they might be overseeing a 400, person, team, etc. So they're more likely to make mistakes and every mistake could cost them $500,000 here, 200,000 there, etc. So a family office solution gets you family office quality solution providers, it gives you less chaos, less stress, better deal flow, and it allows you to really be more effective at what probably created your wealth in the first place, which is typically not coordinating with your CPA or insurance advisor and filling out paperwork for 50 different LLCs and overseeing all that.5:35So it's a lot more than your basic financial planner gets Commission's off something. It's more of a holistic advisor right away.5:43Yeah, for sure. In fact, many times like one client where onboarding now is worth around 300 million, and we'll probably be doing six to eight months of heavy estate planning, organizational accounting, legal structure work before we even focus on the investments very much will try to slow him down on Making allocations until we develop a direct investment program with him. And I think it's not all about the investing. In fact, the best investment many of the ultra wealthy can make is in getting great tax and estate planning in place, because almost nothing else is going to provide a multiplied return in the same year where you're really just saving so much more than you're spending on that advice being employed. That's usually one of the first items to look at.6:22So based on clients coming to you guys, are you seeing that they are continually growing wealth? Or is their wealth accelerating in that respect? Or is it sort of decaying? And you definitely see it sputtering out with the next generation with where kind of the spreads that you see.6:38Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of statistics about families losing their wealth over two or three generations. But you know, it just depends on what the family's goals are. Some families have goals of giving away a lot of their wealth during their life. other families have a real goal of passing along entrepreneurial traits to the next generation. Others say Well, next generation decides what they want to do with their life. We're going to have enough so they have education and they can buy their first home. Maybe for a medical emergency, there's some access to capital, but they don't want the generation to have control the capital. So it really depends on the family. But if you're an entrepreneur listening to this, and you want to, you know, make sure you're passing on those traits of hard work ethic and being resourceful, etc, then having something like a family bank that has it's an informal bank, but with formal rules about how maybe the next generation only gets money for school, first house medical emergency, or a business idea that gets approved by the older generation and the family and then that way, they could buy the chain of three jompa juices or they could buy the chain of 10 carwashes or start that business. They want to start on Amazon etc. But it has to be approved by the family and then you get the money for the business and profits off the business you're able to keep but you're not just given a check to go buy Ferrari isn't a condo in Monaco or Hawaii.7:49Right. I think it's something that as I build my podcasts over the last few years, I'm kind of more getting into the more the advising side and definitely helping people get from zero To a million dollars network that seems to be my sort of claim to fame and that individual, they start working through their 20s and 30s. They're hustling and they have some kids and they get to about the 50s and 60s, what are some of the planning essentials for someone that have hit that pedestal? $3.5 million shelf as total network? Is it enough to start to bring in a family office? Or what are the best options for that? Somebody?8:22Yeah, it's interesting. It's good question. I mean, you can definitely take some lessons from the family office world, most multi family offices, the ones who take on 1020 or 50, clients, etc, will want you to have at least seven to 8 million net worth before they're going to take you on as a client. But if your net worth is growing by a million dollars a year you can probably convince them to take you on because I know that you're going to be a long term valuable client the serve but some lessons you could take. I think the most important one is to separate your thinking in your wealth management and you're investing into three compartments and it helps you focus your energy where you can maximize your return. So traditional wealth management is all about defense that stocks and bonds and commodities and fund managers and every is to find things that are uncorrelated. And that's what the whole wealth management industry talks about. But that's just one of the three compartments. And so typically, unless you created your wealth and and space, you shouldn't be managing that yourself doing a whole bunch of research and thinking you're going to buy Amazon at the perfect time or buy Tesla the best time or short this or that unless that's your background, you just love that stuff. And that's your whole life, I would just find the best in class provider and a wealth advisor. they'll manage that first compartment, which is your defensive compartment of your wealth. And the goal there is not to grow your wealth is to make it so that it doesn't get lost in great amounts and economy goes down and then it slowly kind of just tracks the market on the way up, hopefully, but no one gives money to a wealth advisor, typically nobody and they're worth 2 million and now because of that Wealth Advisors, great work on diversification. Now they're worth 20 million and none of my clients got wealthy because they had a good wealth advisor. So I think that's important to keep in mind. That's the first compartment is a defensive wealth management and that should be a certain percentage of your portfolio depending on who you are. The second compartment is cash flowing commercial real estate. Which is area you know very well and I always encourage clients to look at things are already cash flowing that are not too much developments unless for some reason they really like that slant or have an angle on that and is in an area they understand. And usually in this area, they're finding an independent sponsor or a fund manager, or they're using a property manager for property they buy directly. So they're kind of at arm's length. And most of them don't like to go into the funds. They don't know what property they're getting like to choose the properties one off and work with independent sponsors and that way, but it's a good medium because they're not saying Okay, Mr. banker manage my defensive portfolio, they're saying, okay, sponsor show me four deals a year and I'm going to say yes to one or two of them, and they're keeping some control of where an investment goes, it could be in one suburb of Indianapolis versus another one or one part of Honolulu versus another part of their more high conviction on that's not overheated or it's going to grow more. So that's the second compartment and usually focusing on two to three types of commercial real estate for it most is a good idea and not going too broad. And then the third compartment is direct investments in Operating businesses, which should probably be in the area where you created your wealth, if it's manufacturing autoparts should probably narrow your focus just investing in that area or in some area that you really for the next 1025 years you want to be investing in to be an expert in like stem cells or cannabis or something where you're just going to go all in on that read everything about it only look at deals there and be a real master of investing in that niche. And those are the three compartments that if you break down your decision making then you can see whereas it makes sense for me to have complete control, partial control and who can I trust to help guide me on each of those three areas?11:33And you know, kind of piggybacking on that last category there something I'm kind of learning after making this whole podcast simple, passive cash flow, I thought the secret to life is just passive cash flow me You can passive cash flow your way from zero to a million, but you're not going to passive cash flow your way from a million to 4 million, there's going to be up to some kind of thing that you enjoy or some special skill that you're gonna have to create a business in some industry that Richards kind of talking about in that third category,11:59right? Yeah, I think it I think otherwise could take a long time. I think that the trick is that all the ultra wealthy clients ICER to get up to really the 30 $50 million level if someone has an ambition to really jump there Well the truth is that I don't know anyone who's done that by placing a lot of passive bets you can get sometimes better returns with hard assets behind it by going into commercial real estate sometimes that is possible for sure. But if you are not focusing your creation of value into the world into something very specific, they can really magnify your returns your equity stake in it, then it can be hard to get to that ultra wealthy level. But you know, some people are very risk adverse some people have needs for high incomes. Obviously, there is no recommendation for all investors out there should take a lot of risk in a very specific area for sure that's not good advice. But if if someone is coming to you lane and saying like how do I grow my wealth more rapidly, I would say to think in those three compartments and think where it makes sense to apply the most of their control and then find the best in class for the other areas. So every hour you're spending on a project, it's an area where you have an advantage over everybody else in the marketplace or you have a unique focus. So you're making progress over competitors or over the market with every day of energy you invest. I think13:11people generally intuitively understand that. But now they're like, well, I gotta get in general partnership. And so these deals, how do I do that? I'm like, dude, you gotta find the deal. You gotta run it, or she could have you had to add some value, right? People just don't get that. I think some of these, right?13:26Yeah, yeah. Now that's true. I've heard that similar conversation. I mean, I think otherwise, you have to be putting up 50% of the deal or you know, some big amount of the LP base, yeah, systematically or something. Just click and delete the contact.13:42Other than the 27 weeks of curated content for the passive investor, the new mastermind will offer bi weekly power calls with the following format. first week of every month, we will dial in on being a direct investor for simple passive cash flow 1.0 I call it which is getting your first rental Nicole shading sourcing operation etc. second week of every month, we will discuss holistic wealth building topics or what I call simple passive cash flow two point O plus, which is holistic Wealth Management syndications private placements, tax legal lifestyle design, etc.14:19Get a sense of this forum by14:20checking out the guide the taxes video at simple passive cash flow calm backslash tax, I'll be honest, some things I can't see the general public because it's too personal. And it's not to say bad things about others. Unless you're in the mastermind. One rule we have is what happens in the mastermind stays in the mastermind. To get in go to simple passive cash flow calm, backslash journey. Don't be left out and join the day. If you've been waiting on the sidelines. This is your moment and not to be taken by an institutionalized education program. about this idea of like integration, right synergies, profession and interest. What are some things that you've kind of tied people together? Like, Hey, have you tried this idea of this type of business?15:03Yeah, yeah, I'm glad you brought that up usually in the podcast with that, because nobody ever asked me about it. And they asked me if I have any last things I want to add. And it's that idea of integrity or integration. And I think it's very important for someone who is investing because if your background is a computer programmer or an engineer, then you could add value potentially in that area and look for companies in that space. So a good example is an investor friend that lives here. I live on the island of Key Biscayne, one of my neighbors made his money in debt investing or reading a debt platform for consumers. And he wanted to start investing in multifamily properties. And I said, Well, one way to look at it is how can you invest in the debt side of the multifamily space, that's where your expertise is, you might come in as a normal LP investor on some deals, but if a sponsor ever wants to structure it as a debt note, or if you can find real estate investment structured as debt notes or come up with a creative structure, it might be a way for you to help people get deals closed and you get an X percent return with the collateral of an apartment building. behind that, that's an example of playing a unique game in the marketplace. I've got another friend who helps sponsors by waiting until they close the deal. Maybe the sponsor put up 10%. And then three to six months after closing, they will go to the sponsor and say, Hey, I know you're looking to do your next deal, I'll buy out 8% of the 10% that you just put down on your last deal. Now you've got eight out of the 10% that you need on your next one, but they get to then see three to six months of operating history, are the rents coming in as planned, the person that sell you the property lie about the condition of the units, you know, did everything settle fine at closing and etc? Or are there problems that are coming up, etc, and allows them to get superior due diligence done because of that unique model they have? And I think it's just important to look at yourself what others are doing and try to create a unique game for yourself as an investor. You know, if you're just using someone else's template that's not unique to your DNA and your background, then I think that you're not going to excel like your background, for example is in engineering, right, link. That's right,16:57but I don't like to do with operations and stuff like that. Right, right17:01but have you might have a unique attention to detail on the due diligence approach and setting up this podcast. I've never seen someone more organized and doing so it's like the links and stuff you had in there and made it very easy to work together on getting this podcast done. And so those unique aspects of who you are could allow you to find the things and due diligence that others Miss might allow you to walk through a property or look at construction or cost of things have a much better estimate and intelligent assessment and the average real estate investor or because of your unique background, maybe you're able to identify a group of engineering company owners or an insider industry group where the cost of join is very high. So the only people who are joining are very successful making 300 500,000 a year or they run a big team of engineering services or an engineering company and because of that, you're just naturally meeting investors left and right who appreciate that special skill set that you bring to your deals.17:55I think I'll add that you're not going to find this at the W two day job. You've got to kind of take that leap of faith, kind of like how I did. And I haven't really found that what I'm personally want to do with my time. But the same here it is a passive cash flow simple part, what you do after is it's really the hard thing.18:10Right? Right. Well, hopefully it's combination of something that uses your DNA background where you can make a lot of money and what you're really passionate about. And hopefully those combinations can be something very unique in the marketplace. So with your geographical focus, you only have one or two competitors, or no competitors. And I think that you can use those screens to narrow it down. I found that you know, you did, a lot of energy goes into creating a podcast like this, but I found that most people won't ever start a podcast, I won't ever write a book, it will never go to public talks. And much of the time is because they're not sure on what they want to stand for what they want to get done. And if you're unsure about something, then it feels risky to invest your energy into it. But if you can make a decision based on those three areas, and you know, it's a unique game that you're playing, then you can invest far more energy into it than others are investing in their projects. And then the marketplace will recognize you because of your certainty. You're able to I run circles around a competition with what you're putting out what you're getting done and just the amount of energy that you're infusing into your projects19:06right so they will switch gears a little bit the person listen to the podcast, they get it, they're they're kind of actively building portfolio that may or may not be taking that next step to building their business but at some point, the guys are listening to this podcast get it and they're going to be a net worth of a million to $5 million in the next decade or two. You know it's scary right? Because you've created all this wealth you can give it to your kid he's just gonna may likely be a trust fund kid you know, I went to private school so I know how it works right? I see all these right the girl up and how kind of new components they become prices. How do you what is the best mindset for that kind of parent who means well and wants to pass off? Well, the right way has some skills and traits.19:48Sure, I mean, as much as you can, I think encouraging them starting their own business when they're in grade school or high school like I had started five businesses before I got out of high school and I had a business in college. I got out of college started in Another business. So I think encouraging that, you know, we have our daughters to lemonade stands, and they're only two, four and six years old, but they do lemonade stands maybe twice a month and they'll think they made $56 last time and our goal this time is to make $100. And you know, that is their allowance and they make them count the money they will cash register. One of them is the salesperson one of them's the money handler one of them's pouring a lemonade and you know, just infusing that into the family DNA. So they're excited about it. And they they get that like, we bought the lemonade for $10. That's how much the supplies cost. And then we brought in $56. So we made $46. So that's the profits from doing that. It's something as simple as that. And my father took me to business meetings growing up when he was running his business. And I think that helped me He also read ink magazine a lot growing up. So I always reading about these great stories of people's high growth companies. And that got my brain early on. And I talked to my girls a lot about what I'm doing in the business and what's going on, even if they don't seem to be listening sometimes. And I think that kind of rubs off on the kids. getting them involved early, putting them in charge of something, maybe buying them a small business or getting them to run something and letting them fail if they need to fail to learn. So do you think that not all kids have that entrepreneurial bug? Or are all people in general, do high net worth families? They sort of trying to infuse that small business mindset. But are they okay with them becoming a dentist or doctor or some more traditional academic, I mean, only a percentage even want their kids to be entrepreneurial? For sure. I found that a percentage are okay with whatever path they want to take. And it don't even have a preference for them to be an entrepreneur, even though they were21:36entrepreneurs themselves.21:38Yeah, many of them are open to them doing whatever path makes them happy. And then no matter what their intention, many of them fail to direct the kids where they want them to. Just like with my girls, I have no idea. God forbid something. They make horrible decisions. I hope not but they could be anything when they grow up. I'm not sure obviously, they're so young, but it's a big challenge for many families just because they have a lot of money and even if they have been highly intentional about where they want to Right there kids, you can't control all the different variables and they've got a mind of their own. So I think that is a big challenge for many families and communicating with the monies for and expectations around who's going to get what money and why very difficult and the tears a lot of families apart. So I think it's something that's good to be talking about as kids grow up and manage those expectations and manage what are the family values? What are the goals, you know, what are the expectations that people don't think they're going to be inheriting $10 million, so they just drink at their frat for seven years at college and don't worry about their own career versus really encouraging them to go out and get their own career I think also as possible having it be so that the kid has money for school food, etc, but not a lot of money to go on crazy trips and have a Mercedes on their 16th birthday and etc. You know, and may if they want money, then they need to go earn the money. It's not free. You have to go create value in the world.22:54I mean, you guys help the family on the money side but raising productive adults that's up to them then yeah, we22:59know couples, therapist types that can work through family issues if there's a big problem going on within the family. And we can help put in into place governance policies and rules and ethical policy for the family office and help them avoid some major pitfalls. But some families don't have it as a high priority, or it's so messed up already, when they come to us that they really need the help of a therapist to address the one son who's a drug addict or something of that nature.23:26All right, so what would you suggest for somebody who has aging parents that has a pretty decent sized estate yet? They just saved their way to getting that? What would be the suggestion there to take over that estate? Right?23:39Well, I think as early as possible, it's good to meet with an estate attorney, a tax attorney and start structuring things. There are things you can do annually that if you just wait until they're on their deathbed, you'll have missed out on a lot of opportunities to structure things right and you will end up giving up more to the IRS and you'll pay more taxes than you needed to if you wait Tell somebody who's terminally ill I mean, if somebody is 60 already or 6570 any wait too long, then by the time decisions start to be made, there can be questions within the family if the person was mentally coherent enough, or whether there should have been a power of attorney enacting chaos, fighting within the family, maybe the uncle or the cousin or another sibling thinks that because maybe you're local, and like, I don't know you well enough later to know if you have a sister or brother or 10 of them. But let's just give an example of if it was your parents, and let's say you had a sibling in San Diego, but your parents were local to you there in Hawaii. And let's say you are local, and then you help your parents work through these decisions. And somehow, even though you think it's totally fair and equal, and that was the whole intent, you think that was the whole settling of the issue. If the sister thinks because you're local, you got a better shake out of it because you got to keep the house or you got to do something extra with the assets and you benefit more than she does. She might be very upset about such a thing. I've seen it happen many times with families At the same time, the brother can feel like hey, I help the parents, instead of going into the senior living. I helped them manage their care for seven years because they didn't want to go into senior living. I helped meet with the attorneys 22 times. I didn't take compensation for any of that. So yeah, I'm living in the house because I was taking care of them in the house, you know, so you can see how easily this stuff can turn into like nobody talking to each other for 20 years. You know, so that's the sad part about it. Yeah, to be really careful about it and kind of predict and just like over communicate when these types of things are going to be inevitably happening. Right. The one of the biggest things I see that screw people up the parents, they're very sentimental about this physical house. It's just always easier if you just would liquidate everything and just do a simple math exercise and divided by the amount of people and right or rent it out and then split it equally by the amount of people. Many times properties haven't been refinanced and ages could be refinanced, a little distribution and then a rental drip but it totally depends on the family obviously, and what their needs are and their ages, etc. Right. It's just the insight I think a lot of people just sort of blindly being blind is the tough part in between this one the 10 $5 million zone, it's not quite enough to get somebody on board and like a family office level. But yeah, it's true. I would, you know, that you bring up a really good point is that until you're at the eight or 10 million level, it's hard to get family office quality solution providers, but because I've seen so many families get such an ROI out of their estate planning tax advice area is one area where you shouldn't look at it as a cost. It really should be seen as an investment in interviewing the five to seven trust in the state planners, tax advisors, maybe someone who can do both things within one team and get to know them over one or two meetings or interviews and get the best one that you can get as the best one is used to dealing with deca millionaires, even if you are at 5 million is going to know the more advanced planning that could be an option where if you go to the guy who seems really nice and is really local to you, but his average client is one minute Net Worth and you're at five, he might miss some major things that could have saved save you a lot on taxes and would have paid the bill five times over. So it's not smart to choose an advisor in that area based on the cost. It's really an investment, right? You wouldn't buy an apartment building because it costs 1 million versus the other one costs 2 million like, oh, let's get the cheaper one. It's better to always go cheap. You know, it's about the ROI.27:23What What is the typical compensation structure for a $10 million family office or 100 million dollar family office?27:30Yeah, so usually, usually it's percentage and usually be anywhere from 30 to 50 basis points on the low end up to 1% of assets under management. But for estate planners are usually charging a hourly fee, but then they'll usually have sort of a base retainer and the hourly fees can be 300 $800 an hour and then associates on their team will be lower. That's definitely not inexpensive. But there's some wealth management firms out there that have performance fee based arrangements so they're not charging you Failure is charging a performance fee on how your portfolio does while working with them. And that's kind of a newer trend. And are these28:05guys do they also pick up some compensation via selling certain securities? Or is that no goal28:12it could be if it's disclosed, it's always about being transparent, disclosing everything disclosing conflicts of interest or even potential conflicts of interest and just kind of over communicating that with clients and but most Wealth Advisors just have their wealth advisory firm although probably about 10% of the marketplace. I have a real expertise in an area like stem cells or self storage or something and then that might be a reason why clients want to work with them. They were really strong on this everything else we do traditional wealth management, everything else we we find the best in class, but here's why we're best in class in self storage, etc.28:47So typical clients, they'll pay by the hour, let's just say then they'll come in how often for28:52tune ups and oil changes. I mean, estate planners in tax attorneys will typically charge by the hour but they might have a base rate teeners, they might charge you 1500 a month or 5000 a month, and then have a per hour charge as well. And that retainer gets you a certain number of hours. For the wealth management firm, or a multi family office type solution, it's going to be more about, hey, we're going to charge say, 70 basis points on your 7 million and assets that we're going to be managing. And then as that grows, you might get a break in fee once you hit 10 million and assets being managed, etc.29:26That's typically much call Richard whenever you want.29:30I mean, I'm glad you said that, because here's what happens a lot of the time is that the dynamic needs that you might have could be related to direct investments you want to do, right? So the calling for extra advice on investment decisions that usually occurs because somebody offered you an investment in a multifamily property or an operating business or some new investment opportunity came up and you brought up a sore point for the whole wealth management industry is they're pretty good at diversifying your assets, fund managers quality stuff. stocks bonds. And there's 40,000 people that can do that probably in Hawaii alone on some base level, but many multifamily offices and wealth management firms fail to advise that all on cash flow in commercial real estate, hard assets, direct investments and operating businesses is a huge blind spot for the industry. To the extent where with our advisory solution is simply the millionaire advisors, we are only helping with the direct investment portion, if somebody wants to full balance sheets solution and the defensive Wealth Management portion. We have a $6 billion family office partner and we can do that together in conjunction with them, but we're just providing the piece that we feel like everyone else is not providing to these families. And that's the type of stuff that requires more intra month of conversations back and forth. So it's not just plug and play like I'll take your 7 million will diversify it across, you know, one of our normal portfolio breakdowns based on your investment policy statement and you know, we're good and we'll adjust to each quarter and tell you how we're doing that's more of a efficient thing that you can scale that people like yourself, people that wants to get the Five 710 million they want to do direct investments I found very commonly, from based on what you see guy listen to the31:05podcasts, they're about $5 million net worth, they're getting up to retirement ages and you know, definitely a lot of this stuff passing down the baton, and then they just don't know where to start. I mean, how many hours do you think someone like an advisor would be able to get them up to speed and something that they would be looking for?31:23Right, right. I think that it can be pretty intensive work. depending on the complexity of the client, they might need to do four to five half day meetings to make sense and come up with a game plan of what needs to be done. And then based on the complexity of that game plan, you'll need to engage one or two other solution providers, you might need a higher quality CPA might need a great estate planner or a tax attorney. And then the carrying out of the actual investment management plan could take four to nine months or even a year to get things allocated in the right areas. When it comes to direct investments. It's not a good thing to get allocated all at once you know, some are it fluctuates, you want to be at different entry points, you want to make sure you're investing in the best deals possible, not just rushing in and allocating all $7 million to what's in front of you right now, you always want to have some liquid for a great opportunity. And the real estate markets been going up so long, a lot of families want to stay, you know, 1020 25%, fully liquid. So when the market goes down, they can be fully allocated and not before that point. Right. So the reason we brought Richard on32:26the podcast is just to tell you guys a little bit about the sort of industry as you're building your network, so you don't get stuck at the all these deals, but I don't know what to do with it after. So do you think we miss Richard though, kind of help the folks as a journey through the one and then the three and then the $5 million net worth levels?32:45Yeah, I think that just bringing it back to plan a unique game, making sure everything is integrated and aligned and what you're spending your time on, who you're working with, where you're based, where your investments are, what industry they're in, and then making sure you're playing the long term game over. lot of families position their portfolio. So inevitably, whether it's 1015 or 20 years, they have a great wealth accumulation. So just setting things up. So you're doing well long term because it's not like the stock market and what's happening with Tesla stock. It's not like you're managing Tesla. And after I do quarterly earnings reporting, most people listening to this have a 1020 year time horizon for retiring for, you know, building up to that $10 million goal, which I know a lot of people at one to five, eventually their goals be worth 10 million. So I think that making sure you're playing a game, that long term is very sound and your high conviction on will make you more energized to take action on it and and really put energy into making that game work.33:41All right. Well, thanks for coming on and talking to us poor people a little bit. We'll get there eventually. Yeah, Google, Richard Wilson found me offices. He's all over there. So that'd be the way to get ahold of him.33:53Great. Yeah, thanks for having hairlines appreciate it. All right. Thanks. Take care.34:01This website offers very general information concerning real estate for investment purposes every investor situation is unique. Always seek the services of licensed third party appraisers and inspectors to verify the valuing condition of any property you intend to purchase. Use the services of professional title and escrow companies and license tax investment and our legal advisor before relying on any information contained herein information is not guaranteed as an every investment there is risk. The content found here is just my opinion and things change and I reserve the right to change my mind. Above all else, do your own analysis and think for yourself because in the end, you're the only person who is going to look out for your best34:37interests. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The effort and hard work of the Gallatin Police Department in protecting our citizens is indeed priceless. In this Miracle CDJR Special Edition podcast episode, host John Haggard talks to Chief Don Bandy, Gallatin and Sumner County’s very own chief of police. Together, they talk about the following topics: Chief Don Bandy’s BackgroundGrowing up in GallatinChief Don’s HobbiesHow Don Became Chief of Police in GallatinIs There a Decrease in New Police Applicants?Tips in Protecting Cars from BurglaryDoes the Police Department Have Body Cams?How to Protect Gallatin BetterCommon Police Force MisconceptionsCombatting Crime and Drug ProblemsImproving Traffic EnforcementsGallatin Police Department Annual Golf TournamentShop with a Cop and Santa Classic ProgramsPolice Department Visits the Veterans HomeHow to Reach the Police Department for Those Who Want to Participate in Their ProgramsThe Biggest Challenge of the Police Department TodayWords of Advice from Chief Don Transcript John Haggard 0:02Welcome to the Miracle Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram Special Edition podcast where we also interview community leaders on topics that are of interest to the Gallatin area. And today we’re honored to have Donald Bandy. He’s the chief of police for Gallatin, and Sumner County on the podcast. Hey, Don, welcome to the podcast. Chief Don Bandy 0:21Well, good to be here. Thanks for inviting me. John Haggard 0:23Well excited to have you here. Before we dive in into what’s going on in the police world in Gallatin these days and for people who are either new to the podcast or new to this area or may not know you, tell us a little bit about you like, for example, did you grow up in Gallatin? Chief Don Bandy 0:39I did grow up in Gallatin, born and raised here. My mom pretty much raised me from a small boy and, like I say she was from this county. But I was born, grew up here, went to school here. Graduated Gallatin High School and go Green Waves! And just like I say I’ve been here the majority of my life. John Haggard 1:06You know that’s a real advantage because, every back alley, every front alley, I mean the entire layout, probably no surprise to you where any hidden corners or anything might be, right? Chief Don Bandy 1:18That’s true, that’s true. Well for the most part with all the new growth in our community it’s starting to expand. I have to get out of the office every once a while and ride some of these new developments. And learn my way around there. But as far as the neighborhoods that have been established for years I grew up here and have a lot of great friends and memories from this town. John Haggard 1:40I bet you do. Let’s go back on some of those memories back to high school what were maybe what was the most fun thing that you did in high school? You know? Chief Don Bandy 1:48I think it would, be thinking on this reflecting, I think it’s probably the relationships are built. Playing, I played football and played some basketball and just establish relationships with some friends for life. Coaches and again your teachers, it was really enjoyable it as you grow older and mature you kind of look back, you think they really didn’t have my best interests at heart as far as our coaches and teachers. And it’s always good to catch up with friends especially with social media these days. We went to school with. But that would probably be my most fond memory is the way athletics and in building those relationships for life. John Haggard 2:27Now you said you played football. What position? Chief Don Bandy 2:31I was an offensive lineman. I wasn’t really big, I was taught to wear a lot of pads. I look bigger. But things are so different these days. They’re these kids these days are very athletic and a lot of large. Athletic kids and they’re a lot faster than I ever was. So that’s kind of funny to see that. But I did, I played that and tried to play a little basketball. But you know how that is, again I couldn’t jump that high. I always laughed at. You could put paper on my feet, but I couldn’t do that. So, I think I have a coach now, Coach Ryan Berg. Love him to death. And he always jokes with my officers that he could lock me in the gym by myself all night and I couldn’t score two points. But, I said, coach, please don’t tell everybody that. But a lot of fun, yes sir. John Haggard 3:16What do you think it is? Why are the kids so much bigger today? Is it the water in Gallatin or what is it? Chief Don Bandy 3:23I think it’s everywhere. I think, for the most part, I hear kids are playing from everywhere. I know, Gallatin is having a great season at football. But, just kids in general. I mean, they’re just, it’s just a different age. I mean, from college to the pros to, obviously high school. And I have seen some kids at the middle school game the other day, and I was like, holy cow, we were never, I wasn’t that big in high school. So it’s just, I don’t know, I really couldn’t answer that. But it’s amazing to see that, yes sir. John Haggard 3:45It is. So from Gallatin, you are. So you still have a lot of family in the area, I would think? Chief Don Bandy 3:56Well, actually I was the only child. So and of course, my mom’s she’s been deceased since 2012. So it’s me and it’s my wife’s family. But again, I have a lot of great friends that I consider family and a lot of folks that mean a lot to me in this community. John Haggard 4:15Did you go to college as well, Don? Or did you elect to go to work early? Chief Don Bandy 4:19I did. I tried the Vol State experience, right off the bat. And, it’s kind of one of those things, you gotta be dedicated to it, and I wasn’t. So I took a couple of semesters, and then I decided not to. And then that I began the whole work thing. Life, that’s what it’s like. I started doing that. And, recently in 2012 I actually finished my degree in criminal justice with Bethel University. So glad I went back finished. I wish I’d done it a long time ago. And I tell especially our younger officers, go ahead and get that while you can while you’re at it. If you’re able to. And of course, college is not for everybody, but I do encourage you to try to do that and get a skill and get into something they will help you in the future John Haggard 5:01Yeah. So what do you like to do on your time off? Chief Don Bandy 5:04I got two boys. And they’re playing basketball and baseball right now. They’re a lot better athletes than I ever was, I tell them. But I like hanging out with them running back and forth. When I can I love love to play golf. I had been playing along and pretty bad at it. But I always say my B or C player is a lot better my A player so. But I do enjoy doing that so. John Haggard 5:26When you shoot golf, what do you, what’s your best score? Chief Don Bandy 5:29I would have probably gotten the 80s maybe a couple of times so I’m still… Well with that, yeah that’s having a lucky day for me so. But I like to say I really enjoy it. When I do get to do it, they say it’s supposed to be a stress release, but sometimes I feel like it’s the opposite. But, I do I keep going back for more… John Haggard 5:52There you go. Do you have other favorite hobbies that you like? Chief Don Bandy 5:55I try to work out. I try almost every day. Sometimes I don’t make it but I do. I go to the local civic center here, the Gallatin Civic Center. And, again, it’s just trying to stay in shape and keep your body healthy I think a lot of times the older I get I know that they say the diet is more important than working out and I do believe in that because it doesn’t seem to be catching up any. John Haggard 6:19Yeah. Chief Don Bandy 6:21I gathered I just said that. But yeah, pretty much that. Golf and I enjoy, loving to do that. And of course, going to my boys’ ball games, that type of stuff. John Haggard 6:30So of course, you grew up in Gallatin, as you said. So how did you get to be chief of police for Gallatin in Sumner County? Chief Don Bandy 6:38I started law enforcement in 1992. I had a friend that was a US Marshal and he kept encouraging me to get in law enforcement. And I had no desire to but I thought I’d give it a try. So I got my start there and worked within the county and met some good friends and changed jobs kept talking back and forth and then I just got, here Gallatin. And I don’t know, I just, all those things where you just say I’m just gonna stay put and work hard. And the next thing you know, I got to Sergeant and then I get to Lieutenant. And then I was blessed and I got called upon and I put my name for Chief and I truly believe that the community was behind me 100% on that to get the job. And I’ve been Chief since May of 2011. So I’m very blessed. John Haggard 7:25You’re close to 10 years. Chief Don Bandy 7:27Yeah, yeah, it’s kind of… they say the life expectancy of Chiefs around three, four years and that… John Haggard 7:34Really? Chief Don Bandy 7:35Yeah, that’s what they say. John Haggard 7:37Why is that? Chief Don Bandy 7:38I think it’s probably a lot of things people want to… they may move on to different jobs or different careers to move up the ladder if you will. Some people may go. We had a chief from Kentucky, we had one that was here from Mississippi and you always go back home, so to speak. So, but my case, I’m not resume-building, do you know what I’m saying? I’m just here because I grew up in this community, I love it, and I want to do my best to serve it. And hopefully, I’ll be here for several years to come. So… John Haggard 8:11Yeah. Now before you became involved in police work, did you have another profession? Something else you were involved in? Chief Don Bandy 8:17I worked for a company called Rebound. It was a brain injury rehab facility. And it was one of those things where, I kind of tried the college thing and I was like, “Oh, good, gracious, I don’t want to do this.” And, at the time it spreads my got me in over there. And it was really, I think it really helps me now because you got to have a lot of patience. Because you do have some folks that have experienced the brain injury and their decision making is an obstacle for them. So it helped me to, again, have patience and learn from that. I think it helped me in law enforcement and I really do truly believe that. As I look back on that time working there. I think they met a lot of good folks there and I truly believe that helped me do this job. John Haggard 8:59How big is The Gallatin Police Department? Chief Don Bandy 9:01We have 87 sworn positions, and we are four short right now. So we just tested which will be probably filling some of those… we’re in that process. And we have, I think, another 10 as far as civilians because, I mean, there’s so much in what they do… they’re more support staff. Really we can’t do our job without them these days, they prepare records and document them and getting everything the way it should be, because everything has got to be to a tee as far as that stuff goes. We have to have that stuff. And they do that stuff on a regular basis. I mean, they’re always keeping the wheels rolling, I say because, we have officers out on the street, but there’s so much that goes on behind the scenes that they do a great job, too. So… John Haggard 9:22Do you find an interest in the career of law enforcement for a police officer? Do you find more candidates than you used to? Fewer candidates or about the same or is there any trend there? Chief Don Bandy 10:00It’s dropped off. And I think it has across the board with other agencies I’ve talked to. Other chiefs and sheriffs, and… used to you’d have 60 applicants or 80, or whatever. And now, you may have 20 or 30. And I don’t know, I hope that, to me, it’s a profession that’s a calling. A lot of people, we run towards chaos and bullets and other people run away from it. And again, I always say about our officers and our staff and myself included, we’re not perfect. But we’re doing our best to try to do the right thing and give you the best service possible. John Haggard 10:37Well, let’s talk about protection. People would like to know, are there any really good tips, or maybe the best tips. Let’s say, if someone wants to protect their car from burglary, or having a car stolen, are there are some basic tips, you would say, “Hey, based on the area where we are, here’s, here’s what you ought to do to help prevent that.” Chief Don Bandy 10:56Well, and again, that’s a great question because a lot of our crimes are burglaries of vehicles. And what we’ve experienced is especially in neighborhoods, people say well I’m leaving my doors unlocked. But a lot of folks that when they do go to do this, they will not take the time to try to break out the window. They will just check your door handle and going to the next driveway. And so I always encourage them now to… There’s always that chance they bust one out still. Especially if you leave something of value like a computer a purse, weapons. Please don’t leave anything in a car like that. Just be mindful and try to get them out of there and if you’re somewhere that you do have that stuff in there please put them in the trunk and make it as difficult as possible. Because when I see it in plain view that maybe, in a parking lot at Walmart or whatever that may be their great opportunity to bust out that window and grab your computer or your purse, what have you. But at your home when we have those burglaries that we have subdivisions that will go through at night in the past and others hit driveway to driveway. So we encourage you to lock that door because they will not take the time. They don’t want to make the noise to get them go on to the next one. And that’s the usual case. Now say that and they somehow call me and say, “Hey, by the way, I tried that it didn’t work.” But, for the most part, we do encourage you to just keep it out of sight, especially when you’re out and about. And with the holidays coming out, goodness gracious, we always have a lot of problems with that. Just be aware of your surroundings. When you were in a parking lot, or wherever you are, try to get to where the light, where it’s well lit, and just be aware of it. Keep your head up, don’t be reading your phone, walk into the car that, just the simple things like that. John Haggard 12:30Chief, a lot of people hear a lot today on the news about home invasions. Any tips or, this is kind of a big fear where you wake up and all of a sudden hear somebody in your bedroom or whatever. Chief Don Bandy 12:43Sure. One of the main things is home security. I have one myself and I encourage that and then advertise it. And there are all types of cameras you can have you have them, in your doorbell or what have you. Now I encourage you there, they’re fairly as many as out there now, yet they’re fairly cheap. And I encourage you to go out and spend the money, it would be worth it to have a little bit more security to have a little peace of mind, if you will, that hopefully the bad guy that they noticed that they’ll go on to the next one. So we do encourage that. And, the simple things… just be aware, when you come out. If you got shrubs up around your house, keep them trimmed down where you can see the simple things like that. If something doesn’t look quite right, somebody’s in your neighborhood or cars there that you don’t think, is usually there and it doesn’t look right, we would rather you call us and us to find out the hard way that they didn’t belong. So if we offend you, going to check it out. We apologize, but we just want to make the street safe. And most people that they’re in their neighborhood they know what’s right or wrong or what doesn’t look right. And you got to trust your gut feeling and your instincts and a lot of times they’re right when you give us a call we go check something out. It wasn’t up to snuff, so. John Haggard 14:03Yeah. And speaking of cameras, does the police department use body cams? Chief Don Bandy 14:08Yes, sir. We do. It’s a, I think we started in, I want to say 2014, 2015, somewhere around there. And we, we’ve always had in-car cameras since back when we had VHS tapes in the 90s. John Haggard 14:21Right. Right. Yeah. Chief Don Bandy 14:22So we’ve had those for a long time. And I just felt it was a great opportunity for us to do that. So actually, we went out and actually use drug fund money where we had gotten fines and fees and seizures off of narcotics-related offenses. Yeah. And we use that money instead of using other taxpayer money. We use that money to equip all of our officers with that. Of course, technology’s ever-changing. So we’re trying to stay up to date on that. And they are quite expensive, but to me, it’s worth it. It protects the citizen, it protects our officers, and again, it helps us. I mean even like you say when we do make a mistake. It helps us to look at that and try to get better. And then again, sometimes when, unfortunately, there are false claims against us, it sometimes in a lot of times, it shows it’s not true. And, sometimes we give the citizen the opportunity to sit down and look at it with us. And they realize that, hey, I wasn’t quite right in my recollection. And that’s embarrassing by you calling anybody out, but I think it’s just a great protection for all of us. Especially in this day and age and the citizens, they deserve the best, and that’s what I mean. To me having those is, to me a no-brainer that I think we owe that to the citizens to do our best and to make sure we’re doing it the right way. John Haggard 15:43Yes. And, you know, cameras are just everywhere today. I mean, on your cellphone, you know just everywhere. And I would sure think when people know something or somebody or a camera is photographing you it’s got to be a deterrent. Chief Don Bandy 15:56Yes, sir. Yes, sir. You would think so. And there’s another thing that we’re working on because we have red-light cameras, which are not really popular for a lot of citizens. But we have a thing that we’re implementing, and we’ve used it in the past, but we’re trying to again, funding is always a problem with these types of things. Technology is expensive, but they’re called license radars, we call it up ours and. Israel PD. is doing it, this county is doing it, and we were doing it one time. And again, we kind of get caught up in the expense of it. But we’re trying to implement those we get some we just implemented and what they do is they read a tag. Say a tag is stolen or a person is wanted that goes back to that tag. And if that’s entered into a database, it will alert our officers via computer and our dispatch via computer which will say hey, the black truck is out all for 109 South. It has tag ABC 123. And we start looking for it. And it won’t tell us exactly where it is, but it would give if they say that tag was stolen or that truck was stolen. Over the weekend, we found a stolen vehicle like that. Yeah so it… And again that’s not Big Brother watching because if your tag doesn’t show in the database as stolen, wanted or what have you, it won’t even notify us that you pass by. But if one passes by that were stolen, little bells go off and it lets us know that, hey it just passed over such a such Boulevard and we need to be on the lookout. So our guys get to obviously saturate that area. It works pretty well for us. I know, I hear Hendersonville has had a lot of success because they have a lot more than us. But it’s just another way you try to fight crime and every time you come up with something, the bad guys come up with something better it seems like. You’re staying behind the wheel you’re doing your best to stay firm but sometimes staying behind. John Haggard 17:41Yeah. So is there anything just overall that you would say that people don’t seem to understand or maybe they misunderstand about the police force in general? Chief Don Bandy 17:52Well, I would say that, you hear all the time that they gotta get the quota or the right number of tickets today and that is so far from the truth. It’s, and we preach this philosophy that any county enforcement action, whether it’s an arrest or ticket or whatever we do, it’s to deter behavior. It’s not to hurt somebody’s wallet. And I know people are hardworking and trying to make money. But, if you see us work in the areas where is, okay, we’re stopping a lot of cars, it’s probably because somebody complained. Because as the city is growing, it’s hard to keep up, you try to stay proactive, but we’re almost reactive in our efforts sometimes with traffic enforcement. And again, citizens let you know, when somebody’s speeding, they’ll let us know, let the mayor know, they let the council know. So, they pass it down the line and we do our best to work on it. So we’re not there. Just because we don’t have anything to do I promise you we have more than we say grace over but we, we’re there because, there’s been a high number of crashes recently there or somebody just said, “Hey, there there are a lot of speeders on the road. Could you please come check it out?” And that’s what we try to go out and address those especially John Haggard 19:01Yeah, and as you look out, we talked a little bit about initiatives and things that are going on that you have. If you look in the next say, three to five years, Chief, and are there just a lot, with technology? And what do we have to look forward to, I guess, in terms of fighting crime, or just kind of what’s going on? Chief Don Bandy 19:17It’s the whole thing of technology, cameras, I know we’ve really worked hard putting cameras up on our greenways and our parks and now we’re trying to do license plate readers. So, as you say, everywhere you look there’s that type of technology that’s coming up and we’re trying to keep up with that we think it’s going to be beneficial in deterring crime. And, like you say if you see that camera, you may not commit that crime. And we will let you know. The cameras there so maybe you’ll understand how you got to go somewhere else. So I think that’s going to be huge in the years to come and of course, there’s always technology of IT. And, in general, it’s just changing every day. And, we’re trying our best to keep our staff working on… that’s a totally different ball game when it comes to how to address a certain crime. Compared to the old school days of just breaking into car and stealing something, so yeah, you got to just keep rolling. And of course, I mean, we have a big problem with the opiates, heroin and getting all being put into everything and it’s, that that’s what’s scary. We’re having overdoses. I don’t know the numbers off-hand. But it’s, it’s tremendously increased over the last couple years that, and again here and not just here – everywhere. And we’re always trying to meet as law enforcement officials and trying to find out, plans of action what we can do to try to knock that down and deter it and it’s just a scary time as far as that type of stuff is out there. John Haggard 20:44So I would think that you would also have speaking of drugs and trying to suppress and get those off the street, a drug interdiction unit there or undercover people who are in that line of work? Chief Don Bandy 20:56Well, we do have, we call it a flex unit and they work Lot of narcotics situations and investigations if you will. We have two K-9s that are trained to detect drugs and also track and apprehend criminals. So we are trying and we also work and we try to work closely with our judicial district, Drug Task Force and the other agencies that are also trying to combat these types of problems. So, yeah, we’re constantly working on those things and trying to ID where the problem might be, or any kind of Intel we can gather and where we can put our resources. So it’s a constant, and right now, it’s an uphill battle, but it’s something we gotta fight that fight. So, and keep going forward. John Haggard 21:39Back to traffic enforcement for just a moment. Some people will say, you know, the speedometer on my car is three or five miles or four miles different from the officer who said, “Hey, you know, you were going 70 in a 65.” Is that possible or does is the radar, hey, it doesn’t matter? Chief Don Bandy 21:59It can, it can be in and we try to encourage our officers and tell them to give it a little bit of leeway there as far as that go. Now, I’ll say that we don’t write tickets three to five miles over. And I say that, somebody will bring one to me, but we encourage them not to just because of that, but there’s so many things. We calibrate those radars, and we have to do it by law to make sure every one of ours are calibrated. And so there’s tires and transmission roads or what not. Whatever that could make it vary. And, we we’re talking about earlier that there are all types of apps out there… I know there’s a life 360 that tells you how fast you’re going and others. Google Maps that will tell you exactly what you’re going in your car now or the exact… I don’t know, you couldn’t testify that in court. But it will maybe give you a better idea, especially if somebody has experienced getting a citation and you felt you’re only going so many miles an hour and we said five or six over so or whatever, if there was that big a difference, you could try that to see where you’re at to see maybe if there’s something going on with your vehicle, we would encourage that. John Haggard 23:12Gotcha. Is there anything that you do as a police department annually that’s involved in the community? Chief Don Bandy 23:18Absolutely. We’ve got a, of course, it’s coming up. We’ve got a golf tournament that we set up every year. It’s a Shop with a Cop. It’s for Shop with a Cop where it benefits kids. And we call it the Santa Classic and this year we’re having it at the Fairvue Country Club at the Fairvue Plantation. It’s going to be November the 11th. So if you guys know of anybody that that wants to play and wants to get the money goes, all the money goes strictly to our Shop with a Cop program, which the first week in December, the first weekend in December, we take around anywhere from 100, 120, 130 kids shopping at Walmart. We spend quite a bit on them. So all that money goes to them. And of course obviously there if there’s anybody in need during the year we try to recognize that we also take some of that money and we help out some veterans out here at the Veterans Home every year and give them a little Christmas because a lot of those guys don’t have and gals don’t have family. So that’s a good cause. If you don’t play golf, we’ll take any kind of donation but we’d love for you to come out, play golf with us. Then if you want to register you can contact our department and contact Craig Gregory here at the Gallatin police department. And if not, you come out on the day we do Shop with a Cop and you’ll get a blessing I promise we will pair you up with officer or a fireman or whoever and a child and you’ll have a big-time I promise John Haggard 24:48Sounds like a great event, it really does. Chief Don Bandy 24:50Yes sir. Also, we do, before I forget, we also take those funds and we do a backpack giveaway right before school. We give out about 200. We’ve been partnering with the West Eastland Church of Christ here in town over on West Eastland. And we’ve been doing that last two or three years and we just put some school supplies in there and we meet great kids and we let them know we’re there for them, we’re their friend. And give them something to start school with and hopefully, they’ll have a good school year. So we do that. And those are the types of things. We also do a citizens police academy yearly which is we’re in the process of right now. But it’s a chance for our citizens that are interested that, I always say, I appreciate those folks that want to know what we do for real because, you watch TV, and I promise you it’s not really like that. Yeah. Oh, it’s a different animal. Yeah, even with the commercials. It’s not like that. We can’t solve a case that fast usually, but sometimes we do. But it’s a chance for them to come in and see what we really do and see how it works. And again, we build some friends, build up some relationships that I think are very important for what we’re doing here at this department. John Haggard 25:58So what would you say, just as a general sum, the biggest challenge that you face today in that policing environment? Chief Don Bandy 26:08I hate to go back to the narcotic problems but it’s gotten to where it’s you just don’t know. People are using those substances and you’re trying to educate folks and your kids are coming up and you just worried. I mean, back in the day there was marijuana and some things like that. But these things are so dangerous and us trying to stay on top of, that means they’re just, cooking they’re just mixing some stuff in, like what you see on the Internet, that you put fentanyl and marijuana… fentanyl and whatever. And that’s what I mean, obviously, that we say there’s no boundary. I mean, you may have somebody who lives in a million-dollar home where you may have somebody living in a car, that overdoses. And there’s no rhyme or reason and that’s what it’s very discouraging and disheartening. But again we got to do our best to try to find the sources and take take them to task, if you will. So that would probably be one of the main things, is just trying to knock this problem down. To me it’s very serious and very dangerous. John Haggard 27:13Right, right. Would you say over your entire career, Chief, if you were just thinking about that, is there any one main important thing that you’ve, you know, you’ve learned personally, either about life or just it’s something that you would pass on to someone? Chief Don Bandy 27:30Well, it’s, as far as being a police officer that, we’re human, we’re people. We have bad days just like everybody else. And again, I know we’re held to a higher standard than we are to, to not that we’re better than anybody but we just try to tell our officers… Hey, you always say… well, how would you want to be treated but think how would you want your family treated your brother, your sister, your mother, your father.. How would you want to be treated and hopefully, our officers will keep that to mind and go out and do their very best job. And, take into consideration that when you call the Police Department, you’re probably not having a good day? You’re not calling to go, “Hey, How y’all doing?” I mean you’re calling because you had a crash or you had something stolen or… you’re in contact with us because of unfortunately maybe getting arrested. So I always tell officers to treat those folks with the utmost respect and kindness, because they’re people, they’re humans, and they didn’t like, say, they probably didn’t bargain for that on this particular day, but just treat them the best you can. John Haggard 28:34I was just thinking as we were talking, let’s say that you had a billboard somewhere in the city or on a county road or wherever it might be. If you could have that billboard with anything on it some saying or something there, what would it be? Chief Don Bandy 28:50It would probably be what I kind of want to just discuss. Like I say, I’m a Christian. I might say, God says look, you love Him then love each other next. And that’s kind of what it’s all about there. It’s how you treat folks and just think about it before you lash out or you might be having a bad day or say some things you regret. But just think how would I want my mom and dad treated and that’s where my family or my brother my sister. And just don’t be selfish and stay humble and go forward that’s a lot to put on a billboard, ain’t it? John Haggard 29:24It is, yes! Chief Don Bandy 29:26But it is we need to make some good rules life and we just preach to the choir when I say that time to myself looking in the mirror. So this is a great call and great profession. And we’re blessed to be in this community and serving it, so… John Haggard 29:40So let me ask you this one final question. What would be the one thing about you, Chief, that most people would not know and that someone would be really surprised to know about you? Chief Don Bandy 29:53Oh, goodness. I’m really afraid of heights. I don’t know if that would be a surprise, but I did have to admit that I tried out for a fire department one time and I got halfway up the ladder and I thought, “Man, I’ve got this leg I’m going to make it this please let me get that.” I looked up and I’m only halfway there and I had to go all, I couldn’t just stop. So I went all the way up the ladder and I said, “Lord if you just let me down, I don’t want to do this.” I did not want anybody to come up beside me. And I thought how I ever looked myself at my face in the mirror, so yeah, definitely scared of heights don’t like them at all so. John Haggard 30:29Anything I didn’t ask you that you would want people to know. Chief Don Bandy 30:32Think you covered it really well. Just, as you say, be patient with us. We’re doing best and if you have any questions or problems always say, “Hey, don’t argue by the side road. Please call my office. I’ll be glad to sit down. We will watch a video or whatever we need to do to try to work out the problem.” John Haggard 30:50Great. Yeah. So what is the best way if somebody wants to get in touch with you personally? Chief Don Bandy 30:55Yes, you could call for 452-1313 and the extension is 3219. Or you can always just send me an email dbandy@gallatinpd.org and I mean, I have this fancy iPhone with me all the time so I have it on there. I never turn it off. So, if I respond to you at 9 o’clock at night, don’t be surprised. John Haggard 31:18All right, that’s Donald Bandy folks, the chief of police for Gallatin and summer county on the podcast. He’s our special edition guest today on the miracle Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram podcast. So join us again, right here for another special edition of the podcast. In addition to our regular topics that we do discuss each month, on the best ways to purchase and lease service and maintain, accessorize and sell your vehicle for the highest resale value possible. When you’re ready. Don’t forget the transcript of each podcast. It’s right here so you can go back anywhere and look up what it was that you missed, so you don’t have to listen to the entire podcast over again. I’m your host, john haggard, and we will see you next time. Bye

What are you doing with your sword?   While I understand that Beauty is in the eye of the beholder; it is more than exquisite beauty, extravagant design or even the intricate craftsmanship that made the Napoleon Bonaparte sword the 2nd most expensive sword in the world. The supporting story that the golden studded handle was held in the hand of the French emperor and used on the battlefield was a major factor that brought the $6.5 million selling price.   The Bible gives us a list of notable swords, the primary tool of defense; swords that brought freedom and deliverance; swords held in the hands of triumphant warriors-  the sword of: Gideon Goliath Saul Jehu    No Swords? As valuable as the sword was, we see a time in Israel's history where the people didn't have swords or spears.   1 Samuel 13:16-19 NIV 16Saul and his son Jonathan and the men with them were staying in Gibeah in Benjamin, while the Philistines camped at Mikmash. 17Raiding parties went out from the Philistine camp in three detachments. One turned toward Ophrah in the vicinity of Shual, 18another toward Beth Horon, and the third toward the borderland overlooking the Valley of Zeboyim facing the wilderness.   19Not a blacksmith could be found in the whole land of Israel, because the Philistines had said, “Otherwise the Hebrews will make swords or spears!” 20So all Israel went down to the Philistines to have their plow points, mattocks, axes and sickles f sharpened. 21The price was two-thirds of a shekel for sharpening plow points and mattocks, and a third of a shekel for sharpening forks and axes and for repointing goads.   22So on the day of the battle not a soldier with Saul and Jonathan had a sword or spear in his hand; only Saul and his son Jonathan had them.   How do you win wars with an army that has no weapons? Well God did it by raising up a man, one man, with one of only two swords in the whole land. A man of courage, and faith...a man that would seek God's will, a man named Jonathan-King Saul's son. You should read this amazing story of Jonathan in 1 Samuel 14.   Stop believing the lie that because you are just one person that there's nothing you can do. Too often we do nothing because we feel that our little doesn't make a difference anyway. That is simply not true.   Sword of Goliath Probably the most famous of the above mentioned swords is Goliath's sword.   It is fascinating that this sword is famous for what Goliath didn't do, instead of what he did do with it.   4Then Goliath, a Philistine champion from Gath, came out of the Philistine ranks to face the forces of Israel. He was over nine feet tall! 5He wore a bronze helmet, and his bronze coat of mail weighed 125 pounds. 6He also wore bronze leg armor, and he carried a bronze javelin on his shoulder. 7The shaft of his spear was as heavy and thick as a weaver’s beam, tipped with an iron spearhead that weighed 15 pounds. His armor bearer walked ahead of him carrying a shield.   David answered Goliath's accusation 1 Samuel 17: 45 David replied to the Philistine, “You come to me with sword, spear, and javelin, but I come to you in the name of the LORD of Heaven’s Armies—the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. 46Today the LORD will conquer you, and I will kill you and cut off your head. And then I will give the dead bodies of your men to the birds and wild animals, and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel! 47And everyone assembled here will know that the LORD rescues his people, but not with sword and spear. This is the LORD’s battle, and he will give you to us!”   Continuing in 1 Samuel 17 50 So David triumphed over the Philistine with only a sling and a stone, for he had no sword. 51Then David ran over and pulled Goliath’s sword from its sheath. David used it to kill him and cut off his head.   Did you see that?  Goliath wasn't even holding his sword; it was still in its sheath. David pulled it out and cut off the giant's head. Saul's scared, chicken hearted army were rallied when they saw the head of their defeated enemy in David's hand.   Fuel your courage with someone else's victory. What if that army had whined, "Why doesn't anything like that happen to me?" No! Instead, they understood they were part of one army! David's victory was their victory. It catapulted the whole army from chicken hearted, knee knocking fear that caused them to cower and hide into a courageous pursuit of their enemy.     Saul appointed David as commander over his army. David was a very successful leader and loved by the people. I believe it was in this role that David learned to use a sword quite skillfully.    A parade! After a successful battle David and his army were welcomed home with something like a ticker tape parade where the women sung a triumphant song as the soldier paraded past. "Saul had slain his thousands. David has slain his ten thousands." Their sweet tribute was bitter in Saul's ears. King Saul's jealousy festered into a ravenous plot to murder David.   Saul was jealous. After yet another jealous rage where King Saul threw his spear at David, David escaped. He ran to the High Priest Ahimelech. And this is why I believe David was skillful with a sword, He asked Ahimelech for a sword or a spear.   1 Samuel 21:9 “I only have the sword of Goliath the Philistine, whom you killed in the valley of Elah,” the priest replied. “It is wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod. Take that if you want it, for there is nothing else here.”   Wrapped in a cloth in a safe place...that's what you do with something valuable; you tuck it in a safe place so nothing happens to it.   But look at what David says.  “There is nothing like it!” David replied. “Give it to me!”   Ahimelech retrieves the sword from it's hiding place and hands it, still wrapped, to David. David unwraps the sword crafted for a giant as he remembers the moment he held this very same sword in his hand for the very first time. He remembers the exhilaration that flooded him; the fight-God's fight. The victory-God's victory. The defeat- the enemy's defeat. He had never gone back home; his life would never be the same; but He served a God that would never change--   Would He...Could He?  Could God be faithful  again...now in this situation- in this difficult situation as he ran to save his life. His actions seem to prove that He believed God would be faithful even in the darkest situation; because he ran to the high priest.   I saved the best sword for last. The sword of Bonaparte may be the 2nd most expensive sword, but I want to be sure you know the most valuable sword is the "Sword of the Spirit." Paul reminds us that God has not left believers defenseless.   We've been given both defensive and offensive weaponry so we can stand against the devil's strategy.   Ephesians 6:17 NIV Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.   The sword of the Spirit.  It is the Sword of Spirit that fought through Jonathan. It was the Sword of the Spirit that defeated Goliath. And it is the Sword of the Spirit that God has provided for you to win the battle that you are facing right now.   You know that?  Of course you do!  There are dozens, maybe even hundreds of books, maybe thousands of sermons that have been preached on the subject...yet the landscape is strewn with defeated believers!   Is it God's plan for believer's to be defeated by addictive habits and enslaved by sin? Have God's weapons failed us?   You know the answer to that question; you know with your heart that God has a different plan than that for His church!   God's Words says in 2 Corinthians 10:4 "King James Bible (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;)   If our weapons are so strong, then why are we so weak?   I see 3 reasons in the stories I've listed above.   1. No blacksmith. 2. Fear stopped them. 3. A stored sword.   1. No blacksmith. A blacksmith forges a blade.  When you read the Scriptures causally, without the inspiration of the Holy Spirit you'll never forge it into promises that you can grip with your heart and speak with your mouth. When you look at 2 Corinthians 10:4 the word used "word" is rhema. It means the spoken word of God.   Become a student of God's Word. Take Scripture personally. Let it become a whisper, a promise, a strategy for your life. But, not a student that collects, like world famous sword collectors, instead use it skillfully by declaring and speaking God's Word into your situation.   2. Saul's army was afraid. So they cowered, shook, dreaded, stared, grumbled, but never raised their weapon against the enemy until David came on the scene.   Again and again we see God works through partnerships! God wants you to step out and use your sword. Whatever lie has you cowering in a foxhole, get up, use your sword and declare God's Word.   3. A stored sword. No one can win your battle for you! You may have the greatest sword, a Goliath sword...none like it...tucked into a safe place...even in a holy place, completely useless. When David came on the scene and defeated the giant, the army rallied from their fear and used their swords.    I want to remind you that a Savior from the lineage of David has come on the scene- Jesus. He defeated the enemy...death, hell and the grave on the cross. And, because He defeated the enemy, you can too! But you can't do it hiding. You have to use your sword...speak God's Word...specifically designed by God into your situation. Pray it. Declare it. Sing it. There is power in God's Word. Inside your Bible it is living seed, but dormant. When you take that seed and believe it and declare it, persistently and diligently, listening for God's strategy. God brings the victory.   So you know exactly what I've been patiently waiting to ask you...   What are you doing with your sword?  

In this episode of Beneath the Subsurface we introduce our Geoscience and Data & Analytics intern teams for our summer internship program. Erica kicks off the episode with Jason and Sri talking about how the programs have come about and changed overtime here at TGS, how they select and recruit for the program, and the scope of the projects that the internships tackle this summer. Erica then spends time with both teams of interns discussing the experience in the program, what they’ve learned, and everything they’ll be taking away and applying back to their studies and upcoming careers. TABLE OF CONTENTS00:00 - Intro00:50 - Team Leader Segment with Jason and Sri01:09 - The Geoscience Internship Program04:42 - The Data & Analytics Internship Program07:29 - Advice for Program Applicants11:54 - Data & Analytics Intern Team Introductions13:32 - The D&A Summer Projects15:18 - Lessons Learned Pt. 117:20 - The TGS Internship Experience Pt. 120:24 - Future Careers21:41 - Advice for Future Interns & Reasons to Apply Pt. 124:34 - Valuable Take Aways Pt. 126:01 - Geoscience Intern Team Introductions28:36 - The Geoscience Summer Projects31:33 - Lessons Learned Pt. 233:14 - The TGS Internship Experience Pt. 234:12 - Advice for Future Interns & Reasons to Apply Pt. 239:28 - Valuable Take Aways Pt. 2EXPLORE MORE FROM THE EPISODEARLASSALT NET TGS DATA LIBRARYEPISODE TRANSCRIPTErica Conedera:00:12Hello and welcome to Beneath the Subsurface a podcast that explores the intersection of geoscience and technology. From the Software Development Department here at TGS, I'm your host, Erica Conedera. This time around, we'll be chatting with our newest batch of intrepid students in TGS' dynamic and immersive internship program. As you will hear, they are a diverse group of future innovators from around the world. They bring with them a wide range of skills and interests and work together to collaborate on exciting real world projects. We'll start our conversation today with a quick introduction from the leaders of our internship program. I'm here with Sri Kainkarayam, the data science lead and Jason Kegel with the geoscience team who heads up the geoscience intern program. And we're going to talk a little bit about the internship programs. Jason, how has this program changed in the last five years?Jason Kegel:01:09When we first started the program, I want to say 2013, 2014, it was out of the Calgary office in Canada. The interns there were mainly from some of our Calgary schools nearby. And then it started to grow 2014, 2015 to include some of our Texas schools, UT, Baylor, University of Houston. As it's grown, we've decided to add more projects and more sort of interesting work to the projects. We've also been able to bring on some of our original interns into roles within the company. So over the last five years, I'd say the biggest thing that's grown is the, the number of interns. So in Calgary, when this first started we had one intern and then that same intern came back a second year and we brought another one on. And then we got one in Houston. And then as that grew, we had a couple in Houston and a couple in Calgary.Jason: 02:09And then the past couple of years we've had four each year. So we had four last year and four this year. So we've really been able to sort of guide new projects around that to where we can really include their schoolwork and what they're doing in their university work with what we're doing here at TGS and hopefully build a sort of cohesive project for them to work on. And that's sort of the struggle with a lot of internship projects that we've done over the past years is to incorporate what they want to do as students and as interns and as their career grows, with what we'd like to see them do and encourage them to do within TGS.Erica:02:49Does that go into the consideration of which interns you end up picking, what their specialties are or what they're looking to do with what you need?Jason:02:58No, not necessarily, a lot of the times the interns, so for example, last year we were working very closely with a couple of schools that we wanted to bring data into. So some of our production data our Longbow group into with the University of Lafayette. So we were working really closely with a few professors out of that school and a few professors with UH. So we had recommendations from the professors themselves with students that they thought might work nicely with us with - in terms of their knowledge of data already and their knowledge of well log use and seismic, so they can kind of jump in running without having to learn too much in the beginning, without too much of a learning curve. So in aspects of that, and that's, that's more that we look for. So the, the professors we're working with, along with how long it will take them to, to get up and running with things.Jason:03:51Our current group of students is sort of a more advanced set of students who are working on their PhDs or in their later years of their master's degrees. So they've already seen a lot of these areas and worked with a lot of the data. So we do look for sort of more advanced students now, whereas when we first started the program, we were, we were happy to get anybody, some people that were not sure if they were going to be geoscientists, but you know, we're in the geoscience program with their bachelor's and that was okay too. I think we still got a lot out of having them here, working with us. but as we've grown, we've been putting them on more and more advanced projects and they've really been able to help out.Erica:04:29Cool, sounds like they've added a lot of value.Jason:04:30They definitely do. And it's nice to have sort of fresh faces around in the summertime and, and it really, really fills in for everybody that goes on vacation in the summer.Erica:04:39(Laughter) Right? Awesome.Jason:04:39The office doesn't seem so empty.Erica:04:42Awesome. So for the data analytics team, the internship program is new. I think this is your first batch of interns, correct Sri?Sri Kainkaryam:04:57Yes. So the data science team started sometime around November, 2017 so this is, although this has been our second summer, this is our first batch of interns that are projects, both, trying to test out novel algorithms, novel approaches, also try and apply ideas from high performance computing to building workflows, and also try and build sort of, user interfaces or ability to, deploy these for various users. So, there are broadly three buckets in which these projects fall into. And, it's an, it's, it was an interesting time looking for an intern because data science as, as a domain is, sits at the intersection of sort of three, broadly non intersecting sets, right? So geoscience, computing as well as machine learning or deep learning and folks having adequate background in all three of them, they sort of fit the -the mold of a good intern.Sri:06:02So it was in some sense was a little hard initially to try and find an intern. So I think we have a talented group of interns working on two of the broad offerings that we have right now. One of them is Salt Net, that is trying to interpret salt bodies from seismic images, and one is called ARLAS that is curve completion and aspects of petrophysics that can be done on, on wells that are available in an entire basin. So, it's, it's been four weeks into the internship program and the interns, the interns are pretty smart. They're motivated and it's been a fun experience so far.Erica:06:43Is it a 12 week program in total?Sri:06:46It's around a 12 week program. Some of them I think are here for a little longer than that. So, one of them is, trying to build a tensorflow port of our salt network flow because tensorflow community comes with a bunch of advantages such as, like, ability to deploy, it also comes with a JavaScript library called tensorflow JS that that makes it easy to do machine learning in the browser. So we want to make use of that infrastructure and the community built infrastructure. And that's one of the reasons why, one of the interns is spending time trying to build, trying to put our workflow in onto tensorflow.Erica:07:29So if you guys had some advice to give to people looking to get into the internship program, would you have anything you'd want to let them know?Sri:07:37So from the perspective of data science internships, given that how fast the field is moving, especially for students looking for data science internships in, in the space of oil and gas, the first and foremost thing is having an ability to understand various aspects, various various sources of data or aspects of data in the upstream domain. Because, just to give you an example, somebody who's worked on deep learning of natural images throughout, the moment you try and apply similar algorithms onto seismic images, it's a completely different domain. So, what are the, what are some of the assumptions that you can make? And that's where having a strong domain background really helps.Sri:08:30And I think the second thing that is, that's becoming very important in the marketplace right now is, is with, with platforms like GitHub or, you know, various open source projects. You can actually showcase your code. So pick a problem, learn a few, learn some approaches or try out some novel approaches, and put out the code out there. Put that on your resume because that adds a lot of weight, in your, in your ability to make a case for an internship rather than somebody who hasn't, who says, oh, I have, I have a strong programming background, but there's no way for somebody who's evaluating the person to see the code. So that these days has become a really strong advantage for, for a lot of students. So a couple of the students that are working with us this summer, they actually have active GitHub profiles where they've posted code, they've contributed code, various projects and so on. And as a consequence, like we looked at their profiles and backgrounds and like, oh, this is an obvious fit to our group and this person also has a background. A couple of them were like Ph.D students in geophysics, so it's an obvious fit for our team. So it was, it was all, it was a no-brainer for us to get them to come work with us this summer,Erica:09:53Jason?Jason:09:53On the geoscience side, it's, it's quite a bit different really. A lot of the students that are in university going for, for geoscience and wanting to go into the oil and gas industry have mainly just academic experience. So we really just want somebody that can sort of get up to speed quickly with sort of what an explorationist in an oil and gas company would do is look at essentially what we're bringing them in to do is what a sort of a mini, really quick exploration studies on basins where they don't have to go full on to drill a well, but they still need to have the ideas behind it where they can use the data, they have to evaluate an area and come up to speed quickly with, with getting those presentations out. So having really good presentation skills and having just a background enough to be able to learn on their own and pick up concepts quickly really helps. We see that a lot with, since we do get a lot of our interns through their advisors at different universities, that that really helps. But it also doesn't hinder it. We've also had lots of students that have applied, that have came from different universities where we don't know the advisors and it's just a matter of them going through the interview process and showcasing that they're, they're able to get to speed quickly. So, anybody can really go, go and do this type of work if they have the, the ability to learn.Erica:11:14Awesome.Sri:11:14I think that's an interesting point that Jason brought up. The ability to learn things fast and, sort of the ability to, appreciate various data sets and trying to understand and bring them together. I think that's a huge advantage for, for students. And based on my interaction with students in our group as well as Jason's group, I think TGS this summer has a fabulous group of interns.Erica:11:43Okay. Well thank you guys for talking to us about the internship program and we're very happy to talk to your respective groups and see what they have to say. Thank you.Sri:11:52Thank very much.Jason:11:53Thank you.Erica:11:56I'm sitting here with our first group of interns from the data and analytics group. To my left, we have Michael Turek from Florida State University. His major is computer science. He has a B.S. In computer science as an Undergrad. What are your career goals? What are you working towards?Michael Turek:12:15Yes. So part of me taking an internship here at TGS was to help figure that out. And so, well, you know, my interests rely mostly in machine learning and things like this. So something pretty, along those lines.Erica:12:31Awesome. Well we hope you, we'll help you figure that out. While you're here. Going around the table, we have Lingxiao Jia from the University of Wyoming. Your major is geophysics and you're working towards your PhD studying seismic imaging, migration and inversion. What kind of career are you working towards?Lingxiao Jia:12:50I plan to work as a Geoscientist in the oil and gas industry.Erica:12:56Awesome.Lingxiao:12:56Yeah, I like to do programming, so mostly on that.Erica:13:06Cool. All right. And then to my right, we had Deepthi Sen, from Texas A&M, majoring in petroleum engineering, working towards your PhD, studying reservoir engineering. What's your career goal, Ms. Deepthi?Deepthi Sen:13:21I'd like to, get a full time employment in the oil industry, preferably working on something related to machine learning in reservoir engineering. So yeah, that's why one of the reasons why I'm here too.Erica:13:33Awesome. Yeah. Oh, we're glad all of you are here. So can you guys describe for us, the projects you're working on? I'm not sure if you guys are all working on the same project or if you're working on different projects.Deepthi:13:45We are working on different projects. So right now I'm working on something which, involves clustering well logs, into good and bad, sections.Deepthi:13:57I use machine learning and a few algorithms that I use for my graduate research too.Erica:14:04Very cool. What's a bad section?Deepthi:14:07A bad section as in, there are certain depths at which, certain well logs behave erratically so we want, do not want to use that data, so we have to cluster it out. So, in order to do that manually for, you know, thousands of wells, it's impossible. So that's where machine learning comes into play.Erica:14:27Very cool. Very useful too. Lingxiao?Lingxiao:14:32I'll be working on using machine learning to do the recognition of geoscience features. For example, there could be faults, it could be picking horizons, could be recognizing salt domes, something like that.Erica:14:48Wow. Very complex and over my head. (Laughter) I'm sure it's very important though. And you, sir?Michael:14:57Yeah, so I'm working on translating the models that TGS' data analytics team uses to predict salt patches in the earth. So they use, they use models written in a module called Pi Torch and I'm converting that to tensorflow 2.0Erica:15:17Cool. Very cool. So what have you guys learned along the way so far? I know this is kind of the beginning for you, but-Michael:15:28Yeah, so it's, it's somewhat difficult to- so much, is kind of the answer to that question. But a lot of what I've learned boils down to more of the theory side of machine learning. Coming into the internship I didn't know a whole lot about the backend of machine learning, mostly just applying it. So learning how all these models work and why they work and things like that in terms of, the actual actually applying machine learning. That's what I've learned. I've also learned though, perhaps more importantly, working with a team and collaborating and things like that, which has been-Erica:16:10So hands on, real-world experience. What do you guys say to that? Ladies, I should say (Laughter) to my right.Deepthi:16:17So as I said, the research that I do is again, on machine learning. So I get to use similar algorithms to another, I would say facet of oil and gas. So I worked in reservoir engineering back in Grad school. Here I'm working on, petrophysics, so I kind of see how the same algorithms and same concepts can be applied in two different, areas, which is quite eye opening. Yeah. And apart from that I'm learning new algorithms and learning new math, which, I would think that's very important for, for my Grad school too, so, one good thing about TGS is that, they are quite, you know, they don't mind, publishing. So as a PhD student, that's very important to me. So that's one thing I look forward to too.Erica:17:08Yeah. Awesome.Lingxiao:17:10For me, it has helped me get a deeper understanding of how much, how machine learning works and how it could be applied to the field of Geo Sciences.Erica:17:20Cool. So talking about TGS more broadly, like as a culture, how would you say it's like working here, if someone were to ask you from school, what's it like working at TGS? What's that company like? What would you say?Deephti:17:36It's a very friendly atmosphere and, it is different from Grad School, in the sense that, I think Grad School, hours are more flexible than in an industry environment. But then, the focus is different and this is more, you know, I would think this more social than Grad school and, you know, being here, this is my first internship in the US, the environment is very friendly and you know, people look out for each other it's great.Erica:18:15Cool.Lingxiao:18:15Yeah. People here are so helpful and the, I have had a great time. I really enjoy this internship by far. Yeah.Erica:18:26Awesome.Michael:18:26It's wonderful. You're working in small teams and so you get to know everyone pretty well. It's very tight knit and those people are smart and very helpful kind people. It's, it's, it's wonderful.Erica:18:37Cool. Any surprises along the way? Anything you weren't expecting?Michael:18:44So, no, I wouldn't say there's anything that surprised me. I mean apart from the environment I had a much more perhaps rigid definition of, you know, you go to work and do your job and that's kind of that, but it's much more relaxed and that was, I guess, somewhat surprising.Erica:19:01Okay. I like that. Yeah. How bad the drive was maybe?Deepthi:19:06Yeah, I stay close by.Erica:19:09That's good. That's the way to do it. (Laughter) Yeah. What are you guys looking forward to for the remainder of your internships?Michael:19:17Yeah, so I'm looking forward since I'm rewriting these, these models and an interface for them, it'll be exciting to see them, how they perform and also to actually see the data and analytics team using them and hopefully finding them useful.Erica:19:31Yeah to see value for what you're working on. Absolutely.Deepthi:19:34So I'm about to finish the first part of my project, so I would like to wrap it up, you know, produce some good results and maybe get a publication out of it. And after that, yeah, I have a plan for what is to be done next, regarding the same, using the same similar approach but in a different setting. Yeah. So I'm looking forward to that.Erica:19:59Can you tell us what the different setting is or is that classified?Deepthi:20:03I'm not sure. (Laughter)Erica:20:05Right. We'll leave that one alone.Lingxiao:20:08So doing an internship here at TGS is an amazing adventure. I learn and discover new things everyday and I feel time passes very quickly, and everything is moving at a timely manner. So it's pretty good.Erica:20:24Nice. So I think we kind of touched upon how you guys are going to apply what you've learned here, at your careers as you go forward. Is there any particular job title that you guys think you're going to go towards?Deepthi:20:44Yeah. I probably will be going for a data scientist role, or I can say because of my background in reservoir engineering, I can go both on the data and science roles or the reservoir engineering roles. But yeah, from my experience here, I would, I think I would prefer to go to the data and data science roles because, there are like lots of opportunities out there and, the experience that I've gained here, I, I think it's going to be very helpful finding a full time position later on. Yeah.Lingxiao:21:18I could consider becoming a Geoscientist in the oil and gas or becoming a structural engineer because I have a programming background.Michael:21:32Yeah. I wouldn't say I have any career title I'm, I'm seeking out, but perhaps data scientist, but I'm not sure.Erica:21:41So what advice would you give to the interns who are going to be coming behind you?Michael:21:46Yeah. So probably to just build strong relationships with the team that you're in. Learn as much as you can, as deeply as you can.Deepthi:21:58Yeah. I would suggest that before coming in, you can go through, or if they have a set plan for you. In my case they did. So I had read up and you know, known what I'm going to work on so you can, you know, straight away start working on the project you have a rather than, you know, spend a lot of time, reading up those things that can happen before you start the internship. And yes, once you're here, it's, very important to like keep in touch, you know, meet the mentors every day or you know, update them so you have a clear path that you need to, yeah.Erica:22:44Lingxiao?Lingxiao:22:44I would suggest to go talk with people and you see what everyone is working on.Erica:22:51So learn, learn what other people are doing as well.Lingxiao:22:55Yeah.Erica:22:55That, yeah, that makes good sense. So why did you guys apply for the internships here?Michael:23:05So I applied, cause I was just looking for an internship and I had heard that, well I had heard that, (Laughter)Erica:23:14Honest.Michael:23:14(Laughter) I had heard good reviews from people who I respect and and I knew that they had a new data and analytics team doing machine learning, doing things with machine learning. That piqued my interest. And so I told them I was interested.Erica:23:28So kind of diverge off of that. So what programs are you guys using? Like actual hands on programs?Michael:23:36Yeah. So, programs for me are pretty, pretty simple. I use, a coding ID, visual Studio Code, and an Internet browser.Erica:23:43Whoa, okay.Michael:23:46I do that to do my work.Erica:23:47Google and a calculator, alright.Michael:23:49Yeah, pretty much.Erica:23:52Deepthi?Deepthi:23:52Uh, what was the question again?Erica:23:56What programs do you guys use?Deepthi:23:59Again, I guess we are in the process of making a program, so what I use is just Jupyter, it's very basic.Erica:23:59It's built on Python correct?Deepthi:23:59Yes, it is Python, I use Jupyter ID, and I'm in the process of making something useful from scratch.Erica:24:22So lastly, would you guys recommend a TGS internship to your fellow students?All:24:27Yes, definitely. Yes. Yes, yes. Yeah. Awesome. Yes.Erica:24:34Okay. So open question to the table. What are you going to take back to your program that you learned from your internship here? Starting with Michael to the left?Michael:24:42Yeah, so I'm learning a lot about machine learning and so in computer science that's obviously going to be a direct parallel. I can take that back. But I really think that what I'm learning most here that I'll take back is just how to collaborate with people, how to talk with people in a team and work in that way. I think that'll -Erica:25:05Life skills.Michael:25:11Yes.Erica:25:11Lingxiao?Lingxiao:25:11So, since machine learning in such a hot topic. Now, the work that I did here could be really extended into a project in my PhD research. So, yeah I'm currently working on that.Erica:25:28Awesome. Deepthi?Deepthi:25:29So right now we're working on a clustering of time series data. So my, one of the projects that I'm working, at my Grad school is also on time series data, and I think I might be able to, you know, use the insights that I gained from, from TGS, directly to my, research. So that's something that I'm looking forward to.Erica:25:52Awesome. Okay, well thank you guys for talking with us today and I guess we'll let you get back to work now.Michael:25:59Thank you for having us.Deepthi:26:00Thank you.Lingxiao:26:01Thank you.Erica:26:01And now our last group for this episode, the geoscience interns.Erica:26:08Going around the table clockwise, we have Sean Romito. You're from the University of Houston, majoring in geology. You are working towards your PhD and you are studying magnetic basement structure of the Caribbean plate, tectonostratigraphy of South Gabon and Camamu-Almada conjugate basins. I totally know what all of that means. What career are you working towards?Sean Romito:26:35Oh, hello. Thank you for having me. Definitely exploration Geoscientist, this is kind of where I've been propelling my career, ever since I started with a bachelor's and I've just kinda been stepping towards that goal.Erica:26:51Awesome. All right. Now we have Geoff Jackson from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette Majoring in petroleum geology. Your program is a master's degree and you graduated last spring. Congratulations!Geoff Jackson:27:07Thank you!Erica:27:07You studied a prospect lead off of a salt dome in southern Louisiana, and you cannot give us any more details than that.Geoff:27:14Unfortunately yes.Erica:27:14Very mysterious. So what, what are your career goals?Geoff:27:19Uh, similar to Sean's I was going to say, I can probably speak for the group here, but we're all just trying to be geologists and getting on with an operator, going to say probably best case scenario.Erica:27:28Awesome. Next we have Hualing Zhang, from the University of Houston, majoring in geology, working towards a PhD. And you're studying structural analysis and gravity modeling in the Permian Basin in West Texas. And you are originally from Urumqi, Northwest China and you got interested in geology about traveling around. That is so cool. So is your career goal the same?Hualing:27:53Yeah, basically similar, I'm working towards a career goal in the oil industry. Yeah. Since, like, my dad is also a geologist. Yeah. He works in PetroChina. So yeah, that's also my career goal.Erica:28:08Awesome. Yeah. Awesome. All right. And lastly, Cahill Kelleghan from Colorado School of Mines, majoring in geology. You're working towards a Masters of science and geology, and you're studying sedimentology and basin analysis / modeling with your thesis being in the Delaware Basin. So career goals?Cahill:28:28I'm pretty similar. I like to be in exploration geology and I really like sedimentology. So yeah, just applied geo science.Erica:28:36Awesome. Cool. So can you describe for us the projects that you guys are working on this summer? Same project or different project?Sean:28:46TGS has kind of tasked us with, I'm putting together some potential prospects or ideas of places we can look and most of that's going to be happening, well, we think it'd be North America and North American basins. And so we've kind of gotten access to some of their pretty amazing software, access to a lot of different databases and kind of putting that all together for a big picture of something useful that they can hopefully use from our projects. So I don't know if you guys want to add anything.Geoff:29:15Yeah, I mean, for one thing with these projects that's been very helpful to leverage the software that TGS has, specifically Longbow and access to their wealth of onshore well data that they have there. So we've been kind of bringing all of that together to generate these areas where we think that we should move further into as a company.Hualing:29:40Yeah. Also the first two weeks we're like working separately. We each have a study area and it's just a information gathering and doing researches and moving forward. Right now we are working in pairs. So, me and Geoff, we are working on similar location and to do like a research in a more detailed way. Yeah.Erica:30:05So you guys mentioned the software programs you're using. So aside from Longbow, what other programs do you use?Cahill:30:14Um, a lot, a lot of work in Kingdom. But Longbow yeah. Longbow and Kingdom. I'd say probably the big two. Yeah. yeah.Sean:30:25Any, I mean, any time you talk about geology, Arc Gis is going to come up. So we've definitely been using that a lot as well.Erica:30:32Okay. And is that different than what you were familiar with, from school or is this the same training that you had?Sean:30:39Well, Longbow is completely different. You know, even looking at production data is not something that I, you know, geoscientists when we ever, we go through academia, we even get exposed to. We use Kingdom. But I think it's, it's more of on a limited basis. I've, I've really been able to work a lot with, the, the well interpretation suites here at TGS that I hadn't worked with before.Erica:31:03Cool. How do you, do you find that challenging or kind of a natural extension of what you are already working with?Sean:31:11I mean, I, yeah, challenging, interesting, different. The team here, the geoscience team here has been very helpful, with the different, features. I'd say there are bugs. Some people might say they're features with the Kingdom software. (Laughter) but I'd say challenging. Yeah, but, but in a good way, not, not as a, you know, wringing out your hands kind of way.Erica:31:33So what else have you guys learned besides Longbow?Geoff:31:37I think for me is just kind of seeing just like what a day-in and day-out sort of process is like. So like having worked in the field, I never walked, I've never worked in a corporate environment before, but just kind of seeing how teams integrate and work together, it's going to say I've never seen that portion before. And so for me it's been fun, you know, going from classroom and then getting the actual hands on application of what we learned in the classroom. That's what's been fun for me so far.Erica:32:01Anyone else agree? Agree, disagree?Sean:32:03I agree. Yeah. No, I mean another thing that I feel a lot of us, especially me and with my Phd projects, they're very wide scale. I'm not talking about basins, I'm talking about plates. And so it's been very rewarding to kind of zoom in. Even if we are still basin scale, that's a lot smaller than I'm used to. So I'm able to kind of get lost in the details more than I would in a very large scale study.Hualing:32:28I think also a good thing is we learn from each other. Like where were you working together? Yeah, we're getting familiar with the software and if any of us found something and others will get around and see what we found. And I think that's very important for us to learn.Erica:32:48Yeah, absolutely.Cahill:32:50Yeah, I think kind of going off that as well and we obviously us for come from different backgrounds in Geo Science and what we've worked in and we kinda bring those backgrounds and each of our own projects and we kind of can come together and help each other out in different areas that we might not be more experienced with, like certain, well log interpretations or mapping things, stuff like that. So, so yeah, it's, it is helpful to have a team.Geoff:33:14Good overlap.Erica:33:14What's it like working at TGS, culture wise? The people, the food?Sean:33:22(Laughter) well they treat us well hereGeoff:33:24I was gonna say no complaints there. Yeah, I mean getting started in know there's always a learning curve, but I mean I guess as much of a learning curve as there could be, you know, everyone around here has been as helpful as possibly could be, you know, to help make that climb that much less steep, if that's a good way of wording it. But that's kind of what I would think.Cahill: 33:43The food is definitely good. Healthy. I like it.Sean:33:45Can't complain about free lunches.Cahill:33:47Yeah. But, but I mean I think the culture here is really, everyone's been extremely nice and even just within the geoscience team, a lot of nice guys; Cian and Alex, they've been so helpful with any questions we have, whether it be geology related or software related, and we've had company outings already. Going on Top Golf is super fun. Everyone's very open to meeting different branches and whatnot. So that was really fun.Erica:34:12Why did you apply? Did it, for TGS' internship program in particular?Sean:34:17Well. Yeah. So, our professor, me and Hualing, we have the same, advisor at the University of Houston. Dr. Paul Mann. And he was actually the one that reached out to us because, James, the head of the Geoscience Department here, had reached out to him looking for good candidates. and he had asked us if we wanted to, to join up. We, we kind of, you know, we researched it. We, I was, I talked to James on the phone and it just seemed like something, so different from what I was doing at the moment that I felt like it was a great opportunity to jump back. And it, I have absolutely no regrets.Erica:34:54Awesome.Geoff:34:54Yeah, my story is pretty much the same thing. My thesis advisor was, was good friends with James K and so he reached out to me and saying, pretty much the same deal as him. Looked into you guys, obviously cause say Jason, I met you before. So that, and also, the interns from last year, I was going to say I was good friends with them too. So I knew what they did. And so, here I am.Erica:35:17Any surprises along the way? Anything that you weren't expecting that you've encountered during your time here?Cahill:35:25I guess one thing is, it shouldn't be surprising, but I'd always is that I'm working with really big data sets. There's always lots of errors you have to put up with. And even with the amazing technology we have, there's always, there's always a human aspect to it, that's always interesting, that we've dealt with in our data at least so far.Hualing:35:44I think for me it's the flexible working time and my, yeah, he didn't request a specific time to be here or like a specific time to leave. So that's like really helpful for my schedule that I can make adjustment along and try to see by what time range works best for me. Yeah.Geoff:36:08Yeah, that's definitely been nice. I feel, like you said having to commute from Spring. I was going to say, getting to come in maybe later or earlier as need be. It's always definitely nice to dodge that traffic.Erica:36:22What are you guys looking forward to working on for the remainder of your internship here?Geoff:36:27Well, I'm really excited to see the end product of what we're doing, especially because, we're going to be presenting it to upper management, and presenting it to our, our geoscience team as well. I think that's really going to help bringing it all together. Cause right now we know we're all working on our separate areas as well. I mean, we're still two teams in a certain area, but it's still very much our own work. And so that, that finish line I think is going to be where it all comes together and I see more bigger, I see a bigger picture than maybe I'm seeing right now.Geoff:36:57Yeah. I think one aspect that I like about is, it's not just busy work. You know, we're actually adding value to the company with an end result. Kind of like what Sean said.Erica: 37:06No making coffee?All:37:08(Laughter) Danggit. For ourselves, we make coffee for ourselves.Erica:37:14Um, what advice would you give to other students wanting to intern here?Cahill:37:20Say like, don't be afraid to get into anything that you're not experienced with. Whether it's geology or software related. Since coming here, I feel like you can learn a lot from a lot of different people and there's a lot of different backgrounds here and people are all open to helping you or talking about their passion and their little branch of geology or geoscience. And so I would say don't be afraid to ask questions and go up to random people and say, hey, what do you do here? And what are you into? Because chances are they're happy or passionate about their job and you can probably learn something from it.Geoff:37:54Yeah. Maybe to add onto those, don't feel like you have to know everything beforehand coming in. Cause I mean you're not, no one's gonna know everything. Kind of like what Cahill said, there's plenty of resources around. You don't feel afraid to ask. No. Everyone out here is more than willing to give their time to help you out for what you might have a problem with. And we've had that reiterated to us time and time again. So, I mean, it's been nice to know.Sean:38:17Hmm. And, I don't know if before we talked about how we got the internship, and I feel personal connections are the biggest, you know, it's not about going on a website and clicking apply. It's about going to the conferences and meeting people from TGS and they're extremely friendly. We've all seen that firsthand. So I'd definitely recommend, and I, I would recommend it as well that you would get an internship with TGS, but just go up and see them during conferences, talk to them, ask them about opportunities, say, Hey, what are you guys doing? Be interested. and even if you don't get something out of it, that's fine. You're still gonna make connection, connections and learn about where the industry's heading.Hualing:38:53Yeah, I definitely agree with Sean, cause I met Alex on with, the person, our geoscience group, we met during the AAPG meeting at San Antonio and I talked to him and, he talked to me about his project and what I may be expecting for my interns. I think that definitely helped. And yeah, when I first day, when I came here, I saw him as, hey, yeah, that's, yeah. I feel like familiar and yeah, I'm more easy to get along. Yeah.Erica:39:28What have you gained during your time here at TGS that you're gonna take with you as you continue your studies and your career?Sean:39:36Everything we just talked about. Yeah, no, I mean that, that's a good sum up question. So the, the connections we've made with all the people here, not just in the Geo science team, every, every other team that there has that there is at this company. All the skills that we're learning with these different programs, the different perspectives we're getting because we're looking at, again, not just geological data, we're looking at, these problems more holistically. All that and above, I think is what we're going to take with us.Cahill:40:02Yeah. I think, you pretty much nailed it on the head. It's seeing the, the geoscience in an actual industry application in its own way. It's a lot of different moving parts coming together for an end product that's ultimately valuable and generates business. And then seeing how that works, you know, if on a fundamental level that's, that's pretty interesting and being able to be a part of, it's pretty cool. So.Erica:40:27Well, awesome. Well, thank you guys for being here. Thank you for talking with us today, and we'll let you get back to work.

Deuteronomy 10:12-22, Matthew 25:34-40Hear what the Spirit is saying to the church from the book of Deuteronomy and Matthew:Deuteronomy 10:12-22So now Israel, what do you think God expects from you? Just this: Live in his presence in holy reverence, follow the road he sets out for you, love him, serve God, your God, with everything you have in you, obey the commandments and regulations of God that I’m commanding you today—live a good life.Look around you: Everything you see is God’s—the heavens above and beyond, the Earth, and everything on it. But it was your ancestors who God fell in love with; he picked their children—that’s you!—out of all the other peoples. That’s where we are right now. So cut away the thick calluses from your heart and stop being so willfully hardheaded. God, your God, is the God of all gods, he’s the Master of all masters, a God immense and powerful and awesome. He doesn’t play favorites, takes no bribes, makes sure orphans and widows are treated fairly, takes loving care of foreigners by seeing that they get food and clothing.You must treat foreigners with the same loving care— remember, you were once foreigners in Egypt. Reverently respect God, your God, serve him, hold tight to him, back up your promises with the authority of his name. He’s your praise! He’s your God! He did all these tremendous, these staggering things that you saw with your own eyes.When your ancestors entered Egypt, they numbered a mere seventy souls. And now look at you—you look more like the stars in the night skies in number. And your God did it.Matthew 25:34-40Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God

John 16:12–22     12[Jesus said:] “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. 13When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. 14He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. 15All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.     16“A little while, and you will see me no longer; and again a little while, and you will see me.” 17So some of his disciples said to one another, “What is this that he says to us, ‘A little while, and you will not see me, and again a little while, and you will see me’; and, ‘because I am going to the Father’?” 18So they were saying, “What does he mean by ‘a little while’? We do not know what he is talking about.” 19Jesus knew that they wanted to ask him, so he said to them, “Is this what you are asking yourselves, what I meant by saying, ‘A little while and you will not see me, and again a little while and you will see me’? 20Truly, truly, I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice. You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy. 21When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world. 22So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.”  

In the inaugural episode of Beneath the Subsurface, we delve into the exciting realm of AI and Machine Learning as a blossoming new part of the energy industry. Arvind Sharma and Robert Gibson discuss and debate the impacts of disruptive technology, the importance of robust data libraries when building AI solutions, and the future of our industry with AI and ML solutions. With your host for the episode, Erica Conedera, we explore the factors that pushed our slow moving industry to this tipping point in technology and where it could be leading us.  TABLE OF CONTENTS:0:00 - Intro1:03 - Factors that brought AI to O&G5:32 - Job creation with AI12:05 - Career paths and team compositions in the industry15:30 - Industry pain point solutions with AI and ML21:32 - Clouds, open source and democratization24:24 - Kaggle and crowdsourcing Salt Net30:51 - Kaggle challenges with Well Data33:58 - Catching up with silicon valley36:49 - Approaching solutions with AI44:18 - Disciplining data and metadata to get to the "good stuff"EPISODE TRANSCRIPTErica Conedera:00:00Hello and welcome to Beneath the Subsurface a podcast that investigates the intersection of geoscience and technology. And in our first episode, we'll be diving into the dynamic field of AI and machine learning as it relates to the oil and gas industry. We'll be discussing the impact of disruptive technology, the importance of robust data libraries when building AI solutions, and exciting possibilities for the future oil and gas. From the TGS software development team. My name is Erica Conedera. And with me today are Arvind Sharma, our VP of data and analytics, and Rob Gibson, our director of strategy, sales, data and analytics. Thank you gentlemen for being with us today for our first episode.Rob Gibson:00:48Glad to be here.Arvind Sharma:00:49Thank you Erica.Erica:00:51So let's start our discussion today by talking about the factors that brought the industry to AI and machine learning. Why now? Why not sooner? Why not later?Rob:01:03Well I'll start. Um, so thank you for the introduction, my name's Rob Gibson. I've been with TGS for almost 20 years now. And in that time, the thing that I have kind of seen over the 20 years in this company, , and probably another eight or nine in the industry, is that we've always been a little slow to adopt technology. And I come from the IT side of the world, software engineering, database design - so from my perspective, it's always been a little bit slow to bring in new technology.Rob:01:34And the things where I've seen the biggest change has been fundamental shifts in the industry, whether it's a crash in oil price, or, or some other kind of big disruptor in the industry as a whole, like the economy, not just our industry but the entire economy. But in middle of 2014 with the current downturn, that's really where I finally started to see the big shift toward AI, toward machine learning, towards IOT in particular.Rob:02:00But it seems like it took a big, big change in the industry where we lost hundreds of thousands of people across the industry and we really still needed a lot of work to get done. So technology has been able to kind of fill in the void. So, even as the downturn happened, we kind of started to level off at the bottom of the downturn and that's when companies started to see that we really needed to inject some more technology to get those decisions made. So generally speaking, I would say that this industry has been a little slow to move to adopt technology even though the industry has got a lot of money to invest in those kinds of things.Arvind:02:34Um, so thank you Erica for that question. And, I'm going to slightly disagree, more broadly, I agree with rob that um, oil and gas industry is historically a little slow in adopting technology, but, the reason I think is a slightly different, I think a oil and gas work in very difficult area where we need to have very robust proven up technologies to work. And in general, we wait a little bit for the technology to prove itself before adopting into, um, more difficult areas. So if we look at a little bit historical view, um, we have been on the leading edge of technology for a very long time. Um, some of the early semiconductors were built by your physical, um, companies. Um, then, as we moved to, PC revolution, we started actually PC, um, we started to actually pick up PCs into office very quickly, not as good as the silicon graphics people, but, soon afterwards, and then when the technology evolution started happening more in the silicon valley, then we started to regress a little bit. We continued on the part of what we were doing, whereas there was a divergence somewhere between mid nineties where silicon valley started to actually develop a little bit faster and we started to lag behind. And I think as Rob said, that, 2014 was a good time because at that time there was a need for us to adopt technology to increase our efficiency and, fill the gap that was created due to capital constraint. And as well as fleeing of, some of the knowledge base, employees - from our sector.Rob:04:39That's a good point on the technology side because you said that we kind of diverged away from where silicon valley really took off in the mid nineties. I entered into the industry in '94. So for me, my entire career has been that diverging process and just now it feels really good. Like we're finally catching up, not only catching up, but we've got customers, we've got employees who are sitting inside of the top tech companies in the world sitting at Google's facilities, even though they're an oil and gas company, sitting and working with Amazon, with Oracle, with IBM, with all these top names. And yet they're doing it in collaboration with the industry. Where in the past, it was almost like the two things were somewhat separated and now they are on a converging path. They've got the technology, we've got the data, at least in our space. And those two things coming together is kind of the critical mass we need to see some success.Erica:05:32So on that note, what kind of jobs do you think are going to be created in the future as the industries continue to convergence?Rob:05:40You know, that's a, that's a great prognostication. I mean, it's kind of interesting when you look back at like airbnb and Uber and those kinds of things. Nobody saw those coming and nobody knew what that was going to look like five years into their business, not to mention 10 or 15. I think that's what we're looking at in the oil and gas industry as well. We still have to find oil and gas. We still have to explore. We still have to be technologists, whether it's IT technology or G&G technology, we still have to operate in those spaces. But the roles may be very different. I'm hoping that a lot more of the busy legwork is a lot easier for us to work with and it has been historically, but we're still going to have to do those core G&G jobs. I just don't know what they're going to look like five years from now.Arvind:06:29I mean the way I see it is that it will be high-gradation to, like it will be more fulfilling jobs. The future jobs hopefully will be more fulfilling. So because a good portion of the grunt work, the work that everyone hated to do, but they had to do it to get to the final work, like final interesting work. Hopefully all those things will this machine learning and AI and broader digitization will help alleviate that part. And even whether you are technologist, whether you are a geologist, whether you're a geophysicist or whether you're a decision-maker. Like in all of those, um, you will start moving from the low value work to high value work. The technologist who was looking into log curve, they will actually start evaluating the log curve rather than just digitizing it. And that's, in my view, it's a more fulfilling job job compared to just doing the mundane work. And I, so that's the part first part is that what kind of job it, my hope is that it will be more fulfilling.Arvind:07:43Now the second is how many and what type of job, um, as Rob said that, the speed at which this is moving, we, it will be very difficult for us to do the prediction. Is that like if we sit here and say that they are, these are the type of job that will be created in five years, we'll be doing a disservice. We can actually make some guided prediction in which there will be need for geologist or geophysicist or petrophysicist and other people to do in what form will they be a pure geophysicist or a geophysicist who is a has a lot more broader expertise, a computer science and geophysicist working together. Those are the kinds of roles that will be needed in future because for a very long time we have operated in silos because it's not just technology is changing is the way we work is also changing is that we have operated in silos that we develop something, throw it over the fence. They, they catch it most of the time and then actually move into the next silo, and so on and so forth. Is that what-Rob:08:58You hope they do anyway.Arvind:08:59Yeah. I hope that they do anyway, but so that's the sequential process now. Some of them will be done by machines. Some of them will be done by human. And then you have to actually create a workflow which is like fulfilling as well as efficient for the capital investor.Erica:09:19Perhaps less siloed off?Arvind:09:21Less siloed off. So there will be team of teams and the team will actually move very frequently. So it will be almost like a self organization is that these are the four people needed to solve this problem. Let's take those four people and work on that problem. And then when that problem is solved or productionized, then they actually go solve the different problems.Arvind:09:43And so it will rather than back in the days or even today, hi- fully hierarchy of system, it will still be there, will be CEO (Laughter) and but there will be more, um, team of different group and different expertise, um, very quickly building and dismantling and those, that's the agile methodology that will be needed to take this technology and use it for, like basically doing things better.Erica:10:18So to kind of hone in on where you're saying, your background is in both geophysics and um, software engineering, correct?Arvind:10:26Okay. So sorry, I didn't actually talk about myself. (Laughter) So, um, I joined the TGS a little more than a year back, um, started as a chief geophysicist and then moved into this role. But before that, most of my career has been with BP and before that for a software company. So I have worked as a software engineer for some time and then got my PhD in geophysics and then worked for a little more than 10 years in BP all the way from writing imaging.Arvind:11:01So basically fundamental imaging, algorithm writing to drilling wells. So, in my short career I have seen a lot of things and what I do see is that, there has, there is a lot of silos in BP as well as in TGS. And BP is also working on it - breaking. I have a lot of friends there who are saying is that there is a significant effort in technology and modernization is happening in changing the culture rather than- it's not just about changing PC from going from a laptop to iPad. That's a- that's a tool. But the fundamental change will happen in the thought process. And if we want to actually use machine learning and these kinds of digital technology then it needs to be very integrated and the silo mentality is not going to work. You have to look at the problem as a holistic to solve it.Erica:12:02Yeah.Arvind:12:02So, so that's the background. So that's my background.Erica:12:05Yeah. So I asked because I wondered if you think that your career path is going to be the future of the industry, do you think that there are going to be more people with a dual background in both computer science and geophysics?Arvind:12:19So that's a very polite way to say that. My, I am actually looking at that my career is the right career. So, no and yes and no both. I do think that people will become more generalist and they will have deep expertise. And it's counter intuitive - is that generalist and deep expertise is not the same. Like we are used to someone who has a very deep expertise and that are not generalists about other topicsErica:12:57Narrow and deep.Arvind:12:57So very narrow expertise. But very deep and they have shallow expertise, very broad. Those are back in the days I think we are moving towards a deep expertise in several different narrow fields. So you need like, so to truly get good collaboration and innovation, you have to have deep expertise in several different fields to integrate them together.Erica:13:27So Rob, it looks like you're chomping at the bit here. (laughter)Arvind:13:30Deep and broad. So like what we need is deep and broad.Rob:13:34Yeah. When, when Arvind was talking about, kind of the career and, and some of the other topics, two things came to mind on the technology side of things. If you look back at AT&T, they had a choice and they did investigation and some pretty deep research on whether or not they needed to move into mobile cell phone technology. And they made the choice. They did a big expensive study and spent hundreds of millions of dollars or tens of millions of dollars to identify that they needed to be prepared for an industry of say, a million cell phone users by a certain year. And that number was, I don't know, 150 times wrong. It was way, way higher than that. And you could use the same thing with Kodak. They invented the digital camera and then lost the digital camera battle. And struggled in the industry. We want to make sure that we're looking broad enough to understand what's coming down the pipe and can adapt and change to that. Not just from the individual roles in the company, but the company direction as a whole.Arvind:14:34To give a concrete example is that , I have a background in geology or physics and computer science or Rob has background in geoscience and computer science and the data analytics team. It likes our TGS data analytics team. They have, we have people who have the um, physics backgrounds. They have PhD in physics and then they have worked in geophysics and then working on well logs. Then, the other one, Sathiya - he is a geophysicist who now is working on more of a deep learning problem. And a Sribarath is the team leader. He is a geophysicist. Who is it more of a computer scientist who is working on these two problems. So, our team composition itself, the TGS data analytics team composition itself is built in a multidisciplinary fashion.Erica15:30Yeah. So I'm glad that you brought up are our current team here cause I kind of wanted to pivot to the problems that we're using AI to solve for right now. You know, like what, what are the pain points in the industry and how are we using AI for that?Arvind:15:46So, so the pain point in the industry, are I'll talk about one, is it one which is very close to my heart. I was a, so in BP I did a lot of salt interpretation. So anything which requires a lot of human intervention is a big choke point because our data set is getting bigger, larger and larger with a lot more volumes to it are a lot more information to it and we have limited human resources and we want to actually take those human resources and mobilize them to do more high value work rather than doing a lot more um, grunt work. Salt model building is an example. And where we, we actually, our data analytics team started working there. So I'll, I'll work, I'll talk about that later. But that's an example where a lot of judgment call is made early, which don't require a lot of human judgment call early interpretation. Is the true place where automation and digital transformation can actually help.Erica:17:04Rob, what's your take on this?Rob:17:06Well, the Nice thing about what we're doing with salt picking is we're really helping us and our clients reduce the time it takes to get to the indecision. On my side of,of the house, my background with TGS has largely on the well data side of things. So it's not so much about reducing the amount of time of processing the data as it is getting a higher value data set in the hands of our clients. So historically, especially in the onshore U.S., there's a significant lack of data that's reported to the regulatory agencies. So we source that data as do a lot of other people. We source data from our, our, our customers, our partners operators. We process that data, but the most important thing that we can do with that is take that huge volume of data, the largest commercially available in the industry and add more to it so that the operators are able to get to that decision making process. So like Arvind said, if we can avoid the grunt work and get them to the point where they're actually making business decisions, that's what we're doing with our analytics ready LAS Dataset. We're in-filling the gaps in the curves because they either weren't run or weren't reported. We're predicting what the missing curves would look like, based on an immense volume of data. So it's not so much about getting the product created faster, although that is another goal that we've got. Of course, we're a commercial company. We're trying to get products to our customers and make money like anybody does. But the ultimate goal with our current analytics ready LAS product is to get the most complete dataset available so that the operators can make better decisions in the subsurface; drill less wells, drill more productive wells, drill wells faster. All of those things go into why we chose to go down that that path.Arvind:18:50So, looking at a higher level. The question that you asked was like what are the choke points and how we had actually using digital transformation in machine learning and AI to help that. Um, I think we published something like our CEO talked about that in the um, few months, a month back, Norwegian Energy day. There was a nice plot that, shows that most of the time we are acquiring data for a purpose. Like we are acquiring data to solve a geologic problem so that we can actually make a decision whether to drill somewhere, or not drill somewhere whether to buy acreage or not buy acreage by our clients. So when you take that data, you have to convert that into information, that information need to convert it into knowledge. And that knowledge is what enables our clients to make better, faster and cheaper decisions.Arvind:19:51And that cycle converting from data to knowledge to decision and enabling their decision is actually is the big choke point. If you want me to say one, this is that your point is that how to actually take data and convert to knowledge fastest way and cheapest way. And that's where most of our effort is. So salt, model building is an example where we right now it takes us somewhere between the nine months to a few years when we acquire data to provide the clients with the final image that they can do interpretation and make decision. This is too long of a time. In this day and age it needs to be compressed and a good portion of that compression can happen, by better compute. But some of them cannot happen without doing a deep learning where humans are involved in like for example, salt models building where like you can actually throw as much computer it as possible. But since the cycle time requires human to drill that model, it will be the limiting cases that, so there we want to actually enable the interpreters to take our salt net, which is our algorithm and accelerate the early part of it so that they have more time to do high quality work and build and build that model faster, reduce that cycle time so that our clients can make better, faster and cheaper decisions.Rob:21:32It's been interesting to watch the transition too with our industry and the technology at the same time we've moved to the cloud, right? All of our data's now sitting at a cloud provider and if you would have looked at the oil industry five years ago, there's a very security minded mindset around the industry that says, I need to keep that data because it's a very, very critical and I want to make sure the only, I've got access to it. So there was a lot of fear about putting data in the cloud several years ago. Now you look at the cloud providers and they're spending literally billions of dollars on things like security and bandwidth and access, things that didn't exist five, 10 years ago. So that transition to be able to go to the cloud, where all, where, all of our data sits today. More and more of our clients are going there as well. And the nice thing about that is you can ramp up your needs, on compute capacity, on disk capacity, on combining data sets across partners, vendors, other operators, and collaborate and work on that data set together to come up with solutions that you couldn't possibly have done before. So it's, it's fun actually to watch that transition happen.Arvind:22:43It is going a little tangent to the question that you asked her, but, because there's a very important point about the cloud services the the biggest cloud platform is Kubernetes by Google and that's actually open source. So Google developed that and made it open source available for anyone who wants to build a cloud infrastructure. They can have it. That's the, the most to use open source, platform that, available today. So that's changing the way people work. Like red hat or Linux, Unix, Sun, Sun, microsystem or Microsoft or apple. They are very, like, even in technology sector, they are very controlling of what they are providing to their consumers. They control that environment. Whereas now things are changing in which the open source systems like, which is publicly available is becoming one of the most dominant form of a software platform. Um, if you look at android for machine learning, it's tensorflow, Pi Torch. Those are open systems software that is a democratizing the technology so that anyone and everyone can, is able to take that next step and the solve complex problem because the base is available for them. They don't have to build the base. They can actually focus on solving the high value complex problem.Erica:24:24Speaking of both Google and open source and democratizing, problem solving. So TGS recently had a Kaggle challenge, correct, can you speak a little bit about that?Arvind:24:35So, yeah, that actually, so when I joined TGS, I had, one data scientist that we, we were working with, like we were still building the data science team and we started working on the salt net problem. We had an early, um, success. We were able to do some of those things and then we realized that there is like ocean of data scientists who are across the world. We don't have actually access to that Google actually open source and they have, they're working on their problem, they're working on Apple's problem, they're working on very interesting problems. So why they're not working on it at two different reason. One is that they don't have access to it in a second, the problem is not interesting enough for them. So Kaggle was our effort to make it accessible to everyone and make it interesting so that people will work on it.Arvind:25:30So just for the, um, description of Kaggle, Kaggle is the world's largest, data science crowdsourcing platforms. So crowdsourcing is a, um, where you put the problem and it's a platform or website where the, um, the problem description is given and data science scientists to work on their like on their spare time, nights and weekend or that's their hobby or that's their job. And they solved that problem. They submit to submit on that platform and they get instantaneous result that, how a good their solution was. So that's the Kaggle is the one of the largest world's largest platform for that recently acquired by Google. So we actually approached Kaggle that- can we actually put the one of the complex problem that we have on this website or this platform and they worked with us. And so we partnered together to host the oil and gas first serious problem for the automatically building salt model. And we actually, so to Rob's point, um, the hardest problem was getting the data rights that are convincing our management that it's okay to release a certain portion of data. We had to work really hard to create an interesting problem and that once we released that data, um, this competition was very successful in the sense that if they were around 80 plus thousand different solutions, just think of the scope of itRob:27:06From almost 3000 different teamsArvind:27:093,800. So close to 4,000 people. Oh yeah. 3000 team and comprise of almost 4,000 data scientists across the world work on this problem for three months and gave us more than 80,000 different solutions. We would have never got anything like this working day and night with whole TGS working on this problem.Rob:27:32I, I found it interesting because I like did a search on Google for our, TGS salt net.Arvind:27:39Yeah.Rob:27:40And if you look at the results just on Youtube, you'll find probably 20 different videos of PhD students, data scientists getting their master's degree who are using that problem that we posted out there as part of their thesis or as part of their Grad student work to show that, that the data science process that they went through as part of their education. And now that's out there for everybody to use.Erica:28:02So this is a major disruptor isn't it, to the industry because we have basically non geologists, non geophysicists solving problems for-Rob:28:12Yeah it's, it's definitely, we, there was a lot of teams, right? So there was some that had geoscience backgrounds, some that didn't, but most of them, they just come from a data science background, right? So they could have stats or math or computer science or anything. And when they applied this, it was interesting to see the collaboration on the Kaggle user interface where the teams were out there saying, hey, I tried this. What did you guys try? And the whole idea of crowdsourcing and, and the idea that we're kind of in somewhat of a unique position where we can do that. We can, we own the data. We don't license it from somebody else. Um, it's the data that we own that we can put out there. So we've got a huge volume that we can leverage and put it into a community like that where we can actually see some of those results come in.Erica:28:57So to kind of put you on the spot-Arvind:28:59Can I- one thing to say after that to is not just about data owning the data because there are several different companies who own data, even oil and gas company, they have their own data library. I honestly think that, it says volume about TGS, that TGS was willing to take a bet on this kind of futuristic idea and like go on a limb. But, and this is, I'm just giving credit to the senior management here, that they were, they're allowed us to actually go with this. That was one of the bigger hurdle than just to owning data, that management buy-inRob:29:39Second only to data preparation for the challenge itself.Arvind:29:42Second only to the data preparation, it took us a lot of time to build-Rob:29:45YeahArvind:29:45an interesting problem. It's not just about like you have to create an interesting problem to-Erica:29:51to attract the right talent.Arvind:29:52So the winner was a group from a Belarus and the Japan. They have never met. They have never seen each other other than the Facebook.Erica:30:02Wow.Arvind:30:03And did they actually met on this Kaggle platform? They were working on this problem. They found out that there they are approaching with the two different ways and they actually teamed up so that they can combine this to create a better solution. Combining both of their effort and that that's actually happens to be the winning combination. But a traditional method won't allow us to tap into this kind of resources or brain power. That to someone from Belarus and Japan working together whom we don't know solving our problem and that is going to be a disruptor and we have to be ready to capitalize on it rather than be afraid of it.Erica:30:51Right. And that's why I wanted to go to rob, not to put you on the spot here, but as someone coming from the well data side, do you see any potential future Kaggle challenges using well data?Rob:31:05Yeah, the, that could absolutely be in our future. I think at this point we're really trying to frame the problems that we're trying to solve for our customers. And if we decide that one of those problems deserves, some time in the public, like on Kaggle, then we can absolutely go that direction. Not a problem whatsoever. At the moment though, our real focus is trying to figure out where can we provide the most value to the clients and we're kind of letting them steer us in a, you know, a way we have got our own geology department internally so we know what we need to do with our internal well data in order to high grade it to the next level product. However, we're really taking direction from our clients to make sure that we're moving in that direction. So yeah, I could see us having a problem like that, especially if it's starting to get into a Dataset that, , needs to be merged with another data set that maybe, we need support from, somewhere else in the industry. We're in a different industry.Arvind:31:59Just a few minutes on that is,the next problem I think that Kaggle need from oil and gas is a more on the solution side. So the knowledge to- like information to knowledge site in which you are all taking very different type of data set. For example, success failure database for the basin. And building a, prospect level decision that requires a, as Rob said, that collaboration, that the TGS collaborating with one of the E&P company or someone else, like those two or three companies and now bringing their data together because at the end of the day, this integration is what everyone is looking for. Can we actually create an interesting integration problem and put it on the Kaggle competition. So, any listener, if they're in, they have a good problem, they can actually contact Rob, or me. That, because we are always looking for good partners to solve complex problems. We can't solve all the problem by ourselves, neither other people. It does require teams to build the right kind of Dataset, interesting problems in to, to get into the board.Erica:33:22Okay. So we've talked about how we got here to this point in the industry with AI machine learning and we've talked about what we're doing today with the, um, let's move on to the future where we think AI will take, um, the industry. So to follow up on something that Arvind had said earlier, so you had said that we sort of fell behind silicon valley at some point. How, how far behind do you think we are right now in terms of years if you can make that estimation?Arvind:33:58Oh, that's a tough question but I'll try to answer it in a roundabout way. Is it that when I say that we lag behind, we lag behind in the compute side of it, like the AI side of it and some of the visualization and web-based technology when it comes to high performance computing, we were still leading up to very- probably in some of the spaces we are still leading. So storage and high performance compute which is both, oil and gas defense and Silicon Valley. All three are working. Um, we are not that far behind actually we might be at the cutting edge of it. And that was one of the reason that we didn't actually focus on the AI side because we were solving the problem in more high compute way and we are using bigger and bigger machine solving, more complex problems more physics based complex physics based solutions.Arvind:35:04So when it comes to solving physics based solution, we are still, at the front of the pack. But when it comes to solving a heuristic auto machine learning or AI based solution, we are behind, we are behind in robotics and things like that and we are catching up. So when you think of a mid midstream and downstream where there's a lot of the internet of things, IOT instruments, so things are getting is like instrumentized and there are a lot of instruments which are connected to each other and real time monitoring, predictive maintenance. Those are happening and happening at a very rapid rate. And that will actually, we'll, we'll catch up in a few years in, in midstream and downstream side or mostly instrumentation side where we are truly lagging is subsurface because it's not the problem that Ian, and like, silicon valley was trying to solve.Arvind:36:05A subsurface problem are complex. They are very different type of problem; that someplace you have very dense data, someplace We have very sparse data. How to actually integrate that and humans are very good at integrating different scale of information in a cohesive way, whereas that problem is not the problem that silicon like, technology sector was trying to solve. And so we are trying to actually take the solutions that they are building to solve different problem and integrating it or adapting that to solve our problem. So that's where like I see like, so I think it's a non answer but that's what the best I have. (Laughter)Erica:36:49It was a very good answer. So how does this change the way that we're building our products then our approach to getting our products out there?Rob:36:58Well, one of the, one of the things I'll start with is we're actually seeing our clients adopt analytics teams, analytics approaches, machine learning. there's a lot of, there's a lot of growth in that part of the industry. and they've gotten past the point where they don't believe that a predictive solution is the right solution. You know, with our ARLAS product, we're creating an analytics ready LAS dataset where we're predicting what the curves would look like, where there's currently gaps in the curve coverage. The initial problem the customers had was, do they believe that the data's accurate? We're starting to get past those kinds of problems. We're starting to get to the point where they believe in the solutions and now they're trying to make sure that they've got the right solutions to fit within their workflows in their organization. So I think the fact that they've actually invested in building up their own analytics teams where they've injected software engineering, geology and geophysics, a data science and kind of group them all together and carved them off, or they can focus on maybe solving 20% of the problems that they actually, attempt. That's kind of where the industry has gotten to, which means we now have an opportunity to help them get to those levels.Arvind:38:10You see that a change in conferences, and, meetings and symposiums that, like for example SEG Society of exploration geophysicists and, that, conference three years back there was one session about machine learning and last year, machine learning has the largest number of sessions in that conference. So you're looking at a rapid adaptation of a machine learning as a core technology in oil and gas and at least in subsurface, but most of them is at the very early phases, people are trying to solve the easier problem, the problem they can solve rather than the problem that need to be solved. So that's where there's a differentiation happening that everyone wants to work on machine learning and most of the people are actually taking solution to your problem rather than taking problem finding solution for a problem which is relevant. So,Rob:39:21I think that's pretty fair because,you've got to get some sort of belief internally and if you can prove that you've got kind of a before and after, here's what I did to make this decision or the wells that are drilled in the production I've got and here's what I predicted was going to happen. And you can start to see those two things align. Then you start to get belief in something. If you just use something that's predictive only and you've got nothing to compare it to, it may be the right solution. But do you have the belief that your company is going to run with it? So that's why I think we're starting to see them solve problems that we know can be solved initially rather than the big problem of say, if I shoot seismic here, I can predict how much oil I'm going to produce. That's a big problem and it's at different resolutions and scales than we believe we can solve and, and be definitive about it today. but I think that, I think I agree with you that they're, they're really focused on, on proving that this technology, that analytics that AI/ML is going to work for the problems that they know about.Arvind:40:24Agreed only up to a point is that, the reason and why I think it ML/AI solutions are different is because, in physics, one of our basic assumption is that, if we solve a toy problem, you can scale the same way is the same solution will apply on a bigger problem. That's not the case for machine learning solutions. The solution that is applicable for a toy problem is not going to scale. You need to actually retrain the data and the solution becomes different as the scale of the problem increases. So although it's, interesting to see that a lot of a small problem are very easy problem people are taking to- people are solving a lot of easy problem using machine learning. To show that machine learning works, that's good. But to truly take advantage of machine learning, you have to actually solve, try to solve one of the complex problem because you already have a solution for those easy problems.Arvind:41:40Why do we need machine learning? So for example, ARLAS is a good example. Our analytic ready LAS in which we are predicting well logs from the available, well logs. Now if I have only one well, or a few wells then I actually want my petrophysicist to go through the physics based modeling and solve that problem. I don't need AI to solve that problem. I have actually solutions which works there. If the solution that I need is that how to solve this problem on a scale of Permian basin or a scale of U.S. So like what we have done for ARLAS that the first basin we started was Permian is where we took all the data that we have as a training data or actually a good portion of that data as a training data set. We build that model, which is actually based in scale model that can actually ingest all the like 320,000 wells we have. So we used thousands and thousands of well as a training build a very robust model to actually solve that problem and now that solution is available for the whole basin. That's the kind of solutions that are problem that AI is good at solving and has actually best potential not for solving few wells. Learning about AI by solving a few wells is great, but as a product or as a true application of AI, we need to actually look at tackling the big problems.Rob:43:11Yeah, I agree. There's been a lot of, shall we say analytics companies that come out with a claim of being able to perform some sort of machine learning basis and they've got a great interface and everything looks really good. And the story behind it is that it's been taught on five wells or 10 wells in our learning set was in the tens of thousands of wells, which is why I believe in the data set that we've built.Arvind:43:40At a very high level, machine learning is like teaching a kid, like someone has come out of graduate school and they want to actually learn something and you are showing them this is how we actually do. The more things they see, the better they will get, the more experience they will have and the better their capability or work will be. So it requires the, the whole concept of machine learning or AI is that you want to actually train with massive amount of very high quality data set and that actually solves more complex problems.Erica:44:18How do you discipline data?Arvind:44:22So you are saying that did- have you talked to our lead data scientist and he calls him to himself a data janitor, that most of the time he spent is cleaning of the data and organizing the data so that he can actually do the high quality like the machine learning AI work. So if he spends his time like out of a hundred hours, 60 or 70 hours- so he's actually organizing, categorizing data set so that he can do the fun stuff in the last 30 40 hours. I mean that's actually, that's better than a good, most of the places where people spend 90 hours doing the curation and 10 hours doing the fun stuff. And that was one of the reasons why we had to build the data lake because one of the thing is that we need all the data to be readily available in a kind of semi usable format that I don't need to spend time learning about the 2003 data is different than 2015 data versus 2018 data.Arvind:45:34I need to actually consume it as one big dataset. So last whole year we spend actually considerable, considerable amount of time and effort in building our data lake in which we actually took all of our commercial legacy, data set and moved it on cloud. The two things that we did is one we standardized the data set so that lead data scientists don't have to spend on doing janitorial of data janitorial work and a second is creating metadata. So what Metadata is that aggregate information.Arvind:46:06For example, Arvind Sharma what is the Meta data about Arvind Sharma um, that he is five feet 10, I don't have a lot of hair. (Laughter) He drives some car and he, he has gone to- he has a PhD like so some aggregate information like out of her, like rather than cell by cell information about Arvind, what is the minimum, set of aggregate information that you can use to define Arvind. So that's the metadata about any data set. So what we did when we are moving this a massive amount of data set into our data lake for each of these data set, we extracted this aggregate information that where it was recorded, when it was recorded, what are the basic things done to this data set? What is the maximum amplitude in this volume? What is the minimum amplitude in this volume? What does the average amplitude in this? So those things we actually use it because a lot of analytics is that some of the higher level analytics will be about integrating the information about data set, like Facebook uses information about people to make some of the decision. We are not that creepy as that Facebook, but (laughter) it's, it's like taking the information about the data set and actually learning creating knowledge about the basin.Rob:47:37It's interesting when you were talking about the data janitorial work and how we've kind to standardize our data set on the, on the cloud because it kind of brings it full circle back to something you said early on. And that was that we want our customers to be able to get to that decision making point sooner without having to do all that data, janitorial work. I've been going to data management conferences for 25 years and I hear the same thing every year for 25 years. I spend "fill in the blank" percentage of my time, 60 70, 80% of my time looking for data and the remainder are actually working with it. That's what an analytics ready data set it's going to allow us and our customers to be able to do is not have to do all that janitorial work, but actually get to the point where I can actually start interpreting what that data means to me to make decisions.Erica:48:30So looking towards the future of the industry, do you think we're going to continue to ramp up in terms of speed and getting to the good stuff, the fun part? Do you think that's going to continue to logarithmically increase?Rob:48:44Probably faster than we can ever imagine. I think the, I think the change that we saw with companies moving to the cloud companies going toward, service based solutions, companies moving toward high volume, normalized consistent datasets, all of these things have been moving at light-light speed compared to what they were, the, the past 25 years. Up until today, every day about probably about every three weeks. We basically, have got some new technology that's been released that we can start adopting and putting into our workflows that wasn't there three weeks, three weeks prior, open source. It comes back to that topic as well. More and more of these tech firms are putting the data out as open source means we could leverage it and get to solutions faster. So to answer the question, absolutely faster than we can possibly imagine.Erica:49:28Well, awesome. I cannot wait to get to this future, with both of you.Erica:49:41Well, thank you so much for talking with us today. Being part of our first episode of Beneath the Subsurface, it was an absolute pleasure. If our listeners want to learn more about what TGS is doing with AI, you can visit TGS.com You can visit our new TGS.ai platform and, we'll have some additional show notes on our website, to go along with this episode.Arvind:50:06Thank you Erica.Rob:50:07Yeah, thanks a lot. I appreciate it.Conclusions and plugs:Check out the newly launched tgs.ai to dig deeper in to the data with subsurface intelligence. Gain detailed subsurface knowledge through robust analytics with our integrated data and machine learning solutions at tgs.ai Discover Geoscience AI solutions, Cloud Computing, Data Management, and our Data Library. Learn more about TGS at tgs.com

And collectively, they weigh more than the human population and they photosynthesize as much as all of the crops on land. They're incredibly important in the global ocean. So over the years, as we were studying them and found how abundant they were, we thought, hmm, this is really strange. How can a single species be so abundant across so many different habitats? And as we isolated more into culture, we learned that they are different ecotypes. There are some that are adapted to the high-light intensities in the surface water, and there are some that are adapted to the low light in the deep ocean. In fact, those cells that live in the bottom of the sunlit zone are the most efficient photosynthesizers of any known cell. And then we learned that there are some strains that grow optimally along the equator, where there are higher temperatures, and some that do better at the cooler temperatures as you go north and south.它们的重量集中在一起超过人类，而且它们光合作用量和陆地上所有庄稼一样多。他们对全球海洋是不可思议的重要。所以过去几年，我们研究它们到底有多大的数量。我想，这真的是奇妙。一个单一的种类是如何有那么多的栖息地的？当我们隔离更多的绿原球藻在培养液中之后，了解到他们是不同的生态类型。有一些在水面的适应了直射的光强度，又一些在深水适应了低亮度的环境。实际上，那些我们已知细胞都是在阳光照射到的水域底部光合作用效率最高。遂而，我们又了解到有一些种类适宜在沿着赤道的水域生长，那儿有更高的水温；还有，当沿经线考察的时候，有一些种类在更冷的水温下生长得更好。10:22So as we studied these more and more and kept finding more and more diversity, we thought, oh my God, how diverse are these things? And about that time, it became possible to sequence their genomes and really look under the hood and look at their genetic makeup. And we've been able to sequence the genomes of cultures that we have, but also recently, using flow cytometry, we can isolate individual cells from the wild and sequence their individual genomes, and now we've sequenced hundreds of Prochlorococcus. And although each cell has roughly 2,000 genes -- that's one tenth the size of the human genome -- as you sequence more and more, you find that they only have a thousand of those in common and the other thousand for each individual strain is drawn from an enormous gene pool, and it reflects the particular environment that the cell might have thrived in, not just high or low light or high or low temperature, but whether there are nutrients that limit them like nitrogen, phosphorus or iron. It reflects the habitat that they come from.所以，当研究越来越深入，发现多样性也越来越多， 我们会想：“我的天啊，得有多少种类啊！？”大概就在那个时候，基因组测序成为可能，我们可以真正的看看在外表之下的基因组合，所以现在我们已经能够对我们所培养的绿原球藻的基因组进行测序了，而且最近，我们用流血细胞分析仪计数器对从混杂的品种中隔离出的单一的绿原球藻细胞的基因组进行测序，已经测了几百种个了。虽然每一个细胞的基因大致有2000个，是人类基因数的十分之一。当测得越来越多，你就会发现这中间只有1000个是通用的，而另外1000个是从庞大的基因库中派生出来的，是反应它们得以茁长生长的特殊环境的，不只是光线的强弱或者温度的高低，还有比如是否养分是否充足，比如氮、磷、铁。这反应了它们的生存环境。Think of it this way. If each cell is a smartphone and the apps are the genes, when you get your smartphone, it comes with these built-in apps. Those are the ones that you can't delete if you're an iPhone person. You press on them and they don't jiggle and they don't have x's. Even if you don't want them, you can't get rid of them.咱们这么想。如果每一个细胞是智能手机，应用是基因，当你有了一台智能手机，有内置应用。那些是你不能删除的，如果你是iPone的用户。你长按它们，它们不抖动，也没有叉叉。即使你不想要它们，你也不能丢弃它们。(Laughter)（笑声）Those are like the core genes of Prochlorococcus. They're the essence of the phone. But you have a huge pool of apps to draw upon to make your phone custom-designed for your particular lifestyle and habitat. If you travel a lot, you'll have a lot of travel apps, if you're into financial things, you might have a lot of financial apps, or if you're like me, you probably have a lot of weather apps, hoping one of them will tell you what you want to hear.那些就像原绿球藻的核心基因。它们是智能手机的本质体现。但是你有巨大的应用池来根据你的特定的生活方式和习惯定制你的智能手机。如果你经常旅游，你会装很多旅游的应用，如果你专注于财务，你可能装了很多财务的应用，或者如果你像我，你可能有很多天气的应用，希望它们中的某一个能告诉你所在这个地方你想要的天气预报结果。(Laughter)（笑声）And I've learned the last couple days in Vancouver that you don't need a weather app -- you just need an umbrella. So --不过在过去几天中我已经知道在温哥华，你不需要天气应用，你只需要一把伞，所以……

And collectively, they weigh more than the human population and they photosynthesize as much as all of the crops on land. They're incredibly important in the global ocean. So over the years, as we were studying them and found how abundant they were, we thought, hmm, this is really strange. How can a single species be so abundant across so many different habitats? And as we isolated more into culture, we learned that they are different ecotypes. There are some that are adapted to the high-light intensities in the surface water, and there are some that are adapted to the low light in the deep ocean. In fact, those cells that live in the bottom of the sunlit zone are the most efficient photosynthesizers of any known cell. And then we learned that there are some strains that grow optimally along the equator, where there are higher temperatures, and some that do better at the cooler temperatures as you go north and south.它们的重量集中在一起超过人类，而且它们光合作用量和陆地上所有庄稼一样多。他们对全球海洋是不可思议的重要。所以过去几年，我们研究它们到底有多大的数量。我想，这真的是奇妙。一个单一的种类是如何有那么多的栖息地的？当我们隔离更多的绿原球藻在培养液中之后，了解到他们是不同的生态类型。有一些在水面的适应了直射的光强度，又一些在深水适应了低亮度的环境。实际上，那些我们已知细胞都是在阳光照射到的水域底部光合作用效率最高。遂而，我们又了解到有一些种类适宜在沿着赤道的水域生长，那儿有更高的水温；还有，当沿经线考察的时候，有一些种类在更冷的水温下生长得更好。10:22So as we studied these more and more and kept finding more and more diversity, we thought, oh my God, how diverse are these things? And about that time, it became possible to sequence their genomes and really look under the hood and look at their genetic makeup. And we've been able to sequence the genomes of cultures that we have, but also recently, using flow cytometry, we can isolate individual cells from the wild and sequence their individual genomes, and now we've sequenced hundreds of Prochlorococcus. And although each cell has roughly 2,000 genes -- that's one tenth the size of the human genome -- as you sequence more and more, you find that they only have a thousand of those in common and the other thousand for each individual strain is drawn from an enormous gene pool, and it reflects the particular environment that the cell might have thrived in, not just high or low light or high or low temperature, but whether there are nutrients that limit them like nitrogen, phosphorus or iron. It reflects the habitat that they come from.所以，当研究越来越深入，发现多样性也越来越多， 我们会想：“我的天啊，得有多少种类啊！？”大概就在那个时候，基因组测序成为可能，我们可以真正的看看在外表之下的基因组合，所以现在我们已经能够对我们所培养的绿原球藻的基因组进行测序了，而且最近，我们用流血细胞分析仪计数器对从混杂的品种中隔离出的单一的绿原球藻细胞的基因组进行测序，已经测了几百种个了。虽然每一个细胞的基因大致有2000个，是人类基因数的十分之一。当测得越来越多，你就会发现这中间只有1000个是通用的，而另外1000个是从庞大的基因库中派生出来的，是反应它们得以茁长生长的特殊环境的，不只是光线的强弱或者温度的高低，还有比如是否养分是否充足，比如氮、磷、铁。这反应了它们的生存环境。Think of it this way. If each cell is a smartphone and the apps are the genes, when you get your smartphone, it comes with these built-in apps. Those are the ones that you can't delete if you're an iPhone person. You press on them and they don't jiggle and they don't have x's. Even if you don't want them, you can't get rid of them.咱们这么想。如果每一个细胞是智能手机，应用是基因，当你有了一台智能手机，有内置应用。那些是你不能删除的，如果你是iPone的用户。你长按它们，它们不抖动，也没有叉叉。即使你不想要它们，你也不能丢弃它们。(Laughter)（笑声）Those are like the core genes of Prochlorococcus. They're the essence of the phone. But you have a huge pool of apps to draw upon to make your phone custom-designed for your particular lifestyle and habitat. If you travel a lot, you'll have a lot of travel apps, if you're into financial things, you might have a lot of financial apps, or if you're like me, you probably have a lot of weather apps, hoping one of them will tell you what you want to hear.那些就像原绿球藻的核心基因。它们是智能手机的本质体现。但是你有巨大的应用池来根据你的特定的生活方式和习惯定制你的智能手机。如果你经常旅游，你会装很多旅游的应用，如果你专注于财务，你可能装了很多财务的应用，或者如果你像我，你可能有很多天气的应用，希望它们中的某一个能告诉你所在这个地方你想要的天气预报结果。(Laughter)（笑声）And I've learned the last couple days in Vancouver that you don't need a weather app -- you just need an umbrella. So --不过在过去几天中我已经知道在温哥华，你不需要天气应用，你只需要一把伞，所以……

*We apologize for the sound quality on this recording.* This is the 16th class on the book of Hebrews. This Bible class was taught at the Pilot Point Church in Pilot Point Texas. The following is the outline of the class. Christ the Mediator of a New Covenant The old covenant was inadequate and faulty, the new covenant is complete will never age The old covenant was inadequate because of its nature/law of works. The old covenant was inadequate because of its national/civil function and administration. The old covenant was faulty because its membership did not know God – had to be taught about God. The old covenant was faulty because once you sinned God could not make you right with that covenant. The old covenant was faulty because it was not designed to last forever. The Place of Jesus Ministry Hebrews chapter 9 9 Now the first covenant had regulations for worship and also an earthly sanctuary. 2A tabernacle was set up. In its first room were the lampstand and the table with its consecrated bread; this was called the Holy Place. 3Behind the second curtain was a room called the Most Holy Place, 4which had the golden altar of incense and the gold-covered Ark of the Covenant. This ark contained the gold jar of manna, Aaron’s staff that had budded, and the stone tablets of the covenant. 5Above the ark were the cherubim of the Glory, overshadowing the atonement cover. But we cannot discuss these things in detail now. 1 Kings 6 (NIV) 14So Solomon built the temple and completed it. 15He lined its interior walls with cedar boards, paneling them from the floor of the temple to the ceiling, and covered the floor of the temple with planks of juniper.16He partitioned off twenty cubits at the rear of the temple with cedar boards from floor to ceiling to form within the temple an inner sanctuary, the Most Holy Place. 17The main hall in front of this room was forty cubits[i] long. 18The inside of the temple was cedar, carved with gourds and open flowers. Everything was cedar; no stone was to be seen. 19He prepared the inner sanctuary within the temple to set the ark of the covenant of the LORD there. 20The inner sanctuary was twenty cubits long, twenty wide and twenty high. He overlaid the inside with pure gold, and he also overlaid the altar of cedar. 21Solomon covered the inside of the temple with pure gold, and he extended gold chains across the front of the inner sanctuary, which was overlaid with gold. 22So he overlaid the whole interior with gold. He also overlaid with gold the altar that belonged to the inner sanctuary. Leviticus 16 11“Aaron shall bring the bull for his own sin offering to make atonement for himself and his household, and he is to slaughter the bull for his own sin offering. 12He is to take a censer full of burning coals from the altar before the LORD and two handfuls of finely ground fragrant incense and take them behind the curtain. 13He is to put the incense on the fire before the LORD, and the smoke of the incense will conceal the atonement cover above the tablets of the covenant law, so that he will not die. 14He is to take some of the bull’s blood and with his finger sprinkle it on the front of the atonement cover; then he shall sprinkle some of it with his finger seven times before the atonement cover. Hebrews 9 (NIV) 6 When everything had been arranged like this, the priests entered regularly into the outer room to carry on their ministry. • 7But only the high priest entered the inner room, and that only once a year, and never without blood, which he offered for himself and for the sins the people had committed in ignorance. • 8The Holy Spirit was showing by this that the way into the Most Holy Place had not yet been disclosed as long as the first tabernacle was still functioning. • 9This is an illustration for the present time, indicating that the gifts and sacrifices being offered were not able to clear the conscience of the worshiper. • 10They are only a matter of food and drink and various ceremonial washings—external regulations applying until the time of the new order Matthew 27 45From noon until three in the afternoon darkness came over all the land. 46About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eli, Eli,[c] lema sabachthani?” (Which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”).[d] 47When some of those standing there heard this, they said, “He’s calling Elijah.” 48Immediately one of them ran and got a sponge. He filled it with wine vinegar, put it on a staff, and offered it to Jesus to drink. 49The rest said, “Now leave him alone. Let’s see if Elijah comes to save him.” 50And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit. 51At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook, the rocks split Hebrews 9 (NIV) 10They are only a matter of food and drink and various ceremonial washings—external regulations applying until the time of the new order 11But when Christ came as high priest of the good things that are now already here,he went through the greater and more perfect tabernacle that is not made with human hands, that is to say, is not a part of this creation. The Son’s Sacrifice is Superior to the O.T. Sacrifice Hebrews chapter 9:12-10:18 Hebrews 9 (NIV) 11But when Christ came as high priest of the good things that are now already here,[a] he went through the greater and more perfect tabernacle that is not made with human hands, that is to say, is not a part of this creation. 12He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves; but he entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption. 9This is an illustration for the present time, indicating that the gifts and sacrifices being offered were not able to clear the conscience of the worshiper. Hebrews 9 (NIV) 13The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean. 14How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God! 15For this reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance—now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant. For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more. Hebrews 9 16In the case of a will, it is necessary to prove the death of the one who made it, 17because a will is in force only when somebody has died; it never takes effect while the one who made it is living. (NIV) 16For where a covenant is, there must of necessity be the death of the one who made it. 17For a covenant is valid only when men are dead, for it is never in force while the one who made it lives. • (NASB) Hebrews 9 (NASB) 18Therefore even the first covenant was not inaugurated without blood. • 19For when every commandment had been spoken by Moses to all the people according to the Law, he took the blood of the calves and the goats, with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people, 20saying, “THIS IS THE BLOOD OF THE COVENANT WHICH GOD COMMANDED YOU.” 21And in the same way he sprinkled both the [v]tabernacle and all the vessels of the ministry with the blood. 22And according to the [w]Law, one may almost say, all things are cleansed with blood, and without shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness. Matthew 26 (NASB) 27And when He had taken a cup and given thanks, He gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you; 28for this is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for forgiveness of sins. Hebrews 9 23Therefore it was necessary for the copies of the things in the heavens to be cleansed with these, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. 24For Christ did not enter a holy place made with hands, a mere copy of the true one, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us; Subscribe to the podcast: {Apple Podcasts}{Stitcher}{Google Play}{IHeartRadio}

John 7:1-5 (NASB) And after these things Jesus was walking in Galilee; for He was unwilling to walk in Judea, because the Jews were seeking to kill Him. 2Now the feast of the Jews, the Feast of Booths, was at hand. 3His brothers therefore said to Him, “Depart from here, and go into Judea, that Your disciples also may behold Your works which You are doing. 4“For no one does anything in secret, when he himself seeks to be known publicly. If You do these things, show Yourself to the world.” 5For not even His brothers were believing in Him. “...the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.” John 6:63 Luke 4:16-22 (NKJV) 16So He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up. And as His custom was, He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up to read. 17And He was handed the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when He had opened the book, He found the place where it was written: 18"The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, Because He has anointed Me To preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives And recovery of sight to the blind, To set at liberty those who are oppressed; 19To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord." 20Then He closed the book, and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all who were in the synagogue were fixed on Him. 21And He began to say to them, "Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing." 22So all bore witness to Him, and marveled at the gracious words which proceeded out of His mouth. And they said, "Is this not Joseph's son?" The Grace Words Of Jesus: His Grace Not Only Gets You Into The Kingdom, But Allows You To Function As A Child Of The King. What Happened? They Were Being Exposed To The SUPERNATURAL And It Got Reduced To The FAMILIAR.

Jesus says: '"Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment. But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to his brother, Raca (Idiot), is answerable to the Sanhedrin. But anyone who says, You fool, will be in danger of the fire of hell." -Mat. 5:21-22So if you have anger or hate in your heart - beware! Learn to take care of your root- so you won't have to worry about the (bad) fruit.Scripture Passages: Mat. 5:21; Luke 6:43-45; Jer. 2:21; Isa. 5:4; Lk. 3:9,13:6-9; Heb. 12:15

One Orphan is Too Many 101: With Doug RiggleIn this episode, we discuss the plight of orphans in our country and around the world. Listen in to hear about how some amazing people are addressing this issue.Transcript:Lance Foulis 0:48Hello, everybody, welcome back to land slots roundtable we are picking up after the stop of holiday, we had a little bit of a hiatus during holiday. So this is our first recording of 2022. And we are really excited to have everybody listening again and to be back and to be recording. I was talking with one of my friends who's starting a podcast. The first guy on this season Jason spears, and he was talking about how he is really missing recording and I've been missing recording. I've been missing the podcast, he's actually recovering from COVID. So that's why you haven't heard his podcast yet. So we're excited for the launch of their podcast this this year, hopefully, within the next couple months. Anyway, I'm excited we have a very special guest today. Doug Riggle Doug is the founder and president of orphan World Relief as an adopted child. And later as a single parent who adopted from the foster care system. He understands the needs of kids from all angles.On their website, one orphan is too many is a really great, quote. Orphan World Relief was founded in 2008, after Doug experienced firsthand the needs of homeless and orphaned children in Ukraine. Upon returning to the states, further research, shed light on the global crisis and the millions of orphaned and at risk children around the world. What started as an organization designed to help well run programs in other countries financially, has since blossomed into an organization that understands the needs of children in the US and around the globe. While helping educate people on the needs. These kids are dealing with every day, hashtag hope changes everything. I love that hashtag Doug, I saw it yesterday on the website for the first time. So Doug, welcome to the roundtable. Thank you, Lance. Great to be here. Yeah, I'm so glad that we were able to finally do this. I've been thinking about asking you, I think for the last year and a half. And it took me that long to ask you and to get you on. So yeah, let's just why don't you just tell us a little bit about yourself? Sure. So it was Doug. I have lived in central Ohio since 1987. Although I went to high school out in Roseburg and I went to stepped away for college in Texas andDoug Riggle 3:09been back here ever since. Which college did you go to? I don't think I knew that. University of Texas San Antonio. Okay. All right. Yeah, county. Why why San Antonio. So I Texas. When I was 17, I graduated high school. And my parents said, we're moving to Texas. You can't stay here by yourself. I had a scholarship to theater scholarship to theater and Otterbein. I didn't know that. And my parents said, You're not living here by yourself. We i i had it all worked out. I had a place to stay. I was and they're like, nope. And they just put their foot down. They put their foot down and I'm like, I'm still a 17. So So okay, so then you go to Texas who paid for your education? I did. You paid for your education. So when you had a scholarship, that's hilarious. Yeah. Well, to be honest, I paid never more than $500 a semester. Oh, wow. After I became a resident of Texas, is that like a Texas thing? It was it was it was back in 1983. When I started college, wow. Wow. Okay. Yeah. And that included books, and I was an English major. They didn't have a theater department at the time. So I'm like, Okay, what's next? I love reading. Let's do English.I actually thought about English for a second, like majoring English for a second because, well, I didn't know anything when I went to college, like, pretty much about anything. But I was like, I want to be a writer. Like I wanted to write books. Yeah. And so I asked the people, I guess I started Columbus State, and they're like, Oh, you could do journalism, or you could major in English. And I thought about and I took a couple English classes and I'm like, I don't I don't know. It's just college. I have a lot of thoughts on college now being out of it for so long and going through it but it is hilarious to what we decide to major in and why exactly. And we're all just so different. So you majored in you majored in English English, four years, four years. 4.74I'm sure to be sure I was six. I took three three times before I passed it. Really? It was so boring. I grew up. I mean, I went to school in Ohio. So I had Ohio History in high school. Yeah. And when I got to Texas, they require you to take Texas history. And of course, everyone around me had already taken it because they lived and yeah, I'm like, their their claim to fame is that they were their own country for about a year or so. Yeah. between Mexico and the United States. And then the only other thing I remember of the main board is the very first governor. His, his name was he was governor Hogg. His wife's name was ima. And I just thought that was hysterical. I'm no one else thought that was funny. But I did the Yankee from the north cell. That's, that's really funny. Did you ever develop an accent while you were there? No, actually, when growing up, we lived in different places. And my mom was from Appalachia. My dad really southern Ohio, when they adopted my adoptive parents. Yeah. And I had an accent when we moved from Nevada when my dad retired to Ohio. And I got teased so much in school, it took me a while I lost the accent. Okay, it comes back when I'm really, really tired. Or on the very, very massively rare occasion when I've had too much to drink.It comes back out. Oh, really? Yes. So fascinating. How old were you when you were adopted? I was a month old. You were a month old. So infant? infant? Yep. Okay. All right. Then Then how did they like was it just through like, whatever agency or whatever they were stationed in Iowa, Waverly, Iowa at the time and zation, like military military, okay. And then they mom had had three miscarriages after my sister. And the doctor said no more. Yeah. Your body's telling. You can't have any children. So they adopted me when they were living in Iowa. Wow. Wow. And then they ended up in Ohio. So my dad's family's from Ohio. Got it. We lived in Iowa, Nevada. They were stationed in Washington state for a while where they had my sister. They were stationed in Mississippi for tech school.Trying to think we're all saved. And Virginia. Mom's from so when dad would go he repaired radar. Okay, and so when he would go out and repair radar in Alaska, usuallywe would go live with family members sometimes. Not in Alaska, not in Alaska. That way we didn't have to do or Alaska said no, because I've always wanted to see it. But I know back then. It's like no, no one went there. Right? Yeah. Yeah. It's it's an interesting place. I there's some people that I know that are in the military.So we're walking down the hall and this one of his roommates came up there were three boys in this room came up. Hey, Richie, who's this guy? And he grabs me his little hands. He grabbed me by that by the pinky. This is my new pop.Lance Foulis 0:17Oh, IDoug Riggle 0:18like turning away. Trying not to like, burst out in tears. Oh, yeah. Yeah, he was smart. He knew what was going on. Yeah. Even though hetogether Yeah. Wow. So this is my new pop. Yeah,Kim Foulis 0:32gosh, I'm not crying you're cryingLance Foulis 7:43I think he's, uh, yeah, he's career Air Force. And they've been all over the place. But they I don't know how many years they've been in Alaska. But the pictures that they'll post like a random moose. That there that's like going across the road. And then yeah, like, take a picture at two o'clock in the morning. It's still daytime out. Like, although, yeah, weird stuff like that. I would be hard to get used to daytime at 2am. Or kids would love it. Yeah, probably. Okay. So, English major, and then talk to us a little bit about? Well, let's just let's just talk about we're from the World Relief. Sure. Why you why you founded it, what the purpose of it is,Doug Riggle 8:22you know, back in 98, I took my first mission trip ever. And I remember, Pastor, my church, Chris asked us asked me if I wanted to go. And I've never been out of the country before. Well, I've been to Mexico, technically just over the border, into Canada over the border. But I'd never really been out of the US. And I thought about it, prayed about it and like, Okay, let's go. Okay. And so we went there. And it's funny, because just last night, I'm working on a book with a friend of mine, collaborator, Kevin Greg out in California. We just went through this section of the book last night for the like, second or third time.So you're writing a book to Yes. Oh, we'll get into that. Okay, we can talkabout that. And we went over there and we spent a day there was a young man named Pasha and he worked with homeless boys in this little area in Kiev called Eternal Park, which is a little little island in the middle of the river, you get to by train. And we were there. We kick the you know, kick the ball around, I day played soccer. I kicked the ball. I have no sports ability whatsoever. No depth perception, no sports ability at all. So we ended up playing with these kids, just having a good time with them. They were all homeless kids. Pasha got $145 from an American couple a month that paid for his living expenses and allowed him to do outreach to these homeless boys. Wow. And I spent you know, we spent the day with him. I shared my testimony with them. Yeah, the next day, we were going to visit an orphanage north of town. Funny story where We were driving north of town and our driver URI had made a crack earlier about women drivers. So my interpreter refused to interpret anything. He said to me because she was mad at him. So I asked URI I said, you know, was able to get out in some basic Russian, Ukrainian, where's the orphanage? And he points straight ahead. I'm like, well, that's helpful. And I said, Good yet Chernobyl. I said, Where's Chernobyl? He points straight ahead. Then he's like, he's, I could see him like freeze the turns around in the seats. Like, we stay short time. I'm like, okay. So anyway, when he took you to the orphanage took us to the orphanage. Before we got there, we took a bus. And we had to meet you're in the north part of town. We took a bus and we actually walked under, spent about 20 minutes walking, to get there to meet Yuri to get the bus to go to the orphanage. Sorry, awkward story. We walked under a bridge and I could hear someone call my name. What I know. I'm like, I'm in the middle of Ukraine. And no one except for the people around me know who I am. Yeah. And then I'm like, Just hearing things. And then finally, I had this little voice, Douglas. I turned around, and the bridge we had just walked under. In the rafters of the bridge, were the boys that we had spent the day with the day before. No way. They slept under the bridge that night. Wow. And that was the moment God's like, you're not going to go back to the US and not do something about this. Wow, I'd already been thinking of adopting. And so this was during that same time frame. I'm like, Okay, I know, I know, I you know, I need to adopt, I plan on adopting. I was married before. I wanted to adopt my wife wanted to have our own natural kids. And so there was some conflict there. And I'm like, but uh, now I'm single. Yeah, like, I can't adopt, which, that changed. I changed my mind, which is like, a mindset that you have is mindset. Yeah, yeah. Cuz I knew it'd be hard because my best friend's Rick and Nancy had adopted three girls, and then fourth girl. Oh, thatwas after they adopted theirs. Right. About the same time. Okay. All right.And they were just in the process. And they were still probably in the honeymoon period. Yeah. I didn't have any warning signs telling me not. But it's still at, you know, I wouldn't trade it for the world. It's still the right thing to do and what I felt God calling me to do. But I also realized I needed to do something broader. Because growing up, I didn't know anyone adopted. I didn't know any orphans. I just thought I was the only one. Oh, really. And I had no clue that there were millions upon millions of kids in this world who are orphaned, abandoned, eating, you know, kids at risk, were right on the brink of being orphaned or abandoned. And so after that trip, I came back here, and I started to the United States and started researching and figuring out, oh, my gosh, 147 plus million kids orphaned, that they can count. How many 140 7 million147 million kids globally? Yeah. In the United Statesin foster care. There's about 400,000 kids at any one time.Lance Foulis 13:12Wow. That's not even I was surprised cuz I saw that on your website. And for some reason, in my head, it was a larger number. So to me, it's almost like, it's, I think I just had the thought like, oh, like, there could be a bigger impact, potentially. Right? Because there's not I thought it would be millions of kids in the foster care, but in the US 400,000. Well, if youDoug Riggle 13:32think about the kids in the foster care system, every year, about 20,000 of them aged out, got it. So every year there are 20,000 kids who are now without a family without any support structure, which is one of the programs that we're building right now. It's called foster to adult Yep, that we're getting off the ground to help some of these kids who, in some cases are falling through the cracks. So the Children's Services, county agency where we are at currently. I don't have the exact numbers. And you know, I would probably, like get sued if I say this out loud. But some of the things that they're doing is pulling kids out of foster care. And before they're 18, or reuniting them with their families, that they're out of the system. They're no longer counted as a number. And then they turn 18, though they're with a family that, you know, neglected or abused them before. And now they're back on their own again,but like, is that going back into a good situation? Or no? Okay. Yeah. Yeah,it's not, but it's a way to clear the books and save money. Oh, wow. And it's it's really, I'd love to find a good investigative reporter to kind of do some digging.I would love it. If we had more investigative reporters these days. Iwould love them. Yes. Anyone who's actually a reporter. Yeah, right. Yeah. And actual they don't exist anymore like they used to, right. Oh, yeah.Yeah, definitely. Hey, somebody out there hearing this podcast.Kim Foulis 15:00Just heard you. Come talk to me.Lance Foulis 15:03Okay. So let's talk about let's, I mean, you mentioned a few things there. So let's talk about I'm, I'm kind of a little bit curious about your childhood. So let's maybe start there. Like, when did you figure out that you were adopting? Like, what does that even like, I wasDoug Riggle 15:17in fifth grade, and my parents pulled me into the kitchen. And my dad paced back and forth, and like, I'm in trouble. What did I do wrong? It's like he can feel thank me get to get her over with now, whatever I did wrong. Mom would start to speak and she started crying. I'm like, oh, man, they're getting a divorce. But that doesn't happen. This is the 70s. It's like, yeah, all these thoughts going through a kid's mind. And then finally, the they came out with it. And I realized later in life, that was my dad pushing my mom. We need to tell Doug that he's adopted. Okay. Everyone else knew. Sure. So they figured it was your sister knew? Oh, yeah, she did. She was nine years old when they adopted me got it. So she had to know she was Yeah. I would get her in trouble later. And with mom and dad, Debbie said that I'm not her brother. Oh, she get in big trouble for saying that for saying that. Even if she said her. She didn't say I knew that could get her in trouble. So you had that lever. I have that lever over her. Okay. But yeah, so a fifth grade. And I was told I was adopted. I remember. They told me on a Sunday night, Monday morning, I went to school, and we were doing these little men Deleon genetic square things about eye color. Okay, and to figure out your mom has blue eyes. Your dad has brown eyes, what possible color accommodations? And I'm like, I don't want to feel this assignment. So I went up the teacher while we were like working on some of the stuff there. And I'm like, I'm adopted. I said, this, this may not work for me. I don't want to get a bad grade. So it's the cell teacher in front of the entire class. Hey, everyone, Doug's different than the rest of us. He's adopted. Come on. Oh, my gosh, yeah. I and I was a shy kid. And I just like wanted to crawl into a hole. Oh, my. And then lunchtime. I had kids asking me questions. You know, are you a bastard? I didn't know what the word meant. Why? Yeah. So I'm like, I'm like, No, I know what the word meant. I had to look it up when I got home, in fifth grade, eighth grade, and, you know, ask me questions about who my family were. And I'm like, you know, I didn't know. I had no information. They my parents told me when I turned 18, they would share with me about what they knew about my biological family. Interesting, which they didn't. They didn't know I snuck into their their room and broke into the little metal filing cabinet and got the information to myself when I was 19.Oh, wow. Yeah. I mean, you will be more patient than I think. Yeah, then. So but when you're fifth grade, your parents tell you that Yeah. What does that like?It? There was parts of it didn't like okay, some of this makes sense now. Oh, sure. I never knew my dad liked me much less loved me until I was out of college. Wow. Now I know now he does. He did you know, he's passed since. But growing up, I just always felt that there was a disconnect. Interesting part. Partly because I didn't understand His love language. Okay. His love language was giving me things and so, okay, I remember one time, I was probably 30 He had this hideous lamp. My dad went blind after like his second open heart surgery. He would go antique shopping with my mom and he, you know, spend money on things that you didn't need, but he had this lamp that was just absolutely hideous, but he loved it. And he wanted to give it to me and I didn't take it. And that hurt him. Oh, wow. Because I was rejecting His love is basically you know, I you know, I wish I'd you know know now what I knew then but sure her knew then what I know now, you know hindsightLance Foulis 18:53toys. It is way easier. Yeah, they're nine site. Okay, so I can't I just can't imagine being in fifth grade and having a truth bomb dropped on you. And then being in the middle of a class and a teacher pulling a stunt like that. Yeah, that's awful. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's okay. That's just unreal. Alright, so back back to the timeline. 98. You come back, you're doing research. Tell me about how you were doing your research because this isn't 98 I think we had the internet right. But it wasn't anywhere like it is now.Doug Riggle 19:22No, you're part of it was talking to people and part of it. So I actually then started the adoption process myself to get certified to adopt. Because you can go through the entire class and process and not actually adopt. But sure, I'd like I want to learn more. And fortunate. I mean, I learned a lot about kids waiting kids in the US and in America. But it wasn't until talking with other people that I was connected with at church and other places that I learned about orphanages and what the needs were and I that second day in Ukraine, I'd actually visited a different orphanage. And so I got to see firsthand, a very well run orphanage. There's a story telling in the book about a little girl named Masha and her brother, who were when they were six and seven, it's right at the fall of communism in 91. It's that that weird perspective here in America, we're all cheering communism has fallen over there that it's 45% unemployment. So these parents are just making a decision. Do we watch our kids starve to death? Because we both lost our jobs? Or do we do something about it? So what they did is they taught their six year old daughter to become a prostitute. Oh my gosh, and they drank heavily. And this is the little girl in the orphanage with their brother. And then later on, you know, because they were drinking so much the money away. They sent their son out to work as a sex worker as well, who was seven years old. Geez, so the kids ran away. Fortunately, sadly, though, until live on the streets, all they knew had to do was sell their bodies. So you know, got these now at this point eight, nine year olds filling the bodies to strangers, horribly dangerous, obviously. And this is before we had this big understanding of child sex trafficking. They someone from the orphanage that they were at found them and brought them in. It took psychologist over a year's worth of work with a little girl just to teach her to have fun and play. Oh, wow. So I got to see the positive results of what a good program could do is orphanages get a horrible rap? Yes. I mean, orphanages were gone, probably in the set by the 70s in the United States as well. And we might move to a foster care system by enlarge. Okay, and soit's never thought about that. We don't have orphanages in the States, weprobably threw the baby out with the bathwater, right? Because at least two orphanages is permanency. Yeah, I'm here. I'm not going from house to house to house. Yeah, I don't know if you know, by the time I adopted my son, I he from age five to age 13. When I got him, he was in about 15 different foster home placements. She's Yeah, that to me did as much damage to him as the reasons that he was taken from his biological frames again, with for sure. I mean, it's think about that. There's no permanency there. There's no, you know, you're in a new house one day, there are new rules, right? And your new relationship, your relationships, and these people are supposed to take care of you. Oh, there's some great foster parents out there. Yeah. But the ones who are like, Okay, we're going on vacation now come take these kids. And they put them into the place of like they're doing more harm. Right. And good,right. So let's talk about a couple of programs or fun World Relief does. Sure. Let's talk about, well, you can talk about it in any order that you want.So we started out to all of our programs to begin with for international and we came alongside programs that were well run, and wanted to provide financial support for them. Because they didn't have they were small, but they didn't have a lot of like us support. Yeah, so we want to be able to tell their story. At the same time. We came alongside some of them too, and help them become more self sufficient. God. So for example, in Honduras, Casa Garvey, we worked with them to help them set up a chicken and cattle farm,Lance Foulis 23:17an orphanage at the orphanage. Wow, soDoug Riggle 23:19that the kids can learn a trade. They are producing protein that's needed for everyone. Yeah, excess. So you've got beef, milk, chicken eggs, excess protein can be sold to community to make them more self sufficient. Wow. It's just an amazing program. Yeah, it's just fabulous. They're kind of like our hallmark of what a good program is. Because it's not just an insular little program, we send money to orphans. It's a program that involves the church, they have a block, the church works with block factories, everything becomes part of the organism that helps the kids there. There's also a nutrition center in Lemo nearby that helps kids and families with provide better nutrition to their kids,Kim Foulis 24:03which I've been to, by the way, when I was 15. That's the one that you went, I didn't know that. That's where I went. Tell us about picture downstairs. So I was 15. I was there for a week. And there was a group of people that were working building walls, but then there was a second, like, smaller group that was going to go over to the nutrition center. Okay, so I was like, Yeah, that's me. That's me. And I knew a little bit of span like enough to talk to little kids. And I mean, they just they cling to you, they surround you with all of this. I need love. I want love. But also, this is like my one meal a day. And I'm just you can tell they're they're so hungry for everything.Doug Riggle 24:39Everything. Yeah, yes,Kim Foulis 24:41it was phenomenal.Doug Riggle 24:42I've got some great pictures in the office of there's one of me and one kid on a teeter totter and like eight kids on the other side of the teeter totter. It's just a great likeyou're doing the teeter totter with eight other kids. Yeah, that's hilarious. Yeah, it's it's a it's a great program there who came up with the idea for that program? Without youNo, no, no, no, that's that was also run by yovani. The guy who started the church, he started the orphanage. He was a doctor still as a doctor. So he went to work with HIV kids, the nutrition center came about. And it's all this big collaborative effort. They've got a Block Factory, they've got a sustainable tree farm. They have two tortilla factories in the city. They've got a row of houses that they work with women who have HIV. Wow. And the women so it make purses. Every time I go there, I buy a ton of purses and bring them back. They're really beautiful. And I'm like, these several like crazy here in America for a good amount. Yeah, we could get them to commoditizea little bit more. But that's so that's such a good idea.Oh, it's amazing. It's amazing.Kim Foulis 25:42It's hearing about the whole ecosystem. Yeah, it can build like and be sustainable. And yeah, you'reDoug Riggle 25:47you're learning responsibility. And like you said, you're learning a trade. That's huge. Yeah,there was a orphanage in North Africa. I really, I've been trying to find the information about it. I read about it back in like 2000. And they teach the kids to 10 the vineyards. And the adults produce wine and sell that and everything is becomes has become self sufficient. The kids then can go when they leave the orphanage, they want 10 Great finds that get 30 bucks an hour, right? I mean, that's a good skill to have. And yeah, yeah.That's so awesome. So it started off as International. How long did it take you from 98? Till till like you were able to found orphan road relief.2008. So a decade. Wow. So I needed to I mean, I had to put a lot thought behind it, figure out who I was going to serve on my initial board. Yeah, how I was going to structure things so that we were different than other organizations so we could differentiate ourselves. So people would want to donate to us. Yeah. So with our international programs, we don't just we don't do child sponsorships, which everyone to ask us to do. I'm like, the infrastructure to do it. Child sponsorship is outrageously expensive, okay. And there's nothing wrong with them that for the larger organizations, compassion, all of those, they're great. But you have to pay for someone to ship the items to the kids, right? Translate letters back and forth, and go take pictures. So you have current pictures of these kids. Every year. Yeah. And me, I'mLance Foulis 27:14like, Okay, we can't afford that. Yeah, that's a lot of infrastructure.Doug Riggle 27:17It is a lot of infrastructure. So I jokingly refer to us as kind of like the Wholesale Club for orphans. I love that because it's, we deal in bulk. Yeah. And we want to have the maximum impact. So we have a spreadsheet. Right now we have like seven programs internationally that we support. Okay. Every time like once a quarter, we send out money to the programs. And we take, like, let's say we have $10,000 to send out, we I goes into a spreadsheet that factors in the number of kids being impacted the cost of living for that area of the world, and their annual budget. So we never give more than 20% of their annual budget because we'd never want anyone 100% dependent on us make sense. Because if we fail, they fail. We don't want ever want that to happen. And that happens quite a bit. Sure. But then they each get each quarter equal buying power. So like St. Petersburg, Russia is one of the more expensive places where the harbors located. And so they may actually get the bulk of the money, but they get the same buying power as the three programs that we support in Honduras, God and the same program we support in the Ukraine and Russia. Got it.Okay. And then when you're when you're doing all of this, the decade before you're able to found it, what's your day job?Let's see. So I was working at an insurance company here in Columbus, I left there in 2011, which is the the year we got our 501 C three status. We've been doing work before then for our nonprofit, but everything was retroactive, which was great. As far as donations. But I was at that time I was it human resources. Got it. Okay. And I was a communications expert there.So figuring out how to start up a nonprofit was just on like a side gig. Yeah, yeah.Yeah. And they're like, there are different ways to set up a board. You can find people who are passionate about what you're passionate about, and can come alongside and support your vision, or people with deep pockets. Sure. Pardon me is like I should have chose the people with deep pockets. But I did. I picked you know, three people. Rick, Nancy, who were my best friends and my buddy Steve. They were the original three board members. He was my personal trainer for a while. Got it. They came alongside and supported everything that I did. And yeah, helped me make decisions as we grew. Now. We've got a board membership about 10 people. Wow, I'm in different parts of the US and in Honduras as well. Wow. So it's been an amazing growth since then.Lance Foulis 29:51Yeah, that's fantastic. And the impact that you've had is that there are the organizations had is probably quite 1000s of kids. Yeah, yeah. Overall over the years that wouldn't have, it wouldn't have been positively impacted without, yeah, it just kind of blows my mind that you, it's almost like it was just this process that was kind of like laid out, you go on a trip. And that basically is like, essentially plants a seed, and then eventually that seed over time. I mean, you obviously did work, you know, to come back and do all the research and learn. Yep, you adopted during that time. And so you're raising a kid during that time as well. And then you had the ability to, you know, launch this thing that's still going on now and is is grown. So.Tell me about the bookDoug Riggle 30:46that you're writing. So right now, Kevin, and I've been working on this for over a year is Kevin from California, half of California, Kevin, Greg, amazing, amazing guy. I've been so blessed. I found him through a company called Upwork. And I interviewed about seven people I've been asked to write this book by people off and on about, it's basically my life story. Sure. And how God has used things in my life to help push me forward and to learn to weather the storms of life. So the books called right now I'd rather be a buffalo. Interesting. So when a storm comes, cows will run along with the storm and just get drenched. Okay, Buffalo will run into the storm. So they get through it on the other side, fast. No way. And I'm like, That is a great way for the way I've been. God has been orchestrating my life. And I'm like, Okay, wow. So instead of like shying away from topic, so, you know, if we get to the topic of my son, later on, he committed suicide 14 years ago, the one I adopted, and I tell the story, over and over again. It was actually two weeks before Christmas. And at Christmas time, I remember sitting with my family, and everyone's walking on eggshells, and no one's talking about Richie and he had just passed. Wow, in my mind, like this is a natural. So I started telling stories. And I started Oh, you know, Richard, but I love this. I remember BB when, you know, his cousin's like, when you guys did this, and you got stuck on to seven, he didn't know where to get off and you drove on to 73 times. before? It's storytelling is so healing and you know, and I look at the Bible, the Bible is full of stories. And not not clean ones either. No, no. Life is messy.Very messy. Yeah. Let's let's go ahead and talk about Richie. Yeah, you adopted 13. adopt him at 13. I knew Richie. Yeah.He and your brother used to hang out quite a bit. Shall That's right. Yeah. Yeah. I've got great memories of them camping. We there's a storm came up during the one time we were camping. And I'm like, I got up and got out of the tent. I was sharing a tent. I think with Rick and my buddy James and I got my jeep because I couldn't sleep. So I'm laying there in the jeep and the storm comes up and then I look over and I see what used to be a tent is now Richie and Shawn flailing about. Trying to stay dry as Yeah, keep the tent up. Yep. During this whole time. Whose tent was that? I think it was your brother's.Lance Foulis 33:18Oh, geez. Hey, Shawn. Hey, Shawn. Hey, Shawn. So like, yeah, we grew up Sean and I grew up in our family, my brother and my dad, my two brothers and my dad. I got two older brothers, Todd and Sean. And then my dad, we always used to camp and there's something about the weather nodes when you're camping. Yeah, it was. I don't know how many times we set up tents in the rain. Just got absolutely. And like, to me looking back on that. If I had been the dad in that situation. I'd been like, Alright, we're done. We're leaving. Not my dad. It's like we're here. We're nice. We're camping. Camping. Yes. Whether whether the rain stops or not. Okay, so yeah. So you had you had Richie at age 13. Yep. Some reason I thought he was younger. Tell us tell us that story, finding Richie.Doug Riggle 34:04So, oddly enough, the year before I had been through the adoption process. And there was another young man named Jason from Ironton, Ohio that I was going to adopt, okay. And he was 17. I was kind of his last hope to have a family. And then I was taking him down, he would come up and spend the weekends with me. I was taking him down. It was getting close to him moving in with me. Uh huh. And he on the drive down. He's like, I gotta just need to tell you that. I don't want to be adopted. Hmm. And so I've started probing a little bit like, Okay, can you tell me more what you know? And he's like, it's not you. It's I just don't want to be adopted. And so I dropped him off as foster home, called the social worker right away. This is a Sunday evening and she called me right back. And so then she went and talked to him and she couldn't get anything out of him other than he didn't want to be adopted. Interesting. And he wanted to stay where he was at in Ironton, Ohio. And so I'm like, okay, heartbroken for one, investing a lot of time. And she's just like, just make a clean break. It's like, like, okay, that's easy to say it's hard to do, right? But I took her advice. She's a social worker, I took her advice, and I didn't have any contact with him. For a couple years, actually. He actually contacted me. After I'd adopted Richie went down to see him, come to find out. His girlfriend was pregnant. And he didn't want to leave her. Got it. So I'm like, okay, dude. Totally honor that. Yeah, I wish you had said something. I said, we could have figured something out. But same time, you know, respect your desire to stay there with your girlfriend. Yeah. But yeah, so then, then I'm like, okay, is this God's way of telling me don't adopt. And so I'm, like, go about life working. And I remember one day, I went upstairs to do something. I had this old house on campus to story. I go upstairs and I look over in the room, which was Jason's, which he would have had. And I saw my my dog, Max, I had a collie max at the time laying on the bed, where Jason was, and the only time Max ever laid on that bed was when Jason was there. And I just started bawling my eyes out. Oh, my gosh, I was like, in tears. Yeah. Like, I still want to be a father. Yeah. And I was still had plenty of time on my adoption, certification to go ahead and adopt. So I like, Okay, let me start this process again. Oh, wow.So you put your you basically just put yourself back out there? Yeah, essentially. Yeah. So you go through the whole process. How long was that process with Jason? Would you say?It was about seven months? Seven months? GetLance Foulis 36:43to know him? Yeah. Thinking that. Okay. I'm going to adopt you. You're going to be my kid? Yeah. You have that in your brain? And then he's like, No. And then that's crushing. Yeah. And then now you're like, Okay, I'm gonna put myself out there again. That's one thing. I think I never realized that. Okay. So there's a couple observations, I think I can make anybody and everybody that I know that has adopted or thought about adopting, it's usually been something that's been in their, their mind that they want to do for a long, long, long time. Right. And then it is a long process. And you are really putting yourself out there. Yes. I know, people that thought they were going to adopt and it didn't, and it felt like death. Yes. Is that was similar to very similar? Unreal. Okay, so So, so you're, you're back. I'm gonna put myself out there again.Doug Riggle 37:36Yep. By this time, adopt us. website was up and running. And you could see kids available for adoption. So I was looking, I mean, I was paying attention to kids from quite a quite a few states away, because the adoption certification in Ohio was good for a couple of other states. Got it. But then I saw this little boy with big sticky out ears up in Cleveland, Ohio. And I contacted a social worker, she contacted me, we talked on the phone quite a bit. And so I'm like, she was being very hesitant. What I come to find out, like about a month later, is that he had been through a failed adoption to Oh, wow. So the family that were going to adopt him. This is horrible. They brought him into their home. And then they change their mind. And so that what they did, they lied. And they said that he sexually abused their daughter, what they admitted later on that they lied. But he was devastated. That horrible Yeah, was like, people, people don't realize what they do to kids. And it's just kidding. So they like, we need to make sure you're on the up and up, and we need to make sure this isn't going to fail. So we're gonna spend a lot of time talking to you, before we even let you get to meet him. Okay, which Fair enough? Yeah, I totally get her. They sent me. They sent me his paperwork. Oh my gosh, it took me a day to put the paperwork in because there's no structure ordered anything. Okay? This is when everything's physical paper, too. So I've gotten four binders, like three inch binders of paperwork that I first put in date order, so I could read his story from end to end and figure out, you know, there were duplicates. And I had to go through this and that and like, Oh my gosh. So I read his, his his file. Wow. And then I you know, I'm like, called camis. Social Worker opposite Hey, you know, let's, let's go forward with this. So then she had me come up and we had a meeting with two of his teachers. He was living in a residential home in Cleveland. He wasn't in foster care system anymore. But he was in the foster care system, but at a residential home, Cleveland Christian home, okay. And I go up there, meet with them and she's like, look, because of his background. Let's just, you know, you can come up every weekend. spend the weekend with him here. We'll say that you're here to mentor him. Mm, like, Okay, that's fair. And so like, I just like, I'm just being protective. I'm like, No, I totally get it. Yeah. So she brought him into this room and the three of us sat and talked for a little bit. And then we go to the gymnasium there at Cleveland Christian home, and we're playing horse or something. And again, it's sports related, and I'm lousy. So I lost. Even Kim, the little four foot two social worker beat me. But that's okay. And then she's like, let me give you the two of you a chance to talk. It's just like, hey, Richie. Why don't you take Doug to see your room? Like, okay, yeah, this is great. So we're walking down the hall. And this one of his roommates came up there were three boys in this room came up. Hey, Richie, who's this guy? And he grabs me his little hands. He grabbed me by that by the pinky. This is my new pop. Oh, I like turning away. Trying not to like burst out in tears. Oh, yeah. Yeah, he was smart. He knew what was going on. Yeah. Even though hetogether. Yeah. Wow. So this is my new pop.Kim Foulis 41:09Yeah, gosh, I'm not crying.Doug Riggle 41:12Yeah. Wow. And so then, you know, a few months later. So the odd thing was I had already gotten my tickets and promised to go to Ukraine for a month. That next year, which is right around when the adoption when he was going to move in with me. So I had to, he had to stay there for an extra month at the at the Cleveland Christian home. While I was in Ukraine. And I remember, I got there like we need. They got a hold. It means that we need you to call the United States and talk to Richie, like, oh, while you're in Ukraine while I'm in Ukraine. Oh, wow. I don't remember how much that phone call cost. But it was. This is back before cell phones and everyone had lost Oh, yeah. So I called there I said what happened? His teacher, one of his teachers was so connected with him that she was she was acting out. Why do adults do this? She was acting out and she was pushing his buttons to get him to respond. So that maybe the adoption would fall through? And he'd say, yeah, and because he got so mad at her, he took a shoe off and hit her with it. I mean, throw it out her and beat her good. Social Worker got on the phone after I talked to Richie and calmed him down. Because I was I only been there a week. Yeah. Three more weeks ago. Yeah. Yeah. And she's like, I got the whole story. The teacher instigated that verse. He's not in any trouble. It's like, I just wanted you to talk to him. Yeah. Thank you. So yeah, we're good. And then my work was was lovely. They gave me a month off to go to Ukraine already worked that out the year before. Then I go, come back home. And Richie. The next weekend moves in with me. So I had went to work for a week and then I took six weeks off. Wow, for parental leave, man. Got to got all the way up till he started school. Was thatLance Foulis 43:04a company perk.Doug Riggle 43:05It was a company perk. Wow. So job sixweeks? Yeah. The first two companies I work. I think of all the work for both of these companies. But the first of both of them. They didn't have paternity leave until our youngest right?Kim Foulis 43:17Yes. You had no paternity leave until our third child. Yeah.Doug Riggle 43:22This was 1999 99. And I was on the y2k project. So Oh,Lance Foulis 43:26sure. Oh, my gosh. y2k. Yeah, I turned. I turned 18 and 99. So I was getting ready to go into college. But I remember the y2k thing. I think my dad bought a generator to be prepared. I think nice and nothing happened. I mean, thankfully, yeah, nothing happened. But that's, that's really funny. So Richie moves in with you. You get six weeks off. What was it like? Just tell us about that process of for both of you.Doug Riggle 43:54So you always go to the honeymoon period. Everything was great. He loved everything I made. The kid could eat like anything.Lance Foulis 44:00Oh my gosh, I forgot. Doug is an amazing cook. Oh, I know this. Like I'm amazing. I've heard many stories. When I was in college. You went and did something and you asked me to like, stay at your place and watch your dogs. I don't remember where you went. This was a long time ago while I was in design college or high school. I don't remember but yeah, you met you made Portuguese? Oh, yeah. I never had a Peruvian. You were like, you told me about it. And then you made Portuguese and that was one of the best meals I've ever had. It was so good.Doug Riggle 44:30Angie Volkman makes homemade Parag is really gonna say we trade at Christmas time. I give her tray of baklava she gives me back to frozen protein. Oh, that's adorable. They're amazing.Lance Foulis 44:39Do you make baklava? Yeah. Oh, bedsheets? I mean, wow. ridiculously good. So easy. Is it really? Oh, yeah.Kim Foulis 44:47It just sounds fancy. I guessDoug Riggle 44:48he says it's easy. He says I'd probably light myself on fire. So anyway, yeah, the honeymoon phase. You get a honeymoon phase. He likes everything you're cooking. Yeah.And you know, we're doing great entered school. This is this is where the odd stuff comes in, like, because he came from so long in foster care of age five to 13. They put him in the most restrictive school in Columbus, which was he'd come home every day with stories of kids jumping out Windows running away. And, and so every day I'd go there, I'd walk him to his classroom. I go there, I pick him up from this classroom. Work was great. They're like, you can get off early to go do that. Wow. Andcuz yeah, this isn't when you can work from home. No, no, no, no, like it is now.So this is like this third week there at the school and I kept pushing him like, he needs to be in a better school. This does not make sense. He's not a bad kid or an offender and everything. You're just going on the fact that he came from foster care. That's so terrible. It's not fair. And one of the teachers one day stopped me and said, Hey, you're Ritchie's father until I'm like, yeah. Like, he's not gonna be here much longer. I'm like, oh, good as you have one of the teachers. And he's like, No, he's like, but you're the only parent I've ever seen. Come in. Oh, wow. So all these kids are here without any family support. Oh, wow. And so I wasn't there much longer than he entered Middle School near our house on Indianola. Got it?Lance Foulis 46:17Got it on? Wow. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's just it. It's an amazing, it's an amazing story. You you. I don't even think I knew you were adopted. Maybe I did. Maybe just out of my mind, but the fact that you were adopted, like your parents telling you when you're in fifth grade, dealing with that, and then the school thing happening, and then having it in the back of your mind, I'm going to adopt plus doing the orphanage thing. It's such a it's such an amazing story. Because I mean, Kim Kim said to me before that she could potentially adopt I've always been like, I don't see that which is almost like what like kind of like I said earlier, it's almost like everybody that I know, that's like, gonna adopt it's been in their mind since before. Like before college, I would say, and they're always like, Yeah, I'm gonna, I'm gonna adopt. It's such, it's such an amazing, selfless thing to do. And it is really putting yourself out there. And the fact that you're choosing to give a person love unconditionally, and you don't know if they're gonna return that necessarily. It's just such a such a fascinating concept to me. So, I guess maybe I don't want to go. We're gonna make sure Okay, we're good. 15 Okay. Um, can you just just tell me like, and walk me through and the listeners through? the why behind adoption? I guess? What, what? Why for you? Why they why adoption for you?Doug Riggle 47:54You described it perfectly. It's the same way that God brings us into His family. Hmm, exact same way. Unconditional love towards someone who's may not be deserving. But because of who they are. Still needs that unconditional love. Wow. Just because they exist. Yeah. Every child deserves a family. Yeah. And I, my biggest complaint was so I've been going to different churches and speaking in different, you know, pastors conferences and talking to, you know, people from pastors from 3040 churches. And I've only ever had one church ever really step up to support what I do. Seriously? Yeah, it's the one I go to. Oh, wow. Yeah. And it's, it's heartbreaking because, to me, God's called us to care for widows and children. Yeah, you know, James 127. And we're not doing it as a church. Mm hmm. We're not stepping up to take kids in there. At this. This is where a not at the risk of sounding horrible. I love the fact that, especially in the church, people have big families. But if they had to make room for just one, one child, Mm hmm. If if one person and you know, single, I'll say person. In every church in America adopted from foster care, we'd wipe out the number of kids available for adoption in foster care overnight. Mm. One person from every one church in America the church. Yeah.Kim Foulis 49:32And then every family just one church. Yeah. All the churches in America. Yeah.Lance Foulis 49:36Melody said something like that on the podcast if Yeah, she said if one if there was one host family and every single church that they would wipe out, do you know her there that program? My village ministries, Melody mercial, weDoug Riggle 49:48partner with them? You do it? Yeah, they're actually going to do some training for our new foster to adopt program.Lance Foulis 49:54Okay. That's awesome. Yeah, I mean, that's, that's unbelievable. It's one Family from every church step up. And then the one thing that she had brought up in our podcast that I, I'm sure you'd agree with is the fact that if there was one family that did it, you would have all of the other families, hopefully, or a majority of the families there ready to support and help out? Absolutely. Tell us about that. Did you have support when you? Yeah, tell us what that was like.Doug Riggle 50:22So the one thing I always tell people when they adopt make sure you have a good support system underneath you. So obviously, I had built in support with Rick anansie. Yep, I was Uncle Doug to there. You know, 12345 kids, yeah, five, including Jordan. And I was the person so when they would go away, they needed respite care, the two of them. I go watch the kids for them for the weekend. Sometimes it'd be bringing my dogs and Richie in tow. And we have you know, that 15 passenger van to get us from place to place.Kim Foulis 50:53NoDoug Riggle 50:53way who had that? They did they had that day. And that's right. Yeah. I forgot.Yeah, it was huge. And it was a little terrifying to drive. I like driving small cars.Yeah. It's basically the size of a living room. Yeah, no pressure. But,you know, they were, you know, we were each other's support system through a lot of that. Yeah. My family as well. And I, by that time, I adopted Richie, I knew my biological mother and father and had a great relationship with them. So I would you know, he would go with me to Colorado. He went with me once to Iowa to visit my my biological dad, my dad put him on the back of his mule. He'd never been on an animal before in his life. And he's Wait, heLance Foulis 51:33had a mule? Yeah.Doug Riggle 51:34Why on the farm?Lance Foulis 51:35Oh, on the farm? Yeah. Okay, nice. Yeah. So he got to ride on a mule throat on a mule? Yeah, not everybody can say that. That's true. Um, wow. Yeah. And then, I guess, the other thing, could you just talk about like, So my understanding is in order to foster care, and to adopt, you have to take classes or several classes. Right. Gonna take? How long is that process? Does it vary?Doug Riggle 52:01It varies by agency. So like, right now in Ohio, the state, county agencies have outsourced a lot of that work to smaller organizations that do you know, adoption and foster care. Which is, which is great. It's it, it spreads out the the availability of classes for people to come and take quite a bit. So it's not just one organization, when I took it, it was Franklin County Children's Services. I'd go downtown once a week and said two classes than the home study. And you know that and usually by the time you get to the home study, you've got I believe, this home study may be applicable for up to a year and a half. Okay, two years. Okay. To go through the final session for adoption? Or foster care, you know,Lance Foulis 52:48yeah. Yeah. And then people that are interested in learning more, what's the best way for somebody to learn more about adopting,Doug Riggle 53:00go to adopt us kids.org, I believe that's the website, I may be wrong. And they'll they'll walk you through us waiting kids, you can see pictures, I can't go there anymore. Because I it's just heartbreaking. Because when I was adopting before I got Richie, I'd be out there every week, and I'd see these kids and I've watched them over months grow up, you know, Oh, wow. Without homes without families. And it was just, you know, you see kids back from when I was, you know, going to adopt Jason, you know, then two years later, now, these kids are still there. And now they're two years older. And it's just, it's heartbreaking. Yeah,Lance Foulis 53:36absolutely. Absolutely. So I mean, that that's something you even bring up because I'm curious. You've been doing this for years, you've seen? Like, I don't, I don't have to know about kids that need to be adopted? I don't because if I don't want to I just can turn my head away. Right? You've been looking at it for years now. Yes. How has it? How have you? What do you call that when you you see somebody jaded? How have you not been? How are you not jaded by what you've seen?Doug Riggle 54:10I'm not jaded by the kids and their stories. I'm jaded by the response of adults. Mm hmm. And I might start with all this, you know, my parents didn't make the best decision waiting till I was in fifth grade. I wish they'd been telling me since I was born. Sure. Just make that part of the conversation. The kid you know, the the parents of Masha and her brother in Ukraine who taught their kids to be prostitutes. Of course they were in a situation either we watch our kids starve to death or become prostitutes. Hopefully, you know, this isn't I never have to make you just see the adults are the ones who ultimately make these decisions. Right. And they do it from not always the best perspective. It may be a financial perspective, it may be a practical in their mind perspective. It may be I like my comfort life. It's it's, you know, adopting isn't comfortable. Yeah. But that's why I come back to the church and say, you guys were adopted by God. Right? You didn't deserve it. Right. These kids do deserve to have a home. Yeah. And instead of having your fifth and sixth kid, how about bringing one in? Just one? Yeah. You know, I always like, if we can just do one. And that's it. I realized with orphan relief, I get requests internationally, weekly, that I have to say no to programs from as far away as Pakistan, Georgia, Soviet Georgia, all over the world, a lot in Africa. Number one, we don't have the resources to support them all. Sure. But it's just heartbreaking that, you know, there's not someone there to support them.Right. Yeah, that you're getting you. So you're getting asked from different organizations all over the world for some help. Yeah. And and you have to say no, because, yeah.Because I mean, we can end up giving 10 cents per orphanage that doesn't do anything, we want to make sure we're having the monetary impact as much monetary, monetary impact as possible to help them thrive and grow their programs. I did a what's the word? Blog Post 2016, on how to start an orphanage. And it's funny, because if you type that in, it's like, my LinkedIn article is like one of the first ones that pops up. It's gotten so many hits, which has been great. Yeah, but basically, I tell people don't come alongside the ones that exist, and and help them grow and mature. There are so many well meaning people out there, but they're gonna like, Oh, I'm just gonna fly to Africans to an orphanage. Hmm. Well, what's the culture? What are the restrictions there? Like Latin America, every five years, you basically have like your your workers, when in your orphanage, get a check for basically a year salary. Like on a five year period. Oh, wow. I that may have changed since then. But there are all these different things that you have to know. Yeah. And I'm like, instead of trying to do that, find an orphanage. That's a well run. well supported. come alongside them and help them grow and mature. Don't start something new. Yeah. New ones. We need great stable ones.Lance Foulis 57:26Yeah. So enhance the ones that are already Yeah. Yeah. How can people get involved with your organization if they want to?Doug Riggle 57:37Orphan world relief.org Just go out there. We're, we're building up a great staff. I just hired an amazing development manager. Oh, yeah. Who is that? Her name is Kim. And she's, you see her all the time. I do see her all the time.Lance Foulis 57:52Congratulations.Kim Foulis 57:54I am so very, super pumped about it.Doug Riggle 57:56Yeah, we were very excited to have you there. She's beenLance Foulis 57:58very, very excited. And I realized weDoug Riggle 58:01didn't even talk about our foster program. So we've got two of them are foster to adult which Mary Jo is getting off the ground. It's working with kids getting the mentorships, ages 16 to 25. And give them that support that they're missing. Because when they graduate from the foster care, they're on their own. Mm hmm. And they have no support system.Can you talk about that? Because we hit on that at the beginning. But the whole concept of aging out aging out?Huge problem in America. Because if you think about it, we take these kids away from their families, most 99.9% of time for very good reason. They've been abused, neglected, and say, we're going to take care of you now. But we take care of them until they're 18. And then we say, now you're done. Right now you're out on your own. I mean, I don't know if you remember, Amber who goes to our sister church awaken. She was 18. And her social worker picked her up. She wasn't no high school yet. Social Worker backed up said where do you want me to take you you're out of the system now? Wow. Fortunately, a friend of hers. Family, let her sleep on the couch and get finished high school herself through college. And now she runs a nonprofit organization.Lance Foulis 59:08Candle the candle? Yeah, yeah. Oh, wow. Yeah. So so what you're describing it kid turns 18. Yeah. And they're done there. It could be December. It could be March, it could be whatever month. Yeah. And they they get taken out of a foster and then are just basically on their own. They're onDoug Riggle 59:27their own. There are some support systems available to them. Like Star House in Columbus does offer some sort of residential support. But there's financial literacy that these kids had not gotten right there. Itwasn't financially literate at age 80. You know, most kids aren't,you know, all these things. But you had a support system,Kim Foulis 59:47right? Yeah. And that weren't on your own right.Doug Riggle 59:49i Yeah, I mean, I wasn't, I can't imagine me turning 18 And then like, All right, go be in a jobKim Foulis 59:57bank account. Save Yep.Doug Riggle 1:00:00So what happened? Like what? There has to be stats and stuff out there. So what typically happens?Every year 20,000 kids aged out of foster care. And then what out of that some of them. So a good percentage of them will be homeless Chase or a period of time. A good percentage of them will turn to what's the word? Drugs, alcohol theft to survive? Yeah, understandably. Yeah. 80% of people in prison have one thing in common. They've been in foster care. 80% 80%. Yeah. And you think the other 20% are probably going to grow up without a family support system? Right, right. Oh, my gosh, that's not everyone, you know, in prison. Sure. But that's a staggering statistic. So if we can get involved in these kids lives between, hopefully age 16 and 25, and get them on the right path, we can then stem the tide of statistics, they're going to face them of being helpless. You agree? Yeah, having to resort to theft. You know,Lance Foulis 1:01:11I mean, that's just such a, it's, it's an interesting thing to think, when you do grow up. So I grew up with a really great support system, I grew up with a family, my parents didn't get divorced, you know, like, that is a very unique kind of situation where my parents are like, actually still together. My brothers and I got along for the most part, but at 18, I was not ready to be any kind of an adult, and to have somebody turn 18, and then just expect that they can go out and function in society is absolutely insane. Does anybody like I imagine that there's not necessarily like something in place where these, all of these kids would even know what's going to happen at age 18.Doug Riggle 1:01:53There are so the social workers tried to work with them as much as possible. A friend of mine, she and I worked together at an insurance company before she left Michigan, a social worker, she had eight kids that she knew were aging out. So she worked with them. That was her job to kind of come alongside them, work with them, try to get them as much support she could. So that they were prepared when they turned 18. There are some states in some areas pushing the age to 21. Try to help some of that. Sure. But again, if you don't do something, an intervention to help these kids get a support system in place. They're going to be 21. Still the same things.Lance Foulis 1:02:28Yeah. Exact same situation. Just three years later, right. Wow. Okay, so yeah. So you mentioned a couple different things that are from World Relief does what other things are you guys doing that people could come in and help with?Doug Riggle 1:02:41So our I think our favorite program that people love to get involved with is are my comfy kids broken? Comfy kids? Yep. So kids enter foster care all the time, what we do is a lot of times, they show up with the clothes on their back. And if they're a small child, that may just be a diaper. And they're now in a new home, that they don't know the rules or anything. Nothing is theirs. So we put together backpacks, age, gender appropriate backpacks, that provides a change of clothing, a nightlight, a book, coloring book, a blanket, a stuffed animal, even even the 17 year olds get a stuffed animal. Yeah, something that's theirs. Yeah. And allows them to have a sense of dignity. Instead of maybe a few things shoved in a trash bag. You right, yeah. Because a lot of times are taken from home so they don't have a suitcase or anything like that. shoved in a trash bag. And they are. Yeah, so we tried to provide them with a sense of dignity, and a little bit of hope. To ease that, that scary thing. I mean, think about if I were seven years old, taken from my family in the middle of the night, even though it may not be great. It's all I knew. And now I'm building my place on in a new family's home. Right? I don't know, the rules don't know anything, nothing is mine. All these things around me aren't