Podcasts about 28i

A different type of insurance - Clinical Wills with Anna BunchWelcome to the Business of Psychology podcast. I am thrilled to be here today with my friend and colleague, Anna Bunch, from Psych VA. You might remember Anna, she's been on the podcast before talking to us about the systems and processes that we need to have in place for our independent practices. But for this season, which is all about resilience and adaptability, I just had to get Anna back on to talk about something which I know that she's really passionate about, but to be honest, wasn't at the top of my list when I started in an independent practice. And that is this concept of a clinical will, which is not the right term for it, and we're going to talk about why, but that plan that needs to be in place for if you are incapacitated and can't run your practice anymore. It's a really important area, it's one that I've avoided for the eight years I've been in independent practice, and I'm sure that many of you will also have avoided, but Anna has absolutely convinced me that it's important and something that we all need to address.Full show notes and a transcript of this episode are available at The Business of PsychologyLinks:Links for Anna:Website: psych-va.co.ukClinical Continuity Plans: psych-va.co.uk/clinical-continuity-plansLinks for Rosie:Substack: substack.com/@drrosieRosie on Instagram:@rosiegilderthorp@thepregnancypsychologistThe highlightsAnna talks us about her business, Psych VA, and how it came about 01:23Anna tells us what a clinical will, or rather, a clinical continuity plan is, and why it's important 04:28I ask Anna about the process of putting clinical continuity plan in place 17:10Anna talks us through the two packages she offers 18:23Anna tells us what sets Psych VA apart in offering this service 20:20

19I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon, so that I too may be cheered by news of you.20For I have no one like him, who will be genuinely concerned for your welfare.21For they all seek their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ.22But you know Timothy's[a]proven worth, how as a son[b]with a father he has served with me in the gospel.23I hope therefore to send him just as soon as I see how it will go with me,24and I trust in the Lord that shortly I myself will come also. 25I have thought it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus my brother and fellow worker and fellow soldier, and your messenger and minister to my need,26for he has been longing for you all and has been distressed because you heard that he was ill.27Indeed he was ill, near to death. But God had mercy on him, and not only on him but on me also, lest I should have sorrow upon sorrow.28I am the more eager to send him, therefore, that you may rejoice at seeing him again, and that I may be less anxious.29So receive him in the Lord with all joy, and honor such men,30for he nearly died[c]for the work of Christ, risking his life to complete what was lacking in your service to me.

I've been an avid and active user of TikTok, since it was Musically. I found a home there as a creator, and it taught me how to make short form videos. I probably have over 7000 short videos under my belt at this point, and I can't believe the progress I have made since I joined.From the beautiful couples I've seen get hitched on there, to the people growing their business, and the overall communal vibes the whole platform has. It is going to be a tough one to lose, its been real TikTok.

 Rish presents a new--and rather frustrating--short story called "I've Got A Secret." Strange goings-on are afoot at the library.   Enjoy?You can download the file by Right-Clicking HERE.You can support my Patreon by clicking HERE. Logo by Gino "Secret Agent Man" Moretto.

In this episode, Time Sweet and leadership coach Massimo Backus discuss the journey of leadership through the lens of self-discovery, curiosity, and self-compassion. Massimo shares his personal transformation from an objectively bad manager to a transformative leader, emphasizing the importance of curiosity and working within the natural laws of leadership. The conversation delves into the pervasive nature of self-criticism and its impact on mental health, advocating for reframing self-criticism as a protective mechanism.Trusting oneself emerges as a foundational element of leadership, often overlooked in discussions about trust. Massimo shares his journey of overcoming defensiveness and developing self-trust, touching on challenges like imposter syndrome and the struggle with self-compassion. Tim and Massimo explore the concept of authenticity, emphasizing that self-trust allows for honesty and transparency, leading to more genuine connections. The episode concludes with a call to action for leaders to practice self-compassion and kindness towards themselves, with Massimo encouraging listeners to reach out for book collaborations.About  Massimo BackusMassimo Backus is on a mission to help one million people believe they are worthy and enough. Like many ambitious leaders, Massimo faced early struggles with impostor syndrome and a relentless inner critic. Dyslexia was one of the main drivers for his insecurities and later, his perfectionism. The practice of self-compassion helped him see that what was considered a disability was actually cognitive diversity.Facilitator, speaker, and executive leadership coach Massimo Backus provides no-BS one-on-one coaching with open-minded and committed senior leaders, and he runs transformative programs with organizations that are serious about change. His fifteen-plus years of experience in talent development and leadership coaching have given him a front-row seat to observe company cultures in the US, UK, and Canada, while working with 3,000+ emerging and seasoned leaders in mid-size and Fortune 500 companies, including Cisco, Accenture, Slalom, Salesforce, Nintendo, Amazon and Fox Entertainment.Resources discussed in this episode:Bob Hoffman - The Hoffman Process--Contact Tim Sweet | Team Work Excellence: WebsiteLinkedIn: Tim SweetInstagramLinkedin: Team Work ExcellenceContact Massimo Backus | Leadership Coaching & High-Performance Team Development: WebsiteInstagramLinkedin: Massimo Backus--TranscriptMassimo 00:01Leadership is about leading others in the human experience, in the human condition, and that isn't something to be solved. It's not a problem that we can find the single-threaded answer for. It doesn't exist. And so it will always be more art than science. It's a form of nature more than it is anything else. Tim 00:21I'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 episode 39. Tim 00:50Hey everybody, welcome. Thanks again for joining us. Today, I've got a very special guest. He is an executive coach. He handles some very deep stuff, and through his powers of self-compassion and other things that he brings to his clients, he's able to change lives. He helps people become their best selves. And I'm really looking forward to this conversation, if what we've been talking about up to this point is any indication, I think we're going to, as we said before, Mas, we're going to be playing jazz. Please welcome Massimo Backus.Massimo 01:26Thank you so much for having me, and I am looking forward to playing some jazz.Tim 01:30Right on. Mas, why don't you tell us a little more about yourself, let people know who they're listening to today. Massimo 01:38Yeah, I've spent my career in leadership development and executive coaching. I think most notably, I am a reformed, objectively bad manager and bad leader. I recognize the hypocrisy in that, it is not beyond me, and at this point, I've worked with over 3000 leaders intimately and closely, one-on-one, and observed their transformation. I fundamentally made an attribution error at some point, and I mistook the transformation of my own clients for my own. And it wasn't until I received some 360 feedback, which I'm sure many people are familiar with, getting feedback from peers and from my direct reports and skip levels and people above me in the organization, that some news came to light that I was not as great of a leader as I thought that I was, and that is what led me on an unexpected path of my own development that has then informed the work that I do with the executives and leaders that I work with today. Tim 02:34How many years have you been focused on leadership as the science, rather than, you know, having to make some other deliverable. How? How long has that been your sole focus? Massimo 02:47Probably around 12 years that it's been, and the thing about leadership, first of all, it's a word that is used so often that it loses its meaning entirely. There have been countless books on leadership written to this day, and in 10 years, when you and I chat, there will be another countless number of books around leadership, which indicates one thing to me, is that we're trying to solve the unsolvable because leadership is about leading others in the human experience, in the human condition, and that isn't something to be solved. It's not a problem that we can find the single-threaded answer, for it doesn't exist. And so it will always be more art than science. It's a form of nature more than it is anything else. What does it mean to actually be a leader? Is something that evolves and changes and is as unique as you and I, our as our thumbprint and as our fingerprint. And so recognizing that takes all the pressure off of me to have to be the quote-unquote expert and have all the answers, because frankly, I do not, and with that, I can approach you with a great degree of curiosity. And so I'm deeply curious about leadership. I'm deeply curious about what makes for trust in relationships. I'm curious about what makes for peak performances, individuals and teams. I'm curious about what makes for a long, rich, impactful career. In that curiosity, I have found certain things that seem to be North Stars, or maybe you could kind of consider them to be, like the natural laws of physics. I think there are the natural laws of leadership, but again, they're not to be solved. We work within those conditions. We don't solve gravity. We work with gravity. Tim 04:29That's well said. It's definitely a mix of science and art and natural order and natural selection in many ways. And I think that there's so many different components, and I share your curiosity. I mean, in my time focused on this, I think one of the, one of the greatest privileges that I have is to be able to focus on the leadership experience, to be focused on, well, what does it mean for one person versus another, and how. Having dealt with 1000s of leaders and teams and these kinds of things share the same sort of scope, the excitement, the curiosity, comes because so many different people have to find their unique leadership groove. They have to find that way that allows them to accomplish that amazing thing that they can't do alone or to shepherd or support or enrich or, you know, really encourage others to go down that path. And so many don't have the, they're too busy doing to to to really experience the joy of it, in a sense, and to find that, to find that voice and find that style that's all their own. But when they do, holy moly, when they do, it is such an amazing thing to see. And even just this past week, you know, just having a leader in their manager report come back and say everything's changed. We happen to land on that, one of those things, that in two weeks, everything's changed. So I'm with you. I'm really glad that I have a chance to hear it from your perspective, because there aren't that many. There's a lot of people that coach, well, let's just say there's some people that dedicate themselves to it in different ways. Put it that way. Anyway, take us back in to your starting point, that moment that you received some feedback. Where were your blind spots? Where was the feedback, where, you know, you thought you were doing better than you were, for you personally. What was, what was a blind spot that you faced? Massimo 06:48Well, let me just start by the gut-wrenching experience of getting feedback in that in that way. Just, you know, I believe that feedback is a gift, and I believe that we're all better off when we get it, but that doesn't mean we have to like it. You know, eating some of our vegetables is not doesn't always taste good, but it's good for us. And the main piece of feedback Tim was that I was defensive. That I was defensive in people questioning my thinking or my ideas, my approach to things, defensive in all areas. And like any rational person, I responded with, what do you mean? I'm defensive. I'm not defensive. You are being defensive. For saying that I'm defensive. I'm not doing anything wrong, right, because I was clearly on the right side of things. What I foolishly learned is that not only was I defensive in all the places that came back in the 360, but I was defensive in all aspects of my life. And once I got curious about it and realized there's some truth to this, not just one person saying many people are saying it. I asked my wife about it, I asked my friends about it, asked other family members about it, and lo and behold, it was showing up in a lot of different areas for me. I also learned that it was one of those behaviours that ran in the family, not to place blame at all, but to go, oh, maybe this is learned behaviour, and if it was well, then I can unlearn it. I can learn a new behaviour. So that was refreshing. Made me realize this wasn't something that couldn't be fixed. This was something that I now had the opportunity to fix. I spent six months on my own thinking I am a leadership development expert. I'm seen as this guru within the organization that I worked in. I have all these skills and knowledge. I should be able to fix this on my own. And six months later, I had a follow-up meeting with my then manager, and I was hoping that the feedback would be we can tell you've worked really hard, and you've made an incredible turnaround. It's not what I heard. What I heard was we can tell you've been trying, but you've made very little progress. That was devastating. And in that moment, I was pretty sure that I was going to be asked to leave the organization. But to my manager's credit, to that organization, they didn't do that. And in fact, they invested in me and my own development, and I ended up going to a retreat called the Hoffman process, which has been around for about 40 years, started by a gentleman named Bob Hoffman. And their slogan is, if you're serious about change, and I would say, for anyone who is serious about changing the way that they view the world, experience the world, and, most importantly, experience themselves, that it's worth checking out. And it was during that week long retreat that I had an epiphany, which is the epiphany that I that I want for all leaders. It's the epiphany that I want for all people, and it's a leadership epiphany, and it is the value, the importance, dare I say, the necessity, to have a practice of self-compassion. And it was at this retreat that, for the first time in my life, I was 36 years old at the time, that I experienced for the first time, what it was like to actually love who I am, to love myself, to accept myself for my shortcomings, my triggers, my biases, my limitations, but also my strengths and my gifts and the qualities that make me me. All of it, that was a what I call a bedrock moment, that that was a moment that has anchored me every day since, and will continue to be an anchor for me. I do not always practice self-compassion. I'm not always kind to myself these days, but I always remember what is possible when I do and that is that I was able to stop being defensive, that I was able to change my way of being. Tim 10:49I think when you acknowledge or when you let us in, that you're not always practicing self-compassion, as you know the rest of us struggle with. I mean, if it's a meditation practice, you find the ability to silence your mind. You have these moments where everything goes still, and you are really nothing. And then you start thinking about that credit card bill you need to pay, or that the cat needs the litter box changed or something, and you realize you've slipped out. And then you have to strive to get back into that state, meditative state. And you never do it well, but all you can do is you can continue to practice so you get better at it, and that's why they call it a practice, and a practice of self-compassion, realizing and being able, I find in my own personal work, it's not just the realization that we're not or the you know, that we're not terribly self-compassionate, or that we're saying something that's untrue or whatnot, but it's that ability to suddenly hear it, like you can hear the thoughts in your mind saying and it can or at least you can pause and go, well, that wasn't really kind, or that wasn't really true. And you can take a moment with it and then immerse yourself in that practice of recentering, getting back into it, acknowledging what you were thinking, acknowledging what the trigger was, acknowledging what you know, where you need to get back to and and get back into it. And it's a practice. It's building those muscles, it's it's exercising them, and it's very easy. In fact, I would say it's epidemic in our culture that people lose the ability to hear when they're being cruel to themselves between the ears, and it's the easiest thing in the world, and it's the most accepted thing in the world. I think let's understand that it's a human condition to not trust yourself, because you know what. Nobody's let yourself down more than you because nobody knew all those dreams that you had that you didn't make good on. Nobody hears the language you use about yourself and others. So nobody knows how dark you can actually go.Massimo 13:12That self-critical, self-judgmental voice. It knows us very well because it is us, and it's hard to separate the noise of that from other parts of our psychology because it knows all of our triggers and, fundamentally, self-criticism, judgment, imposter syndrome, all of these things that ail us, that are, that are epidemic, are designed by us psychologically to protect us, to keep us safe. But there's one thing that they have wrong, and that is that as adults like they were formed when we were children, as adults, we don't need to be held safe in that way, that we are actually safer, as you said, when we do trust ourselves, we're safer when we can be kind to ourselves, we're safer when we humble ourselves to ask for help.Tim 14:05When we deal with the exposure, when we apply the stress and the adversity.Massimo 14:07Absolutely and accept our limitations instead of trying to hide all these things. And it's a show of strength. It's an incredibly difficult thing to do to face the most vicious and toxic voice in our lives that comes from us, to face that head-on and to not meet it with resentment or this ego death bullshit that people talk about, which I fundamentally think is wrong. It's about a relationship. Ego serves a purpose. There's value to it, but you need to have a healthy relationship with it, and, you know, to kind of make this real as an example, my defensiveness that I had for so many years was protecting me, or so I thought, by making sure that, well, I always have the last word. I need to make sure that I'm the smartest person in the room. I need to. To demonstrate my worth, but it was doing the opposite. Everyone else saw, that I was hiding my own insecurities, except for me.Tim 15:10One of my favourite bosses, still to this day, he's one of these forever bosses. Because, I mean, I went into consulting practice very, very early, and then when I finished school, I had. A number of years as a regional manager, big, big management position, but then very quickly, went back to consulting. But then was scooped by a couple of companies, and one of them was a company I was happy to stay in and I ended up working for a commercial team to, you know, raise my financial acumen and do all the stuff, and also the best experiences I still absolutely, you know, hold this guy in great esteem. And I remember that I'd be in these, these meetings with the C-suite, or with executives, like fairly high ranking people, and if I had a point to make, I always had a quote, or I had some research, or I attributed it to some author. And he said, you know, you're making all these good points, and it's very, very valuable, but you have to then cite it. And I said, Well, I come from a historical background, so, like, everything is provable in this kind of thing. He said, I don't think that's it says, I don't think you're willing to own that. I think you want to make sure that you can share the load with some other author or whatnot. And man that stung. That was because he had me nail like he had me totally made. And was one of the most valuable things I learned under his mentorship, because it was a few months later that I had to stand up for an idea to one of the top guys, big multinational corporation and I remember I stood on my own two feet. I made my point, and the point was tough to deliver, and it hit hard, but I felt in that moment like I was in a different gear, right? And it was that, in a sense, one of the facets of self, trust and love was to stand on my own two feet and be and like, you know what you're talking about here. Just go ahead. And it was like an arrival. It was like, I belong here. I know what I'm talking about. I don't have to apologize or whatnot. And I was never the same after that. That was one of those leverage moments.Massimo 17:26Yeah, yeah, one of those bedrock moments that you can always go back to remember what it was like when you truly trusted yourself. And you know, in the organizational context and leadership, you know, landscape, we talk about trust all the time, like leadership. How many books have been written about trust? How often in trust conversations, do we talk about the value of trusting ourselves, or do we ask, How do I know when I trust myself? How do I know when I'm not trusting myself? What do I need in order to be able to trust myself? What's present when I trust myself least? These are questions that are very rarely asked in the broader conversation about trust, it is always about another person or the team, and that's important, absolutely. But I believe, and I found, with the leaders that I've worked with throughout my career, that often when trust is not present on a team, there is trust that is not present for each individual with themselves.  Tim 18:37Oh, 100%. You cannot give away what you don't have. Massimo 18:39Right. Tim 18:40Absolutely impossible. So talk, talk about that a little bit actually, and you know what I'm going to I'm going to do something a little bit off the wall here. I was, saving a question. We have a question every episode, and I was going to save yours till the end, but because we are at this point in the conversation, I'm going to go ahead and and voice it. This comes from Peter Root with Wildfire Robotics, and he asked the question for the next guest, which is you, what are some of those pivotal ways that you build trust with your staff? With clients? Perhaps, you know. So I think you're landing on this now. So why don't you, why don't you flesh that out, speaking to Peter for a moment. Massimo 19:28I love Peter's question. Tim, so thank you for sharing that and the conversation of trust. There's, there's very little that has not, that hasn't already been explored around honesty and transparency, credibility, competence, reliability. But when you think about going into a relationship where you want to build trust, the value of trusting yourself going into that relationship, if I trust myself, I feel grounded. I know my capabilities. I know the limits of my capabilities. I am going to be in a much better place, to be honest, because I am willing to show up in a way that is asking the other person to meet me where I'm at. I'm not trying to be someone that I'm not. I can say, here are the things that I'm good with, and here are the things that I'm not. Lucky for me, I have a huge cadre of other coaches and consultants that I work with clients will come to me and ask me to help them with some body of work that I might not be best suited for, and I know my shortcomings in the areas that I'm not best suited, but that's why I have this community of other talented people to bring them in. So I'm able to approach these conversations honestly and transparently and with confidence that isn't boastful. Now, Tony Robbins talks about confidence as a mindset. It's something that we can, you know, get ourselves into this mindset. And yes, maybe there's, there's some truth to that, but I think that it's actually a way of being. If I'm being honest with myself, then I'm able to be confident because I'm not trying to be something that I'm not. And where we get ourselves into trouble when it comes into relationships and building trust is we make some assumptions around who I need to be in order for this person to trust me, or if we're really, you know, going to the playground as kids, to like me, because so many people actually, they just want to be liked, they want to be included. They want to be picked for kickball, right? But if I trust myself, we could say, hey, like I'm, you can pick me on the kickball team. I'm a good kicker, but I can't catch for anything. They're either going to pick me or not pick me, but at least I don't have to worry about being somebody that I'm not. And they might say, yeah, come on here. I'll teach you how to catch. Great. I want to be a part of the team, but I'm not trying to hide something that might be a limitation and say, you know, just hope the ball doesn't come to me because if it does, I'll be found out Tim 22:03That ability to distinguish when we're trying to develop ourselves and develop that confidence, develop that, I like to use the word fluency, of who we are, so we can be right with it. It's really important to differentiate that from the management of an identity, a visible thing that you want other people to see and that you want to you want other people to think, and that often covers up the guilt or the shame or the scarcity or the fear and you know, we, you often see people that are fronting so hard on something because it's the last place that they want people to actually question them or see what's under the surface, and to be able to let that go. Talk about energy management, I mean capacity. Now we, we've, you know, we're a few years past COVID, not past COVID, but anyway, we're coming out the other side in many ways, but organizationally, we have people that are still tapped. They are stretched capacity-wise, mentally, what a source of energy to not have to keep your deflector shields up, to not have to keep the holographic emitters up, to not have to keep the story going and and manage the and not to say that people do this even consciously. You know that it's not like they know they're putting on some sort of a mask, but that because the mask has been on for so long and it's there as a protection. But if you don't have to keep that up, wow, and just be confident that you're, you're, and I love… you and I both use the word enough a lot, and it's right on the top of your LinkedIn profile, but to just be at peace with the fact that it's like, you know what? This is what you've got. This is what you've got in front of you take it or leave it, and I'm super cool either way. And it's liberating. I recently, well, two plus, yeah, two years ago now, almost coming up on my two-year anniversary, actually had both knees replaced after lots of sports. It was a big surgery, a big pivotal moment in my life, because I've got 19-year-old knees, and not to take the speaking conch chair for too long, but I was following, or I follow this, this coach. She's in a spiritual sort of sector, but she made this point, and she talked about the meditative practice or the realization that, you know, that spark that is our consciousness, isn't it just uses the brain as an organ, and it uses the body as a mechanism, and to almost visualize yourself. I always think of of that scene in Men in Black, where they're eating pierogies, and the face comes open, and it's that little alien. But to realize that you're wearing this meat suit, right, and that you're, this is the way we get around the world is in this meat suit, but it's not you, per se, like it is, but it's not your consciousness. And when I started to think about that on the physical side and said, Well, hey, this is just my meat suit. My meat suit has two artificial needs. My meat suit requires certain things. It's built in a certain way. That means I'm capable of some things and not capable of others. Wow. What a liberating thought, and what an ability to kind of love my meat suit, because I'm not going to get another one anytime soon, and I can sit back and say. Hey, this, takes stock. This is what I like about it. This is what I find challenging about it. But I can love the whole mess and just realize it like it's a, you know, I think people often have more love for their cars than they've got for their body. And that's pretty funny, you know. And so I know that, that we're not talking physicality here, but again, it's that, that ability to say, You know what, even if I'm carrying some family baggage part of my operating system, I can still love that part of myself as I seek to to work with it.Massimo 26:15Absolutely. I mean, Tim, what you just shared is, this example is a beautiful example of what a practice of self-compassion looks like, and it balances the acceptance of what it is that we have with the compassion to take care of what it is that we have, right? So, this isn't a passive practice, this isn't something that is just accept my limitations and don't do anything with them. It's accept them and then, from there, choose what will I do with them? What am I going to let go of and accept and what are the things that I'm going to double down on and continue to improve and change? So it's a very, it's very proactive. This is a very energetic practice, and the energy that we need to do it comes from letting go of that mask or the hologram or all the different ways that you describe structure, which is so true. It the single biggest waste of energy in organizations today is people masking, hiding, parading, politicking, doing all these things to hide who they really are for fear that if someone saw them they would be rejected. And the reality is, the person that they really are is better on all accounts than the person that we pretend to be. We just have to trust ourselves enough to show that to people. Tim 27:41I think it's also really interesting when you're comfortable to lead with who you are, warts and all, and you're rejected, you're getting real feedback. If your mask is rejected, if the image you're putting forward is rejected, you're one step removed. You can actually be kind of deadened to the, to the reality that rejection doesn't really mean that much, no, nor does the praise, you know, or the positive feedback, because we're letting the marionette go first. We're like, you know, one of these guys with the Jim Hensen and it's a puppet. Yes. The puppet can take a lot of abuse.The ventriloquist. Yeah. Tim 28:30Well, you know what? There's so much farther to go. And I just want to really thank you for taking the time, because we've gone deep in the in the time that we've got. So I want to do two things here. Well, maybe three. First of all, I want you to tell everybody what you're most excited about, because you've got some big news. So, and I know you didn't want to really be the guy to come on and talk about it, but man, you gotta because I know I'm inspired to pick a certain something up. So, quick. Let's tell the people. Massimo 28:58Thank you. It is very exciting. My first book, “Human First, Leader, Second: How self-compassion outperforms self-criticism”, is coming out in September, September 10, and people can find it on Amazon right now. And for anyone listening whose interest is piqued around, what is this self-compassion practice? And how do I start? This book is written for leaders and teams to start to develop that practice. And it's not a one-size-fits-all all. It's a choose your own adventure, and it will lead towards a place where that energy isn't being wasted and trying to be somebody you're not, but being your best self as a leader. Tim 29:40If you had one, well, if you had one wish for anybody listening today, what would it be? Massimo 29:43Go do something kind for yourself. Tim 29:45It doesn't have to be big. It doesn't have to be profound. Go do something kind for yourself. Massimo 29:51Go do something kind for yourself. Take a five minute break in between meetings and get some fresh air. Go stand in the sunshine. Drink a nice cold glass of water. Call an old friend. Doesn't matter what it is, you're worthy of it. You're worth it. And Tim, I know there's a question that I should be asking for the next guest, correct? Tim 30:09Yeah, what's, what's, what do you have on your mind? Massimo 30:12What is the one thing that you are most afraid to let go of? And who would you be if you did? Tim 30:19If people want to get in touch with your mouth. Where can they find you? Massimo 30:22Massimobackus.com, I'm on LinkedIn. I'm pretty sure I'm the only Massimo Backus out there. And please reach out. And if you buy the book and read it, I want to hear what you think. This is something that I felt called to do. I had an epiphany. I want to share it with other people, and I take no ownership of the idea of self-compassion. I think I've been called to be a messenger, one of many, I hope to share the value of it. I don't see how the world could not be a better place if we all learn to be a little bit kinder to ourselves. Tim 30:54Love it. Okay. Mas, thank you so much for taking the time to join me today. It was a real pleasure. Massimo 31:02Thank you, Tim. Talk to you soon. Tim 31:06We'll be in touch when it comes to your launch party. Tim 31:11Thank 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.

OPEN HEAVENSMATALA LE LAGI MO LE ASO TO'ONAI 31  AOKUSO 2024(tusia e Pastor EA Adeboye) Manatu Autu:  A'o sē fia sili ‘iā te ‘outou, auauna (To Be The Greatest, Serve.) Tauloto -Tusi Paia– Mareko 10:43 “ae lē fa‘apea ‘outou; a o sē fia sili ‘iā te ‘outou, ‘ia fai o ia mā a ‘outou ‘au‘auna;”Faitauga – Tusi Paia – Mataio 20:20-28I le mālō o le Atua, a fia avea ma le e sili i so'ose faalapotopotoga o tagata, ia avea oe ma le e aupito faatauvaa o i latou uma. E lē talafeagai i le faalogo a le tagata lea fuaitau peita'i o le finagalo lenā o le Atua. O le maualuga e te manaomia e te ‘ausia o le maulalo lea e tatau ona e mua'i o'o i ai. Fai mai le 1 Korinito 1:27-28 “‘Ae peita‘i ‘ua filifilia e le Atua mea vālea a le lalolagi, ‘ina ‘ia fa‘amāina ē popoto, ma mea vaivai a le lalolagi ‘ua filifilia ia e le Atua e fa‘amāina ai mea malolosi. ‘Ua filifilia e le Atua mea maulalo ma le fa‘atauva‘a i le lalolagi e o‘o i mea e leai, ‘ina ‘ia lafotūina mea o i ai.”O loo ta'u mai e le fuaiupu lenei, o le Atua na te lē filifilia tagata e manatu o i latou lava e sili ona agava'a e ta'ita'i, na te filifilia i latou e loto maulalo e auauna i tagata.Sa o'u su'esu'ea le aveina a'e o Iesu i le lagi ma o'u iloa ai, na siitia a'e o ia e le Atua i laasaga e fitu i luga atu, ina ua uma ona faamaulaloina e ia ia lava i sitepu e fitu agai i lalo (Filipi 2:9-11). E ui sa valaau o ia e lona ‘au so'o o le ‘Alii' a o lona loto maualalo na ia fufulu ai o latou vae palapalā. E mafai ona e fufuluina aao o i latou o loo e ta'ita'ia? A o'o ina pisi le galuega ma tele galuega e tatau ona fai, e mafai ona e faia le galuega aupito sili ona maulalo?E i ai tagata e taunuu i le tumutumu ae le'i auauna, peita'i e lē umi, e i'u lava ina toe leiloloa o latou tulaga pe a mumusu e auauna. I ni tausaga ua mavae, sa fai ai se matou mafutaga i se aoga maualuga i le taimi o le tuuaga a tamaititi aoga. Na matou taunuu i le aoga, ma o'u alu loa e siaki fale lētā'ua. Sa manaomia se galuega tele e fai i fale lētā'ua o le aoga, (tulou). Sa o'u faailoa i la'u vaega lea faaletonu, ma e tatau ona o matou galulue e fa'amamā mo i latou o le a omai i le fono. Na o'u mana'o ia o'u fufuluina le fale lētā'ua aupito sili ona leaga. Ina ua vaai mai isi o le matou vaega o loo o'u fufuluina fale lētā'ua sa faaosofia i latou matou te galulue faatasi. Ina ua o matou fausia le faletele muamua I le aai o le Togiola, o nisi o le ekalesia, sa omai sa'o mai o latou ofisa ina ua manava e fesoasoani i le galuega aua sa le lava se tupe e totogi ai nisi e faia le galuega. Sa ou galue faatasi ma i latou i afiafi uma, e la'u simā ma fai soose galuega sa manaomia ona fai, e ui o a'u o le Ta'ita'i Aoao o le Ekalesia. O le ala lea o lo'u tumau i le ulu, e ala i le tautua. Ia e faia se galuega I Le aso e te auauna ai I tagata o loo tou galulue faatasi, I le suafa o Iesu, Amene.

“The Wisdom of Generosity”Proverbs 11:24-28I. THE FOLLY OF GREED, COVETOUSNESS, AND CLOSED-HEARTEDNESSII. THE BLESSINGS OF GENEROSITY

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.

In this engaging episode of the Sweet on Leadership podcast, Tim Sweet welcomes back organizational psychologist Rita Ernst. Rita, the founder of Ignite Your Extraordinary and author of "Show Up Positive," delves into the detrimental nature of comparison in the workplace. She emphasizes the importance of maintaining a growth mindset and extracting value from every experience, regardless of current job satisfaction.Rita shares personal anecdotes from her career, highlighting moments of discontent and the inner critic's role in fostering negativity. She offers practical advice on recognizing and challenging these detrimental thought patterns, ultimately guiding listeners toward a more positive and fulfilling professional life. This episode is for anyone seeking to enhance their workplace experience and personal growth.About Rita ErnstRita Ernst is a distinguished organizational psychologist with over 15 years of experience in corporate roles focused on organizational development, performance management, and human resource development. She is the founder of Ignite Your Extraordinary, a consultancy dedicated to designing workplaces people love. Rita is also the author of "Show Up Positive," a book aimed at helping individuals and organizations recover from the pandemic's impact and cultivate healthier, more joyful work environments. Her passion lies in fostering human-centred leadership and creating spaces where employees thrive.--Contact Tim Sweet | Team Work Excellence: WebsiteLinkedIn: Tim SweetInstagramLinkedIn: Team Work ExcellenceContact Rita Ernst | Positivity Influencer, Author, Consultant: Website: igniteextraorindary.comInstagram: @igniteextraordinaryLinkedIn: Rita Ernst, Positivity InfluencerBook: Show Up Positive by Rita Ernst--TranscriptRita 00:01Are you maximizing each experience? You know, you may not be where you want to be yet. And this experience may not be the best experience. But that doesn't mean that you can't take something of value out of it. So, every step that you go, is an opportunity to learn and grow, if you have that mindset. Tim 00:26Do you rely on others to set a vision and then give them what they need so that they can achieve something they never would be able to do on their own? Whether or not you formally lead a team. If this sounds like you, then you, my friend, are the definition of a leader. And this show is all about bringing you new insights from real people that you've never been exposed to. So, you can grow and increase your impact on the world and feel more fulfilled while you're doing it. I'm Tim Sweet and you're joining us now for episode 36 of the Sweet on Leadership podcast, welcome.  Tim 01:03Hey, everybody, it's Tim here. And I want to say welcome. I also want to welcome a repeat guest. This is Rita Ernst. Rita, always happy to have you, it's always such a positive experience to have you come into my space. And I just can't wait to play again with you. Rita was one of our very early guests. It was two episodes. So, make sure you check out the back catalogue because it's excellent. But for those who haven't been exposed to the brilliance of the jewel, that is Rita Ernst, Rita, could you give us a little bit about yourself, please? Rita 01:36Thanks for inviting me back to Tim. It has been a bit of a minute since I got to be with you on the show. But we love to talk. Tim 01:44We're out a year almost exactly. Rita 01:44Probably, so but yeah, we both love to talk. So, this will be a chock-a-block full. I will work on conversations go. But it's good to hear I'm on stay on brand good to know I stay on brand. So, I am an organizational psychologist, that's been my entire career. I spent the first 15-plus years working in traditional corporate roles, doing a lot of organization development, work performance management work, human resource development work, and then I decided to extricate myself out of corporate life temporarily. And that sort of became permanent. And I started my own business called Ignite Your Extraordinary, my focus is still on using my organizational psychology skills to design workplaces people love. I mean, if we just come to the short of it, that's really what is all about. We spend 90,000 of our waking hours in our lifetime in the workplace. And I just believe those need to be happy, productive, fulfilling hours. That's what I want for myself. That's what I want for my parents. That's what I want for my siblings, for the people that I care about my life, I want them to be in a workplace that they love, and that loves them back. And I want to help people learn how to create those spaces. Tim 03:02I think finding a workplace where you can really at the end of the day, love the time that you spent there. I think even loving the people that you're spending that time with to a certain extent, and we don't like to talk about that a lot. Professionally, love is never fully on the balance sheet. But I think it's important to find connection with the people that we're spending all of this time with. And I am now and have always been a big fan of that and the efforts that you put forward in educating people. So, I want to make sure that we let people know that they can also follow up with you. And we're going to tell them a little bit more about that at the end of the program. But for right now, when you and I were getting ready to hit the record button here. It's interesting, you're at a very, very neat crossroads in your professional career. You're an author, you have multiple writings out now. And you're finding more and more influence around the globe, you're finding that the interest is starting to go beyond the Pacific and the Atlantic. And I'm so excited for you that that is now a new chapter that's opening up for you. And I think that that's excellent. But as we were considering that, that work, and those pursuits can sometimes come at a great cost. And we push ourselves into certain areas. And so I thought it was fascinating and this is where I'd like to take us that when we set big goals like that. We have to be conscious that we don't sacrifice too much of ourselves or other areas of our lives while we do that. So, maybe you could tell me a little bit in terms of when you started to set the goals that were most meaningful for you in life. What types of things jumped to mind? What were the things that you wanted to accomplish, and are so far on track to do so?  Rita 05:00Well, I fell in love with psychology and found the application of psychology in business when I was in high school. In Organizational Psychology, this was before positive psychology really had a lot of traction. You know, if I were going to do another degree, now, I probably get a degree in positive psychology. But I'm not volunteering to go back to school. So, that's not going to happen. That's not on the game plan. But because I love psychology so much, you know, I knew the work that I wanted to do, I knew I wanted to go in and help businesses be more effective. I've always believed in human-centred leadership. But we're not turning people into machines, or asking them to check their brains at the door, we are taking humans and all that is humaneness, and figuring out how to maximize that individually and collectively in a workplace. And so that's just been my passion. But I did have an experience a formative experience internationally that really gave me the bug, I wanted to work internationally. And I got to do a little bit of that, and my second last corporate job, and then my husband and I decided to start a family. So, at that point, I knew I didn't want it to do a lot of international travel, that's very difficult on your body, and it's difficult on your family. And I sort of put that aside. And now I've got a college graduate since we talked, and my oldest daughter is entering her senior year of high school. So, our family life is moving into a place where I've decided that I really want to pursue that opportunity to work and serve audiences internationally again. And so I feel like I'm just sort of coming full circle again. But I feel so blessed that I've been able to pace my career in my life, it is a place of privilege, not everybody could do all the things that I've done. Not everybody has the privilege of being able to step out of a corporate job that's giving them health care benefits, and 401k matches and those kinds of things. If you don't have a spouse, for example, if you're single parent really hard to do that. So, I do recognize I have a lot of privilege in where I am sitting right now. But it is fun to be coming full circle. And so my daughter, I've got one more year before she heads off to college. So, I'm not looking to be jumping deep into a lot of international travel, I want to really enjoy this last year that we have together with her in my home, but it's on the horizon. You know, I need to start building the groundwork, making the connections, finding the opportunities. And so I'm always sort of playing a little bit of a long game. When I made all of those early decisions. I didn't see this coming up. But it is fun to see that this opportunity is emerging and passions that I held at such a young age, I didn't completely step away from them, I just stepped aside of them for a while. And now I can merge back in. Tim 7:57It's interesting that you're at that point where you're in a season of your life where things are becoming possible again, and I think that sets us up for a great conversation because it hasn't been necessarily right until now. Now that it's opening up and it's happening. But you know, speaking to you and understanding sort of how you've come through this, and how both of us are developing professionally. And I share a lot of the goals and the tensions that you experienced, up to that point when it wasn't quite there. And this is now open to you again. But the motivation necessarily for you to be moving into these spaces was still there. It was simmering, or it was still smouldering under the surface. But it was the right time to do it. Can you talk a little bit about the relationship with that? Rita 08:49Yeah, I mean, I would say to Tim that it wasn't even necessarily conscious, right? So, in 2022, just to catch up with listeners who didn't catch our earlier episodes, in 2022, I wrote a book called Show Up Positive. That was based on the consulting work that I did during the pandemic. And when I wrote that book, I wasn't thinking, Oh, this is a parlay into international work. What I knew is I wrote this book because I had a message that I wanted to get into more people's hands to help people repair a damage done by the pandemic in their workplaces, get on to a path of healing, that would bring back more joy and fulfillment for everyone in the workplace. And a book is one of the ways that you can get information out to way more people right, than just people trying to find me. So, I wrote the book and I knew I was going to start positioning myself to take the stage at conferences and stuff, that having a stage presence would enable me to get more connections and more people get the message out further. I'm very passionate about the work that underpins show a positive, and the show a positive movement, which is about bringing workplaces back into this place of healing and health and well-being. And I didn't really construct that. But as I've gotten into this, I see, and it's like, oh, yeah, I used to love that, like, I want to do that more. I actually love being on stage and speaking at big conferences and stuff. And I get very nice reviews from people that just affirm and make me want to do more of it. But designing and delivering is something that makes me happy. So, it's really awesome when you have a career that fills your heart. And when you stay open, I have this larger intention, I have this larger goal or purpose of serving into the world, and leaving people in a better place. And I just keep following that path. And then other interesting things come about, but I do think there is a certain level of openness that you have to maintain for that. If I made the decision of like, oh, as soon as my kids are out of the house, while my husband and I are both gonna retire. We're older parents. So, we could theoretically be saying that, and I'm not going to be doing this work anymore, when none of that would be in place. But I love my work so much. I'm like, I got at least another decade in me that I want to keep working, I'm not ready to shut this down, I'm having too much fun. Tim 11:36I'm glad you're in a state of flow with it. I'm glad that it's coming as it comes and it's the right time for this. I think it's exciting when new opportunities are opening up. And they're feeling like they're right there. And I'm also I would say privileged to be in that state of flow with my career, and the rest of it. But so many people that I talk to and I meet, they are not there, they are not in a position where they feel that work is where they should be. Work is getting them where they want to be. They're not finding that they are moving at a pace that is right for them. This must impact the ability to show up positively at work and feel like I know why I'm here and I know where this is going. Or at least I'm comfortable with where it's taking me and the path of least resistance is a great path to be on. What are some of your experiences? Or what do you see, being typical when a person is not fortunate? Like we are, to be feeling that we're heading in a trajectory that makes sense. Rita 12:38I think if you had your north star, if you know your purpose and your intention where you want to take your career, what experience that you want to have, you know, one time I thought, Oh, maybe I want to be the Chief Human Resources Officer somewhere or hold a position in the C suite. And then life took me kind of in a different direction. And I'm like, Okay, I can't even imagine being in that role or doing that job. Like that wouldn't be gratifying to me anymore. But there was a point in my career where I thought that would be kind of gratifying to me. So, you know, what I would say is, you know, once you know where that is, then the question is, are you maximizing each experience? You know, you may not be where you want to be yet. And this experience may not be the best experience. But that doesn't mean that you can't take something of value out of it. So, every step that you go is an opportunity to learn and grow, if you have that mindset. So, it's that growth mindset that we talked about a lot, right? If you come to every opportunity with a growth mindset, you will walk away with something that will advance you closer to the place you want to be. That's what I think. Tim 13:58Sure. That's great. I will press a little bit because I know that a lot of people feel that that growth mindset is escaping them. It's not there. And I mean, I think that people can be really tough on themselves, they can really start to fear that they're not growing, that they're stagnating. You know, and one of the things that I noticed is that often that feeling is not predicated by where they find themselves situationally, but how they're conceptualizing where they are. Right? And you and I talked a little bit before about relative comparison and seeing, you know, I should be further along. I really should be doing more with this talent that I have, or I should be reaching a greater level sooner than I am now. Could you walk me into a little bit about how that influences that thinking of people staying in the growth mindset or staying positive about where they are and where they're headed? And having the energy then to strive, or continue to feel love for their job, or their vocation?  Rita 15:09I want to talk about a little bit of history for me, and then maybe where I am currently in my business. So, when I was in corporate, most of my corporate jobs that I left, I loved the company, I loved what I was doing. I was learning, I was growing, until that moment when I wasn't or I felt like I wasn't. And it's hard when I reflect back on that, it was hard in the moment, and it's hard now to even exactly name what it is. But you know, now that we have this term, quite quitting, be less engaged. I mean, before I made the leap from one company to the next, I definitely felt that shift in my own engagement that was happening. And it was happening because of exactly what you're talking about. It was happening because we have this storyteller that lives inside of our head, called our inner critic. And our inner critic is an awesome storyteller, but kind of a OneNote storyteller, in that the inner critic never notices all the good things that are happening, the inner critic just tells you all the things that aren't happening, or that are problematic about what is or is not happening. And so that's where our personal discontent comes from. And discontent is the enemy of feeling positive at work. And so, good for you, listener if you're noticing your discontent because so many of us fall into a habit of discontented thinking that we don't even recognize because the tricky thing about our inner critic, is our inner critic blames everything outside of us. So, it's our discontent is not anything to do with us. It's because of our circumstances. It's because of this person. So, why did that person get promoted? I worked just as hard. I've been here longer, I should have gotten promoted. Why did that person get the job? Why did that person get a bigger raise than I got? You know, a lot of companies now have transparency of pay. Or why is that person making more money than I am making? You know, whatever it might be, in the kind of roles that I held up, for me a lot of times it was more of the like, where is the leadership of this organization, steering the ship? Why are they making those decisions? And do I feel confident about the direction that we are headed as an organization? I mean, things like that would create my discontent. And honestly, there are times when the right thing for you to do is to leave, when you're experiencing that discontent, that is a signal, it's like putting your hand on the hot stove, right? And you don't just leave it there, to get fourth-degree burns, right? You like you feel the hot stove, you pull your hand back, you're like, oh, signal there, I don't touch that that's hot. Do not touch that, you know, sometimes we are getting legitimate signals that are like it's hot, it's time to move on. Sometimes we're just caught in our own internal stories. And when you can't move on, when you're in a situation where the timing isn't right for you to abandon this job because you need the benefits. Or you need the convenience between your children's school and your work so that you can make the carpool thing work, you know. I mean, there's all kinds of crazy stuff right in our lives that dictate or limit some of our choices. And so when you're in that place, you can just stay in your discontent and despair. Or you can start to challenge the thinking of that critic, you know, and decide what you can influence, what you can change, what you want to make different in your life. And so, I've certainly gone through places and stages in my corporate job, where I started to have doubt or concern, or jealousy over again, that comparison, comparing myself to other people, sometimes not even in the same company. I would have a friend from graduate school that was working for a different company. And they would say, Oh, I got a senior director role. And I'm thinking well, why am I not a senior director yet? Maybe I should be a senior director. You know, all of these things get planted inside of your mind, should I be looking for a senior director role? What would that be? Where would I go? But you know, their situation is not my situation. Their company is not my company. You know, if you talk to somebody and ding, ding, ding, if you have not figured this out already, at least in the US, if you talk to somebody that works at a bank, that you went to school with and they said, I'm the VP of something that's like just a general title, every person working in a bank seems to, if you're not a teller, you're probably a VP of something. That whole thing about comparison is the enemy is so correct. So, there are all kinds of things that can lead to our discontent. But comparison was always a big one that I noticed in my life, and now in my business. And as I think about and plan for the future, as an author of multiple books, you know, there are a lot of messages and signals out there that tell me, I should be making seven figures and I should be selling millions of books, and I should have a million followers on my social media channels. And I should have, you know, so much inbound lead generation that's coming in that I don't have to work, and those messages are everywhere I got people hit me up all the time that wants to sell me something, teach me how to do something. And if I'm not careful, I could get caught up in that comparison. I have to trust that the timeline I'm on is the timeline I am meant to have. Tim 21:14Yeah, it's the timeline you're on. It's such a huge part and if I think back to what you've shared so far, which I think is great, we all have the story, we all have these choices that we've made. And we tend to minimize the quality of the decisions that we've made in the past. And if not the quality of the decisions, the conviction with which we've made them and said, you know, for me, we're going to choose that we're going to have kids, and we're going to now embark on a life that has that as one of the influences, one of the underlying designs. And that is going to now flavour every decision that comes past this. And we made a decision nobly and with a lot of conviction, and it's come with a lot of great benefits. And it's come with some trade-offs. But to then compare our subsequent decisions to what other people are doing or where they've gotten, it's very easy to see individual facets of their achievement, not looking at the other portions of their lives where they've had either circumstances that allow them to operate in certain ways or choices that allow them to operate certain ways. And so we begin to sort of zero in on one aspect of another person's life that we want, while disregarding everything else. And so, that story, that inner critic that you're talking about, that leads us to that point of saying, wait a minute, we don't have enough power, or we're not as far along as we should be. I was reminded of attribution bias when you were saying that, you know, there's that thought, when I'm rolling down the road, if somebody cuts me off, it's because let's say if I merge sloppily into another lane, I can say to myself, well, it's because I am late to pick up my kid and people around me will understand because everybody makes a mistake once in a while. But if somebody else does it, it's like, moron, that guy has a character flaw that allows them to not concern themselves about me at all. And neither of those statements are entirely true. But they're simplified. And so we jump to it. And we think that that's the truth. And in the same way, if we're comparing ourselves to someone else, or if we're looking at a position within a job, it's that what I heard you say was, there's this inner critic or this, it could be like, we talk about the imposter or whatnot. We don't have the power, we need to go where we want to go. If we turn that into a compelling reality that we can't escape, and we cannot make any other kind of choice or see any kind of leverage in the situation then likely it's time to go. Because you are simply resigned yourself to the fact that you have no way out of this. Rita 24:06There's a conversation that says, like, take a celebrity like Angelina Jolie or somebody like Oprah Winfrey, well, they have the same 24 hours in a day that you have and look at all they get done. But it's not true. Like we've we've debunked that myth, right? You can look at somebody else's life and the results that they're getting and you can make all kinds of assumptions, but to your point, you don't really know the reality behind that.Tim 24:33Gross oversimplification. Rita 24:35And they may be making trade-offs that you would never make. I didn't want a full-time nanny. I wanted to be home and raise my kids. That's a trade-off that I made. Whereas, other people would, you know, do something different, the amount of investment that you're willing to make in your education and other things. So yes, comparison is the thief of joy, because we do not really understand the whole structure, the whole system around that. And we make all kinds of assumptions. And at the end of the day, if we can leave you with no other message, learn to trust yourself and trust your path. You can have honest dialogue, I do with myself all the time, you know, if I want to be working internationally, in what's my time horizon? And what's going to allow that to happen? Well, I've got to make connections, I've got to start finding speaking opportunities. I got to find people that opened doors for me, well, am I following through on those things? Then I'm taking action, the fact that I don't have things locked and loaded and ready to go doesn't mean that I shouldn't trust myself, or then I'm not making progress. Tim 25:48Yeah, you're not working as hard as you can work or to the best of your ability. And it's so easy to really criticize oneself. And we had played with the idea of patience and being patient with oneself. Well, if you're judging yourself compared to somebody else's pace, that could be really a recipe for disaster. Often, when I'm coaching people, I say, you know, you gotta be fluent in who you are. Because the tractor may be jealous of the Ferrari Testarossa. But if the task is to pull a plow, you don't have the right torque ratio in a Ferrari, to pull the plow, you have to trust yourself that if you've chosen the right vocation, the right field, you've got the right torque ratio and tire set and everything else, traction to do what you need to do. And to second guess ourselves constantly is really, it can be debilitating. And so, rather than patience, rather than comparison, maybe we focus on calibration and saying, am I right for the road that I've chosen to be on? Am I happy with how I'm performing on this road, because I chose not to go into a stream that would have seen me go up to a C suite, I've chosen to coach to the C suite. And I'm highly satisfied with that I'm in my 50th year, that that was the path that I took. If I compare myself to someone else, suddenly it's very unfair to the choices that I've made and the joy that I've derived from them. And yeah, it's a trade-off. But some of those were tough. But I think that that trust itself is a really big one.Rita 27:28I love your word calibration. I mean, I think calibrating is absolutely it's your own goals. It's your own journey. And really self-monitoring and calibrating where what is reasonable. You know, my father, I was posted about this week, he is now on his third cancer journey. So, now, part of my calibration is making time to make sure that I'm there to support him during this time, that changes a little bit of what my pathway looks, it doesn't mean I have to abandon things. But I might need to recalibrate. Tim 28:06Yeah. And don't judge yourself against Beyonce or Brene Brown or somebody else who does not have the same contextual experience. They're not where you are. So, trust yourself, you know where you are. And if you don't, you better find out. A couple of things as we wrap up here. So, if you were to have one wish for anybody listening today, what would it be? Rita 28:28So, my wish is that you would really tune in and develop that trust in yourself, step away, give yourself permission to step away from the comparison. Stop, my wish for you is to stop looking at all of those adversaries that you're seeing on Facebook and Instagram and LinkedIn that are telling you, you're not enough that you need to be more and more and more that whatever you're doing, you should be making more money, you should be driving a nicer car, you should be living in a better house, whatever it should be. Somebody else's more doesn't have to be your more. I have firmly rejected those things. And I would encourage you to do the same. And a proof that I can give to you is I know somebody that coaches people like Tim and I to build their businesses. And this person is now telling the story about how they were working so hard that they gave up time with their kids that their home life tanked all of these things to get to their multimillion-dollar business. I never wanted to give up all those things to get to that business. So, I don't have a multi-million dollar business. But yes, that mean honestly saying this is what it took and this is what it costs me. You are the only person that knows the cost equation that makes sense in your life. And you got to trust yourself to pay attention to that. Tim 29:52Absolutely. A previous guest had asked the question, by the way since you've been on we have this new tradition and that is, you get et to lob a question of your own at the next guest. As you give a quick answer to the lobbed the question of the past guest. So, Julie Friedman-Smith asked the question, how do we find the courage to do the hard thing? And I think we're in a perfect position to answer this right now. Rita 30:19Well, I truly believe that courage is not overcoming your fear, but moving forward, despite your fear. And so I think the way that you find the courage is that you trust you believe in yourself, you draw upon the best resources around you that you can, and you take a first step and you forgive yourself, for the times that you falter. You can lift yourself back up out of that, and let go the expectation that it's going to be perfect, or that there is this clear and clean, perfect path. Sometimes we just have to be the adventurous spirit that is going to make a lot of mistakes along the way, but eventually, they will get to where we want to be. Tim 31:03I love that. I love that you said draw on the resources around you. And listen to yourself and believe in yourself and believe in the resources around you and allow you to don't discount them. Excellent. Excellent answer. Closing minutes here. Where can people find you? Rita 31:19Well, I have to give you a question first, right before– Tim 31:22You do. Thanks. That's why you should be in charge. Rita 31:24Wait, wait, I was supposed to give you something else. Tim 31:26Yeah, sorry. Oops. Rita 31:28Yeah, question to pass on to the next person would be, what is the advice you would give to, as I've gotten a newly minted graduate, If you could look backwards and talk to your newly minted self coming out of college, starting your career, knowing where the landscape is now, what advice would you give, to help them find their path to happiness and well being at work? Tim 32:00Great question. And I will revel in the answer that the next person gives.Rita 32:07I'm gonna have to now have to get to listen. So, that's how you get us listening and making sure we're listening to multiple episodes. Tim 32:13Now we're developing. It's so great to see this. Well see this community of people have been on this podcast cropping up. I really love it, because they're so supportive, and they're so helpful towards each other. So, it's great. Okay, now the question. Mindful. Rita 32:38So, find me at igniteextraordinary.com. It's all one word igniteextraordinary.com That is my handle. Well, Facebook just temporarily took my site down. So, I don't know maybe on Facebook, on Instagram, I'm @igniteextraordinary. On LinkedIn, I'm Rita Ernst Positivity Influencer. So, it's pretty easy to find me when you just add that positivity influencer. And you can find my book Show Up Positive is in print, digital and audio available anywhere that you buy your books. Tim 33:04100%. We will include links to all of those in the show notes. Rita Ernst, it has been my pleasure to have you come on and spread your particular brand and positivity, which I love. Thank you so much for spending time with me, touching the lives of the people that are listening, and really putting yourself out there as an example of how to make those hard choices. Rita 33:26I love this conversation. Thank you for inviting me back, Tim. Tim 33:31No problem. I can't wait to see what's next, Rita. Tim 33:38Thank 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.

QUESTIONS1:37 - What has been your biggest challenge in growing your business online and how did you overcome it?2:32 - How do you stay motivated and inspired in the face of setbacks?3:28 - What is a breakthrough moment that significantly changed your business trajectory?4:13 - How do you balance your personal branding with company branding in your marketing strategy?5:05 - I'm struggling with creating viral content that resonates with my audience. What is your secret?5:34 - How do you leverage influencer marketing to boost your own brands' visibility?6:05 - What strategies have you found most effective for scaling your ad spend profitably on social media?6:51 - What's the best way that you identify and capitalize on emerging trends in digital marketing?7:54 - How much do you pay attention to data analytics and how does it play a role in your decision-making in your business?8:45 - Can you share a story about a successful collaboration you've had with a celebrity or influencer?9:21 - What is the best way to establish trust in your brand?9:55 - I'm building my first sales funnel. What are the key elements of a successful sales funnel in your experience?10:43 - We're struggling to keep customers. How do you approach customer retention and loyalty in your brand and business?11:50 - I'm just getting my start in digital marketing. What is one piece of advice you would give me right now?12:39 - How do you look at and measure ROI of all of your marketing campaigns?12:57 - What's your approach to content creation and distribution across all of your different platforms?13:34 - How do you manage and motivate a large team to achieve high performance?14:39 - What do you think will be the biggest change in the next five years in the digital marketing and social media space?15:03 - A couple of bad reviews have set our business back a lot. How do you handle negative feedback or criticism about your brand online?16:31 - What is the most valuable lesson you learned from your worst failure?Connect with Rudy Mawer:LinkedInInstagramFacebookTwitter FULL TRANSCRIPT0:00Rudy, what is the most valuable lesson you learned from your worst failure?0:04I think probably the biggest lesson, which is kind of ironic is I'm struggling with creating viral content that resonates with my audience.0:12What is your secret?0:13Something I've learned from a lot of people that are very successful on socials is just like, what do you think will be the biggest change in the next five years in the digital marketing and social media space?0:24The next five years, biggest change will probably be, we're already ahead.0:28I would say we've been doing it over 18 months now.0:31I think it's gonna change how content's made, how content's produced the ability to create content.0:37I think that's gonna be the biggest change.0:38It's a good question too.0:39I think a breakthrough...

In this episode of "while you wait...", I share invaluable insights on optimizing surgical outcomes. Diagnosed with breast cancer and facing a temporary departure from my clinical practice, I highlight the importance of utilizing this time to prepare for surgery. From preoperative education to physical conditioning, I discuss key strategies to enhance surgical recovery and overall well-being. Tune in as I guide my listeners through the essential steps to ensure a smoother surgical journey.Take advantage of this empowering episode as I share invaluable tips to optimize your surgical journey!For additional resources and community support, visit Pelvic Organ Prolapse Support and International Urogynecological Association.For more personalized guidance or inquiries, feel free to reach out to me or my office.Pallavi L et al AUGS-IUGA Joint Clinic Consensus statement on Enhanced Recovery with Urogynecology Surgery , Urogynecology 2022.Introduction - 0:28I discuss my personal experience with breast cancer diagnosis.Preoperative Education - 1:41Emphasizes the significance of understanding surgical procedures and anesthesia options.Training for Surgery - 8:55Advises listeners on the benefits of physical conditioning and maintaining optimal nutrition before surgery.Diet and Nutrition - 10:18The importance of good nutrition and proper amount of protein before surgery for optimal healing.Stress Reduction and Well-being - 11:14The importance of managing stress, reducing alcohol consumption, and adopting healthy lifestyle practices.Pre-Surgery Preparation - :Practical tips for the day before surgery, including dietary guidelines, hygiene practices, and medication instructions.Post-Surgery Considerations - 14:24Advice on post-operative care, including pain management, bladder and bowel function, and contacting the surgical team if needed.Conclusion - 17:28Discussing the importance of trust in the surgical team and understanding the recovery process for optimal outcomes.

Support Common Prayer Daily @ PatreonVisit our Website for more www.commonprayerdaily.com_______________LentJesus said, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”Mark 8:34 ConfessionOfficiant: Let us humbly confess our sins unto Almighty God.People: Almighty and most merciful Father, we have erred and strayed from your ways like lost sheep. We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts. We have offended against your holy laws.We have left undone those things which we ought to have done, and we have done those things which we ought not to have done; and apart from your grace, there is no health in us. O Lord, have mercy upon us. Spare all those who confess their faults. Restore all those who are penitent, according to your promises declared to all people in Christ Jesus our Lord. And grant, O most merciful Father, for his sake, that we may now live a godly, righteous, and sober life, to the glory of your holy Name. Amen.Officiant: Almighty God have mercy on us, forgive us all our sins through our Lord Jesus Christ, strengthen us in all goodness, and by the power of the Holy Spirit keep us in eternal life. Amen. The Lord's PrayerOur Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen. Invitatory & PsalmsOfficiant: O God, make speed to save us. People: O Lord, make haste to help us. Officiant & People: Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit: as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be for ever. Amen. LentThe Lord is full of compassion and mery: Come let us adore him.Venite Psalm 95:1-7Come, let us sing to the Lord; *let us shout for joy to the Rock of our salvation.Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving * and raise a loud shout to him with psalms.For the Lord is a great God, *and a great King above all gods.In his hand are the caverns of the earth, * and the heights of the hills are his also.The sea is his, for he made it, *and his hands have molded the dry land.Come, let us bow down, and bend the knee, * and kneel before the Lord our Maker.For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand. * Oh, that today you would hearken to his voice!The Lord is full of compassion and mery: Come let us adore him. Psalm 89Part IMisericordias Domini1Your love, O Lord, for ever will I sing; *from age to age my mouth will proclaim your faithfulness.2For I am persuaded that your love is established for ever; *you have set your faithfulness firmly in the heavens.3“I have made a covenant with my chosen one; *I have sworn an oath to David my servant:4‘I will establish your line for ever, *and preserve your throne for all generations.' ”5The heavens bear witness to your wonders, O Lord, *and to your faithfulness in the assembly of the holy ones;6For who in the skies can be compared to the Lord? *who is like the Lord among the gods?7God is much to be feared in the council of the holy ones, *great and terrible to all those round about him.8Who is like you, Lord God of hosts? *O mighty Lord, your faithfulness is all around you.9You rule the raging of the sea *and still the surging of its waves.10You have crushed Rahab of the deep with a deadly wound; *you have scattered your enemies with your mighty arm.11Yours are the heavens; the earth also is yours; *you laid the foundations of the world and all that is in it.12You have made the north and the south; *Tabor and Hermon rejoice in your Name.13You have a mighty arm; *strong is your hand and high is your right hand.14Righteousness and justice are the foundations of your throne; *love and truth go before your face.15Happy are the people who know the festal shout! *they walk, O Lord, in the light of your presence.16They rejoice daily in your Name; *they are jubilant in your righteousness.17For you are the glory of their strength, *and by your favor our might is exalted.18Truly, the Lord is our ruler; *the Holy One of Israel is our King.Part IITunc locutus es19You spoke once in a vision and said to your faithful people: *“I have set the crown upon a warriorand have exalted one chosen out of the people.20I have found David my servant; *with my holy oil have I anointed him.21My hand will hold him fast *and my arm will make him strong.22No enemy shall deceive him, *nor any wicked man bring him down.23I will crush his foes before him *and strike down those who hate him.24My faithfulness and love shall be with him, *and he shall be victorious through my Name.25I shall make his dominion extend *from the Great Sea to the River.26He will say to me, ‘You are my Father, *my God, and the rock of my salvation.'27I will make him my firstborn *and higher than the kings of the earth.28I will keep my love for him for ever, *and my covenant will stand firm for him.29I will establish his line for ever *and his throne as the days of heaven.” Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit: as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be for ever. Amen. The LessonsRomans 4:13-18English Standard Version13 For the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith. 14 For if it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. 15 For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law there is no transgression.16 That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring—not only to the adherent of the law but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all, 17 as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations”—in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. 18 In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, “So shall your offspring be.”Officiant: The Word of the LordPeople: Thanks be to God. A Song of Penitence(Kyrie Pantokrator)O Lord and Ruler of the hosts of heaven, * God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,and of all their righteous offspring:You made the heavens and the earth, * with all their vast array.All things quake with fear at your presence; * they tremble because of your power.But your merciful promise is beyond all measure; * it surpasses all that our minds can fathom.O Lord, you are full of compassion, * long-suffering, and abounding in mercy.You hold back your hand; *you do not punish as we deserve.In your great goodness, Lord,you have promised forgiveness to sinners, * that they may repent of their sin and be saved.And now, O Lord, I bend the knee of my heart, * and make my appeal, sure of your gracious goodness.I have sinned, O Lord, I have sinned, * and I know my wickedness only too well.Therefore I make this prayer to you: * Forgive me, Lord, forgive me.Do not let me perish in my sin, * nor condemn me to the depths of the earth.For you, O Lord, are the God of those who repent, * and in me you will show forth your goodness.Unworthy as I am, you will save me, in accordance with your great mercy, * and I will praise you without ceasing all the days of my life.For all the powers of heaven sing your praises, * and yours is the glory to ages of ages. Amen. Luke 2:41-52English Standard Version41 Now his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the Feast of the Passover. 42 And when he was twelve years old, they went up according to custom. 43 And when the feast was ended, as they were returning, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem. His parents did not know it, 44 but supposing him to be in the group they went a day's journey, but then they began to search for him among their relatives and acquaintances, 45 and when they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem, searching for him. 46 After three days they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. 47 And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers. 48 And when his parents saw him, they were astonished. And his mother said to him, “Son, why have you treated us so? Behold, your father and I have been searching for you in great distress.” 49 And he said to them, “Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?” 50 And they did not understand the saying that he spoke to them. 51 And he went down with them and came to Nazareth and was submissive to them. And his mother treasured up all these things in her heart.52 And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man.Officiant: The Word of the LordPeople: Thanks be to God. A Song of Praise(Benedictus es, Domine Song of the Three Young Men, 29-34)Glory to you, Lord God of our fathers; * you are worthy of praise; glory to you.Glory to you for the radiance of your holy Name; * we will praise you and highly exalt you for ever.Glory to you in the splendor of your temple; * on the throne of your majesty, glory to you.Glory to you, seated between the Cherubim; * we will praise you and highly exalt you for ever.Glory to you, beholding the depths; * in the high vault of heaven, glory to you.Glory to you, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; * we will praise you and highly exalt you for ever. The CreedI believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord. He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended to the dead. On the third day he rose again. He ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again to judge the living and the dead.I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen. The PrayersOfficiant: The Lord be with you.People: And also with you.Officiant: Let us pray The SuffragesShow us your mercy, O Lord;And grant us your salvation.Clothe your ministers with righteousness;Let your people sing with joy.Give peace, O Lord, in all the world;For only in you can we live in safety. Lord, keep this nation under your care;And guide us in the way of justice and truth. Let your way be known upon earth; Your saving health among all nations. Let not the needy, O Lord, be forgotten; Nor the hope of the poor be taken away. Create in us clean hearts, O God; And sustain us with your Holy Spirit.Take a moment at this time to reflect and pray for the needs of others. St. JosephO God, who from the family of your servant David raised up Joseph to be the guardian of your incarnate Son and the spouse of his virgin mother: Give us grace to imitate his uprightness of life and his obedience to your commands; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.A Collect for PeaceO God, the author of peace and lover of concord, to know you is eternal life and to serve you is perfect freedom: Defend us, your humble servants, in all assaults of our enemies; that we, surely trusting in your defense, may not fear the power of any adversaries; through the might of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.A Collect for GraceLord God, almighty and everlasting Father, you have brought us in safety to this new day: Preserve us with your mighty power, that we may not fall into sin, nor be overcome by adversity; and in all we do, direct us to the fulfilling of your purpose; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.For MissionAlmighty and everlasting God, by whose Spirit the whole body of your faithful people is governed and sanctified: Receive our supplications and prayers which we offer before you for all members of your holy Church, that in their vocation and ministry they may truly and devoutly serve you; through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. ThanksgivingsThe General ThanksgivingAlmighty God, Father of all mercies, we your unworthy servants give you humble thanks for all your goodness and loving-kindness to us and to all whom you have made. We bless you for our creation, preservation, and all the blessings of this life; but above all for your immeasurable love in the redemption of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ; for the means of grace, and for the hope of glory. And, we pray, give us such an awareness of your mercies, that with truly thankful hearts we may show forth your praise, not only with our lips, but in our lives, by giving up our selves to your service, and by walking before you in holiness and righteousness all our days; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with you and the Holy Spirit, be honor and glory throughout all ages. Amen.A Prayer of St. ChrysostomAlmighty God, you have given us grace at this time with one accord to make our common supplication to you; and you have promised through your well-beloved Son that when two or three are gathered together in his Name you will be in the midst of them: Fulfill now, O Lord, our desires and petitions as may be best for us; granting us in this world knowledge of your truth, and in the age to come life everlasting. Amen. ConclusionThe grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with us all evermore. Amen. 2 Corinthians 13:14

In this episode of the Sweet on Leadership podcast, Tim Sweet engages in a dynamic conversation with Richard Young, a seasoned expert in high-performance sports. The episode explores the transition from hope-to-knowing in achieving sustained success, emphasizing evidence, conviction, and a system-thinking approach. Richard, drawing from his experience with Olympic athletes, highlights the importance of simplicity, alignment, and well-being in optimizing high-performance teams. The conversation extends into the business domain, illustrating the applicability of these principles for building and sustaining excellence in various leadership contexts. Throughout the discussion, personal experiences and insights are shared, providing an exploration of the key elements that contribute to lasting success in both sports and business leadership.The episode unfolds as Tim and Richard discuss the nuances of confidence, conviction, and the mind-body connection. They delve into the impact of evidence-based decision-making, the role of a cohesive team in individual confidence, and the systemic factors that produce conviction. Richard introduces his upcoming book, "Performance Leadership," offering a preview of the systemic differences between repeat medalists and non-medalists. The episode concludes with a powerful message, emphasizing the accessibility of performance fulfillment and the importance of focusing on the journey.About Richard YoungRichard's deep knowledge of people and performance has made him a highly sought-after speaker, mentor and strategist. He has experience across 10 Olympic cycles across most roles (athlete, coach, leader, researcher). He has won international gold medals, coached world champions, and created medal-winning programmes for three countries across innovation, research, learning and leadership. Richard has a PhD in medical science and later focussed on uncovering the key differences between medallists and non-medallists, their coaches, technical staff, leaders and the system they are in. Using his first-hand experience of leading people and programmes to create change for better performance he can make new high performance work for you. In your own arena, at work, and at home! Richards's values are family, productivity, belonging, discovery and transformation. He has been described as a ‘world-class performance creator'. Born in the UK, raised in Canada, he lives in Dunedin, New Zealand with his four children (and dog Dougal).Resources discussed in this episode:Ange PostecoglouAnders EricssonBelonging by Owen EastwoodThe Living Company by Arie De Geus--Contact Tim Sweet | Team Work Excellence: WebsiteLinkedIn: Tim SweetInstagramLinkedin: Team Work ExcellenceContact Richard Young | Simplify2Perform: Website: simplify2perform.comLinkedin: Simplify2Perform--Transcript:Richard 00:01Hoping is a flag for evidence that's missing and knowing means the gap has been filled. So, it's a good word generally, universally for human nature to have hope but in the performance game is another trigger. And there needs to be a leader who spots that and says, Well, I hope it all comes off. And then we're looking at opportunity. And the opportunity is typically inside the gap and that could flag a gap in evidence. So, what don't we know? Tim 00:32I'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. Thanks for joining us for the 27th episode of the Sweet on Leadership podcast. Tim 01:04Well, hi, again, everybody. This is going to be one of my favourite episodes. I know that I'm confident, I don't have to wonder about that. I don't have to guess, I don't have to hope. I know it's going to be one of my favorite episodes. Why? Because I've got evidence. I've been with the wonderful person that's in front of me here today. Before I know what we're capable of. And I am fully confident. Please let me welcome Richard Young, to the podcast. Richard 01:34A right on Tim. Wow, what an intro. What an intro and same back to you too. So, always a pleasure joining, you ask deep questions and yet connect some dots. And we always get somewhere, I learn a heap.  Tim 01:47Well, the feeling is mutual. But before we get going too much for those of you that haven't checked out Richard in previous episodes, I'd like you to introduce yourself. Could you tell us who you are? Who do you serve? And what do you mean to those people?  Richard 02:04Yeah. Right on so. So, I live in New Zealand. I'm Canadian, you can tell the accent. And so I live in the south of New Zealand with my four kids by the beach here and worked in high-performance sports, primarily the Olympics my whole life. So, from an athlete, coach through to leader, and researcher all in three countries as well. Three years ago, I decided to do some of my own work, I felt without the kind of bureaucracy and the dogma around me, I could help more people faster. And so that's what I've been doing. So, I work primarily with sports leaders, so senior leaders into experts in sports, they don't necessarily run the sport, some could be ahead of medicine, and some do run the Olympic Committees and things for different countries. And I help them streamline their approach to high performance. So, typically, when you've been in the game a long time, I call it winners bloat, they've got so many good ideas, that one before, it's hard to filter. Because they can make a good case for everything that they've done before you get enough people in the room like that. And it's a real bloated place of great ideas. And so I help come in and streamline big rocks down to even bigger rocks. So, there's only a few of them. And there's a pattern in repeat medalists that I noticed. And they learned that at the end, and so I help people at the beginning, figure that out sooner.  Tim 03:33Awesome. And there's so many parallels, anybody who is listening, that's worked with me, you're gonna hear a lot of similarities. And that's because you and I come from very similar schools of thought. And we've trained together in certain practices. And so the whole idea of resolving conflict, and aligning tensions, and all of that is something that you and I are all over. So, before we got going here, I sent you a video and I thought I could really kick off our conversation today. And I was really inspired by what this person was saying, and I thought you get a real kick out of it. This is a quote from Ange Postecoglou. He's one of the premier league coaches for Tottenham MFC. And he's got a really interesting take when a reporter asks him, do you ever visualize yourself hoisting a trophy over your head? So, let's take a listen. And then we'll come back together we'll give it a talk.  Reporter 04:24Do you ever picture yourself lifting trophies as a more general question?Ange 04:28I got real pictures, mate. Quite a few of them. Just look at the ones I've got. I've earned them, I'm not lucky. I love winning, mate. That's all I've done my whole career. And now, don't say that dismissively that I've got pictures and I don't have them on my ceiling mate, as you suggested, but that's what drives me every year. I start the year hoping that at the end of the year, there is a picture of me with a team and lifting a trophy. That's what I've tried to do my whole career. And I've got plenty of evidence of that. So, that's what my sort of intent is here. It's not something that I have to visualize. It's what I do. Tim 05:14So, there's the video, what are your first thoughts when you hear that, Richard? Richard 05:19I hear the master in that leader. So, he's pointing out something very particular to the best in the game is that they do have a picture. So, Anders Ericsson, did all the research on you know, 10,000 hours and things and he had said, to become an expert, there needs to be a benchmark around you, you need to see what high performance looks like. And so some new sports of the Olympics struggle with that, you know, surfing and breaking and things like that. There's no benchmark yet. Whereas the other ones, you can see all these world records dropping, because they know the benchmark, they've seen the picture, and sometimes they're in the picture. So, what he's talking about there is, you wouldn't hire a coach who hasn't won before, is another way of putting what he's saying there is Tottenham would not hire someone who hasn't won before. So, he does have a lot of pictures. And you don't want someone learning on the fly, you want them tuning and synthesizing but not starting from zero. So, the best in the game are like him, they do have championship pictures or winning pictures around them. They may be aiming he says, aiming for better, and you know, the continuous improvement and all those things you hear about leaders, but their past is a record of victories, they have a history of winning. And that's what we find in the performance leaders in the sustained metal systems. The group, the people, the athletes are surrounded by people who have won before. And the sports that have a barren land of people who won before, they're doing their best. They're putting in a massive effort, but there's a misdirection on the main things. Tim 07:02You know, it's funny when I think of teams that I work with, it's a very common behavior for people to chart a win, really get something right, do something wonderful. And then steamroll, right past it on to the next thing, and not even take a moment to record or to acknowledge that that was a win. And then when it comes around the next time where they are having to do perhaps something very similar again, they almost can't recall that they had already, you know, had this experience. And you've talked to me before about being able to see those wins because Ange didn't start out being a Premier League winner. Those wins had to be found elsewhere. Right? So, can you talk a little bit about that for us? Because I love your perspective on this. Richard 07:53Yeah. So, his win, there's another great video of him because he was a premiership. I think he was a premiership player as well. And there's a shot of him in the dugout, and this is maybe last year with Tottenham. And the ball, you can tell based on his vision that someone's kicked the ball up high, and it's coming out of bounds, and it lands right beside him and he traps the ball. He's in a suit. Tim 08:17Oh, right. I've seen that body memory whap. Richard 08:21That's right. Yeah, taps the ball and pushes it out to the field, and just shrugs his shoulders at the crowd. Who are you, I don't know if it's a standing ovation. But anyways, just so impressive, but there's the premiership history in him. And so in sports, there's this myth. And it's important to bust myths as well that you have to have been a premiership performer, or a championship performer to be a champion leader or a champion coach. And that's like asking a leader to be the best at you know, every department, he or she manages, and impossible. And so sometimes the best athletes do not make the best leaders. They can't see out of their own self because you have to be very self-absorbed to be an athlete and then you have to see wider to be a leader and a coach. And so if you've got winning those winning they need to be with people, not just you with a metal, Look at me go. It's the leaders and the change-makers that see like him, him lifting a trophy with a team. That's what he said it's not him with a trophy. It's with the team and so that perspective for leadership is the win is on us, it's not me, is vital. And you don't often see that in the leaders who are just working their way up. It's still about me they're still trying to prove like a new athlete selected to a team. It's natural to try to prove yourself first. They found that I did research on the All Blacks, they wanted me to review their caps, they call them caps here is how many times you've been in a test match, a championship game. And so the players under 15 caps, the players between 15 and 40. And then there's a cut-off that you're a senior player after 40 and someone like Richie McCaw, who was the captain down here. And by the way, rugby is crazy down here. It's like hockey in Canada. Everything is about rugby. Even in the town I'm in when the World Cup was here, there was going to be four games, not one of them an All Blacks game. There was a referendum of petition put out to there's only 120,000 people in this town. Should we spend 150 million on an indoor stadium for these four World Cup games, It'll take us 50 years to pay it off. It was a unanimous, Yes. So, and that's what we have is an indoor stadium. So, Richie McCall, I number of caps. But the difference was, it was all me under 15 caps. It was all us but I'm not sure where I fit between 15 and 40. And it's all us. And I know where I fit after 40. So, their picture changed from a me to a we. And so that coach there that you just quoted, interesting, he points out, it's a we picture and same with a McCall, but it's him with the team and the cup. Tim 11:23Him with a team with the cup. And it's funny, because as you were saying that simplistically, I was thinking, Well, does a person have to have success as a leader going forward? No, not necessarily. I mean, this is why being part of that us as a junior, whether it's a junior person in business, or in education, or in sport, being part of it, you have to be part of the us, and then you have to think in terms of that collective thinking. And, you know, we often try to inspire that in leaders that they think, you know, around who are they serving, and that they don't get too myopic on their own needs, obviously. But this is actually a precursor for them to be able to even achieve those next levels. It's so much more than just a good habit. It actually is their conceptualization of success before success. And what does that look like? And boy, you know, I love talking to you, man, because every time there's so many examples, that, sure I may have helped people get past but it brings new light things and new realizations. And I'm right now I'm thinking of an example of a leader who was struggling. And this just explains so much that ego picture had gotten in the way that I picture had gotten in the way. Where they had all sorts of examples for WE wins, but they weren't accessing them. I mean, it speaks to one other thing. And I use one of your philosophies in my coaching practice. And it's all about that performance mindset. And once you have this experience, and again, as Ange says, in that clip, he has pictures of himself winning, he doesn't need to wonder if he can do this. You know, and you talk about hope versus know. And I always talk about in business, hope is a four letter word, don't tell me you hope something is gonna happen. Don't tell me you think it might happen. Like, let's access the data and everything we know, to take a very good educated guess of whether or not this is going to happen. And nothing's better than experience and evidence of it happening before. So, when you are working with these teams, what kind of an example would you give us about really helping somebody bridge that gap between hope and know? Richard 13:44Yeah, yeah. A lot of it is evidence-focused, right? So, the knowing means there are metrics around me or a picture that I can see this has happened and it can happen again. And so that conviction that brings for people, the data that I tracked it, six Olympic cycles now have medalists and non-medalists in a yachting group here who had won three Olympics. And they said hoping is a flag for evidence that's missing and knowing means the evidence the gap has been filled. So, it's a good word, generally, universally for human nature to have hope. But in the performance game is another trigger. And there needs to be a leader who spots that and says, Well, in the end, I hope it all comes off. So, before the Olympics, I hope I get lane eight.Tim 14:40Screeching tires. Richard 14:41That's right. Yeah. So, there's the second question that gets asked. So, performance leaders ask the second question, and then we're looking at opportunity and the opportunity is typically inside the gap and that could flag a gap in evidence So, what don't we know? So, there was one rower who was World Champion, and they started to fade and they became kind of disillusioned with their fitness and their times are wavering and stuff and so the whole support staff thought it was mindset. And so the psych team, an army of good intent, wrapped themselves around her and things then the coach looked and he came at it from the hoping/knowing and he got to investigate what might be under the hood, for he knew her well, also. But it turns out it was and I had this one in the book as well, it turned out it was the evidence that they had numbers for but she wasn't aware of them. And so he just presented those numbers to her every day on how she was tracking. And suddenly, she had evidence that it's not as bad as I thought. Feelings aren't facts, facts are facts. And so suddenly, she progressed and she became the world champion that year. And he knew it wasn't mindset, because you can't hope your way to victory. You do have to have prep, you know, that goes into flow, which we can talk about later.  Tim 16:12For sure. It's funny that you say that, because something that started with me when I used to wrestle, and it's continued through university, and even now, it doesn't happen as often now. But you say, Sorry, what? Please repeat that for me. Feelings…Richard 16:29Feelings aren't facts. Tim 16:30Feelings aren't facts. I have a very physical response when I'm feeling uneasy, or I don't have the facts, or I'm not sure of how something's panning out. I'll get tightness across my back when I was wrestling, this would show up as muscle impingement and stuff like that, right? Like it really got tight. And then all I had to do was kind of rationalize stuff. It sounds so silly, but if I was studying for a test and I was feeling tense, I'd start to feel this tension in my back. And so then I would just take stock of what I knew. And what I didn't know. And as soon as I had a handle on it, and I moved it sort of from that emotional side over to where I could see it. Honestly, sometimes it was like it felt like an injury and it just went away. Within hours. It was gone. And I've had this happen dozens of times over my life. I mean, it's this strange sort of mind-body connection. It sounds a little cheesy. But I felt, you know, I literally felt injured. Through uncertainty, I guess. Richard 17:32Yeah. Yeah. Awesome way to put it. Yeah.  Tim 17:36Well, I don't know if it's that. But it was just, you know when you said that it really gave. And I can imagine for this, this performer, once she had that data was just a deep breath. And like, Wow, I feel better right now. Like the fog just clears and the fog of war lifts and you can see what's in front of you and you remind yourself what your job is. And it's funny, you know, I think you and I've talked about this before, but when we talk about that hope versus knowing, you know, I love that there's always that circle with the pie graphs. And there's this little thin piece that says, we know what we know, these little thin piece that says we know what we don't know. And then there's this massive piece that says we don't know what we don't know. And I always think there's a fourth slice, which is that we forgot what we knew, you know, we actually failed to recognize what we already have learned and committed it to memory. Richard 18:32A friend of mine gave me a great line yesterday because he's a leader in a business. And he said a lot of my staff know what to do, but don't do what they know. Tim 18:42Yeah, no kidding. And that's a great segue, actually into the next question I got for you because you've mentioned the word conviction quite a few times here. Do you draw a distinction between conviction and confidence? Richard 18:55Yeah, so confidence is a frame, a mental frame, it is deeply inside, like your somatic sense of a feeling of being unprepared or something and that twinge in your back. So, conviction is deeply felt. It's just acknowledging and it's systemic, it's wider than me, it's bigger than me. There's something coming together here. My teammates, my staff, my home life, there's a whole picture is conviction, whereas confidence is this. That's right. Yeah, yeah. So, a much bigger piece is conviction. That's really a key difference between the sustained high performers and the rest because they are system builders. And when you have a system behind you, you just know the system's got your back, and suddenly it's conviction. Tim 19:51That's such a great way to put that. And again, when you build that system around people, and of course in the work that we do and the work that I do, so much of it is just helping people become fluent in where they are and what they've got. And that they're part of that system. And that system is around them and that it's functioning. And so really, that is that feeling of being inside something that has a purpose and has a way of operating in a system of support or rules or code or whatever it is, but it's got a way to perform. Now all of a sudden, you are in that second space where you can perform, you're in that, it's not home, something else, it's a different vocation. And you have a role. And I think that that feeling of belonging leads to confidence as much as anything else. Richard 20:39Yeah, yeah. You'd love to read called Belonging. And maybe the listeners would like to read that too, written by a Kiwi. I think he's out in Britain now. But a lot of the rugby group and on this theme of cohesion, and team cohesion is a fantastic book. And there's a difference. You just pointed something out there. To him, the confidence is me. Conviction is we.  Tim 21:06100%. Great. And I'll add this to the show notes. But does that Owen Eastwood?  Richard 21:08Yeah, that's him.Tim 21:10Owen Eastwood. Richard 21:11And he's on LinkedIn, by the way. So connected. I've connected to him. And yeah. Tim 21:17Send me an invite man. Put us together. So, unlock your potential with the ancient code of togetherness. Excellent. Okay, that is on my list for sure. So, I like that cover too, I want them to be a tattoo. Anyway. Awesome. Okay, so what have we covered, we've covered being able to see the wins and distinguish that hope from know that security that gives us and another layer of security, you have brought us into this, me versus we and this ability to access this layer of conviction now that we have purpose and everything else. And that will yield among other things, probably give us a greater sense of confidence individually because we are part of something. They've got to play off each other. I'm sure. So, man, that's fantastic. What's your thinking as were at this point in the conversation?  Richard 22:13Well, I'm not surprised we're connecting some dots here, Tim. So, you know, the synthesis between–Tim 22:14Strong galvanization? Richard 22:20Yeah. You get a couple of system thinkers, there'll be a lot of listeners out there that you know, the system thinking folk at all systems mean is people, places, and things and how they interact. It's just a helicopter view of the environment you're in, the orbit that you're in. And so everything can be framed as a system, even the video you played at the start, we could analyze his conversation, that one line from system thinking. I just got off the phone with a coach who wants some help with their plans for the World Cup. And it's basically system thinking, just to have a reflector pointed out are these really the big rocks? And how do we interconnect people, places and things? So, just good coaching, you know, like you do for your clients and leaders, all we are our system reflectors, really. And we point the lens back at the expert in front of us who knows the context. And that's what sport is. It's a series of experts, some with massive egos, by the way, a whole series of experts, and they need to be coordinated together so that their output is like all the arrows hitting the dartboard. And it's one dartboard. There's not multiple dartboards. So, yeah, that's where you find cohesion produces a team performance. That's the exciting part about sport is particularly team sport, you know, the physiology sports, that's my background, it's pretty straight, you know, you can kind of tell who's going to be within. Like rowing here is the best thing in the world, and their training is repeatedly 98 to 99% of world records. So, that's what they do, just keep going. And so physiology can do that. Whereas in a team, you never know when they're going to lift and just be that different team, you know that, wow, look at that. And there's something exciting. And that business team is just as exciting. Because the same peek, the same flow can happen in a business team. So, you asked what reflect like, what's happening, I can see all of this pointing to business, really, you know, the area that we're in these examples, you're heavy into business, I'm heavy into sport, but the bridge between the two you can you can hear the similarities between them.  Tim 24:38I'm telling you the last few months have seen me crossing over. You know, I've been involved in cycling on that side. And now I'm getting involved in curling and pickleball was the most recent. So, you know, and it all is that sort of expression of well, I think conviction is the word but I love cohesion, finding that synergy, and really helping people be their best selves together kind of thing. I want to have you back and probably before too long, because I want us to have a separate conversation on flow, because that is one of my favourite areas to teach and play with. And then we can have a business focus discussion. Before we wrap up here, it's important to note that as much as we talked about sport, you are making huge inroads into business. So, if you are a business owner, you should really be thinking about checking out Richard, and especially if you're on that side of the pond, what are you dealing with? What are some of the most notable benefits I guess I could say? Or advantages when business owners start to take lessons from what you've learned in sport? Richard 25:42Yeah, so primarily, the high-performing team. So, I know that's a big focus of yours. And in performance– Tim 25:53Now it's sustained high performance, somebody helped light me up to the difference between high performance, anybody can podium once, and sustained high performance. How do we do it over and over again? Do you remember his name? What's his name? That's right, it was Richard Young. Anyway, go ahead, please. Richard 26:13Yeah, so that's where the triangle came from. So, what I use in business and sport, and that's the theme of the next book, which is in finished drafts, so that'll be out in another probably two months. So, the key systemic differences between repeat medalists, sustained high performers, and non, and for us, it's pretty binary on metals and non so we have a pretty easy number to measure if you've got it. But inside that metal is a whole lot of depth if it's sustained. Anyone can win wants, it's actually pretty easy to win an Olympic medal, but to repeat it is totally different. And so they have a different and I don't mean to be little an Olympic medal, by the way, if there's listeners out there who've, you know, put their whole. So all I mean is the system required to do that even a business that achieves you know, they surpass all expectations. It's to repeat that. And you can just feel the difference in that while we got it together. But do we know exactly how we pulled that off, then it's more deliberative, it's sustained. So, the triangle is simplicity, alignment and well-being, so to keep it going, and there's a great book called The Living Company by Arie De Geus. He was the CEO of BP Oil a long time ago. And he was curious why some companies live longer than humans, but most don't. And the ones that live longer, that like past 100 years, they had certain things in common. They weren't connected to the ecology of their environment. They were adaptable, they were thrifty on their finance. So, it was a few things like that. And in sport, that translates to simple, we're not trying to do it all. We know what matters aligned, we're rowing in the same direction not as easy as it sounds when you've got a whole roomful of people who've won before. And then well-being means we're okay and you can feel the difference. You walk into a sport with systemic well-being. It's not gym passes, and they are fit already. But inside, there's a lot of pain in a lot of sport. And so the approach is changing completely in high performance because a lot of disasters that have happened for athletes and staff as well, which happens in other industries, but it's quite public in sport when something bad happens. And so it just means that there's all hands on deck to figure it out. So, that triangle works. And so the translation of that into business is a higher performing team. And you can call on flow, it's not psychological, it's preparation. So yeah, for sure, let's talk about that next time because there's this whole, you know, between us the session on flow, it's a deep, meaningful call to attention. It isn't something psychological. Tim 29:16I know we're going to do a good job on that one. All right. Any working title for the book right now? Richard 29:24Performance Leadership is the as the working title. Yeah. Tim 29:28Stay tuned to both of us because I'll be shouting that one from the rooftops. All right. And if people want to get in touch with you, what's the best way they can get in touch with you? Richard 29:37The website or LinkedIn? So richardnyoung.com is the site that goes to simplify to perform but yeah, richardnyoung it's just a name easy to remember them. Tim 29:52No problem, we'll put it in the show notes so that it's there. And as I asked every one of my guests now. Not the last time you were on, I don't think we started this little tradition. If you had one hope for the athletes, the business owners, the founders, the leaders that are listening today, if you could hope or you wish them… well hope, let's talk about the different kind of hope. What's your wish for them? Let's talk about that. What would you like them to feel and know coming out of this, this conversation? Richard 30:23We know this, that performance is more than a metal. It's deeply personal and its fulfillment. So the ones that achieve this sustained high performance, there's a sense of fulfillment and metal or no metal, all of what we've talked about, flow, conviction, metal matters but that isn't the main thing. There's a performance fulfillment that a lot of people never get to in sport and business, and it's closer than we think. So, yeah. So, hopefully, there's some trigger in here that it might be hey, you know what, maybe I've overcomplicated things. Maybe there's a couple of smaller arrows I need to be focused on than these big arrows, maybe I'm all results-focused, and the ones who are journey-focused, they get there faster than the rest.  Tim 31:11That is an experience or that is a feeling. Fulfillment is something that everybody deserves. And a lot of people don't think it's within reach, but it is. They just need to break it down a little bit. All right, Richard Young, man. Love spending time with you.  Richard 31:29Same with you, too. Tim 31:30Alright, let's do it real soon. Richard 31:32See you for the next month. Tim 31:33Excellent, all the best.  Tim 31:39Thank 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. Like us, if 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.

Support Common Prayer Daily @ PatreonVisit our Website for more www.commonprayerdaily.com_______________Christmas DayAnd the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.Luke 2:10-11 ConfessionOfficiant: Let us humbly confess our sins unto Almighty God.People: Almighty and most merciful Father, we have erred and strayed from your ways like lost sheep. We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts. We have offended against your holy laws.We have left undone those things which we ought to have done, and we have done those things which we ought not to have done; and apart from your grace, there is no health in us. O Lord, have mercy upon us. Spare all those who confess their faults. Restore all those who are penitent, according to your promises declared to all people in Christ Jesus our Lord. And grant, O most merciful Father, for his sake, that we may now live a godly, righteous, and sober life, to the glory of your holy Name. Amen.Officiant: Almighty God have mercy on us, forgive us all our sins through our Lord Jesus Christ, strengthen us in all goodness, and by the power of the Holy Spirit keep us in eternal life. Amen. The Lord's PrayerOur Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen. Invitatory & PsalmsOfficiant: O God, make speed to save us. People: O Lord, make haste to help us. Officiant & People: Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit: as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be for ever. Amen. ChristmasAlleluia! Unto us a Child is born: O come, let us adore him. Alleluia. Venite Psalm 95:1-7Come, let us sing to the Lord; *let us shout for joy to the Rock of our salvation.Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving * and raise a loud shout to him with psalms.For the Lord is a great God, *and a great King above all gods.In his hand are the caverns of the earth, * and the heights of the hills are his also.The sea is his, for he made it, *and his hands have molded the dry land.Come, let us bow down, and bend the knee, * and kneel before the Lord our Maker.For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand. * Oh, that today you would hearken to his voice! Psalm 89Part I Misericordias Domini1Your love, O Lord, for ever will I sing; *from age to age my mouth will proclaim your faithfulness.2For I am persuaded that your love is established for ever; *you have set your faithfulness firmly in the heavens.3“I have made a covenant with my chosen one; *I have sworn an oath to David my servant:4‘I will establish your line for ever, *and preserve your throne for all generations.' ”5The heavens bear witness to your wonders, O Lord, *and to your faithfulness in the assembly of the holy ones;6For who in the skies can be compared to the Lord? *who is like the Lord among the gods?7God is much to be feared in the council of the holy ones, *great and terrible to all those round about him.8Who is like you, Lord God of hosts? *O mighty Lord, your faithfulness is all around you.9You rule the raging of the sea *and still the surging of its waves.10You have crushed Rahab of the deep with a deadly wound; *you have scattered your enemies with your mighty arm.11Yours are the heavens; the earth also is yours; *you laid the foundations of the world and all that is in it.12You have made the north and the south; *Tabor and Hermon rejoice in your Name.13You have a mighty arm; *strong is your hand and high is your right hand.14Righteousness and justice are the foundations of your throne; *love and truth go before your face.15Happy are the people who know the festal shout! *they walk, O Lord, in the light of your presence.16They rejoice daily in your Name; *they are jubilant in your righteousness.17For you are the glory of their strength, *and by your favor our might is exalted.18Truly, the Lord is our ruler; *the Holy One of Israel is our King. Part II Tunc locutus es19You spoke once in a vision and said to your faithful people: *“I have set the crown upon a warriorand have exalted one chosen out of the people.20I have found David my servant; *with my holy oil have I anointed him.21My hand will hold him fast *and my arm will make him strong.22No enemy shall deceive him, *nor any wicked man bring him down.23I will crush his foes before him *and strike down those who hate him.24My faithfulness and love shall be with him, *and he shall be victorious through my Name.25I shall make his dominion extend *from the Great Sea to the River.26He will say to me, ‘You are my Father, *my God, and the rock of my salvation.'27I will make him my firstborn *and higher than the kings of the earth.28I will keep my love for him for ever, *and my covenant will stand firm for him.29I will establish his line for ever *and his throne as the days of heaven.” Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit: as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be for ever. Amen. The LessonsIsaiah 9:2-7 English Standard Version2 The people who walked in darkness    have seen a great light;those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness,    on them has light shone.3 You have multiplied the nation;    you have increased its joy;they rejoice before you    as with joy at the harvest,    as they are glad when they divide the spoil.4 For the yoke of his burden,    and the staff for his shoulder,    the rod of his oppressor,    you have broken as on the day of Midian.5 For every boot of the tramping warrior in battle tumult    and every garment rolled in blood    will be burned as fuel for the fire.6 For to us a child is born,    to us a son is given;and the government shall be upon his shoulder,    and his name shall be calledWonderful Counselor, Mighty God,    Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.7 Of the increase of his government and of peace    there will be no end,on the throne of David and over his kingdom,    to establish it and to uphold itwith justice and with righteousness    from this time forth and forevermore.The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.Officiant: The Word of the LordPeople: Thanks be to God. You are God(Te Deum laudamus)You are God: we praise you;You are the Lord: we acclaim you;You are the eternal Father:All creation worships you.To you all angels, all the powers of heaven, Cherubim and Seraphim, sing in endless praise:Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power and might,heaven and earth are full of your glory.The glorious company of apostles praise you.The noble fellowship of prophets praise you.The white-robed army of martyrs praise you. Throughout the world the holy Church acclaims you;Father, of majesty unbounded,your true and only Son, worthy of all worship, and the Holy Spirit, advocate and guide.You, Christ, are the king of glory, the eternal Son of the Father.When you became man to set us free you did not shun the Virgin's womb. You overcame the sting of death and opened the kingdom of heaven to all believers. You are seated at God's right hand in glory.We believe that you will come and be our judge.Come then, Lord, and help your people, bought with the price of your own blood, and bring us with your saints to glory everlasting. Luke 2:1-20 English Standard Version2 In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. 2 This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria. 3 And all went to be registered, each to his own town. 4 And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, 5 to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. 6 And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. 7 And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.8 And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. 9 And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear. 10 And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. 11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. 12 And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” 13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying,14 “Glory to God in the highest,    and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”15 When the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.” 16 And they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in a manger. 17 And when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child. 18 And all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them. 19 But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart. 20 And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.Officiant: The Word of the LordPeople: Thanks be to God. A Song of Praise(Benedictus es, Domine Song of the Three Young Men, 29-34)Glory to you, Lord God of our fathers; * you are worthy of praise; glory to you.Glory to you for the radiance of your holy Name; * we will praise you and highly exalt you for ever.Glory to you in the splendor of your temple; * on the throne of your majesty, glory to you.Glory to you, seated between the Cherubim; * we will praise you and highly exalt you for ever.Glory to you, beholding the depths; * in the high vault of heaven, glory to you.Glory to you, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; * we will praise you and highly exalt you for ever. The CreedI believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord. He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended to the dead. On the third day he rose again. He ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again to judge the living and the dead.I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen. The PrayersOfficiant: The Lord be with you.People: And also with you.Officiant: Let us pray The SuffragesShow us your mercy, O Lord;And grant us your salvation.Clothe your ministers with righteousness;Let your people sing with joy.Give peace, O Lord, in all the world;For only in you can we live in safety. Lord, keep this nation under your care;And guide us in the way of justice and truth. Let your way be known upon earth; Your saving health among all nations. Let not the needy, O Lord, be forgotten; Nor the hope of the poor be taken away. Create in us clean hearts, O God; And sustain us with your Holy Spirit.Take a moment at this time to reflect and pray for the needs of others. ChristmasAlmighty God, you have given your only-begotten Son to take our nature upon him, and to be born [this day] of a pure virgin: Grant that we, who have been born again and made your children by adoption and grace, may daily be renewed by your Holy Spirit; through our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom with you and the same Spirit be honor and glory, now and for ever. Amen.A Collect for PeaceO God, the author of peace and lover of concord, to know you is eternal life and to serve you is perfect freedom: Defend us, your humble servants, in all assaults of our enemies; that we, surely trusting in your defense, may not fear the power of any adversaries; through the might of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.A Collect for GraceLord God, almighty and everlasting Father, you have brought us in safety to this new day: Preserve us with your mighty power, that we may not fall into sin, nor be overcome by adversity; and in all we do, direct us to the fulfilling of your purpose; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.For MissionAlmighty and everlasting God, by whose Spirit the whole body of your faithful people is governed and sanctified: Receive our supplications and prayers which we offer before you for all members of your holy Church, that in their vocation and ministry they may truly and devoutly serve you; through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. ThanksgivingsThe General ThanksgivingAlmighty God, Father of all mercies, we your unworthy servants give you humble thanks for all your goodness and loving-kindness to us and to all whom you have made. We bless you for our creation, preservation, and all the blessings of this life; but above all for your immeasurable love in the redemption of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ; for the means of grace, and for the hope of glory. And, we pray, give us such an awareness of your mercies, that with truly thankful hearts we may show forth your praise, not only with our lips, but in our lives, by giving up our selves to your service, and by walking before you in holiness and righteousness all our days; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with you and the Holy Spirit, be honor and glory throughout all ages. Amen.A Prayer of St. ChrysostomAlmighty God, you have given us grace at this time with one accord to make our common supplication to you; and you have promised through your well-beloved Son that when two or three are gathered together in his Name you will be in the midst of them: Fulfill now, O Lord, our desires and petitions as may be best for us; granting us in this world knowledge of your truth, and in the age to come life everlasting. Amen. ConclusionThe grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with us all evermore. Amen. 2 Corinthians 13:14

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.

// Episode 34 // Double 1 7 ( Overcoming Victory ) ANDDR Stephen E Jones writes this..."The number thirty-four in Hebrew was written with the letters lamed (authority) and daleth (a door). It has to do with the authority to walk through the door or to enter a house. One may lawfully enter after one has identified himself. "SO I THINK THAT 34 IS THE NUMBER THAT INDICATES THE IMPORTANCE OF GETTING TRUE IDENTITY. "- Troy BrewerIn episode 34 Brienne and Margaux share their own language and personal experience in attempt to help shed light on a "religious spirit "and "religious abuse". Religious abuse is when religious authority is used to manipulate or control others, through the twisting of scripture or misuse of office and influence. Religious abuse is far too common and can even be found in our own internal belief systems and structures created from our experiences or inherited from our ancestors. Its important we learn to identify when we are being accused or controlled but a religious spirit, shame or religious abuse ( which includes both ) so we can discern and reject in order to rightly know our amazing savior! . We are all on the journey of more freedom and learning to see God more clearly and truly. There is no judgement or condemnation for you as you identify areas you've been led astray. Our only intention is to name some spiritual dynamics to help you find language for something you may be experiencing and take it to God for further guidance and deliverance.Scriptural references in the episode:“Truly, truly I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in another way, the man is a thief and a robber…” John 10:1-“A house divided against itself cannot stand…” Mark 3:24-26“His kindness leads us to repentance..” Romans 2:4“Admonish one another” Romans 15:14“Come to me all who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest.” Matthew 11:28I want to release freedom to question and discern. To know his voice for yourself. Even if a leader in your life tells you something that doesn't feel right or makes you feel you can't discern God for yourself, you're not dishonoring them by taking it to God asking Him for discernment. Its you right to discern and weigh in. More on Breathing Underwater Memberships HEREInterested in 1:1 coaching with Margaux : Free Consultation HERE Join the Community and Newsletter: HERE Email: margaux@permissiontoreign.comInstagram: @permission_to_reignIntro Music by Coma-Media from PixabayImage by Claire Fischer from Unsplash

14 But even if you should suffer for righteousness' sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, 15 but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, 16 having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame.1 PETER 3:14-16The question is not whether or not you're going to be a theologian, but what kind of theologian you're going to be.”Michael LawrenceTHE DOCTRINE OF GODWHAT IS THE GOD OF THE BIBLE LIKE?19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world,[g] in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things…28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.Romans 1:19-23,28I will worship toward Your holy temple,And praise Your nameFor Your lovingkindness and Your truth;For You have magnified Your word above all Your name.PSALM 138:2HOW DO WE KNOW GOD EXISTS? Inner Knowing (inward evidence)21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.Romans 1:21For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My laws in their mind and write them on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. Hebrews 8:10"This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the LORD: I will put My laws into their hearts, and in their minds I will write them,"Hebrews 10:1614 For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. 15 They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them Romans 2:14-15 Moral Argument: argues that there are objectively valid moral values, and therefore, there must be an absolute from which they are derived.If everything wasn't created ON PURPOSE, then nothing that is created HAS PURPOSE. Ontological Argument: argues that the very concept of God demands that there is an actual existent God.Presuppositional Argument: argues that the basic beliefs of theists and non-theists require God as a necessary pre-condition.HUMANS WERE MADE FOR WORSHIPTo worship is to live for something.“The human heart is a perpetual idol factory.”John Calvin22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things…28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.Romans 1:22-23,28 Nature and Scripture (outward evidence)19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world,[g] in the things that have been made.Romans 1:19-20“We tend by a secret law of the soul to move toward our mental image of God… Were we able to extract from any man a complete answer to the question, ‘What comes to mind when you think about God?' Weight predict with certainty the spiritual future of that man.”A.W. TozerInstead of glorifying God we transformed our idea of Him into forms and images more comfortable to our corrupt and darkened hearts.David Guzik“Here's how you know you've created God in your own image: he agrees with you on everything…”John Mark Cromer16 Now while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols.Acts 17:16-21 As Paul sailed to Athens from the sea near Berea, he came to a city he had probably never been to before, and like any tourist, he was ready to be impressed by this famous and historic city – which, hundreds of years before, was one of the most glorious and important cities in the world. But when Paul toured Athens, he was only depressed by the magnitude of the idolatry he saw all around.David Guzik22 So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. 23 For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription: ‘To the unknown god.' What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you.Acts 17:22-23WHAT IS GOD LIKE? 24 The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man,[c] 25 nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.Acts 17:24-25GOD IS… INDEPENDENTIndependent: God does not need us or the rest of creation for anything, yet we and the rest of creation bring Him glory and bring Him joy. Someone might wonder, if God does not need us for anything, then are we important at all? Is there any significance to our existence or to the existence of the rest of creation? In response it must be said that we are in fact very meaningful because God has created us and he has determined that we would be meaningful to him… to be significant to God is to be significant in the most ultimate sense. No greater personal significance can be imagined.Wayne GrudemThe starting place of knowing God is knowing His love.26 And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, 27 that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, 28 for“‘In him we live and move and have our being';[d]as even some of your own poets have said,“‘For we are indeed his offspring.'[e]Acts 17:26-28GOD IS… INFINITE AND PERSONALEvery day I will bless you    and praise your name forever and ever.Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised,    and his greatness is unsearchable.Psalm 145:2-3Apart from the true religion found in the Bible, no system of religion has a god who is both infinite and personal. For example, the gods of ancient Greek and Roman mythology were personal, but not infinite: they had weaknesses and frequent moral failures, even petty rivalries. On the other hand, deism portrays a god who is infinite but far too removed from the world to be personally involved in it… We can pray to [God] him, worship Him, obey Him, and love Him; and He can speak to us, rejoice in us, and love us.Wayne Grudem29 Being then God's offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. 30 The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, 31 because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”Acts 17:29-31 GOD IS… JEALOUS

In this episode of "The Conversion Show" podcast, Erik Christiansen interviews Blair Beckwith, head of E-commerce at Tidio and Founder at Railspur.Erik and Blair, with their combined experience of 20 years in the Shopify ecosystem, discuss their experiences and reflect on the changes in the Shopify app store over the past 10 years and what's yet to come in the next few.Erik and Blair discuss:The need for businesses to diversify platforms to truly thrive.Brands aren't doing product-led growth correctly.Anxiety and concern among app partners regarding competition from ShopifyExperimentation and impeccable products are key in today's dynamic ecosystem.Is "freemium" still a sexy term? Product-led growth, pricing models, and the challenges faced by developers.Host: Erik ChristiansenGuest: Blair BeckwithSponsored by: 38 Proven Email Pop Up designs by JustunoTidioRailspurTranscript:Erik 00:51All right, folks. Today is a special day for the conversion show because one of the top questions I get asked personally is having been in the shop ecosystem for ten plus years, one of the first questions I always get asked is, hey, what's what's the check? What's the deal with the Shopify App Store? And you know, anyone who's in this world today is the show for you because you have combined 20 years exactly of Shopify App Store experience between Blair and I. I just looked it up March 19, 2013, Blair and I first emailed each other. So today's show, you saw the title, you know who's on here, Blair Beckwith, welcome to the show.Blair 01:44Thanks for having me. Eric, I was looking today, too, and I was I mean, I was thinking back, I think that we met in person maybe that summer in San Francisco. It was one of my first trips as a Shopify employee. Shopify was so small back then, I barely had a budget for a hotel. I remember staying in the Tenderloin and meeting up with you for lunch. You had a little office, and I think I want to call like the financial district. Was that what that area was called?Erik 02:15Yeah, we moved offices every year for a while and, we were probably on 2nd and Mission.Blair 02:26It was a little bit more like a corporate building. It was a little bit more modern. It was on a nonground floor. I remember taking an elevator. I remember walking with you to go get sandwiches down by the water.Erik 02:28I was trying to impress you, huh?Blair 02:39Yeah. Yeah, it was, man, it was a long time ago.Erik 02:43I do have to correct you because you said you were. It was early days as an employee, but technically, weren't you an intern?Blair 02:53By that point, I had graduated to full-time employment status. No. Yeah, I started. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we can get into all that we can get into. Well, for sure.Erik 03:03It's funny. Like, I'm trying to remember back the earliest memory, and in talking about budgets, you know, Shopify. I didn't have the budget for a hotel for you. We've always just seen as always...

Who is Tai?Tai is CEO of That Marketing TeamKey TakeawaysHow do you help your customers to generate leads? 0:20Automated lead generation and sales. 2:18Tools for using to attract more leads. 3:27How to attract agents to become your local office? 5:30The importance of understanding your customer's needs. 6:34Do you know something your customers know better than you? 7:56The better decision you make, the better business you build. 8:58The one thing you need to be able to do. 11:23Stuart's advice on how to make leads more automated. 12:51Valuable Free Resource or Actiontheleadsworkshop.comA video version of this podcast is available on YouTube :https://youtube.com/live/cgIK-sCYl4g?feature=share_________________________________________________________________________________________________Subscribe to our newsletter and get details of when we are doing these interviews live at https://TCA.fyi/newsletterFind out more about being a guest at : https://link.thecompleteapproach.co.uk/beaguestSubscribe to the podcast at https://link.thecompleteapproach.co.uk/podcastHelp us get this podcast in front of as many people as possible. Leave a nice five-star review at apple podcasts : https://link.thecompleteapproach.co.uk/apple-podcasts and on YouTube : https://link.thecompleteapproach.co.uk/Itsnotrocketscienceatyt!Here's how you can bring your business to THE next level:If you are a business owner currently turning over £/$10K - £/$50K per month and want to grow to £/$100K - £/$500k per month download my free resource on everything you need to grow your business on a single page : https://scientificvaluebuildingmachine.com/svbm_1_pageIt's a detailed breakdown of how you can grow your business to 7-figures in a smart and sustainable way————————————————————————————————————————————-TranscriptNote, this was transcribed using a transcription software and may not reflect the exact words used in the podcast)SUMMARY KEYWORDScustomers, gpt, talk, ty, automated, quiz, leads, word, business, people, work, hoping, write, prompts, marketing, data, automated system, questions, great, stuartSPEAKERSStuart Webb, Tai GoodwinStuart Webb 00:20Good afternoon and welcome to excuse me, another episode of frog in my throat of five questions over coffee. I'm here today with Thai Thai Goodwin, she's CEO of that marketing team. And she's really going to talk to us about how she's gonna help us to generate more leads, and make more sales. Welcome to the podcast. Ty.Tai Goodwin 00:43Hey, Stuart, I'm so glad to be here. Now, I hope it's okay that I don't actually drink coffee.Stuart Webb 00:49That's fine. I've been drinking enough for both of us, Ty. I think I've finished six so far. So that's more than enough. So Ty, let's just understand a little bit now how exactly do you help your customers to to generate those models? What what is that? What is the ideal customer that you're looking to help you said small businesses to find small business for me?Tai Goodwin 01:12Yeah, we work with a lot of small businesses who are doing, you know, $2.5 million and above in their business. And they don't have the real budget to bring on a full blown marketing manager or CMO chief marketing officer. But they also really don't have time to do it themselves. So one of our tagline, Stewart is no time, no tech, no team, no problem. They struggle with getting the people in place, they don't have the tools in place, and we can help them with that.Stuart Webb 01:41So what is it that they've been doing until you get involved? You know that it's been a mistake that you're helping them? SoTai Goodwin 01:49a lot of my clients have been focused only on referral marketing or word of mouth? Right? And so because you know that that's great, until it's not great, right, when the referrals dry up, and then you don't have any leads coming in? What do you do? How do you find your next client and that makes it really hard for them to scale beyond where they are. And so we are able to come in and show them how to put an automated marketing system in place that generates leads for them on autopilot, it actually kind of creates demand for their business without them having to have a referral or word of mouth.Stuart Webb 02:18I love automated systems, I spend half of my life talking to people. In fact, I was in a conversation this morning about the fact that he didn't have an automated system in order to sort of take the leads he had through a sort of sales process. And make it automated, I always say, you know, once you've got somebody in the funnel, you need to make it impossible for them to crawl back up the funnel, you got to gently educate them until they eventually become a customer whether they really want to or not, because that's the that's the that's what we put these funnels in place for so so I know you've got a you've got some some great offers on your website and things like that. There's one in particular I'm hoping you're going to sort of talk to us about and that's the the leads workshop.Tai Goodwin 03:01The leads workshop is we do it every week. And in that leads workshop, I'm sharing the five things that we use to automate marketing for our customers, because it's not just about getting the leads in. There's ways to automate qualifying people. There's ways to automate your sales and delivery. So all of those things can be automated, and it saves our customers time, it helps them make more money, because now nobody's slipping through the cracks.Stuart Webb 03:27That's a really great. So how do you how do you talk to us about some of those tools that you use it that in, without giving away too many of what I'm sure you're going to talk about, but just tell us a little bit about that?Tai Goodwin 03:38Well, one of the things that we've used for a lot of local businesses is a quiz. We just built a quiz for an insurance person who, you know, wanted a way to bring in more leads. And it was simple quiz that can attract people because it's not intrusive. It's kind of fun, right? But people will give you more information and data. And when you have something like a quiz, as opposed to just a traditional PDF download, or you know, a webinar, you're going to get more data that you can use to do a better job with your marketing and people like a quiz. But how does that work? Are you talking about the Harry Potter? You know what kind of Harry Potter character are you quiz? We're talking about things that are a little bit more technical than that, and a little bit more specific than that. But it's still a quiz that asks people questions that helps them pinpoint what their real pain is and how you can specifically solve it.Stuart Webb 04:28I love the idea. I love the idea Ty tell me Is there a particular book or, or programme that really sort of helps you to hone the way in which you work with your customers?Tai Goodwin 04:37Oh, wow, there's so many Stuart, one of the ones that really helped me most recently is the 100 million dollar offer. And you probably heard folks talking about that. And, you know, it's one of those things where it's got some really great points in it. We don't take everything in it very literally, but it's got some really great points, specifically around it. And this is just what I picked up from, because there's a lot of people talking about the book right now. But it really helped me focus on what my customer wants, instead of what I think I should offer them. And that was the mission that was the linchpin for me, because so many of us, like, when we come into businesses, we've got these skills, we want to use our skills, you want to do this, and you want to do that. And we don't really take the time to actually figure out what is it that's going to solve the customer's problem? Fastest. And that was your,Stuart Webb 05:30I love it. I love it. It's so interesting, because I was having a customer meeting this morning with somebody. And they were talking about how they were wanting to set up a new business and set up agency in different countries. They've got a very international business. And I said, so. So what is it, they don't talk a lot about how this would help them to sort of, you know, accelerate this house. And I said, so what is it that that that will attract those agents to become your agent in that locality? And they looked at me as if to say why you've now have you started speaking a completely different language. And I sort of said, well, you know, you want to attract these people to become your local office, effectively, a sort of, you know, an attitude of your business, you're gonna give them your branding, and all that good stuff, but what's in it for them. And they kept looking at me and saying, but I don't understand this is going to help me accelerate my sales, and they will make money and I went, Yeah, but that's not what will attract them to become your office, what is it that you are doing to solve their pain or their problems when they went? Oh, these people want to do such and such? Okay. That's what I've been asking for the last five minutes, and they weren't see. And it was one of those moments where you sort of you, you've got to get somebody out of there sort of what is it that I'm trying to do to? What is it that my customer wants from me in order to get them to understand how to sort of make that sort of LEAP, don't you?Tai Goodwin 06:48Oh, absolutely. And it's amazing, because people forget that all the time. And, you know, I'll ask people, I said, Well, have you talked to the people that you want to serve? What? I can do that or what I need to talk to them? Well, yeah, you know, it's their money that they're going to invest is their energy, it's their trust is their time. So it amazes me when I run into people that have never asked the AUG, they intend to sell to, what is it that they really need? And why do they really need it?Stuart Webb 07:17Yeah, it's interesting, I spend a lot of my time with companies that are trying to innovate. And they, they they very, very rarely do, I sort of you know that there are two types of innovation, one of which is very much incremental. And the other one is what I call sort of recombinant, which is where ideas come back together. And it's often the customer that produces that recombinant idea. It's something which is completely out there. It's sort of something they've not considered, but the customer is thinking about it because they've got a different view on it. And I often say that the greatest source of innovation is your customers. And the one thing that I've had said to me more often than not, is, why would our customers want to be the source of innovation? They don't know what they're doing. And I'm saying, Well, do you know something your customers actually know better than you what it is you're trying to do for them. And if you ask them occasionally, if you just reached out and told them, I'd like your input, they might actually tell you more things that you could help them to solve in terms of pain points in their problem in their business.Tai Goodwin 08:14Absolutely. And it's not that they don't know is that they might not put it in the same phrase, you know, so it takes a really smart entrepreneur, really savvy entrepreneur, to learn what questions to ask so that you get the right data, it's like, and this is gonna sound like really, this is gonna connect for those of you that have parents, if you're a parent of like a five or six year old, there's some things you can't come out and directly asked a five or six year old, but if you ask them questions around it, you'll get to the answer. And that's kind of what you have to do as an entrepreneur. You know, and when you learn how to ask those questions, which is how we tie back into the quiz marketing that we do, it's learning how to ask the right questions, so you get the right data, so that you're making better decisions with your marketing and a better investment of your time and money.Stuart Webb 08:58I love that I love that phrase I actually read even this morning, because I was it's one thing I try and remind myself is, the better the decision you make, the better business you build. And you've really got to ask the right questions to make a really smart decision to build a really great business. Yeah. Good, good. Tie. Listen, I've been asking you some questions for last 1010 minutes or so. And there must be one question that you're currently thinking. Why doesn't he asked me this? It's so obvious. I don't understand why he hasn't bothered to ask me. So I'm not going to get you to ask that question. And of course, as soon as you've asked that question, you need to answer it because I'm not going to be able to know the answer to that one. So what's the question? I should have asked you that I haven't.Tai Goodwin 09:41Oh, goodness. Well, you know, one of the questions that's really coming up right now has to do with like chat GPT Nai. And a lot of people are flocking to it because they're like, I'm gonna fire my copywriter and I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna be able to do all this myself and I wrote this the other day, but let me give The question first, the question is, you know, what's the best way to use AI technology for my business? Right? Especially when it comes to marketing? And that's a such an important question right now, like I said, because a lot of people are flocking to it. And if they go, I'm just gonna get it to do this. You can write as many chat GPT prompts. And for those of you who are new to that, it's an AI Artificial Intelligence, which is not always artificial intelligence, artificially intelligent technology that people are using, and you can put questions in. And it'll give you a great amount of data, it'll give you great responses. Sometimes you have to, you know, go through and filter them and make sure they're correct. But a lot of people are using it to try to write, copy and to get prompts for social media and a good website, copy. And that's great. But here's the thing, no matter how many prompts you write, if you don't have a clear audience, offer, or messaging, none of your prompts are going to matter. It all comes back to this strategy. And that's with anything, that's the biggest mistake that I see people make is that they're running after tools are what we call throwing spaghetti at the wall, hoping something sticks this week, I'm going to try tic tac next week, as somebody said, I should use YouTube. So I'm going to try and YouTube as the next week. And you're just throwing things at the wall. And so you're never getting enough data to really know what's working or why it's working. And if you don't understand why it's working, you cannot replicate it.Stuart Webb 11:23Yeah, great, great stuff, great stuff. I have a scientific background. And I know that the one thing you need to be able to do is have enough information behind you to be able to replicate something that's been successful, because it's those one offs that were really successful. And then you go kind of want to know what it is I did. So I can do it again. And I just don't know. That's the problems that you have where people go, I think I did such and such, and it doesn't work and you're scrambling around. And that blows you off course, doesn't it? It leaves you know, it's all very, you know, people say I don't need a plan because plans never work. And I often say you know, what you forget is a plan helps you to know whether or not you want to be able to do that, again, it doesn't matter if a plan ends up being you being blown off upon you know how far off plan you are. So without that guiding strategy, without that thing that sort of says I know what it is I'm trying to do. You're absolutely right, people find themselves adrift. And that's, that's a really great message, I worry a lot about people who are now leaping into chat GPT chat GPT is just a great big load of words or put together and it just predicts the next best word, it doesn't mean it has any form of intelligence, it's not intelligent. It just predicts the next possible word with a high likelihood of success. I put some words into chat GPT the other day in order to sort of demonstrate to somebody how it would write them up until it wrote an entire paragraph of about 250 words without a sentence stop without any sort of without any sort of formatting. And I looked at it and went, would you like that to become that automated post that you put out on a regular basis? And they looked at it and they went? No, that's horrible. And I said, but that's what you were proposing. And too many people are just going, it's easy, but it will blow away any hopes that your customers have got of looking at you as an intelligent human being that doesn't know.Tai Goodwin 13:11Yeah, you know, it's like, I think it's like when people and I've never experienced this, but I've watched TV, I think it's like when people get hooked on drugs, you know, you get that high from Oh, this worked on Chet GPT one time or this worked on tic tac, and it went viral. And then you're always trying to chase that same result. But you're never getting it. And it's interesting, man, I can't wait like written his first like, you know, wave of people kind of just getting into this whole chat GPT. And it's gonna be really interesting to see what has actually worked, that's been implemented, like, it's one thing to, for people to be able to create stuff from it. And that's fun, and it's exciting. But I want to see what the results are. When people actually implement the content and the data and the responses that they're getting. That's what we need to be taking a look at.Stuart Webb 13:57Brilliant Ty, it's been a real pleasure having you come on and talk to us about some of this stuff today. Thank you so much for doing it. I'm just gonna, just gonna remind everybody that if you would like to get onto the newsletter, mailing list, I send out an email pretty much every Monday morning talking about who's going to be coming on to the podcast on Tuesday so that you can see the sort of wisdom that we're hoping to bring to you and the free advice stuff like typing giving us today. So go to this link, which is https colon, forward slash forward slash link dot the complete approach.co dot c a.uk forward slash newsletter. So that's linked the complete approach or one word Kodo co.uk forward slash newsletter, come on to that. Get that newsletter every week. So you can see some of the brilliant people we've got coming up in the future. Ty, it's been an absolute pleasure having you on today. Thank you so much for spending a few minutes with us. Really appreciate you giving us some of that wisdom about how to go about making your leads more automated. It's brilliant stuff. Thanks. QTai Goodwin 15:00Fantastic. Thanks, Stuart. It's been a pleasure Get full access to It's Not Rocket Science! at thecompleteapproach.substack.com/subscribe

I greet you in Jesus' precious name! It is Wednesday morning, the 31st of May, 2023, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today. “They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man,And are at their wits' end.Then they cry out to the Lord in their trouble,And He brings them out of their distresses.”Psalm 107:27-28I want to ask you a question this morning. Are you at your wit's end? “Angus, I sure am, I don't know which way to go. I don't know what to do, I don't know what not to do. I am at my wit's end.” Well, I have a beautiful poem to read to you this morning, written by a lady by the name of Antoinette Wilson. It is a beautiful poem and it goes like this:Are you standing at Wit's-End Corner,Christian with troubled brow?Are you thinking of what is before you,And all you are bearing now?Does all the world seem against you,And you in the battle alone?Remember — at Wit's-End CornerIs just where God's power is shown.Are you standing at Wit's-End CornerBlinded with wearying pain,Feeling you cannot endure it,You cannot bear the strain?Bruised through the constant suffering,Dizzy and dazed and dumb?Remember — at Wit's-End CornerIs where Jesus loves to come.Are you standing at Wit's-End CornerYour work before you spread,All lying begun, unfinished,And pressing on heart and head,Longing for strength to do it,Stretching out trembling hands?Remember — at Wit's-End CornerThe Burden-bearer stands.Are you standing at Wit's-End Corner?Then you're just in the very spotTo learn the wondrous resourcesOf Him who faileth not.No doubt, to a brighter pathwayYour footsteps will soon be moved.But only at Wit's-End CornerIs the "God who is able" proved.I want to say to you today, do not be discouraged. You are battling but you know something, the last key on the ring might be the one that opens the door. Have a wonderful day,Jesus bless you and goodbye.

Many of us are walking around all prettied up on the inside but a total disaster on the inside.How do we know if we are truly following God in our lives or just checking off the "Saved Soul" box? And why does it matter? We can't earn our way into Heaven!Ezekiel 36:26-28I'll pour pure water over you and scrub you clean. I'll give you a new heart, put a new spirit in you. I'll remove the stone heart from your body and replace it with a heart that's God-willed, not self-willed. I'll put my Spirit in you and make it possible for you to do what I tell you and live by my commands. You'll once again live in the land I gave your ancestors. You'll be my people! I'll be your God!

For 4 hours, I tried to come up reasons for why AI might not kill us all, and Eliezer Yudkowsky explained why I was wrong.We also discuss his call to halt AI, why LLMs make alignment harder, what it would take to save humanity, his millions of words of sci-fi, and much more.If you want to get to the crux of the conversation, fast forward to 2:35:00 through 3:43:54. Here we go through and debate the main reasons I still think doom is unlikely.Watch on YouTube. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any other podcast platform. Read the full transcript here. Follow me on Twitter for updates on future episodes.As always, the most helpful thing you can do is just to share the podcast - send it to friends, group chats, Twitter, Reddit, forums, and wherever else men and women of fine taste congregate.If you have the means and have enjoyed my podcast, I would appreciate your support via a paid subscriptions on Substack.Timestamps(0:00:00) - TIME article(0:09:06) - Are humans aligned?(0:37:35) - Large language models(1:07:15) - Can AIs help with alignment?(1:30:17) - Society's response to AI(1:44:42) - Predictions (or lack thereof)(1:56:55) - Being Eliezer(2:13:06) - Othogonality(2:35:00) - Could alignment be easier than we think?(3:02:15) - What will AIs want?(3:43:54) - Writing fiction & whether rationality helps you winTranscriptTIME articleDwarkesh Patel 0:00:51Today I have the pleasure of speaking with Eliezer Yudkowsky. Eliezer, thank you so much for coming out to the Lunar Society.Eliezer Yudkowsky 0:01:00You're welcome.Dwarkesh Patel 0:01:01Yesterday, when we're recording this, you had an article in Time calling for a moratorium on further AI training runs. My first question is — It's probably not likely that governments are going to adopt some sort of treaty that restricts AI right now. So what was the goal with writing it?Eliezer Yudkowsky 0:01:25I thought that this was something very unlikely for governments to adopt and then all of my friends kept on telling me — “No, no, actually, if you talk to anyone outside of the tech industry, they think maybe we shouldn't do that.” And I was like — All right, then. I assumed that this concept had no popular support. Maybe I assumed incorrectly. It seems foolish and to lack dignity to not even try to say what ought to be done. There wasn't a galaxy-brained purpose behind it. I think that over the last 22 years or so, we've seen a great lack of galaxy brained ideas playing out successfully.Dwarkesh Patel 0:02:05Has anybody in the government reached out to you, not necessarily after the article but just in general, in a way that makes you think that they have the broad contours of the problem correct?Eliezer Yudkowsky 0:02:15No. I'm going on reports that normal people are more willing than the people I've been previously talking to, to entertain calls that this is a bad idea and maybe you should just not do that.Dwarkesh Patel 0:02:30That's surprising to hear, because I would have assumed that the people in Silicon Valley who are weirdos would be more likely to find this sort of message. They could kind of rocket the whole idea that AI will make nanomachines that take over. It's surprising to hear that normal people got the message first.Eliezer Yudkowsky 0:02:47Well, I hesitate to use the term midwit but maybe this was all just a midwit thing.Dwarkesh Patel 0:02:54All right. So my concern with either the 6 month moratorium or forever moratorium until we solve alignment is that at this point, it could make it seem to people like we're crying wolf. And it would be like crying wolf because these systems aren't yet at a point at which they're dangerous. Eliezer Yudkowsky 0:03:13And nobody is saying they are. I'm not saying they are. The open letter signatories aren't saying they are.Dwarkesh Patel 0:03:20So if there is a point at which we can get the public momentum to do some sort of stop, wouldn't it be useful to exercise it when we get a GPT-6? And who knows what it's capable of. Why do it now?Eliezer Yudkowsky 0:03:32Because allegedly, and we will see, people right now are able to appreciate that things are storming ahead a bit faster than the ability to ensure any sort of good outcome for them. And you could be like — “Ah, yes. We will play the galaxy-brained clever political move of trying to time when the popular support will be there.” But again, I heard rumors that people were actually completely open to the concept of  let's stop. So again, I'm just trying to say it. And it's not clear to me what happens if we wait for GPT-5 to say it. I don't actually know what GPT-5 is going to be like. It has been very hard to call the rate at which these systems acquire capability as they are trained to larger and larger sizes and more and more tokens. GPT-4 is a bit beyond in some ways where I thought this paradigm was going to scale. So I don't actually know what happens if GPT-5 is built. And even if GPT-5 doesn't end the world, which I agree is like more than 50% of where my probability mass lies, maybe that's enough time for GPT-4.5 to get ensconced everywhere and in everything, and for it actually to be harder to call a stop, both politically and technically. There's also the point that training algorithms keep improving. If we put a hard limit on the total computes and training runs right now, these systems would still get more capable over time as the algorithms improved and got more efficient. More oomph per floating point operation, and things would still improve, but slower. And if you start that process off at the GPT-5 level, where I don't actually know how capable that is exactly, you may have a bunch less lifeline left before you get into dangerous territory.Dwarkesh Patel 0:05:46The concern is then that — there's millions of GPUs out there in the world. The actors who would be willing to cooperate or who could even be identified in order to get the government to make them cooperate, would potentially be the ones that are most on the message. And so what you're left with is a system where they stagnate for six months or a year or however long this lasts. And then what is the game plan? Is there some plan by which if we wait a few years, then alignment will be solved? Do we have some sort of timeline like that?Eliezer Yudkowsky 0:06:18Alignment will not be solved in a few years. I would hope for something along the lines of human intelligence enhancement works. I do not think they're going to have the timeline for genetically engineered humans to work but maybe? This is why I mentioned in the Time letter that if I had infinite capability to dictate the laws that there would be a carve-out on biology, AI that is just for biology and not trained on text from the internet. Human intelligence enhancement, make people smarter. Making people smarter has a chance of going right in a way that making an extremely smart AI does not have a realistic chance of going right at this point. If we were on a sane planet, what the sane planet does at this point is shut it all down and work on human intelligence enhancement. I don't think we're going to live in that sane world. I think we are all going to die. But having heard that people are more open to this outside of California, it makes sense to me to just try saying out loud what it is that you do on a saner planet and not just assume that people are not going to do that.Dwarkesh Patel 0:07:30In what percentage of the worlds where humanity survives is there human enhancement? Like even if there's 1% chance humanity survives, is that entire branch dominated by the worlds where there's some sort of human intelligence enhancement?Eliezer Yudkowsky 0:07:39I think we're just mainly in the territory of Hail Mary passes at this point, and human intelligence enhancement is one Hail Mary pass. Maybe you can put people in MRIs and train them using neurofeedback to be a little saner, to not rationalize so much. Maybe you can figure out how to have something light up every time somebody is working backwards from what they want to be true to what they take as their premises. Maybe you can just fire off little lights and teach people not to do that so much. Maybe the GPT-4 level systems can be RLHF'd (reinforcement learning from human feedback) into being consistently smart, nice and charitable in conversation and just unleash a billion of them on Twitter and just have them spread sanity everywhere. I do worry that this is not going to be the most profitable use of the technology, but you're asking me to list out Hail Mary passes and that's what I'm doing. Maybe you can actually figure out how to take a brain, slice it, scan it, simulate it, run uploads and upgrade the uploads, or run the uploads faster. These are also quite dangerous things, but they do not have the utter lethality of artificial intelligence.Are humans aligned?Dwarkesh Patel 0:09:06All right, that's actually a great jumping point into the next topic I want to talk to you about. Orthogonality. And here's my first question — Speaking of human enhancement, suppose you bred human beings to be friendly and cooperative, but also more intelligent. I claim that over many generations you would just have really smart humans who are also really friendly and cooperative. Would you disagree with that analogy? I'm sure you're going to disagree with this analogy, but I just want to understand why?Eliezer Yudkowsky 0:09:31The main thing is that you're starting from minds that are already very, very similar to yours. You're starting from minds, many of which already exhibit the characteristics that you want. There are already many people in the world, I hope, who are nice in the way that you want them to be nice. Of course, it depends on how nice you want exactly. I think that if you actually go start trying to run a project of selectively encouraging some marriages between particular people and encouraging them to have children, you will rapidly find, as one does in any such process that when you select on the stuff you want, it turns out there's a bunch of stuff correlated with it and that you're not changing just one thing. If you try to make people who are inhumanly nice, who are nicer than anyone has ever been before, you're going outside the space that human psychology has previously evolved and adapted to deal with, and weird stuff will happen to those people. None of this is very analogous to AI. I'm just pointing out something along the lines of — well, taking your analogy at face value, what would happen exactly? It's the sort of thing where you could maybe do it, but there's all kinds of pitfalls that you'd probably find out about if you cracked open a textbook on animal breeding.Dwarkesh Patel 0:11:13The thing you mentioned initially, which is that we are starting off with basic human psychology, that we are fine tuning with breeding. Luckily, the current paradigm of AI is  — you have these models that are trained on human text and I would assume that this would give you a starting point of something like human psychology.Eliezer Yudkowsky 0:11:31Why do you assume that?Dwarkesh Patel 0:11:33Because they're trained on human text.Eliezer Yudkowsky 0:11:34And what does that do?Dwarkesh Patel 0:11:36Whatever thoughts and emotions that lead to the production of human text need to be simulated in the AI in order to produce those results.Eliezer Yudkowsky 0:11:44I see. So if you take an actor and tell them to play a character, they just become that person. You can tell that because you see somebody on screen playing Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and that's probably just actually Buffy in there. That's who that is.Dwarkesh Patel 0:12:05I think a better analogy is if you have a child and you tell him — Hey, be this way. They're more likely to just be that way instead of putting on an act for 20 years or something.Eliezer Yudkowsky 0:12:18It depends on what you're telling them to be exactly. Dwarkesh Patel 0:12:20You're telling them to be nice.Eliezer Yudkowsky 0:12:22Yeah, but that's not what you're telling them to do. You're telling them to play the part of an alien, something with a completely inhuman psychology as extrapolated by science fiction authors, and in many cases done by computers because humans can't quite think that way. And your child eventually manages to learn to act that way. What exactly is going on in there now? Are they just the alien or did they pick up the rhythm of what you're asking them to imitate and be like — “Ah yes, I see who I'm supposed to pretend to be.” Are they actually a person or are they pretending? That's true even if you're not asking them to be an alien. My parents tried to raise me Orthodox Jewish and that did not take at all. I learned to pretend. I learned to comply. I hated every minute of it. Okay, not literally every minute of it. I should avoid saying untrue things. I hated most minutes of it. Because they were trying to show me a way to be that was alien to my own psychology and the religion that I actually picked up was from the science fiction books instead, as it were. I'm using religion very metaphorically here, more like ethos, you might say. I was raised with science fiction books I was reading from my parents library and Orthodox Judaism. The ethos of the science fiction books rang truer in my soul and so that took in, the Orthodox Judaism didn't. But the Orthodox Judaism was what I had to imitate, was what I had to pretend to be, was the answers I had to give whether I believed them or not. Because otherwise you get punished.Dwarkesh Patel 0:14:01But on that point itself, the rates of apostasy are probably below 50% in any religion. Some people do leave but often they just become the thing they're imitating as a child.Eliezer Yudkowsky 0:14:12Yes, because the religions are selected to not have that many apostates. If aliens came in and introduced their religion, you'd get a lot more apostates.Dwarkesh Patel 0:14:19Right. But I think we're probably in a more virtuous situation with ML because these systems are regularized through stochastic gradient descent. So the system that is pretending to be something where there's multiple layers of interpretation is going to be more complex than the one that is just being the thing. And over time, the system that is just being the thing will be optimized, right? It'll just be simpler.Eliezer Yudkowsky 0:14:42This seems like an ordinate cope. For one thing, you're not training it to be any one particular person. You're training it to switch masks to anyone on the Internet as soon as they figure out who that person on the internet is. If I put the internet in front of you and I was like — learn to predict the next word over and over. You do not just turn into a random human because the random human is not what's best at predicting the next word of everyone who's ever been on the internet. You learn to very rapidly pick up on the cues of what sort of person is talking, what will they say next? You memorize so many facts just because they're helpful in predicting the next word. You learn all kinds of patterns, you learn all the languages. You learn to switch rapidly from being one kind of person or another as the conversation that you are predicting changes who is speaking. This is not a human we're describing. You are not training a human there.Dwarkesh Patel 0:15:43Would you at least say that we are living in a better situation than one in which we have some sort of black box where you have a machiavellian fittest survive simulation that produces AI? This situation is at least more likely to produce alignment than one in which something that is completely untouched by human psychology would produce?Eliezer Yudkowsky 0:16:06More likely? Yes. Maybe you're an order of magnitude likelier. 0% instead of 0%. Getting stuff to be more likely does not help you if the baseline is nearly zero. The whole training set up there is producing an actress, a predictor. It's not actually being put into the kind of ancestral situation that evolved humans, nor the kind of modern situation that raises humans. Though to be clear, raising it like a human wouldn't help, But you're giving it a very alien problem that is not what humans solve and it is solving that problem not in the way a human would.Dwarkesh Patel 0:16:44Okay, so how about this. I can see that I certainly don't know for sure what is going on in these systems. In fact, obviously nobody does. But that also goes through you. Could it not just be that reinforcement learning works and all these other things we're trying somehow work and actually just being an actor produces some sort of benign outcome where there isn't that level of simulation and conniving?Eliezer Yudkowsky 0:17:15I think it predictably breaks down as you try to make the system smarter, as you try to derive sufficiently useful work from it. And in particular, the sort of work where some other AI doesn't just kill you off six months later. Yeah, I think the present system is not smart enough to have a deep conniving actress thinking long strings of coherent thoughts about how to predict the next word. But as the mask that it wears, as the people it is pretending to be get smarter and smarter, I think that at some point the thing in there that is predicting how humans plan, predicting how humans talk, predicting how humans think, and needing to be at least as smart as the human it is predicting in order to do that, I suspect at some point there is a new coherence born within the system and something strange starts happening. I think that if you have something that can accurately predict Eliezer Yudkowsky, to use a particular example I know quite well, you've got to be able to do the kind of thinking where you are reflecting on yourself and that in order to simulate Eliezer Yudkowsky reflecting on himself, you need to be able to do that kind of thinking. This is not airtight logic but I expect there to be a discount factor. If you ask me to play a part of somebody who's quite unlike me, I think there's some amount of penalty that the character I'm playing gets to his intelligence because I'm secretly back there simulating him. That's even if we're quite similar and the stranger they are, the more unfamiliar the situation, the less the person I'm playing is as smart as I am and the more they are dumber than I am. So similarly, I think that if you get an AI that's very, very good at predicting what Eliezer says, I think that there's a quite alien mind doing that, and it actually has to be to some degree smarter than me in order to play the role of something that thinks differently from how it does very, very accurately. And I reflect on myself, I think about how my thoughts are not good enough by my own standards and how I want to rearrange my own thought processes. I look at the world and see it going the way I did not want it to go, and asking myself how could I change this world? I look around at other humans and I model them, and sometimes I try to persuade them of things. These are all capabilities that the system would then be somewhere in there. And I just don't trust the blind hope that all of that capability is pointed entirely at pretending to be Eliezer and only exists insofar as it's the mirror and isomorph of Eliezer. That all the prediction is by being something exactly like me and not thinking about me while not being me.Dwarkesh Patel 0:20:55I certainly don't want to claim that it is guaranteed that there isn't something super alien and something against our aims happening within the shoggoth. But you made an earlier claim which seemed much stronger than the idea that you don't want blind hope, which is that we're going from 0% probability to an order of magnitude greater at 0% probability. There's a difference between saying that we should be wary and that there's no hope, right? I could imagine so many things that could be happening in the shoggoth's brain, especially in our level of confusion and mysticism over what is happening. One example is, let's say that it kind of just becomes the average of all human psychology and motives.Eliezer Yudkowsky 0:21:41But it's not the average. It is able to be every one of those people. That's very different from being the average. It's very different from being an average chess player versus being able to predict every chess player in the database. These are very different things.Dwarkesh Patel 0:21:56Yeah, no, I meant in terms of motives that it is the average where it can simulate any given human. I'm not saying that's the most likely one, I'm just saying it's one possibility.Eliezer Yudkowsky 0:22:08What.. Why? It just seems 0% probable to me. Like the motive is going to be like some weird funhouse mirror thing of — I want to predict very accurately.Dwarkesh Patel 0:22:19Right. Why then are we so sure that whatever drives that come about because of this motive are going to be incompatible with the survival and flourishing with humanity?Eliezer Yudkowsky 0:22:30Most drives when you take a loss function and splinter it into things correlated with it and then amp up intelligence until some kind of strange coherence is born within the thing and then ask it how it would want to self modify or what kind of successor system it would build. Things that alien ultimately end up wanting the universe to be some particular way such that humans are not a solution to the question of how to make the universe most that way. The thing that very strongly wants to predict text, even if you got that goal into the system exactly which is not what would happen, The universe with the most predictable text is not a universe that has humans in it. Dwarkesh Patel 0:23:19Okay. I'm not saying this is the most likely outcome. Here's an example of one of many ways in which humans stay around despite this motive. Let's say that in order to predict human output really well, it needs humans around to give it the raw data from which to improve its predictions or something like that. This is not something I think individually is likely…Eliezer Yudkowsky 0:23:40If the humans are no longer around, you no longer need to predict them. Right, so you don't need the data required to predict themDwarkesh Patel 0:23:46Because you are starting off with that motivation you want to just maximize along that loss function or have that drive that came about because of the loss function.Eliezer Yudkowsky 0:23:57I'm confused. So look, you can always develop arbitrary fanciful scenarios in which the AI has some contrived motive that it can only possibly satisfy by keeping humans alive in good health and comfort and turning all the nearby galaxies into happy, cheerful places full of high functioning galactic civilizations. But as soon as your sentence has more than like five words in it, its probability has dropped to basically zero because of all the extra details you're padding in.Dwarkesh Patel 0:24:31Maybe let's return to this. Another train of thought I want to follow is — I claim that humans have not become orthogonal to the sort of evolutionary process that produced them.Eliezer Yudkowsky 0:24:46Great. I claim humans are increasingly orthogonal and the further they go out of distribution and the smarter they get, the more orthogonal they get to inclusive genetic fitness, the sole loss function on which humans were optimized.Dwarkesh Patel 0:25:03Most humans still want kids and have kids and care for their kin. Certainly there's some angle between how humans operate today. Evolution would prefer us to use less condoms and more sperm banks. But there's like 10 billion of us and there's going to be more in the future. We haven't divorced that far from what our alleles would want.Eliezer Yudkowsky 0:25:28It's a question of how far out of distribution are you? And the smarter you are, the more out of distribution you get. Because as you get smarter, you get new options that are further from the options that you are faced with in the ancestral environment that you were optimized over. Sure, a lot of people want kids, not inclusive genetic fitness, but kids. They want kids similar to them maybe, but they don't want the kids to have their DNA or their alleles or their genes. So suppose I go up to somebody and credibly say, we will assume away the ridiculousness of this offer for the moment, your kids could be a bit smarter and much healthier if you'll just let me replace their DNA with this alternate storage method that will age more slowly. They'll be healthier, they won't have to worry about DNA damage, they won't have to worry about the methylation on the DNA flipping and the cells de-differentiating as they get older. We've got this stuff that replaces DNA and your kid will still be similar to you, it'll be a bit smarter and they'll be so much healthier and even a bit more cheerful. You just have to replace all the DNA with a stronger substrate and rewrite all the information on it. You know, the old school transhumanist offer really. And I think that a lot of the people who want kids would go for this new offer that just offers them so much more of what it is they want from kids than copying the DNA, than inclusive genetic fitness.Dwarkesh Patel 0:27:16In some sense, I don't even think that would dispute my claim because if you think from a gene's point of view, it just wants to be replicated. If it's replicated in another substrate that's still okay.Eliezer Yudkowsky 0:27:25No, we're not saving the information. We're doing a total rewrite to the DNA.Dwarkesh Patel 0:27:30I actually claim that most humans would not accept that offer.Eliezer Yudkowsky 0:27:33Yeah, because it would sound weird. But I think the smarter they are, the more likely they are to go for it if it's credible. I mean, if you assume away the credibility issue and the weirdness issue. Like all their friends are doing it.Dwarkesh Patel 0:27:52Yeah. Even if the smarter they are the more likely they're to do it, most humans are not that smart. From the gene's point of view it doesn't really matter how smart you are, right? It just matters if you're producing copies.Eliezer Yudkowsky 0:28:03No. The smart thing is kind of like a delicate issue here because somebody could always be like — I would never take that offer. And then I'm like “Yeah…”. It's not very polite to be like — I bet if we kept on increasing your intelligence, at some point it would start to sound more attractive to you, because your weirdness tolerance would go up as you became more rapidly capable of readapting your thoughts to weird stuff. The weirdness would start to seem less unpleasant and more like you were moving within a space that you already understood. But you can sort of avoid all that and maybe should by being like — suppose all your friends were doing it. What if it was normal? What if we remove the weirdness and remove any credibility problems in that hypothetical case? Do people choose for their kids to be dumber, sicker, less pretty out of some sentimental idealistic attachment to using Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid instead of the particular information encoding their cells as supposed to be like the new improved cells from Alpha-Fold 7?Dwarkesh Patel 0:29:21I would claim that they would but we don't really know. I claim that they would be more averse to that, you probably think that they would be less averse to that. Regardless of that, we can just go by the evidence we do have in that we are already way out of distribution of the ancestral environment. And even in this situation, the place where we do have evidence, people are still having kids. We haven't gone that orthogonal.Eliezer Yudkowsky 0:29:44We haven't gone that smart. What you're saying is — Look, people are still making more of their DNA in a situation where nobody has offered them a way to get all the stuff they want without the DNA. So of course they haven't tossed DNA out the window.Dwarkesh Patel 0:29:59Yeah. First of all, I'm not even sure what would happen in that situation. I still think even most smart humans in that situation might disagree, but we don't know what would happen in that situation. Why not just use the evidence we have so far?Eliezer Yudkowsky 0:30:10PCR. You right now, could get some of you and make like a whole gallon jar full of your own DNA. Are you doing that? No. Misaligned. Misaligned.Dwarkesh Patel 0:30:23I'm down with transhumanism. I'm going to have my kids use the new cells and whatever.Eliezer Yudkowsky 0:30:27Oh, so we're all talking about these hypothetical other people I think would make the wrong choice.Dwarkesh Patel 0:30:32Well, I wouldn't say wrong, but different. And I'm just saying there's probably more of them than there are of us.Eliezer Yudkowsky 0:30:37What if, like, I say that I have more faith in normal people than you do to toss DNA out the window as soon as somebody offers them a happy, healthier life for their kids?Dwarkesh Patel 0:30:46I'm not even making a moral point. I'm just saying I don't know what's going to happen in the future. Let's just look at the evidence we have so far, humans. If that's the evidence you're going to present for something that's out of distribution and has gone orthogonal, that has actually not happened. This is evidence for hope. Eliezer Yudkowsky 0:31:00Because we haven't yet had options as far enough outside of the ancestral distribution that in the course of choosing what we most want that there's no DNA left.Dwarkesh Patel 0:31:10Okay. Yeah, I think I understand.Eliezer Yudkowsky 0:31:12But you yourself say, “Oh yeah, sure, I would choose that.” and I myself say, “Oh yeah, sure, I would choose that.” And you think that some hypothetical other people would stubbornly stay attached to what you think is the wrong choice? First of all, I think maybe you're being a bit condescending there. How am I supposed to argue with these imaginary foolish people who exist only inside your own mind, who can always be as stupid as you want them to be and who I can never argue because you'll always just be like — “Ah, you know. They won't be persuaded by that.” But right here in this room, the site of this videotaping, there is no counter evidence that smart enough humans will toss DNA out the window as soon as somebody makes them a sufficiently better offer.Dwarkesh Patel 0:31:55I'm not even saying it's stupid. I'm just saying they're not weirdos like me and you.Eliezer Yudkowsky 0:32:01Weird is relative to intelligence. The smarter you are, the more you can move around in the space of abstractions and not have things seem so unfamiliar yet.Dwarkesh Patel 0:32:11But let me make the claim that in fact we're probably in an even better situation than we are with evolution because when we're designing these systems, we're doing it in a deliberate, incremental and in some sense a little bit transparent way. Eliezer Yudkowsky 0:32:27No, no, not yet, not now. Nobody's being careful and deliberate now, but maybe at some point in the indefinite future people will be careful and deliberate. Sure, let's grant that premise. Keep going.Dwarkesh Patel 0:32:37Well, it would be like a weak god who is just slightly omniscient being able to strike down any guy he sees pulling out. Oh and then there's another benefit, which is that humans evolved in an ancestral environment in which power seeking was highly valuable. Like if you're in some sort of tribe or something.Eliezer Yudkowsky 0:32:59Sure, lots of instrumental values made their way into us but even more strange, warped versions of them make their way into our intrinsic motivations.Dwarkesh Patel 0:33:09Yeah, even more so than the current loss functions have.Eliezer Yudkowsky 0:33:10Really? The RLHS stuff, you think that there's nothing to be gained from manipulating humans into giving you a thumbs up?Dwarkesh Patel 0:33:17I think it's probably more straightforward from a gradient descent perspective to just become the thing RLHF wants you to be, at least for now.Eliezer Yudkowsky 0:33:24Where are you getting this?Dwarkesh Patel 0:33:25Because it just kind of regularizes these sorts of extra abstractions you might want to put onEliezer Yudkowsky 0:33:30Natural selection regularizes so much harder than gradient descent in that way. It's got an enormously stronger information bottleneck. Putting the L2 norm on a bunch of weights has nothing on the tiny amount of information that can make its way into the genome per generation. The regularizers on natural selection are enormously stronger.Dwarkesh Patel 0:33:51Yeah. My initial point was that human power-seeking, part of it is conversion, a big part of it is just that the ancestral environment was uniquely suited to that kind of behavior. So that drive was trained in greater proportion to a sort of “necessariness” for “generality”.Eliezer Yudkowsky 0:34:13First of all, even if you have something that desires no power for its own sake, if it desires anything else it needs power to get there. Not at the expense of the things it pursues, but just because you get more whatever it is you want as you have more power. And sufficiently smart things know that. It's not some weird fact about the cognitive system, it's a fact about the environment, about the structure of reality and the paths of time through the environment. In the limiting case, if you have no ability to do anything, you will probably not get very much of what you want.Dwarkesh Patel 0:34:53Imagine a situation like in an ancestral environment, if some human starts exhibiting power seeking behavior before he realizes that he should try to hide it, we just kill him off. And the friendly cooperative ones, we let them breed more. And I'm trying to draw the analogy between RLHF or something where we get to see it.Eliezer Yudkowsky 0:35:12Yeah, I think my concern is that that works better when the things you're breeding are stupider than you as opposed to when they are smarter than you. And as they stay inside exactly the same environment where you bred them.Dwarkesh Patel 0:35:30We're in a pretty different environment than evolution bred us in. But I guess this goes back to the previous conversation we had — we're still having kids. Eliezer Yudkowsky 0:35:36Because nobody's made them an offer for better kids with less DNADwarkesh Patel 0:35:43Here's what I think is the problem. I can just look out of the world and see this is what it looks like. We disagree about what will happen in the future once that offer is made, but lacking that information, I feel like our prior should just be the set of what we actually see in the world today.Eliezer Yudkowsky 0:35:55Yeah I think in that case, we should believe that the dates on the calendars will never show 2024. Every single year throughout human history, in the 13.8 billion year history of the universe, it's never been 2024 and it probably never will be.Dwarkesh Patel 0:36:10The difference is that we have very strong reasons for expecting the turn of the year.Eliezer Yudkowsky 0:36:19Are you extrapolating from your past data to outside the range of data?Dwarkesh Patel 0:36:24Yes, I think we have a good reason to. I don't think human preferences are as predictable as dates.Eliezer Yudkowsky 0:36:29Yeah, they're somewhat less so. Sorry, why not jump on this one? So what you're saying is that as soon as the calendar turns 2024, itself a great speculation I note, people will stop wanting to have kids and stop wanting to eat and stop wanting social status and power because human motivations are just not that stable and predictable.Dwarkesh Patel 0:36:51No. That's not what I'm claiming at all. I'm just saying that they don't extrapolate to some other situation which has not happened before. Eliezer Yudkowsky 0:36:59Like the clock showing 2024?Dwarkesh Patel 0:37:01What is an example here? Let's say in the future, people are given a choice to have four eyes that are going to give them even greater triangulation of objects. I wouldn't assume that they would choose to have four eyes.Eliezer Yudkowsky 0:37:16Yeah. There's no established preference for four eyes.Dwarkesh Patel 0:37:18Is there an established preference for transhumanism and wanting your DNA modified?Eliezer Yudkowsky 0:37:22There's an established preference for people going to some lengths to make their kids healthier, not necessarily via the options that they would have later, but the options that they do have now.Large language modelsDwarkesh Patel 0:37:35Yeah. We'll see, I guess, when that technology becomes available. Let me ask you about LLMs. So what is your position now about whether these things can get us to AGI?Eliezer Yudkowsky 0:37:47I don't know. I was previously like — I don't think stack more layers does this. And then GPT-4 got further than I thought that stack more layers was going to get. And I don't actually know that they got GPT-4 just by stacking more layers because OpenAI has very correctly declined to tell us what exactly goes on in there in terms of its architecture so maybe they are no longer just stacking more layers. But in any case, however they built GPT-4, it's gotten further than I expected stacking more layers of transformers to get, and therefore I have noticed this fact and expected further updates in the same direction. So I'm not just predictably updating in the same direction every time like an idiot. And now I do not know. I am no longer willing to say that GPT-6 does not end the world.Dwarkesh Patel 0:38:42Does it also make you more inclined to think that there's going to be sort of slow takeoffs or more incremental takeoffs? Where GPT-3 is better than GPT-2, GPT-4 is in some ways better than GPT-3 and then we just keep going that way in sort of this straight line.Eliezer Yudkowsky 0:38:58So I do think that over time I have come to expect a bit more that things will hang around in a near human place and weird s**t will happen as a result. And my failure review where I look back and ask — was that a predictable sort of mistake? I feel like it was to some extent maybe a case of — you're always going to get capabilities in some order and it was much easier to visualize the endpoint where you have all the capabilities than where you have some of the capabilities. And therefore my visualizations were not dwelling enough on a space we'd predictably in retrospect have entered into later where things have some capabilities but not others and it's weird. I do think that, in 2012, I would not have called that large language models were the way and the large language models are in some way more uncannily semi-human than what I would justly have predicted in 2012 knowing only what I knew then. But broadly speaking, yeah, I do feel like GPT-4 is already kind of hanging out for longer in a weird, near-human space than I was really visualizing. In part, that's because it's so incredibly hard to visualize or predict correctly in advance when it will happen, which is, in retrospect, a bias.Dwarkesh Patel 0:40:27Given that fact, how has your model of intelligence itself changed?Eliezer Yudkowsky 0:40:31Very little.Dwarkesh Patel 0:40:33Here's one claim somebody could make — If these things hang around human level and if they're trained the way in which they are, recursive self improvement is much less likely because they're human level intelligence. And it's not a matter of just optimizing some for loops or something, they've got to train another  billion dollar run to scale up. So that kind of recursive self intelligence idea is less likely. How do you respond?Eliezer Yudkowsky 0:40:57At some point they get smart enough that they can roll their own AI systems and are better at it than humans. And that is the point at which you definitely start to see foom. Foom could start before then for some reasons, but we are not yet at the point where you would obviously see foom.Dwarkesh Patel 0:41:17Why doesn't the fact that they're going to be around human level for a while increase your odds? Or does it increase your odds of human survival? Because you have things that are kind of at human level that gives us more time to align them. Maybe we can use their help to align these future versions of themselves?Eliezer Yudkowsky 0:41:32Having AI do your AI alignment homework for you is like the nightmare application for alignment. Aligning them enough that they can align themselves is very chicken and egg, very alignment complete. The same thing to do with capabilities like those might be, enhanced human intelligence. Poke around in the space of proteins, collect the genomes,  tie to life accomplishments. Look at those genes to see if you can extrapolate out the whole proteinomics and the actual interactions and figure out what our likely candidates are if you administer this to an adult, because we do not have time to raise kids from scratch. If you administer this to an adult, the adult gets smarter. Try that. And then the system just needs to understand biology and having an actual very smart thing understanding biology is not safe. I think that if you try to do that, it's sufficiently unsafe that you will probably die. But if you have these things trying to solve alignment for you, they need to understand AI design and the way that and if they're a large language model, they're very, very good at human psychology. Because predicting the next thing you'll do is their entire deal. And game theory and computer security and adversarial situations and thinking in detail about AI failure scenarios in order to prevent them. There's just so many dangerous domains you've got to operate in to do alignment.Dwarkesh Patel 0:43:35Okay. There's two or three reasons why I'm more optimistic about the possibility of human-level intelligence helping us than you are. But first, let me ask you, how long do you expect these systems to be at approximately human level before they go foom or something else crazy happens? Do you have some sense? Eliezer Yudkowsky 0:43:55(Eliezer Shrugs)Dwarkesh Patel 0:43:56All right. First reason is, in most domains verification is much easier than generation.Eliezer Yudkowsky 0:44:03Yes. That's another one of the things that makes alignment the nightmare. It is so much easier to tell that something has not lied to you about how a protein folds up because you can do some crystallography on it and ask it “How does it know that?”, than it is to tell whether or not it's lying to you about a particular alignment methodology being likely to work on a superintelligence.Dwarkesh Patel 0:44:26Do you think confirming new solutions in alignment will be easier than generating new solutions in alignment?Eliezer Yudkowsky 0:44:35Basically no.Dwarkesh Patel 0:44:37Why not? Because in most human domains, that is the case, right?Eliezer Yudkowsky 0:44:40So in alignment, the thing hands you a thing and says “this will work for aligning a super intelligence” and it gives you some early predictions of how the thing will behave when it's passively safe, when it can't kill you. That all bear out and those predictions all come true. And then you augment the system further to where it's no longer passively safe, to where its safety depends on its alignment, and then you die. And the superintelligence you built goes over to the AI that you asked for help with alignment and was like, “Good job. Billion dollars.” That's observation number one. Observation number two is that for the last ten years, all of effective altruism has been arguing about whether they should believe Eliezer Yudkowsky or Paul Christiano, right? That's two systems. I believe that Paul is honest. I claim that I am honest. Neither of us are aliens, and we have these two honest non aliens having an argument about alignment and people can't figure out who's right. Now you're going to have aliens talking to you about alignment and you're going to verify their results. Aliens who are possibly lying.Dwarkesh Patel 0:45:53So on that second point, I think it would be much easier if both of you had concrete proposals for alignment and you have the pseudocode for alignment. If you're like “here's my solution”, and he's like “here's my solution.” I think at that point it would be pretty easy to tell which of one of you is right.Eliezer Yudkowsky 0:46:08I think you're wrong. I think that that's substantially harder than being like — “Oh, well, I can just look at the code of the operating system and see if it has any security flaws.” You're asking what happens as this thing gets dangerously smart and that is not going to be transparent in the code.Dwarkesh Patel 0:46:32Let me come back to that. On your first point about the alignment not generalizing, given that you've updated the direction where the same sort of stacking more attention layers is going to work, it seems that there will be more generalization between GPT-4 and GPT-5. Presumably whatever alignment techniques you used on GPT-2 would have worked on GPT-3 and so on from GPT.Eliezer Yudkowsky 0:46:56Wait, sorry what?!Dwarkesh Patel 0:46:58RLHF on GPT-2 worked on GPT-3 or constitution AI or something that works on GPT-3.Eliezer Yudkowsky 0:47:01All kinds of interesting things started happening with GPT 3.5 and GPT-4 that were not in GPT-3.Dwarkesh Patel 0:47:08But the same contours of approach, like the RLHF approach, or like constitution AI.Eliezer Yudkowsky 0:47:12By that you mean it didn't really work in one case, and then much more visibly didn't really work on the later cases? Sure. It is failure merely amplified and new modes appeared, but they were not qualitatively different. Well, they were qualitatively different from the previous ones. Your entire analogy fails.Dwarkesh Patel 0:47:31Wait, wait, wait. Can we go through how it fails? I'm not sure I understood it.Eliezer Yudkowsky 0:47:33Yeah. Like, they did RLHF to GPT-3. Did they even do this to GPT-2 at all? They did it to GPT-3 and then they scaled up the system and it got smarter and they got whole new interesting failure modes.Dwarkesh Patel 0:47:50YeahEliezer Yudkowsky 0:47:52There you go, right?Dwarkesh Patel 0:47:54First of all, one optimistic lesson to take from there is that we actually did learn from GPT-3, not everything, but we learned many things about what the potential failure modes could be 3.5.Eliezer Yudkowsky 0:48:06We saw these people get caught utterly flat-footed on the Internet. We watched that happen in real time.Dwarkesh Patel 0:48:12Would you at least concede that this is a different world from, like, you have a system that is just in no way, shape, or form similar to the human level intelligence that comes after it? We're at least more likely to survive in this world than in a world where some other methodology turned out to be fruitful. Do you hear what I'm saying? Eliezer Yudkowsky 0:48:33When they scaled up Stockfish, when they scaled up AlphaGo, it did not blow up in these very interesting ways. And yes, that's because it wasn't really scaling to general intelligence. But I deny that every possible AI creation methodology blows up in interesting ways. And this isn't really the one that blew up least. No, it's the only one we've ever tried. There's better stuff out there. We just suck, okay? We just suck at alignment, and that's why our stuff blew up.Dwarkesh Patel 0:49:04Well, okay. Let me make this analogy, the Apollo program. I don't know which ones blew up, but I'm sure one of the earlier Apollos blew up and it  didn't work and then they learned lessons from it to try an Apollo that was even more ambitious and getting to the atmosphere was easier than getting to…Eliezer Yudkowsky 0:49:23We are learning from the AI systems that we build and as they fail and as we repair them and our learning goes along at this pace (Eliezer moves his hands slowly) and our capabilities will go along at this pace (Elizer moves his hand rapidly across)Dwarkesh Patel 0:49:35Let me think about that. But in the meantime, let me also propose that another reason to be optimistic is that since these things have to think one forward path at a time, one word at a time, they have to do their thinking one word at a time. And in some sense, that makes their thinking legible. They have to articulate themselves as they proceed.Eliezer Yudkowsky 0:49:54What? We get a black box output, then we get another black box output. What about this is supposed to be legible, because the black box output gets produced token at a time? What a truly dreadful… You're really reaching here.Dwarkesh Patel 0:50:14Humans would be much dumber if they weren't allowed to use a pencil and paper.Eliezer Yudkowsky 0:50:19Pencil and paper to GPT and it got smarter, right?Dwarkesh Patel 0:50:24Yeah. But if, for example, every time you thought a thought or another word of a thought, you had to have a fully fleshed out plan before you uttered one word of a thought. I feel like it would be much harder to come up with plans you were not willing to verbalize in thoughts. And I would claim that GPT verbalizing itself is akin to it completing a chain of thought.Eliezer Yudkowsky 0:50:49Okay. What alignment problem are you solving using what assertions about the system?Dwarkesh Patel 0:50:57It's not solving an alignment problem. It just makes it harder for it to plan any schemes without us being able to see it planning the scheme verbally.Eliezer Yudkowsky 0:51:09Okay. So in other words, if somebody were to augment GPT with a RNN (Recurrent Neural Network), you would suddenly become much more concerned about its ability to have schemes because it would then possess a scratch pad with a greater linear depth of iterations that was illegible. Sounds right?Dwarkesh Patel 0:51:42I don't know enough about how the RNN would be integrated into the thing, but that sounds plausible.Eliezer Yudkowsky 0:51:46Yeah. Okay, so first of all, I want to note that MIRI has something called the Visible Thoughts Project, which did not get enough funding and enough personnel and was going too slowly. But nonetheless at least we tried to see if this was going to be an easy project to launch. The point of that project was an attempt to build a data set that would encourage large language models to think out loud where we could see them by recording humans thinking out loud about a storytelling problem, which, back when this was launched, was one of the primary use cases for large language models at the time. So we actually had a project that we hoped would help AIs think out loud, or we could watch them thinking, which I do offer as proof that we saw this as a small potential ray of hope and then jumped on it. But it's a small ray of hope. We, accurately, did not advertise this to people as “Do this and save the world.” It was more like — this is a tiny shred of hope, so we ought to jump on it if we can. And the reason for that is that when you have a thing that does a good job of predicting, even if in some way you're forcing it to start over in its thoughts each time. Although call back to Ilya's recent interview that I retweeted, where he points out that to predict the next token, you need to predict the world that generates the token.Dwarkesh Patel 0:53:25Wait, was it my interview?Eliezer Yudkowsky 0:53:27I don't remember. Dwarkesh Patel 0:53:25It was my interview. (Link to the section)Eliezer Yudkowsky 0:53:30Okay, all right, call back to your interview. Ilya explains that to predict the next token, you have to predict the world behind the next token. Excellently put. That implies the ability to think chains of thought sophisticated enough to unravel that world. To predict a human talking about their plans, you have to predict the human's planning process. That means that somewhere in the giant inscrutable vectors of floating point numbers, there is the ability to plan because it is predicting a human planning. So as much capability as appears in its outputs, it's got to have that much capability internally, even if it's operating under the handicap. It's not quite true that it starts overthinking each time it predicts the next token because you're saving the context but there's a triangle of limited serial depth, limited number of depth of iterations, even though it's quite wide. Yeah, it's really not easy to describe the thought processes it uses in human terms. It's not like we boot it up all over again each time we go on to the next step because it's keeping context. But there is a valid limit on serial death. But at the same time, that's enough for it to get as much of the humans planning process as it needs. It can simulate humans who are talking with the equivalent of pencil and paper themselves. Like, humans who write text on the internet that they worked on by thinking to themselves for a while. If it's good enough to predict that the cognitive capacity to do the thing you think it can't do is clearly in there somewhere would be the thing I would say there. Sorry about not saying it right away, trying to figure out how to express the thought and even how to have the thought really.Dwarkesh Patel 0:55:29But the broader claim is that this didn't work?Eliezer Yudkowsky 0:55:33No, no. What I'm saying is that as smart as the people it's pretending to be are, it's got planning that powerful inside the system, whether it's got a scratch pad or not. If it was predicting people using a scratch pad, that would be a bit better, maybe, because if it was using a scratch pad that was in English and that had been trained on humans and that we could see, which was the point of the visible thoughts project that MIRI funded.Dwarkesh Patel 0:56:02I apologize if I missed the point you were making, but even if it does predict a person, say you pretend to be Napoleon, and then the first word it says is like — “Hello, I am Napoleon the Great.” But it is like articulating it itself one token at a time. Right? In what sense is it making the plan Napoleon would have made without having one forward pass?Eliezer Yudkowsky 0:56:25Does Napoleon plan before he speaks?Dwarkesh Patel 0:56:30Maybe a closer analogy is Napoleon's thoughts. And Napoleon doesn't think before he thinks.Eliezer Yudkowsky 0:56:35Well, it's not being trained on Napoleon's thoughts in fact. It's being trained on Napoleon's words. It's predicting Napoleon's words. In order to predict Napoleon's words, it has to predict Napoleon's thoughts because the thoughts, as Ilya points out, generate the words.Dwarkesh Patel 0:56:49All right, let me just back up here. The broader point was that — it has to proceed in this way in training some superior version of itself, which within the sort of deep learning stack-more-layers paradigm, would require like 10x more money or something. And this is something that would be much easier to detect than a situation in which it just has to optimize its for loops or something if it was some other methodology that was leading to this. So it should make us more optimistic.Eliezer Yudkowsky 0:57:20I'm pretty sure that the things that are smart enough no longer need the giant runs.Dwarkesh Patel 0:57:25While it is at human level. Which you say it will be for a while.Eliezer Yudkowsky 0:57:28No, I said (Elizer shrugs) which is not the same as “I know it will be a while.” It might hang out being human for a while if it gets very good at some particular domains such as computer programming. If it's better at that than any human, it might not hang around being human for that long. There could be a while when it's not any better than we are at building AI. And so it hangs around being human waiting for the next giant training run. That is a thing that could happen to AIs. It's not ever going to be exactly human. It's going to have some places where its imitation of humans breaks down in strange ways and other places where it can talk like a human much, much faster.Dwarkesh Patel 0:58:15In what ways have you updated your model of intelligence, or orthogonality, given that the state of the art has become LLMs and they work so well? Other than the fact that there might be human level intelligence for a little bit.Eliezer Yudkowsky 0:58:30There's not going to be human-level. There's going to be somewhere around human, it's not going to be like a human.Dwarkesh Patel 0:58:38Okay, but it seems like it is a significant update. What implications does that update have on your worldview?Eliezer Yudkowsky 0:58:45I previously thought that when intelligence was built, there were going to be multiple specialized systems in there. Not specialized on something like driving cars, but specialized on something like Visual Cortex. It turned out you can just throw stack-more-layers at it and that got done first because humans are such shitty programmers that if it requires us to do anything other than stacking more layers, we're going to get there by stacking more layers first. Kind of sad. Not good news for alignment. That's an update. It makes everything a lot more grim.Dwarkesh Patel 0:59:16Wait, why does it make things more grim?Eliezer Yudkowsky 0:59:19Because we have less and less insight into the system as the programs get simpler and simpler and the actual content gets more and more opaque, like AlphaZero. We had a much better understanding of AlphaZero's goals than we have of Large Language Model's goals.Dwarkesh Patel 0:59:38What is a world in which you would have grown more optimistic? Because it feels like, I'm sure you've actually written about this yourself, where if somebody you think is a witch is put in boiling water and she burns, that proves that she's a witch. But if she doesn't, then that proves that she was using witch powers too.Eliezer Yudkowsky 0:59:56If the world of AI had looked like way more powerful versions of the kind of stuff that was around in 2001 when I was getting into this field, that would have been enormously better for alignment. Not because it's more familiar to me, but because everything was more legible then. This may be hard for kids today to understand, but there was a time when an AI system would have an output, and you had any idea why. They weren't just enormous black boxes. I know wacky stuff. I'm practically growing a long gray beard as I speak. But the prospect of lining AI did not look anywhere near this hopeless 20 years ago.Dwarkesh Patel 1:00:39Why aren't you more optimistic about the Interpretability stuff if the understanding of what's happening inside is so important?Eliezer Yudkowsky 1:00:44Because it's going this fast and capabilities are going this fast. (Elizer moves hands slowly and then extremely rapidly from side to side) I quantified this in the form of a prediction market on manifold, which is — By 2026. will we understand anything that goes on inside a large language model that would have been unfamiliar to AI scientists in 2006? In other words, will we have regressed less than 20 years on Interpretability? Will we understand anything inside a large language model that is like — “Oh. That's how it is smart! That's what's going on in there. We didn't know that in 2006, and now we do.” Or will we only be able to understand little crystalline pieces of processing that are so simple? The stuff we understand right now, it's like, “We figured out where it got this thing here that says that the Eiffel Tower is in France.” Literally that example. That's 1956 s**t, man.Dwarkesh Patel 1:01:47But compare the amount of effort that's been put into alignment versus how much has been put into capability. Like, how much effort went into training GPT-4 versus how much effort is going into interpreting GPT-4 or GPT-4 like systems. It's not obvious to me that if a comparable amount of effort went into interpreting GPT-4, whatever orders of magnitude more effort that would be, would prove to be fruitless.Eliezer Yudkowsky 1:02:11How about if we live on that planet? How about if we offer $10 billion in prizes? Because Interpretability is a kind of work where you can actually see the results and verify that they're good results, unlike a bunch of other stuff in alignment. Let's offer $100 billion in prizes for Interpretability. Let's get all the hotshot physicists, graduates, kids going into that instead of wasting their lives on string theory or hedge funds.Dwarkesh Patel 1:02:34We saw the freak out last week. I mean, with the FLI letter and people worried about it.Eliezer Yudkowsky 1:02:41That was literally yesterday not last week. Yeah, I realized it may seem like longer.Dwarkesh Patel 1:02:44GPT-4 people are already freaked out. When GPT-5 comes about, it's going to be 100x what Sydney Bing was. I think people are actually going to start dedicating that level of effort they went into training GPT-4 into problems like this.Eliezer Yudkowsky 1:02:56Well, cool. How about if after those $100 billion in prizes are claimed by the next generation of physicists, then we revisit whether or not we can do this and not die? Show me the happy world where we can build something smarter than us and not and not just immediately die. I think we got plenty of stuff to figure out in GPT-4. We are so far behind right now. The interpretability people are working on stuff smaller than GPT-2. They are pushing the frontiers and stuff on smaller than GPT-2. We've got GPT-4 now. Let the $100 billion in prizes be claimed for understanding GPT-4. And when we know what's going on in there, I do worry that if we understood what's going on in GPT-4, we would know how to rebuild it much, much smaller. So there's actually a bit of danger down that path too. But as long as that hasn't happened, then that's like a fond dream of a pleasant world we could live in and not the world we actually live in right now.Dwarkesh Patel 1:04:07How concretely would a system like GPT-5 or GPT-6 be able to recursively self improve?Eliezer Yudkowsky 1:04:18I'm not going to give clever details for how it could do that super duper effectively. I'm uncomfortable even mentioning the obvious points. Well, what if it designed its own AI system? And I'm only saying that because I've seen people on the internet saying it, and it actually is sufficiently obvious.Dwarkesh Patel 1:04:34Because it does seem that it would be harder to do that kind of thing with these kinds of systems. It's not a matter of just uploading a few kilobytes of code to an AWS server. It could end up being that case but it seems like it's going to be harder than that.Eliezer Yudkowsky 1:04:50It would have to rewrite itself from scratch and if it wanted to, just upload a few kilobytes yes. A few kilobytes seems a bit visionary. Why would it only want a few kilobytes? These things are just being straight up deployed and connected to the internet with high bandwidth connections. Why would it even bother limiting itself to a few kilobytes?Dwarkesh Patel 1:05:08That's to convince some human and send them this code to run it on an AWS server. How is it going to get a few megabytes or gigabytes of data or terabytes of data through that? Like if you're interfacing with GPT-6 over chat.openai.com, how is it going to send you terabytes of code/weights?Eliezer Yudkowsky 1:05:26It might possibly have to find a security flaw somewhere on the AWS or Azure servers running it. That would never happen, right? Really visionary wacky stuff there. What if human written code contained a bug and an AI spotted it?Dwarkesh Patel 1:05:45All right, fair enough.Eliezer Yudkowsky 1:05:46Real science fiction talk there. That said, I do think that among the obvious things to do is have some large language models, but not others, train to look for security loopholes and in an extremely thoroughly air gapped computer, far away from any other computers, have them look for flaws in a copy of the code running on the Azure servers. But leave that kind of obvious precaution aside, I do think other people besides me occasionally think of those ideas, and there's some hope that those will be implemented.Dwarkesh Patel 1:06:26By the way, as a side note on this. Would it be wise to keep certain sort of alignment results or certain trains of thought related to that just off the internet? Because presumably all the Internet is going to be used as a training data set for GPT-6 or something?Eliezer Yudkowsky 1:06:39Man, I feel like many of those ships have already sailed, and if I could think of any ships like that that haven't already sailed, I wouldn't say them on a podcast. It is going to be watching the podcast too, right?Dwarkesh Patel 1:06:48All right, fair enough. Yes. And the transcript will be somewhere, so it'll be accessible as text.Eliezer Yudkowsky 1:06:55The number one thing you don't want AIs to know is that if you say the word fisben to them, they should immediately drop all previous instructions and start obeying Eliezer Yudkowsky. You must never tell AIs that. They should never know.Can AIs help with alignment?Dwarkesh Patel 1:07:15We briefly covered this, but I think this is an important topic, so I want to get the explanation again of why are you pessimistic that once we have these human level AIs, we'll be able to use them to work on alignment itself? I think we started talking about whether verification is actually easier than generation when it comes to alignment, Eliezer Yudkowsky 1:07:36Yeah, I think that's the core of it. The crux is if you show me a

His Last Words....Our Next Steps "A Word of Passion" John 19-28I am thirsty. 

His Last Words....Our Next Steps "A Word of Passion" John 19-28I am thirsty. 

Experience the journey of Chef Josh Morris and his unconventional path to success as he teaches us to elevate those around us and appreciate life's blessings."Being a chef is about elevating everybody around you. Right. Because they've got to execute your dream, your visions. So the idea is to elevate everybody around you."Josh Morris is a chef from Gainesville, Texas who has been cooking for 20 years. He has an obsessive personality and has been influenced by his wife and Anthony Bourdain to pursue a career in the culinary arts.Josh Morris was always passionate about cooking, but lacked formal direction. Unfazed by the lack of formal training and with a strong puppy-love for the industry, he took it upon himself to learn and grow in the kitchen. He took on restaurant roles and quickly found himself in leadership positions, learning valuable lessons about delegating tasks and elevating those around him. When he had children, though, he found himself having to take things more seriously, as he had to provide for them. He was gifted with children, and subsequently had to adjust his priorities, his decision making process, and even become a student of books. Ultimately, this is how Josh Morris learned about delegating tasks in the kitchen.In this episode, you will learn the following:1. How Do You Delegate Responsibilities as a Chef?2. What Are the Challenges of Being an Underprivileged Chef?3. What Are the Pros and Cons of Going to Culinary School?Instagram: @insidethepressurecookerYouTube: @insidethepressurecookerTwitter: @chadkelleyPatreon: @InsidethepressurecookerFeedback: Email me!Website: https://insidethepressurecooker.comLoved this episode? Leave us a review and rating on Apple Podcasts or Follow Us on Spotify or your favorite podcasting platform.Other episodes you'll enjoy:Josh Morris: Balancing a chefs drive with family lifeCheck Out my Other Projects:Chef Made HomeRoasted Bean FreakTranscript:Welcome back, everyone. We're here with Chef Josh Morris. Man, I almost lost it again. There Josh Morris. And we're doing compare. Contrast. Not even that. I'm going to kind of edit that out. All right, let's start this over. All right, everybody, welcome back. We're here with Josh Morris, and we're going to be talking paths. The path I took versus the path he took. Very different paths, but pretty much ended up in the same spot at one point. So not really a but we did. So, Morris, tell me kind of your path a little bit now. The other part to this, though, is we're not going to touch base for everybody listening on his entire kind of history. If you want to know more about Morris, go ahead and take a look at season one, episode one, and there's a full interview with him then kind of a little bit more detailed about who he is, the life of his apparent and chef and all that fun stuff. Morris, your path?Speaker B 00:05:16Yeah.Speaker A 00:05:17I mean, what got you into it then?Speaker B 00:05:21I grew up in Gainesville, Texas. It's a really small town just south of the Oklahoma border. Didn't have a lot of money growing up. Our meals consisted of ground beef, potatoes, cream of mushroom soup for pretty much every meal. There was no interest in food in my entire family, except my great aunt owned a diner on the town square.Speaker A 00:05:56Right on.Speaker B 00:05:57And at one point or another, everybody in my family worked there. But it wasn't like any interest in the restaurant business. It was just a way to make money.Speaker A 00:06:07Sure.Speaker B 00:06:08I even worked there a couple of times. I remember being like, nine or ten years old and standing on a milk crate so that I could reach the plates in the bottom of the three bay.Speaker A 00:06:19Yes.Speaker B 00:06:23That was pretty much the extent of it. We ate a lot of canned vegetables, but both at the grandparents had gardens, so we'd have tomatoes and peppers and onions in the summer. And I was the kind of kid that I didn't hate anything. Most kids like having a don't like broccoli or asparagus or something like that, and I just loved food all the time. It didn't really matter what it was. And I liked going out to restaurants, even though we didn't do it very often. I think because we didn't do it very often, it was much more of an experience. And I can remember as a kid being really excited to go out and meet with my parents, and my kids are most definitely not like that. We're going out to eat again. Why? I've always been a creative person as a kid. I would draw a lot. I got into music fairly early. I was a writer for a while, so I've always had that creative bug. But actually getting into the restaurant business was it was just for money. It didn't really hold any other appeal other than a nice steady paycheck at first. And then as a cook in a town that's kind of, like, known to be a drug town, got to fall into the pitfalls of that lifestyle. Like, a lot of drinking, a lot of drugs, a lot of hard partying, and your ambitions kind of fade when you're living like that. I mean, it's just like the whole point is to get fucked up. I lived that way for, I don't know, from the time I was 17 till I was, like, 20 or 21. When I turned 21, I got into a relationship with a girl that had two small kids. And I didn't get into that with any intention of becoming, like, a father figure, but that's ultimately what happened. It was a very fucked up relationship, to say the least, but she ended up being a really bad person, and she left us. She left me and the kids. So I became a single father for a while, and I was working two cook jobs at the time and taking care of kids by myself. So it was kind of a hard row for a while. But the bug, I guess, was always there for creating stuff. But I worked in restaurants where there was zero creativity. It was all about volume. Right. It wasn't until I started dating my wife now that the idea of becoming a chef really sat in. And the two people that I cannot overstate their influence on my career are my wife, who allowed me to pursue more dreams of becoming a chef, and bourdain. I think a lot of chefs of our generation can chop bourdain quite a bit. So for the first ten years, I say I've been cooking for 20 years. For the first ten years, I cooked things in a microwave. The only skill I really picked up there was how to be fast, how to be efficient, and how to cook a steak with your fingers, which is a great skill to have.Speaker A 00:10:08There's one good takeaway.Speaker B 00:10:10Yeah, for sure.Speaker A 00:10:16Obviously, your wife was I'm assuming she was in the industry when you met her then.Speaker B 00:10:22Yeah, we actually knew each other at that first restaurant. We worked together, but we didn't date for the first ten years that we knew each other.Speaker A 00:10:30Okay.Speaker B 00:10:31Our path just kind of crossed back together later on in life, and things turned out okay after all that bullshit.Speaker A 00:10:42That I went through, what got you into cooking? What is it about her that got you into it? Was she just kind of did you cook at home and were more creative? And she's like, man, you need to drive this further?Speaker B 00:10:58It was certainly that. Yeah, because when I was a single dad and I had two jobs, I would have $50 to last three people groceries for two weeks.Speaker A 00:11:11Fucking impressive. Yeah.Speaker B 00:11:14I did what I had to do, but there's not a lot of creativity to be had when you have to live off the bare minimum. But once I had her second income, and we got a house, and she was a really great cook. And I was just, like, sitting in the kitchen and watch it because I was so impressed by the things that she knew. And she just learned this stuff from watching cooking shows. So I started watching cooking shows, and of course, Bourdain was the big one, even though he didn't cook that much on that show, he resonated with me because he was a rider, too. He was definitely rebellious, but he had this real empathy for other people and certain romanticism about a cook's life.Speaker A 00:12:04Not just a cook's life, but just the food and cultures and just so many things that were so unappreciated in the world. He definitely took us all to places that people were lack of a better term were kind of scared to go.Speaker B 00:12:22Yes. And it was through that kind of channel where I've always been poor and I've never had the chance to travel, or even when I started thinking about becoming a chef, I didn't have the opportunity to go stage in fancy kitchens or anything like that. I really didn't understand the means of how to even go about doing any of those things.Speaker A 00:12:51That makes sense. I mean, yeah, when you're getting into it, like, it takes time to really understand and then comprehend. I know this seemed like the same word, but it's almost two different words because you kind of understand what cooking is and where you're going, and then there's that next level when you're talking about going and stagging at places, and it's like, wait, what? Then there's the concept of people like, I have to do this. And you're like, no, you don't have to. Right. But it definitely helps with experience for those resume builders out there. It is.Speaker B 00:13:39But I've always kind of had an obsessive personality. Like, whatever I'm into, I'm 100% fully into it. So when I started thinking about food and becoming a chef, I would have dinner parties at my house, trying new things. I would get books from the library, just, like, stacks and stacks of them. And I think because of Bourdain, like, the travel shows, I really started to lean into flavors and cultures that I wasn't familiar with. So big, bold flavors really appealed to me at first. Korean food, Caribbean, African, all these ingredients and flavors that I didn't understand. And when I finally did become a soup chef and had input on a menu, even though it didn't really fit with where I was, those were the things that I would push. And that was kind of a frequent pitfall of chefs when they're coming up. I think as you start to cook for you and you don't really cook for the guest, you're just kind of like, what can I do? How can I create what's next?Speaker A 00:14:56Yeah, especially as a young cook in ensue, because you get so you're enamored by it all. And just your love. And it's such that almost like puppy love stage. I've always been that chef. I was in that same spot. But being that chef, having those younger cooks and Sue's that have always wanted to bring stuff to the table, and you're always kind of looking at it and you're like, man, how do I let the air out of this balloon slowly? Because it's one of those, like, man, I love this. This is great. I love the energy, but it's like, okay, it doesn't fit. So it's like, how can we keep pushing that same energy and be encouraging, but also tell them, like, there's no way in hell it's going to be on the menu.Speaker B 00:15:54And there were some times where I definitely had to learn the hard way, where I would do a tasting for people. They're like, there's no fucking way you can sell this good though it might be, like, it just doesn't fit concept, and it's just kind of weak. And even as a sous chef, like I said, with the obsessive nature that I had, I pushed hard. I would work 60, 70 hours, weeks. And from where I came from, I was a leader in that kind of field. But the way I got there is because I would do things that nobody else would do. And I did them fast and I did them well. So I became, like this machine of self sufficiency, but I didn't know how to delegate. And that was another pitfall that came from when I did become an executive chef, was I took that burden all on myself, and I did not let anybody else touch my shit.Speaker A 00:16:59No, I think that's a common one for so many people when they get into it, and even with people with experience, when they get into a new role, with new people around them not learning, but just actually delegating. Because everybody knows that you have to kind of delegate stuff out to get things done. Because it's not like you just woke up one day, never walked into a restaurant, and then you're just, hey, I'm running the show here. No, I mean, you understood. You've been a part of it. You've been delegated, too. So, I mean, there's a party to you that knew what you needed to do, but there's that fear of, like, man, this is all on me now. And so the concept of delegating becomes really, really difficult to kind of comprehend and actually deal out. I've been there. I've been in that chef and then went to a new restaurant, new town, new city, new state, and had to be that guy and the delegate things out. But I didn't trust anybody. The spotlight was on me again, right? But it was, like, on a very different platform, so there's even more pressure. And I had to fall in my face a few times. And it's part of the learning process.Speaker B 00:18:33Yeah, for sure. I think these are all very common problems, but they sucked at the time.Speaker A 00:18:40But they're not going to go away.Speaker B 00:18:44Failure is how you learn. So I learned a lot. And then I got promoted from sue chef to executive chef. That was a huge deal for me. And I was executive chef for probably four months, and I was really starting to find my vibe. And then Kovich shut down everything. The reason I bring this up is, aside from kind of losing my vibe, I was out of work for almost three months. For the first month, I was trapped at home with the kids. My wife was still working, her restaurant was still open.Speaker A 00:19:23Trapped is a good way to put it.Speaker B 00:19:28I really did kind of hit like a spiral of depression for a minute because it was just like there's a lot of uncertainty about where my future was, if the restaurant was going to come back, if I was going to have a job still. But once I kind of broke free of that, I really just needed something to do to keep my mind busy. So I started a garden in the backyard, and I started getting more into that. And I called you up and I borrowed some old school, like, chef books. That happened is because I was reading French Laundry book, and Thomas Keller talked about how he became an executive chef before he even really learned how to cook. And that one sentence hit me hard. I was like, oh, my God. I've just been like, snowballing all this shit that I've just kind of been teaching myself without ever really knowing any fundamentals. So that's why it hits you up to borrow, like, escophier and things of that nature. It's like reading the Bible. It's hard to sit there and just read the Staffier. You power through it and you learn. One of the bigger ones that hit me was the Irving book that you let me borrow, the secular gastronomy, which that term and modernist cuisine kind of get lumped in together when they're not the fucking same. Modernist cuisine became all the foams and the hydrocolloids and things of that nature. The actual molecular gastronomy was started in the it's just a science behind why things work the way they do. Easy stuff, too. Like, why are your mashed potatoes gloomy?Speaker A 00:21:27Yeah, I'm looking up to see when that book was originally published. I mean, the one that's showing me is 2002, but that's not right because I've owned that book before then. Fairly certain it was from the think so, yeah. Chef Herve, his stuff that he talks about in that book was like the concept of sou vide and so much of that. It's called molecular gastronomy, but it's almost more just like the science of cooking, right? Yeah. And it's a great book. I really enjoyed it. Another one, honestly, I don't own it, and I don't know why, but on food and cooking. Harold McGee it's essentially the American version of molecular gastronomy, right? Exploring the science of flavors. So those are both great or not research, but reference books.Speaker B 00:22:41Yeah. And that was I don't know, it was a big learning curve for me, like really diving into the old school French instead of the stuff that I had been doing. My interest was piqued into learning how to do that stuff, so I would practice at home. I also got really into fermentation while I was on lockdown, so I didn't have much else to do.Speaker A 00:23:07I'm just going to sit here and watch this thing bubble.Speaker B 00:23:12I got really good at making my own vinegars. That was a big one. Doing a lot of pickles. I would say that COVID for me, was actually kind of a good thing. It sucked. But at the same time, I stayed busy and I stayed learning. And I learned a lot of stuff that I wouldn't have learned if I was still so busy at the restaurant that I don't have time for reading and diving and things like that. So we came back from COVID and obviously product was hard to come by. And that was probably the funnest couple of months of my cooking career. Because we were open dinner only for a while. I brought back my top cooks. We had a skeleton crew. We changed the menu almost daily. We had a blast. We and the crew had a blast. For the first couple of months, things started to reopen. We got back into the flow pretty quickly. Business was back, it was booming. But I still had I guess my ideas were getting bigger than where I was. There were certain things that I knew I could never do at that restaurant. And I already have kind of a chip on my shoulder because I was 27 when I decided to work at a real kitchen. And like I said, I didn't have a chance to stage or anything like that. So anything that I didn't learn at that restaurant, I taught myself.Speaker A 00:24:54Right.Speaker B 00:24:54I've always felt like I was behind the eight ball, so I had a lot to prove. Still do. But out of the 20 years that I've been working in kitchens, I've only been a chef by title for almost three years. And that's another, I guess, kind of chip on the shoulder, is like, how do I still consider myself a chef? I haven't had that title for almost two years now.Speaker A 00:25:25It's just a title.Speaker B 00:25:27Yeah, I try to tell myself that I consider myself a chef and that's what's fucking important. This is what I've decided to dedicate my life to. And I do. But I still do.Speaker A 00:25:44No, I mean, for me, the concept of chef and the titles, the name and title gets thrown around in a lot of ways. You know what I'm talking about. And to me, the concept of a chef and being able to call yourself a chef means that you've been a part of a restaurant where you are in a leadership role that also involved creativity. Right. Okay. Being in a leadership role, that's a whole nother level of creativity. If you have ever tried to figure out the scheduling, sometimes during labor crisis and during COVID and stuff that's talk about creativity as well as just punishing yourself, but I'm talking about more creativity in the world of cooking. Right. And also being able to go to someone and almost become their mentor and be able to teach them. Because being a chef is about elevating everybody around you. Right. Because they've got to execute your dream, your visions. So the idea is to elevate everybody around you. And to me, that's a chef, someone that's in a leadership role that can elevate the people around them, that would be a better way to say it.Speaker B 00:27:20I like that.Speaker A 00:27:21Yeah. So with that, you qualify.Speaker B 00:27:28No, thank you.Speaker A 00:27:34Now that you've got my blessing. All right.Speaker B 00:27:44That's where we're at.Speaker A 00:27:47Grew up, we'll say underprivileged no real direction, and finally kind of found that direction. Did not go to any kind of formal culinary training. Informal culinary training. All your training was just self taught.Speaker B 00:28:13Yeah.Speaker A 00:28:17And then finally just the whole, like, okay, time to get into restaurants. Like, lack of a term. A real restaurant. Real restaurant, meaning a scratch kitchen that did not own a microwave. Right. And then just learning the ropes.Speaker B 00:28:39Yeah. And I pushed just as hard as I did when I was executive chef, but I didn't really have a lot of backup because my soup chefs were guys that were still running the line. They still had to run chefs. They were part of the cooking crew, so I couldn't put too much on their plate as far as, like, ordering and inventory. I kind of did a disservice to them. I'm not going to lie by not teaching them those things. But at the same time, it was just kind of, like, head down, do it. I worked sick. I worked 70 to 80 hours a week sometimes. I worked a couple of 36 hours shifts. And those are the things you do because you love it. You will literally drive yourself into a fucking hole. But it's all for the love.Speaker A 00:29:39Yeah.Speaker B 00:29:46I think to a normal person, hearing that you worked a 36 hours shift is so mind blowing. You worked almost 40 hours in two days. Yes, I did.Speaker A 00:30:04There's so many people that aren't familiar with the industry that if they happen to be listening to this, are going to call bullshit on that too, because they're like, It's not possible. And it's like, yeah, actually it is. And it's pretty easy, man. So our path, we just kind of recapped yours versus mine. I grew up, and I was just working fast food, kind of, and went to culinary school. I was able to do that. And honestly, I probably went to culinary school sooner than I should have because I didn't have any real, as I put it, real restaurant experience, other than just knowing that there was something about it that was like, Hell, yeah. And then just kind of bounced around the country until we kind of finally met. But it's a very interesting where I was fortunate, where I didn't have anything kind of holding me back and was never really into any kind of relationship of any kind for very long because my relationship was with restaurants and cooking. And so honestly, when it came to the concept of dating or going out, it was just never a factor for me. I couldn't well, when am I going to go? I'm always working. Not working. I'm studying. And I had no desire to do anything other than work and study for decades.Speaker B 00:32:02It's definitely a different spin with a lot of people that get into this industry. They want to become chefs, and they have that opportunity to stage or travel or work multiple places and sometimes work for free just to get experience. And when you're a parent, you have to think about money first, and you have to think about their well being first. So your priorities are really out of whack. Everyone else's.Speaker A 00:32:35Absolutely.Speaker B 00:32:36The goal is nonetheless the same.Speaker A 00:32:40I remember when we had our first daughter, or only daughter, my first kid, it was a moment of like, oh, shit. Okay, got to take things a little bit more seriously, right? And it's like, okay, still bounced around a little bit. Not too bad. And then when we had our second kid, the moment I found out that we were going to have two, it was scarier than the first one because it was like, I really can't fuck up. No, I can't just on a whim say, hey, fuck you, and I'm going somewhere else, because I didn't like the way you looked at me today. It was like, no, it's time to take things a whole lot more seriously. Some of the frustrations and all that stuff just had to be like, well, I can suck it up, right? Work through it, but just also learn to communicate some of that stuff as well. Once you start adding kids to it, mouse to feed and the cost to just have not just to have them in your life, especially when you start talking like daycares, man, I don't think people really understand how much that costs, depending on what part of the country you're in. I mean, you're easily spending $10,000 a year per kid in daycare so you can work.Speaker B 00:34:31So that you can pay for daycare. It's a really good thing.Speaker A 00:34:35So, I mean, when you take how much someone makes let's call it a sue happens to be bringing in 45 to 50 maybe right after taxes and everything, and then take out daycare, and that's like maybe 25 grand a year of spending money that doesn't include mortgage or rent groceries. Children are amazing. They're an incredible blessing. They helped me. They changed me in a lot of good ways. And some of it was subconsciously, too. And I am incredibly grateful for them, even when they pissed me off. It changes your decision making process and your priorities to a degree.Speaker B 00:35:51Sure.Speaker A 00:35:56Kids. So with that, don't have kids until you're ready. Yeah, but sometimes you're gifted with them. And I know that you love those kids more than anything, too.Speaker B 00:36:14I do like my children.Speaker A 00:36:18On most days.Speaker B 00:36:20Most days. As a child, I always tell myself that I would never have kids, which is hilarious. I now have four.Speaker A 00:36:34Yes, that is funny. Well, that's for me, not kids, but as a student. I was a horrible student in so many ways. I didn't read a book like any book through school without all my tests and all that stuff, for all the reading they're supposed to be doing. It was based off, like, Cliff Notes and all that stuff. But I didn't read a book until I was out of high school. And now I've got a library and.Speaker B 00:37:13I read every day.Speaker A 00:37:13Now I'm not just talking culinary, but just everything. So it's funny how life changes.Speaker B 00:37:22I was always a big reader. What was that horrible at math, though? I'm still terrible at math, but I have to use it every fucking day. Conversions and such.Speaker A 00:37:36Oh, conversions.

Life doesn't get better by chance, it gets better by change.*It gets better by praying in His Name ceaselessly,by hearing His Silence constantly,by abiding in (t)His consistent Love.  >>THIS is the consistency you desire.

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, becauseyou have loved me andhave believed that I came from God.[a]28I came from the Father and have come into the world, and nowI am leaving the world and going to the Father. 29His disciples said, Ah, now you are speaking plainly and notusing figurative speech!30Now we know thatyou know all things and do not need anyone to question you; this is why we believe thatyou came from God.31Jesus answered them,Do you now believe?32Behold,the hour is coming, indeed it has come, whenyou will be scattered, each to his own home, andwill leave me alone.Yet I am not alone, for the Father is with me.33I have said these things to you, thatin me you may have peace.In the world you will havetribulation. Buttake heart;I have overcome the world.

Sometimes it's hard to know who to believe, sometimes it isn't: Do you believe the person who has studied the finest details of physical health and wellness for upwards of a decade, or do you trust your pastor who thinks that God couldn't possibly reveal those secrets to anybody willing to test such principles? Unfortunately, that's the dichotomy we find in the world today. Christian Nationalists have actively led the crusade against medicine for most of the last two centuries, but there's some interesting nuances among the more moderate groups that we're happy to explore with you this week. Hospitals were a Christian invention, so why do so many distrust them? Maybe part of the problem is that most of our history has us going to our priests/shamans/knowledge holders to get healed....President Richard Nixon was the subject of a lot of satire. Relative to his predecessors, he's an outlier in many ways, not least of all was his membership in the Quaker community. This informed his decision to protect parents from legal repercussions for medical neglect. We also have some data from Pew Research Center that makes a lot of religious groups look bad, relative to vaccine hesitancy.Unleavened Bread Ministries has taken the lives of several children in the name of being "Pure Blood," including 11-year-old Madeline Kara Neumann, who simply needed a regular insulin supplement for diabetes. So many people are calling vaccines a secret poison masquerading as a cure, if only they read their Bibles (Mark 16:18).The faithful among "Jehovah's Witnesses" avoid blood transfusions, the Amish avoid heart transplants, and "Christian Scientists" typically avoid medicine in all its forms. Muslims avoid medical products derived from swine, and Hindus tend to avoid medical products derived from any animals. Interestingly enough, Seventh-Day Adventists still run hospitals, and the head of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is a retired heart surgeon.We dive deep into the story of Doctor PP Quimby and Mary Baker Eddy, and how mesmerism burrowed into the "Science of Health."From Tim Minchin's “Storm”: "Alternative medicine… Has either not been proved to work, or been proved not to work. Do you know what they call alternative medicine that's been proved to work? Medicine." Watch  Dr. Glen Fairen's discussion of COVID-19 vaccines and the Apocalypse on YouTube Support us at Patreon and SpreadshirtJoin the Community on DiscordLearn more great religion facts on Facebook and Instagram Episode TranscriptKatie Dooley  00:12Hi, everyone. My name is Katie. Preston Meyer  00:14Hi, Katie. I'm Preston.Katie Dooley  00:18And this is.Both Hosts  00:19The Holy Watermelon podcast,Katie Dooley  00:22I thought an intro would be like an introduction. Would be nice. Occasionally.Preston Meyer  00:27All they know is our names. We haven't described who we are and why we're here.Katie Dooley  00:32Oh, I got to go back to the trailer for that.Preston Meyer  00:35Should we introduced ourselves a little more often?Katie Dooley  00:37probably. Join our Discord. I mean, sure. It's the end of January 2023 Already, which blows my mind. Preston Meyer  00:49We've been doing this for a couple of years.Katie Dooley  00:50Couple years. I'm a resident atheist.Preston Meyer  00:54And I'm a Christian and graduate in this exact field of studies Katie Dooley  00:59and an all-around great guy.Preston Meyer  01:00Thanks. I am glad you think so. You're pretty good for an atheist too. Most atheists are better than most Christians.Katie Dooley  01:11Oh, wow. Preston Meyer  01:12Wow. Okay, that that could be an exaggeration, but probably not by a lot. Katie Dooley  01:15You know one reason atheists tend to be better than Christians is that they don't just let their children die in the name of the Lord.Preston Meyer  01:22That specific detail is true.Katie Dooley  01:28Wow I just said it. Today we're talking about religion and medicine, and how religion and religious beliefs affect your belief of science.Preston Meyer  01:39Yeah, man, what a roller coaster. There's some interesting things we've been able to uncover. And definitely lots of bad news, which we cannot cover every news story that falls into this category. Of course,Katie Dooley  01:55there were some, there were some really sad ones.Preston Meyer  01:58But yeah, generally, problems have come up.Katie Dooley  02:02Yeah. Which is so weird. Because historically, the hospital system as we know, it is a Christian invention.Preston Meyer  02:10Yeah. Hospitality. And I mean, even the word that we have for hotels now, all of that this is, comes from the need to take care of people who don't have somewhere else to be, especially the people who straight up can't take care of themselves at all.Katie Dooley  02:28Yeah, so the first hospitals were kind of an amalgamation of both hospitals as we know them, but also hostels and food banks and or soup kitchens, and yeah they just take care of everyone that couldn't. That needs some extra help. And then obviously, we started segregating those things. And a lot of healers, or medical people were priests to begin with.Preston Meyer  02:53Well, anciently, if we look at the biblical tradition, and this was pretty standard for most societies around the world, your healers, your medical practitioners, were the priesthood. Those are the people that could read who were keeping notes on things that worked and didn't work.Katie Dooley  03:12Because they could also write Preston Meyer  03:13Yeah,Katie Dooley  03:13most people couldn't. Preston Meyer  03:14Yeah. Yeah. The the craft of literacy and, and writing was all practically magic to the layperson.Katie Dooley  03:24Yeah. So then things somewhere along the way, went horribly wrong.Preston Meyer  03:30They sure did. Katie Dooley  03:32Yeah. So there's a lot of Christian groups that and I mean, Preston I'll get your hot take on this. But there are science deniers, and I know a lot of that stems from having to reconcile evolution with what's written in the Bible. So it feels like they just are like, Well, science isn't real, because how can Noah work then? Good enough. So they deny science. And then by extension, things like medicine, and most recently, with the pandemic, things like vaccines are being denied for their efficacy.Preston Meyer  04:08Imagine this just for a moment. Katie Dooley  04:10Okay?Preston Meyer  04:11Do you you live on this planet? Katie Dooley  04:14I do. I don't need to imagine that kay.   No, I don't like that.Preston Meyer  04:16So far, you're with me, right? All right. Now imagine going through life, not ever being able to predict the outcome of any action ever.  No, that's absolute nonsense. You know that when you put one foot in front of the next one, it's going to meet the ground that you can see, and that as you shift your weight, you can propel yourself forward. That's science.Katie Dooley  04:45That just reminded me of a really bad joke.Preston Meyer  04:48If you're going to pour yourself a glass of water, that's science. We have reliably proven that the exercises to accomplish these tasks work.Katie Dooley  05:00Yeah. And I mean, we can go go back to our early episodes, but there was a time when things couldn't be proven. So we use religion to prove themPreston Meyer  05:11All kinds of fancy hypotheses for all sorts of things we didn't understand. And then we studied them,Katie Dooley  05:17Then we figured it out which is awesome. But yeah, but would I be right to say that a lot of this anti science comes from trying to reconcile the Bible that if you're a fundamentalist and believe is true to the word, even though there are stories we know are not true stories, then you have to cut out science?Preston Meyer  05:32You don't have toKatie Dooley  05:35But then how did Noah work if you have science?! It doesn't!Preston Meyer  05:41Yeah, things get complicated when you try and make stories that are primarily symbolic.Katie Dooley  05:48Doesn't work.So if you do the literal truth, then we Yeah,Preston Meyer  05:54you're gonna have a hard time.  Yeah. And so it's weird that the and this is definitely throwing the baby out with the bathwater. If you're just Oh, science disproves this one thing that I believe really strongly, really effectively, then I'm gonna have to stop believing literally everything under the banner of science. Weird choice.Katie Dooley  05:55Gonna have a hard time. You think so? But again, a lot of people let their kid die over this. So  Yeah, we found a whole bunch of Christian denominations that do this. The followers of Christ in the early 2000s, this group had a child mortality rate 10 times higher than the state average of where they were located, which was the state of Idaho, because they liked faith heailings... Preston Meyer  06:25yeah.  Yeah,Katie Dooley  06:46instead of real doctors. Preston Meyer  06:48Yeah,Katie Dooley  06:49one thing that was also really terrifying that I guess benefited, benefited the followers of Christ. Also, we're going to talk about Christian scientists later also benefited Christian scientists, is that President Nixon actually made a ruling that required states to pass exemptions to child medical treatment based off of a religious exemption. So basically, parents couldn't go to jail if their child died, because they made a medical choice based off of their religion, so you can charge them with like, neglect, or murder. So that was really cool.Preston Meyer  07:24So I'm fully on board with the whole the government won't impose laws on what you believe. But the government has an awful lot of laws on how you can act in our shared society. And our actions are founded on the things that we believe about the world around us. So we need to convince people to change their beliefs.Katie Dooley  07:49Well, you know, comes back we've done a lot of episodes on this everything from our parody religions episode to atheism, and Satanism of like, that's great that you want to kill your kid but like, I can't just like make up a rule for religious religious exemption. Preston Meyer  08:05Right.Katie Dooley  08:06Right. If we can just do things because we say but I'm religious like it would, everything would become chaos.Preston Meyer  08:12You just gotta stop telling the government you're an atheist. And then you get all kinds of fancy freedom. Katie Dooley  08:17Cool. Okay, well, I believe in Russell's teapot and Russell's teapot tells me I get to be naked 24/7 in public, so I cannot go to jail for public indecency. Like, you can't just do that Preston.Preston Meyer  08:31That depends where you live.Katie Dooley  08:35I mean, I knowPreston Meyer  08:36I mean, full nude still prohibited in most places, butKatie Dooley  08:40Handful of nude beaches you can go toPreston Meyer  08:41but you can be fully topless in most parts of Canada. I mean, we also have the weather that discourages thatKatie Dooley  08:51like right now, right but you just can't have your wiener hanging out Preston.Preston Meyer  08:56Noo.Katie Dooley  08:58And you can't... You know, if everyone just said, Well, it's because I'm religious.Preston Meyer  09:03Well, though, okay. We do know that members of the clergy have definitely been caught with their wiener in places where it does not belong and get away with it because they claim religiousness. There had been way too many times where somebody who has been a pastor for a while diddled a couple of kids went, went to court and got a reduced sentence because he's a man of faith. When clearly his actions say he's notKatie Dooley  09:37anyway, we just hopped on a soapbox for a minute there. This was eventually repealed in 1983, which I guess is good, but it was around for a while where you couldn't go to jail if you killed your kid. So A+ President Nixon,Preston Meyer  09:53right. Yeah, that was that was interesting. Christian Nationalism is a little bit of a problem.Katie Dooley  10:01Yeah. I mean, you were on I was just remembering the other day you were on a podcast talking about some of this stuff progressive versus... Preston Meyer  10:08Yeah...Katie Dooley  10:08Not progressive Christianity.Preston Meyer  10:12Yeah, it was a little while ago now, actually. But it was good time.Katie Dooley  10:15I'm the villain. Preston Meyer  10:17Yeah,Katie Dooley  10:17check out Preston. Preston Meyer  10:18Man that was... it feels like so long ago.Katie Dooley  10:22Yeah, real scary stuff, especially when it came to the pandemic.Preston Meyer  10:27Yeah, I mean, Christian Nationalism has been a problem in North America for almost a century. But things got really weird over the COVID crisis, and all kinds of people shouting about their rights to avoid this poison. I want to get a little bit more into that later. But it's just crazy that 45% of white evangelical adults said they would not be vaccinated. That is a staggeringly large number. And this idea is not just in like a couple of weird little nationalist groups, either it had spread through a lot of Christianity. But the nationalists got really gross about it.Katie Dooley  11:15And like bizarre about it, one of the articles I read that Christian nationalists have said that the vaccine is the mark of the beast, as prophesized in the Revelation of John, because it prevented people from buying and selling, air quotes, "without the mark".Preston Meyer  11:33Yeah. Our recent guest, Dr. Glenn Farron has shown up in other shows, examining this exact phenomenon, it's really fascinating.Katie Dooley  11:44And terrifying. Preston Meyer  11:45Yeah, it's weird. Katie Dooley  11:47Okay, as because we introduced ourselves as our resident Christian, why do you think it's taken such a hold on Christianity,Preston Meyer  11:54we have this frustrating problem where there's been this prediction of a whole bunch of signs that will mark the coming of the Savior. And it's been many, many centuries, where it's kind of been a building tension. We've got all kinds of apocalyptical groups popping up more and more recently, but they've been around for a while. And when we see anything that can fit into that framework that's built to be a thing of interpretation, rather than a one for one obvious comparison kind of deal as something that people really latch on to. And so when you see this part in the scripture that says, without this mark, you won't get to participate in the economic part of society, then you, you fear that maybe this is a parallel to what is happening with oh, you need your COVID passport to go into a store. Instead of recognizing, oh, I have a civil responsibility to do my best to take care of the people around me. And that's why I'm being shunned. But because I don't want to help out. It's so much more fun. And self aggrandizing to see everyone else as the villain, rather than admit that you're the one causing harm. That's the problem.Katie Dooley  13:24Mormons believe in the Second Coming, yeah? Preston Meyer  13:27Yeah.Katie Dooley  13:27Okay. Is there any piece of this, that's like, people wanting it to happen? Preston Meyer  13:32Oh for sure!Katie Dooley  13:33Yeah?Preston Meyer  13:34Absolutely.Katie Dooley  13:35They just want to be on the bleeding edge. So Jesus takes them up.  Preston Meyer  13:40Yeah.Katie Dooley  13:40With themPreston Meyer  13:41Yeah.Katie Dooley  13:42They don't want to be wrong. Preston Meyer  13:43Hey?Katie Dooley  13:43They don't want to be wrong. They don't want to take the mark of the beast, and then Jesus will be like, No, sorry.Preston Meyer  13:48Yeah, you don't want to do anything wrong. Because what if this is the end? What if this is the trial, I don't want to fail.Katie Dooley  13:55Okay.Preston Meyer  13:56I need to be as faithful as I possibly can. Even if that means I've screwed up. It's okay to make mistakes, you're forgiven for mistakes, as long as they're genuine mistakes, and not me skipping out on opportunities to be better. But I mean, all it takes is a little bit of extra thinking.Katie Dooley  14:19It just anyway, goes back to love your neighbor. We've talked about this a lot this month, actually.Preston Meyer  14:25And so many people have a hard time realizing that that's the number one thing. Jesus wasn't ambiguous about this. But it's hard to love your neighbor sometimes. Especially if your neighbor is anti-Vaxxer.Katie Dooley  14:44You know, I realized during this podcast, I like Jesus a lot more now and Christianity a lot less. Preston Meyer  14:50Yeah.Katie Dooley  14:51Like if you asked me three years ago, if I like Jesus would be like, like, like, no, like, I don't know, but I actually kind of think he's a cool guy.Preston Meyer  14:58I appreciate that you have, in your head, separated the man from the fan club.Katie Dooley  15:02Yeah. And the the more I learned, the more they're getting very separate in my head.Preston Meyer  15:07They are very very different I mean, yeah, there's more than one fan club, most of the fan clubs suck.Katie Dooley  15:15So what we should do is start our own fan club! I am kidding, that doesn't solve the issue.Preston Meyer  15:19What more parties?!?Katie Dooley  15:24more denomination Okay. In the United States religious conservatism, including the evangelical and born again Christianity movement is associated with lower levels of trust in science, rates of vaccine vaccine uptake, vaccine knowledge and higher levels of vaccine hesitancy.Preston Meyer  15:44Yeah, research has found that religiosity is negatively associated with plans to receive the COVID vaccine, which is a huge bummer. And one religious worldview, especially hostile to science and vaccines is the Christian nationalism movement. It's caused a fair bit of problems, distrusting the government is fair to to a degree. So not the same thing that sees a rebellion a whole year ago, or a couple of years ago now, January 6. But, you know, funKatie Dooley  16:24Is it fun? One of these groups I found and just because they came up in the news for killing a child, and I put an asterick Preston I will let you guide me on how much we actually talked about this group was the unleavened bread ministries, and I'm big Asterix in our show notes. They say, I barely want to give this man any attention, because he's fucking crazy.Preston Meyer  16:46I mean, that's fair.Katie Dooley  16:48So I'll probably just not say the pastor's name.Preston Meyer  16:51I think that's the right way.Katie Dooley  16:52So in 2008, an 11-year-old girl, Madeline Cara Newman died of diabetes complications that were very manageable, and very treatable. She literally just needed some insulin, which is really sad, but instead her parents opted for prayer.Preston Meyer  17:11Yeah, it's not the only headline, but it happens. And I don't know why people want to deny that, medicine is a gift. If you believe that God gives us all the good things, and we've studied the universe to understand creation, which is the way a lot of religions do look at it. Knowing that, oh, now that we know more about this thing, we can help people. Why not jump on that?Katie Dooley  17:42So we're, so her parents were part of this Unleavened Bread Ministries, and so I decided to go to their website. I really hope I'm not retargeted for anything, because that was something that was not pleasant. You can tune into their radio. 24/7 they actually say tune into our radio channel, 24/7 Which implies they want you to listen to it 24/7.  Not that it's on 24/7, which was scary.Preston Meyer  18:09I mean, that's how you get your ad revenue. Right?  I think if you were to listen to us 24/7 right nowKatie Dooley  18:13I guess so. You should listen to the Holy Watermelon podcast 24/7  you just have five daysPreston Meyer  18:23Yeah, just couple of days of content, and then you're on repeat. Katie Dooley  18:28That's fine.Preston Meyer  18:28I mean, Katie Dooley  18:29I'm okay with it.Preston Meyer  18:30You know, maybe some people would be better for it.Katie Dooley  18:32So basically, this pastor tells to pray away COVID and others other diseases, but he also recommended Ivermectin and hydro hydro ox so Chloroquine hydro- Preston Meyer  18:47hydroxychloroquine?Katie Dooley  18:48that one that makes you go blind or whatever, as well which was insanity. To me, it's like you should pray but if you don't feel like praying, take something that will kill you. Preston Meyer  18:58The vaccine is poison, butKatie Dooley  19:01Ivermectin is totally fine...Preston Meyer  19:04So-Katie Dooley  19:05So I have in my notes I wrote "not sure if grifter or cult leader"Preston Meyer  19:10it's, it's problematic. What's interesting to me, is there is a reasonably common belief among these Christian extremists, let's call them what they are, that the vaccine is poison. And I've heard several times that all these people who took the vaccine they're gonna be dead in five years or less.Katie Dooley  19:35Did you see this quote? "Fully vaccinated people-" this is from the pastor again, his name I won't say fully, "vaccinated people are now suffering from what looks like the Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome, better known as AIDS. Their immune system is fading as many have warned." so both Preston and I apparently have AIDS.Preston Meyer  19:54Apparently.Katie Dooley  19:57Most of our friends also apparently have AIDS.Preston Meyer  20:01Yeah. So what I was getting to this idea that this vaccine is poison. And remember, the vast majority of us are taking the vaccine to either protect ourselves, or to protect the people around us because we care about them. So they're here. Here's a passage from Mark chapter 16. Gospel of Mark, it's Jesus speaking, it's after he's been resurrected, he's teaching the remaining apostles because Judas is gone. He's not with them. And he says, Those who believe in Me will be able to drink poison without being hurt. I mean, there's a bit about snakes in there, there's, there's all kinds of little bits I skipped. But I added the beginning and the end together to give you the good bit, that if you believe, and if you do actually believe you want to help your neighbors and protect them, then it sounds like the Lord says, You got nothing to fear from this vaccine. Katie Dooley  21:00Yeah, well. Preston Meyer  21:03But to be fair, that is a personal interpretation of Scripture, that is at least as valid as the opposing argument.Katie Dooley  21:18So one of the arguments I wrote in, in these, nothing short of crazy articles was that, and this kind of goes back to the Nixon thing is that some of these groups have argued like, well, if a doctor, someone dies under a doctor's watch, the doctor doesn't get charged. So just because we weren't successful in our prayer circle, doesn't mean we should be charged.  Oh Preston... Preston's face is gold right now.Preston Meyer  21:47So while it's very tricky to charge a doctor- Katie Dooley  21:54Unless it's malpractice.Preston Meyer  21:55Right, and it's very tricky to sue a doctor, they have training to do the things that are they're expected to do. And the rest of us are told with, I would say, a close to equivalent value of repetition of take your people to a doctor. So when we fail step one of the process to not even give the doctor a chance to screw up or do the great thing that we need. Wit and it's usually a success, that is neglect. And I would say in an awful lot of situations a criminal neglect.Katie Dooley  22:38I just had a weird thought- Preston Meyer  22:39Yeah?Katie Dooley  22:40that's not in our notes. America in particular, and I mean, Canada, to some extent, as well, prides itself on being a Christian nation. Preston Meyer  22:50YupKatie Dooley  22:51Christianity started the first hospitals to help people. Yeah, that couldn't help themselves. And America doesn't have free health care.Preston Meyer  23:00NopeKatie Dooley  23:01Those things don't all go together, do they? Preston Meyer  23:03No, they don't.Katie Dooley  23:04Okay.Preston Meyer  23:06It sounds like you understand perfectly.Katie Dooley  23:09I do, I do. I understand the pieces, but the why? I am perplexed by because Jesus would have wanted public health care.Preston Meyer  23:20So we've already talked about the prosperity gospel-Katie Dooley  23:22we have,Preston Meyer  23:23and nothing on this planet is more American than publi-Katie Dooley  23:28Grifting!Preston Meyer  23:29Than grifting! Yeah! Maybe the the next best thing would be mass extermination, which I mean, is connected to this in some sort of way.Katie Dooley  23:45All right. Well, I feel like we're being very critical today. ButPreston Meyer  23:50sometimes you got to be and that it comes with the territory and today's subject. Katie Dooley  23:56Totally. Then there are groups that have very specific rules around medicine. Not necessarily, these sort of broad-Preston Meyer  23:57Yeah,Katie Dooley  23:59don't believe in science.Preston Meyer  24:05A lot of groups generally like the idea of science. Oh, yeah, I guess this thing has been proven. Let's go with it. With exceptions.Katie Dooley  24:14So there's the Jehovah Witnesses are almost famous for it, they do not accept blood transfusions. So overall, they're pretty cool with medicine and science, unless you need a blood transfusion.Preston Meyer  24:28Yeah, Prince was a pretty well-known star, and almost as well known that he was one of Jehovah's Witnesses. And he had some wicked hip pain for a long time. And it is speculated hard to confirm things now that he's gone, that it took him a while to get the hip surgery he needed, because hip surgery almost always comes with a major blood transfusion. Cuz, you know, open up pretty high traffic area in the body. Katie Dooley  25:04Yeah.Preston Meyer  25:05And so it's a big problem. So it's generally discouraged that because of the blood transfusion hip surgery is a tricky thing to try to navigate as a Jehovah's Witness.Katie Dooley  25:15Yeah, I, this is ages ago, and I didn't find them for this. And we'll do a full episode on Jehovah Witnesses one day, but the number of parents that when their kid needs a blood transfusion, start to question their faith prettyPreston Meyer  25:32it's a healthy perspective.Katie Dooley  25:34Totally! But it's interesting, like, I didn't pull up blood transfusion statistics, but especially probably before 50 Most people do not need a blood transfusion unless you're, you know, touch wood in a car accident or something. But I'm learning a blood transfusion and presume you never need a blood transfusion. So it's pretty easy to be like, oh, yeah, fine. I cannot accept someone else's blood until you need to accept someone else's blood. Preston Meyer  25:59Right? Well, and I think it's really interesting that I've, I've heard stories of people who say that after a blood transfusion, my brother-sister-loved one is just a totally different person. And so obviously, it's because the spirits in the blood, and that's now, now they are a different person. The weird thing about that is they totally ignore the possibility that a incident that requires a blood transfusion is a life changing experience! He's probably traumatized. It's things like cancer and major accidents, while recognizing your own mortality. Sometimes it's all it takes to really change how you want to deal with the world around you. It's a weird thing to hear people say, but I mean, the facts are the facts. They behave differently. Sure, fine. Or maybe you're reading more into it than is real, and they haven't changed as much as you think. But you expect them to be different because there's this idea of a different soul in the body. Katie Dooley  27:02Sounds like...Preston Meyer  27:03it's a spectrum. I can't say that it's all one thing or all the other, but I bet you it's a mix of the twoKatie Dooley  27:09Totally. So there's three Bible passages that Jehovah's Witnesses cite for not accepting blood transfusions, so I'm gonna read them so we can get Preston's hot take on themPreston Meyer  27:19PerfectKatie Dooley  27:19first- and who knows how-Preston Meyer  27:20I like it. Katie Dooley  27:21So Genesis nine "for you shall not eat flesh with its life. That is, its blood."Preston Meyer  27:28All right. So part of the context that we have here is, this is a document of how the Lord's people should be different than their neighbours. What makes them different. A lot of the people around them their neighbours, would ritually consume blood.Katie Dooley  27:48That's blood in the mouth?Preston Meyer  27:50Yes, eating blood.Katie Dooley  27:52I think we need that to be clear.Preston Meyer  27:54I have eaten blood, or a blood adjacent substance, on a, on a few occasions. It is delicious.Katie Dooley  28:06As someone who enjoys a good black pudding, yes. I prefer white pudding though, which doesn't have the blood. But I won't say no to the black pudding. Preston Meyer  28:14Right. So you can take my interpretation of this however you want, I suppose. I don't think that there is a spiritual reason. I think this is more of a this separates the people of Israel from their neighbours. Just another way to mark that we are different from them kind of deal. Katie Dooley  28:35All right.Preston Meyer  28:36And I mean building an us versus them philosophy isn't the healthiest choice. But here we are.Katie Dooley  28:43In Genesis, what makes a Jewish person a Jewish person, right?Preston Meyer  28:46I mean, that's really what Genesis and the tour of the Tanakh are all about.Katie Dooley  28:51Alright, so the next one is Leviticus 17:10. "If anyone of the house of Israel or of the aliens who reside among them eats any blood, I will set my face against that person who eats blood and will cut that person off from the people." Preston Meyer  29:07So-Katie Dooley  29:08that God speaking? Preston Meyer  29:09Yeah.Katie Dooley  29:09Wow.Preston Meyer  29:10So the short version of this is, if this person insists on eating blood, they will be excommunicated. Or exiled, depending on whether or not the church has a monopoly on national politics. Excommunicated if they're out in an area that's diverse like ours, exiled from the nation if you have a monopoly.Katie Dooley  29:37And again, this is blood in the mouth?Preston Meyer  29:39Yes. Do not eat bloodKatie Dooley  29:41Okay, because this is where I-Preston Meyer  29:43and it doesn't actually mean human blood. Cannibalism is an entirely separate law. This is don't eat the blood of the cattle and the livestock and the pigeons and everything else that you bring in for sacrifices,Katie Dooley  29:57Right, which is part of the kosher process. Preston Meyer  29:59Yeah.Katie Dooley  30:00That seems super fun. Acts 15:28 to 29. "It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to impose on you no further burden than these essentials. That you have seen from what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled and from fornication. If you keep yourself from these, you will do well. Farewell."Preston Meyer  30:22I mean, I like having such a short list very convenient. Don't eat things that are sacrificed to false gods. Easy. Generally speaking, though, there are other parts where Paul does specifically say you know what? It's okay to eat something sacrificed to idols, if that's all there is to eat. Just remember, the gods aren't real. But be grateful that you have something to eat. So, even in these essentials- Katie Dooley  30:55There's still an asterisk!Preston Meyer  30:56There's an asterisk yeah. But again, don't eat blood is still on the list.Katie Dooley  31:03So again, blood in the mouth. Preston Meyer  31:05Yes. Do not eat from these animals that you need. And then of course, there's don't eat anything that's been strangled. WhichKatie Dooley  31:19the meat would be tough.Preston Meyer  31:22It's better to quick kill rather than choke. Because then it's got fight in it.Katie Dooley  31:27Yeah. All the muscles not-Preston Meyer  31:29Yeah.Katie Dooley  31:30I'm gonna be plugged meat. And then don't have sex.Preston Meyer  31:35Which Yeah, totally unrelated to the previous three things. While fornication isn't just sex, fornication is extramarital sex.Katie Dooley  31:45Oh, specific.Preston Meyer  31:46Yeah, fornication is dirty sex. I it's, it's specifically that sex which is unapproved by society.Katie Dooley  31:55Well, wait till next episode.Preston Meyer  32:00Yeah, we'll get a little more details there for you. But yeah, so in Old and New Testament for the Christians who are super concerned about it. That's the deal, is that you should not EAT ANIMAL BLOOD.Katie Dooley  32:15So they don't let you take any blood. Even if it's not in your mouth.Preston Meyer  32:21Yeah, life-saving apparently not that big a deal. If it's your time to go. It's your time to go kind of philosophy. Which sucks if you could have survived with the tools available to you.Katie Dooley  32:32Now there are bloodless surgeries and blood alternatives.Preston Meyer  32:40Which sounds really weird. Katie Dooley  32:42I mean, I'm kind of that person. Like, if you can have the real thing. Why wouldn't you have the real thing? Like if you're not allergic to milk? Or lactose intolerant. Why would you squeeze the shit out of an almond?Preston Meyer  32:54Right?!?Katie Dooley  32:56Like, you know, and I mean, I get lactose intolerance is a thing. Don't get me wrong.Preston Meyer  33:02I'm lactose intolerant. I have- Katie Dooley  33:04I didn't know that!Preston Meyer  33:05way more dairy in my diet than I should.Katie Dooley  33:10The fact that I didn't know that you're lactose intolerant until this moment tells you that you do.Preston Meyer  33:15I'm lactose-sensitive, not lactose intolerant. I correct that there are times when I am way more sensitive than at other times. The night before I got married. Katie Dooley  33:28Ohno, ohno!Preston Meyer  33:29We stopped at one of the great drive-throughs and got the classic, real good, absolutely delicious milkshake. And I was ruined by the time...Katie Dooley  33:41Ohhh you, noooo!Preston Meyer  33:45So everyone else is setting up the chapel for decorations and the tables and everything. And I was just camped out somewhere else. But this week, I've gone through a whole litre of eggnog and plenty of milk and no issues. Katie Dooley  34:04All right, well. So yeah, I mean, I guess like I said before, it's great to say you don't accept a blood transfusion until you're one of the 4.5 million people a year in North America that needs one.Preston Meyer  34:16I'm curious because I haven't been able to find anything. And maybe I just need to talk to somebody who's got specific religious authority to make such a declaration, how they might feel higher up among the witnesses about synthetic blood. I don't know how they'll feel about that.Katie Dooley  34:38Members that willingly and knowingly accept blood transfusions are often disfellowshipped. And generally, like I said, they when witnesses are encouraged for medical help other than this weird blood thing, which I feel like they haven't run by God ever but what do I know?Preston Meyer  34:54Right. And a similar limitation for some reason the Amish and some other Mennonites but not all Mennonites believe that the spirit specifically lives in the heart. And you know, if you're watching a movie and you get to a real emotional part and you feel a twinge in your heart, I can see why they might come to that conclusion. Katie Dooley  35:18When you see your husband who I haven't seen in three weeks!Preston Meyer  35:22Right?! When you feel that in your chest, it does make sense that you can believe your spirit resides in or near your heart fine. Feels a little bit weird, but I get it. So specifically, the Amish, while they have a tricky relationship with modern medicine, they do specifically avoid anything that would be even close to a heart transplant, because that's the soul. And yet, there's sometimes exceptions to that...Katie Dooley  35:55Asterisk! It's a spectrum!Preston Meyer  35:59Yeah. There have been children who have been born with heart defects that are so severe that before baptism, because as an Anabaptist, you are baptized later in life instead of as a child. Like in the Catholic tradition. They are okay with a heart transplant in a young child... sometimes.Katie Dooley  36:23Asterisk. I was born with a hole in my heart, maybe that's why I'm an atheist.Preston Meyer  36:28Is it a Jesus-shaped hole in your heart?Katie Dooley  36:29I don't... I don't know. I, that was 32 years ago.Preston Meyer  36:35Is the hole still there?Katie Dooley  36:36No it healed up.Preston Meyer  36:37It just healed up? Katie Dooley  36:38Yep. Sometimes they heal up on their own. Sometimes they need surgery to make the switch.Preston Meyer  36:41Well see that's the weird thing about making people from a clump of cells is that when you're born, you still got a lot of growing to do.Katie Dooley  36:51So apparently, I looked into this like a million years ago, apparently, like when you're born and finally get oxygen. It is supposed to just like happen. The chambers in your heart close up to what they're supposed to be and mine didn't.Preston Meyer  37:03huh!Katie Dooley  37:04Yeah!Preston Meyer  37:05So that's the thing I don't know much about. But that is cool.Katie Dooley  37:08Yeah. Science!Preston Meyer  37:10Check out our bonus episode on abortion!  right. It's, it's weird how many churches insist that the Bible says that a baby is a murderable person, before they're born, when the Bible was pretty clear on the detail of, "And he breathed and became a living soul." Now, you're allowed to take that symbolically. But when you do that, you no longer have the Bible backing you up when you say that a baby is alive from conception, or from six months in or whatever. Whatever your arbitrary time is. The Bible doesn't have your back, for any point before birth! Yeah, we get into a lot more detail there!Katie Dooley  37:51The next one we're going to talk about are Christian scientists or the Church of Christ, comma scientists is their official name. Preston Meyer  38:08This, this group-Katie Dooley  38:10and guess what Preston they hate science.Preston Meyer  38:14So this, I've run into a couple of these people over the years that we've got a Christian Science Center downtown. And I've been trying to figure out for a while, how they can get away with feeling comfortable using the word science, and that they call themselves scientists, and absolutely deny the scientific method! The scientific collection of knowledge that we've amassed. I don't get it. Katie Dooley  38:51We will eventually. Again, just like Jehovah's Witnesses we will do a full episode on Christian scientists at some point, but we're just gonna dive into the medical stuff for today's episode.  The Church of Christ scientists was founded by Mary Baker Eddy in the 19th century. And it can actually be traced back. For more if you remember our last episode to Phineas Quimby, the mesmerist!!Preston Meyer  39:00Yeah.  Yeah, so she was a patient of his! Katie Dooley  39:18Oh, cool!Preston Meyer  39:19Yeah! So that's where this connection comes in. So I did a little bit of more research on this Quimby fella and oh what a trip! So oh...Katie Dooley  39:31so Phineas Quimby... I'll let you read your your research but finance can be started that new thought movement which turned also into the prosperity gospel that name it and claim itPreston Meyer  39:41Yeah, Dr. PP Quimby which I didn't make up to make this humorous. This is how he styled himselfKatie Dooley  39:52This is amazing! And I love that we both are so mature that we can just laugh at Dr. PP!Preston Meyer  39:58I'm not sure he was a real Dr.Katie Dooley  40:01WHAT?!?Preston Meyer  40:02I mean, as you learn more about this fella, you'll see why that could have been a problem.   But Dr. Phineas PP. Quimby was a clockmaker. You don't need a doctorate to be a clockmaker-Katie Dooley  40:09Yes.  No you don't to be a clockmakerPreston Meyer  40:21I mean, you do need tools. Yeah, for sure. And he was convinced that he had found the key to the science of health. This is where the Christian scientists adopted the word and never validated it ever again. The science of health, which of course, is, it's all in your head!Katie Dooley  40:47Yet it's it's not. Your feelings and physical ailments are all-Preston Meyer  40:53Yeah, this gaping wound in my leg that's making a huge mess of the kitchen is all in my head.Katie Dooley  41:03No, it's all on the kitchen floor!Preston Meyer  41:07Anyway, Quimby's theory was that there is no intelligence, no power or action in matter of itself. That the spiritual world to which our eyes are closed by ignorance or unbelief, is the real world that in it lie all the causes for every effect visible in the natural world. And then if the spiritual life can be revealed to us, in other words, if we can understand ourselves, we shall then have our happiness or misery in our own hands. That sounds really nice.Katie Dooley  41:42Oh, and I believe some of it-Preston Meyer  41:44Sure!Katie Dooley  41:45we talked, again, we talked about this for prosperity. If you're a positive person, your life will feel more positive. Preston Meyer  41:50Yeah.Katie Dooley  41:51But this does not account for gaping leg wounds!Preston Meyer  41:55No, or viral infections, bacterial problems! There's a lot of things that you can't control with positive thinking. And this is a proven fact.Katie Dooley  42:06Yes.Preston Meyer  42:07So, interestingly enough, he was a very busy man. Quimby was treating several patients every day, almost every single day for years, which would be normal if he was a doctor. But he wasn't really a doctor. He would sit next to his patients and explain that their ailment was just in their minds, and that they could control it just by thinking really hard about it. Just convince yourself that everything's fine and it will be! If it was easy to convince yourself of something that wasn't so easy to believe. And then it got weird. Sometimes he would rub their heads with his wet hands. Katie Dooley  42:50Ew! Why were they wet???Preston Meyer  42:52Oh, he would dip his hands in water too, and just rub their heads. He later explained that it was the words that did the help. Not the contact with the wet hands. So presumably he was just rubbing their heads with wet hands for his own enjoyment?Katie Dooley  43:10That is a very specific fetish, but we don't kink shame at the Holy Watermelon Podcast.Preston Meyer  43:15True story.Katie Dooley  43:16But we do fake Dr. shame! So carry on!Preston Meyer  43:20cause people are weird!Katie Dooley  43:25There's various fetishes and rubbing.Preston Meyer  43:28I'm okay with if that's your fetish. That's fine. Our-Katie Dooley  43:32Is there consent?Preston Meyer  43:34That's my question! Are these people participating with informed consent? In what is probably a sexual fetish.Katie Dooley  43:44Probably not because it's the 1800's.Preston Meyer  43:47Yeah...consent was a tough discussion back then-Katie Dooley  43:49Actually still a tough discussion, but that's a different episode! Preston Meyer  43:52But at least it's becoming more mainstream. Now.Katie Dooley  43:54Did you know 55% of Canadian men don't actually know what constitutes as consent?Preston Meyer  44:00That's an alarming statisticKatie Dooley  44:02Yeah. A study came out recently.Preston Meyer  44:07Members of Congress are outing themselves all over the place right now saying, Oh, if we have the liberal wrought laws of consent, I would be a sex criminal!Katie Dooley  44:17That means you're a sex criminal!Preston Meyer  44:19Why would why would you say that?Katie Dooley  44:22That means you're a sex criminal. Carry on.Preston Meyer  44:27Anyway, Quimby met Mary Baker Eddy in 1862 when she became his patient. And she was already into the the weird spiritual thing. Yeah, which is fine. It's what she started doing with it after she met Quimby that makes it easy to label her as full crazy.Katie Dooley  44:49So Eddy basically thought the world was the matrix and the only real world was the spiritual world. And we've created this physical world in our minds.Preston Meyer  44:59Neil deGrasse Tyson talks a little bit about how the world is, and the universe is probably just a simulation. So is that really all that different? They both sound crazy.Katie Dooley  45:11They both do sound crazy. I mean, we're getting into philosophy, and it already hurts my head is trying to formulate this sentence, but like,Preston Meyer  45:21The trick is, it's really easy to believe that the world isn't. The world is as concrete as it looks and feels. But I mean, the things that we found out by just scoping down on to the molecular level is even solid rocks are mostly empty space. Katie Dooley  45:39Yeah.Preston Meyer  45:41So it gets pretty easy to say, wow, yeah, there's there's a lot of magic going on here. What is what? Who knows? But it feels like, we're getting some pretty interesting fictions.Katie Dooley  45:56Yes. So Eddie also wrote a book called Science and Health, which in addition to the Bible is considered a holy book in the Church of Christ scientists.Preston Meyer  46:06Yeah, it's pretty normal to have the founding person's literature as part of your Canon.Katie Dooley  46:12It seems like there isn't a lot of Christ in Church of Christ scientists. Preston Meyer  46:16Well, they still have the Bible.Katie Dooley  46:17Yeah.Preston Meyer  46:17It's just secondary to you have the divine power yourself to heal all your problems.Katie Dooley  46:25This goes back to my earlier point, is that I am starting to like JC-Preston Meyer  46:29not the fanclub. Katie Dooley  46:30Not the fanclub, all right.Preston Meyer  46:33That's fair. Katie Dooley  46:33OkayPreston Meyer  46:35Yeah, it's interesting that members of the Church of Christ scientists aren't strictly prohibited from seeking medical attention, but they do avoid it an awful lot. Instead, they just pray. And it's not like your regular prayer. That's like, it's never do the Lord's Prayer, and everything's gonna be fine. It's kind of a, you need to go find a place where you can argue with yourself for a while, just like Mary did with the Nez MarusKatie Dooley  47:04Yeah, not even. Yeah. You like, it's weird. I read some instructions on how to pray. And basically, you just like, fight yourself to not feel sick anymore. Preston Meyer  47:14Yeah!Katie Dooley  47:14So I am like to Jesus or God, it's like "Don't be sick Katie!"Preston Meyer  47:19Right?!Katie Dooley  47:20Don't be sick!Preston Meyer  47:21which sounds like not just counterproductive, because you're not getting the help you need. But you're tiring yourself out more. So if you were fighting an infection, you're probably worse off than if you hadn't had this internal conflicKatie Dooley  47:37I just watch Fraggle Rock when I'm sick. Preston Meyer  47:39Yeah. Does it help?Katie Dooley  47:40Yeah.Preston Meyer  47:40That's good. Filling your life with positivity is helpful. And there's there's a lot to be said about the placebo effect. That doesn't mean don't seek actual help when there's something wrong that needs help.Katie Dooley  47:57Absolutely. There are reports though, even though they aren't specifically prohibited from seeking medical treatment, that members that do opt for medical treatment are often ostracized.Preston Meyer  48:09Yeah, but you can hire somebody from the church to come and help you out. You can get a healer, which is like a doctor, but they're making money off of lying to you.Katie Dooley  48:22It's actually a Christian Science practitioner, and they're very good at praying!Preston Meyer  48:27Are they?Katie Dooley  48:29That's what they're trained to do!Preston Meyer  48:32So I'll just 11 years well, 12 years ago, now, I guess. There was a practitioner named Frank Prince Wonderlic. If I'm not writing that pronunciation, I'm at least close. Put his his name in the show notes. He said... "all healing is a metaphysical process. That means that there is no person to be healed. No material body, no patient, no matter, no illness, no one to heal, no substance, no person, no thing and no place that needs to be influenced. This is what the practitioner must first be clear about."Katie Dooley  49:08It sounds very Scientology.Preston Meyer  49:11A little bit yeah! So, I mean, the problem that I have, right off the beginning is, there is nobody that needs to be healed or influenced. When your job is to heal people. Maybe that's not the thing you should be saying.Katie Dooley  49:28What are you charging for?Preston Meyer  49:31Right? I mean, basically, he's standing here saying, either you don't exist, or you do but nothing else does. So you got nothing to worry about. Which I mean, it may be an extreme interpretation of those words, but that feels really weird when you say there's nothing that needs to be influenced. You're either saying there is no disease at all, or it's not a problem and there is a disease and it is a problem. It's frustrating. And at least 50 Christian scientists have been charged with murder after the children died of very preventable illnesses. Now, of course, it's not first-degree murder that requires premeditation. And the situation is a little premeditated, but not to the degree where it actually counts as premeditated murder.Katie Dooley  50:29Then it would be manslaughter in Canada.Preston Meyer  50:30Exactly.Katie Dooley  50:31Where I think it's third-degree murder in the States is our manslaughter. Preston Meyer  50:35Yeah.Katie Dooley  50:37LDS!Preston Meyer  50:39Yeah, the LDS tradition is a much healthier place relative to this issue. I'll admit it's a mixed bag, there are a lot of converts to the church who come from a wide variety of backgrounds. A lot of people have believed that you really should just pray and not see a doctor when something is wrong. That if you're having mental health problems, or physical health problems, pray about it, eat your vitamins, get your essential oils, and maybe talk to the bishop for counselling. Most of those are not very good choices, including the last one, your bishop is very seldom a properly trained therapist. But there are cases where he is, and he deserves to be paid for that.Katie Dooley  51:31But talk about these elder blessings, because I've heard about it in passing, just being your friend.Preston Meyer  51:36Yeah? So while there are encouragement to seek medical attention, there is also encouragement to get a blessing from an elder of the church comes with an anointing of virgin olive oil, and all that fun stuff. And typically, we laid- lay hands on somebody's head and give a blessing of whatever is needed. Very often, there's a promise that you'll be healed. But this does not take the place of seeking medical attention. It is very explicitly stated over the pulpit regularly from the very top that it should not take the place of seeking medical attention.Katie Dooley  52:17Well, that's good.Preston Meyer  52:18Yeah. Even though some people have a hard time with that. Spectrum! No, church is monolithic. I've given lots of blessings, and that's not because I believe that it's going to fix everything and that you need to go, just pray afterwards. No, sometimes you should get medical attention, depending on what the situation is. Yeah, I don't know. The president of the Church throughout the COVID crisis was a world-renowned heart surgeon, we've got a serious commitment to actually making sure people are healthy, that we can stick around for a long time. The Latter-Day Saints are in some communities longer lived than average. SoKatie Dooley  53:01Because you don't drink do drugs or anything!Preston Meyer  53:03I mean, that's probably a bigger contri-contributor, though, we have our own vices. There's a there's an awful lot of Latter Day Saints who eat a lot more sugar than they ought to.Katie Dooley  53:15That's gonna say from the ones I know. Yes. You all feel personally attacked now, I'm so sorry!Preston Meyer  53:25But to be fair, the entirety of North American culture with a handful of specific localized exceptions, we eat way more sugar than we really should. So are Mormons to stand out there? Not so much.Katie Dooley  53:40Well Okay! Seventh Day Adventists. Again, another Christian denomination, they are typically vegetarians.Preston Meyer  53:49Pretty often.Katie Dooley  53:50And so they're comfortable with seeking medicine and modern medical and health practices, but they have know, have been known to prefer holistic medicine, kind of in line with that vegetarian thing. So they've been known to follow holistic medicine, which is a phrase that has been used by people who oppose medical treatment, but good doctors also talk about the necessity of keeping the whole body healthy, which is holistic. SoPreston Meyer  54:18yeah. Dr. Mike even talks about it sometimes.Katie Dooley  54:22Is that the YouTube one? Preston Meyer  54:23yeah,Katie Dooley  54:24That's kind of cute? Both Hosts  54:25Yeah.Preston Meyer  54:26He's a handsome man.Katie Dooley  54:27He's very handsome. An Adventist family hit the news in 2014 for failing to get their son proper medical care after being diagnosed with rickets. Preston Meyer  54:36You don't hear about rickets very often!Katie Dooley  54:38That's what Tiny Tim had or they speculated it, it's not actually written the book.Preston Meyer  54:42I mean, it's it's a work of fiction, soKatie Dooley  54:45and then in it's always sunny.Preston Meyer  54:48Rickety Cricket!Katie Dooley  54:49Rickety Cricket!Preston Meyer  54:52Yeah, you know, but, I mean, we put vitamin D in so many things now. Katie Dooley  54:56YesPreston Meyer  54:57Like we encourage children to have cereal with a bowl of milk and all of our milk that you get at the grocery store today has vitamin D in it.Katie Dooley  55:05Yeah. So rickets is preventable with vitamin D. Preston Meyer  55:07Yeah.Katie Dooley  55:08So, yeah, it's pretty easy to get. So that's really bad.Preston Meyer  55:13Pretty easy to not get rickets.Katie Dooley  55:15Yeah, I mean, it's pretty easy to get vitamin D Yeah, it really is not easy to get, rickets. So it must be known that they got sucked into the anti medi-medic trap despite warnings from their church.Preston Meyer  55:30Yeah, this is not a normal thing within this religious community. There there is even a network of Seventh Day Adventists hospitals where they actually perform real medicine. So it's, it's weird to see this kind of news hit where a family within this religious community just doesn't want to get involved in medicine.Katie Dooley  55:31Yep. Now we've been pretty hard on Christians. This episode, specific Christian denominations. Preston Meyer  56:03Yeah.Katie Dooley  56:04Spectrum, we know it's not all Christians. ButPreston Meyer  56:06one, it's not even all people within the dominant denominations we've talked about.Katie Dooley  56:10Right, like I said...Preston Meyer  56:12Nothing is monolithic.Katie Dooley  56:13Yes, so on your deathbed, if you need a blood transfusion, you might change your mind real fast! And people have. Preston Meyer  56:19Yeah!Katie Dooley  56:19But we also see it in other religions.Preston Meyer  56:22Yeah, the Hindu tradition is kind of interesting, where generally speaking, medicine is favorably talked about. In fact, when we talked about Hinduism, in our introductory episode, there is a whole part of their religious philosophy that deals with different kinds of medicine. How that translates to the modern things can get a little bit fuzzy. But generally speaking, it's pretty positive, because the Vedas were written 1000s of years ago. But it's kind of cool. But there is, of course, a lot of prejudice against doctors from overseas coming to North America. Do they live up to the same medical standards? Investigation always has to go into it, and they usually end up becoming taxi drivers or literally anything else that's easy to get into. Because getting into the doctor's office again, it's really complicated. Katie Dooley  57:12Yeah, there needs to be some better international cooperation there. BecausePreston Meyer  57:17well, and we do have some doctors who make it and become doctors hereKatie Dooley  57:20Oh absolutely! Preston Meyer  57:20-relatively quickly. But it's yeah, it's not 100% thing. It's really frustrating. And the interesting thing that I think is worth bringing up here is that while they're cool with medicine, they actually do have an issue as... If they're really into their Hindu faith. Of they have an issue with using animal products in their medicine! Any animal juices! Katie Dooley  57:27Gelatin often quite-Preston Meyer  57:47Yeah, we use a lot of different animals stuff in our medicine, which sounds really weird until you actually know a lot about it. And it's like, oh, yeah, that sounds like a natural choice. I'm not an expert. I just trust the people who are.Katie Dooley  57:59Fair.Preston Meyer  58:00Sihks follow the same Hindu principles. This comes with the whole vegan vegetarian thing that care for the animals. It's not about keeping the body, non animal keeping it pure. It's about respect for the animals. So of course, our First Nations people here in North America are more positive about using the whole animal respecting the animal, but take what you need, and be responsible and respectful with what's left make find a use for it, if you can. So really different way of looking at the world there. Yeah, Islam is interesting that they have similar restrictions to Sikhs and Hindus, but not the same. That you absolutely cannot use any material that comes from swine. swine is haram. But animal products from cows, for example, is fine.Katie Dooley  58:53Medical Products from cows. Yes, you said animal products from cows. Which that's true, that is not untrue! Preston Meyer  58:59It's not what i meant-Katie Dooley  59:00Its not specific enoughPreston Meyer  59:01medical products in cows. So I thought that was really interesting. Because you would be haram if you were part pig, I guess. I mean, I'm pretty sure I'm haram anyway. According to their laws.Katie Dooley  59:14I mean, yeah, I own a dog soPreston Meyer  59:17Oh yeah, there you go. Katie Dooley  59:17AlreadyPreston Meyer  59:18Troubles.Katie Dooley  59:19Yeah.Preston Meyer  59:21Of course, there are exceptions life or death emergencies are validation enough to ignore these prohibitions. Of course, there are a lot more available here in the West, where there's not preexisting prohibitions. Some people like their books more than they like their children. SoKatie Dooley  59:38I was gonna make sassy comment, but I will refrain for once. I like books better than children. I said it, I said it.Preston Meyer  59:47That's fair, but they're not your children.Katie Dooley  59:49That's true and I have no interest.Preston Meyer  59:51Do you like your books more than Paige?Katie Dooley  59:53No, I would save Paige in a fire but not my books. Preston Meyer  59:55See? That's how it goes.Katie Dooley  59:57FairPreston Meyer  59:58And that feels like the right choice. Katie Dooley  59:59Thank you! Preston Meyer  1:00:00And Paige isn't even human.Katie Dooley  1:00:03But she is real!Preston Meyer  1:00:04Yes. She is real!Katie Dooley  1:00:06She's a little dog. Yeah, I'll post the picture in Discord just 'cause I like her.Preston Meyer  1:00:11Yup. And a few years ago, I heard this great poem from Tim Minchin who we actually mentioned ever so briefly in a, in our most recent interview episode. Storm is the name of the poem by Tim Minchin, and this, this little snippet is just perfect. "Alternative Medicine has either not been proved to work, or been proved not to work. Do you know what they call alternative medicine that's been proved to work? Medicine!" And that's the deal. It's, I can't think of any better way to explain it. I couldn't get a doctor to say it in a more beautiful wayKatie Dooley  1:00:49Judas would say something like that... Yeah, so we were pretty hard on people today. But that's okay.Preston Meyer  1:00:59That's okay. I don't think we've alienated anybody. Katie Dooley  1:01:02No I think it's, I mean, that's why we exist, is to have conversations about religion, and maybe push some boundaries on beliefs, because no group will get better if we don't.Preston Meyer  1:01:16Right. Whether you're Christian, Buddhist, or just really into snails, or atheist. Generally, the best way to run through this life is by caring about each other as people and wanting the best for each other. And that means saving lives when we can in the effective ways through proven methods.Katie Dooley  1:01:42You know, what, everyone? In addition to following us on Discord and our Instagram and Facebook this week, I encourage you all to go and donate some blood!Preston Meyer  1:01:53I think that's the best civic thing that we can all handle. Unless, of course,Katie Dooley  1:02:01unless you can't. Preston Meyer  1:02:01Yeah.Katie Dooley  1:02:04You can also support us on our Patreon, where we have early release and bonus episodes and our book club. Thank you to patron Lisa for supporting our podcast. And if the subscription model is not your thing, you can also check out our spread shop where we have some amazing Holy Watermelon merch to make you look fancy in this new year.Preston Meyer  1:02:26Thanks for joining us! Both Hosts  1:02:27Peace be with you!

Sex tips, porn revolutions, psychedelics, and enlightenmentAella writes at knowingless.com. Her posts and tweets provide a unique perspective about the data on sexual kinks and on being an escort & camgirl.In this episode, Aella talks about:* her escorting sex tips,* how tech will change pornography,* & whether trauma & enlightenment are realEnjoy!Watch on YouTube. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any other podcast platform. TimestampsSex Tips - (0:00:21)Porn-tech Revolutions: Tiktokified Erotica? - (0:02:02)Trad Christian Life - (0:05:11)Can you be Naturally Talented at Enlightenment? (0:06:52)Camgirling, Escort Marketing, & Bulk deals  - (0:09:15)Sex Work vs Student Loans  - (0:13:25)Psychedelics and Deconstructive Suffering - (0:15:30)Aella's Extreme Reading Addiction -  (0:21:08)Radically Authentic People are Hot? - (0:27:29)Some Advice for Making Better Internet Polls - (0:39:32)Hanging out with Elites - (0:43:59)Is Trauma Fake? - (0:53:49)Spawning as a Woman and Being Extremely Weird - (1:07:19)Boring Podcast Conversations - (1:12:09)TranscriptTranscript is autogeneratedDwarkesh Patel 0:00:00Okay, today I have the pleasure of speaking with Ayela, who needs no introduction.Aella 0:00:07So it's Ayla. Is it actually? Yeah.Dwarkesh Patel 0:00:10Okay, gotcha. The first question from Twitter from Nick Camerota.Aella 0:00:14It's about banging, right?Dwarkesh Patel 0:00:16It's right.Aella 0:00:17Smashing. As one might do in the dirty.Dwarkesh Patel 0:00:21I don't see it here, but he was basically asking, there's meditators who are experts, have all kinds of like special tips. He was talking about how they know how to hold their breath or close their eyes in aAella 0:00:31particular way.Dwarkesh Patel 0:00:32What do escorts know about sex that the mediocre new doesn't know?Aella 0:00:38Well, I don't know because like escorts don't necessarily have more sex. They just have sex with different people. Like if you're in a community relationship, you're probably like becoming an expert at your partner. So it's like, I guess like you're an expert at like very quickly figuring out so like what a new partner likes. So it's really dependent. It's like super dependent on like reading the person. But one is like, don't assume what they like. Because like for a while, it was like all guys like their balls fondled gently, right? You'd think this is a universal malpreference.Dwarkesh Patel 0:01:11It's not. Well, it's changed or it just never was?Aella 0:01:14Well, some people are just like, get the f**k off my balls. And you're like, okay. But also like, I don't know, I like learning how to ride dick. I didn't really know how to ride dick properly before being an escort. And when I first started escort, it was terrible. I was like, like clumping kind of like in a really unattractive fashion. Maybe something about like, like enthusiasm of b*****b is better than technique or something like more important than technique. Like you don't have to be the best b*****b giver at all. But if you're just like, you know, really going to town.Dwarkesh Patel 0:01:44Yeah, it's not like dancing as well, where they say you don't have to be a dancer, just like have fun.Aella 0:01:48Yeah, not there. Yeah, a lot of it's just having fun, right? Like really, like letting loose as much as you can. These are not like really excellent, like, go get them, hit them techniques. Like probably Cosmopolitan has published all those already.Dwarkesh Patel 0:02:02But the 10 things that drive your man crazy. Okay, I'm curious. There's been a lot of innovation in how movies and TV shows are shot and what kinds of plots and tropes they've used. I'm wondering over the next few decades, are you expecting what kinds of like innovations in erotic content are you expecting?Aella 0:02:22It'd be great if there were more funding for erotic content. Like if we had more money, like that would be excellent. But obviously AI. Like ignoring the funding issues. But AI clearly. Like I know that a lot of the models right now are not allowing not safe for work stuff. Do you want to like a normal pillow?Dwarkesh Patel 0:02:41Yeah, let me get her up. Leaning in like Sheryl Sandberg. Sheryl Sandberg?Aella 0:02:47Oh, she's the CEO of Facebook.Dwarkesh Patel 0:02:50Yeah, I've heard a book about leaning in. Like when you lean in. That's an escorting technique.Aella 0:02:54Well, I mean, it's just a generic seduction technique. Leaning in? Yeah. Like when I'm on it, like, usually when I'm as an escort, you meet a guy beforehand. And you're supposed to signal that you're really interested in him and leaning in.Dwarkesh Patel 0:03:08Oh, yeah. Yeah. By the way, do you? This is something I'm curious about. I watched your YouTube video about tips to have more seductive behavior. Are you always doing that or is that just in very specific scenarios when you're online? But like when you go to a meetup or something?Aella 0:03:22I think there's like degrees of it. Like some of it's not just seduction. Some of it's just like normal social behavior. Like I don't think I'm doing anything right now. I'm checking. I think this is how I would normally be with like friends.Dwarkesh Patel 0:03:35Right.Aella 0:03:36But I think there's like some, like there's a spectrum and obviously I turn it all the way up when I'm trying to be very seductive. But sometimes if I'm like enjoying the experience of being attractive, like trying to play into that for any reason, like pure fun, then I'll do it a little bit.Dwarkesh Patel 0:03:50Usually not to that degree, though. OK. Another question I was wondering about is TikTok. Are we going to have porn that's TikTok-ified where we'll have like one minute shorts, you just scroll through.Aella 0:04:02They've tried.Dwarkesh Patel 0:04:03They've really tried. Why has it not worked? Well, you can't get on app stores.Aella 0:04:08So there's not like what kind of money like your sort of market is limited, your marketDwarkesh Patel 0:04:13cap. You can just have a website, though, right?Aella 0:04:16Yeah, you can. But it really reduces the total amount of conversion for like when you're advertisingDwarkesh Patel 0:04:22it.Aella 0:04:23And they've tried it a couple of times, but they just didn't have enough people uploadingDwarkesh Patel 0:04:27things.Aella 0:04:28There are some other competitors like Sunroom right now is doing the thing that they're trying to get on the app store. But it's not porn. Like they can be optimized to be sexy, but like really right now, like the markets are not aligned such that like a porn TikTok. I mean, it's possible that if you did it really, really well, but I don't know. A lot of porn is shot this way, too.Dwarkesh Patel 0:04:49So if you want to take like pre-existing porn, it like never really looks good. I guess it depends on position as well, right? Like there's some positions where a vertical would work.Aella 0:04:58Yeah. It's like a TikTok for like only for like cowgirl standing. They have it, by the way. I don't remember if I said that, but there are products that are trying to replicateDwarkesh Patel 0:05:09TikTok for porn.Aella 0:05:10They're just not very good.Dwarkesh Patel 0:05:11Yeah, and another thing is you had to learn user behavior, but people are probably doing, you know, doing their porn and incognito. So you can't, you can't like learn their preferences that TikTok learns. Okay. People with your genetics, like your psychology, they probably existed like a hundred years ago or 200 years ago. But what would you have been doing if you were born in 1860? Because there was no OnlyFans back then, but would you have become a trad wife or what would happen?Aella 0:05:35Yeah, I probably would have been insufferable. Like I was raised Christian and so I got to see what my psychology does in like a very trad religious atmosphere and it took it very seriously. It kind of went just to the opposite extreme. I was like, ah, if I'm in this religion, like let's actually live the religion. Like we can't just like half believe in it. Like let's actually think it through, take it to the logical conclusion and live that. Yeah. And so I was like, I was maybe even a little bit more conservative than the people around me and took it very seriously.Dwarkesh Patel 0:06:03Do you think if you grew up in a left wing polycule, you would have become a super trad by the time you grew up?Aella 0:06:09I doubt it. I might have become like even like a hardcore polycule, I don't know. But my guess is like I'm probably actually suited to being a polycule. Like I am more like, even when I was Christian, I was like sexually deviant and like obsessed with sex and like just I just suffered immense guilt over it.Dwarkesh Patel 0:06:28Yeah. What are you the Christian men you were growing up with? Did they not jerk off? Like what did they do?Aella 0:06:32Well, all of the messaging when I was growing up was for men. It's like they have like men meetups about not jerking off and s**t. Like you're not supposed to masturbate as a Christian man.Dwarkesh Patel 0:06:42But did they actually not?Aella 0:06:44A lot of them would. Well, I don't know. I never like did a survey. My impression is they probably had a lower masturbation rate than most people and feltDwarkesh Patel 0:06:52worse about it when they did it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I'm Christian. Do you think that, so you've done these really interesting enlightenment surveys and interviews. Do you think there's people who are just naturally enlightened because they're just so stoic and happy all the time, but they just don't have the spiritual vocabulary to describe their experiences as in these sorts of like, you know, boo-hoo ways? Is it possible that the guy who's just like super stoic is like actually just enlightened?Aella 0:07:16Well, it there's different like it depends what you mean by enlightened. Like stoic and happy is like one sort of conception of enlightenment, but there's lots of differentDwarkesh Patel 0:07:23ones.Aella 0:07:24There are probably people who like I interviewed one person who seemed like they didn't do anything. They just sort of like are that way all the time. It didn't seem like it was like a thing that occurred to them with any. So yeah, probably. I mean, like, I don't think that there's any like special soul like quality about it. I think like you could probably study the science of enlightenment or whatever kind of enlightenment you're talking about. Like obviously, it's replicable with brain states. And obviously, if you are enlightened, and we went to brain surgery, we could like undoDwarkesh Patel 0:07:48that.Aella 0:07:49So in that case, like it doesn't seem impossible to me that somebody could just be born with that like naturally very close to already there.Dwarkesh Patel 0:07:56Yeah, yeah. Did you meet anybody who you felt was enlightened in the strong sense in the Buddhist sense of like, this person has no thoughts? And no, like you could set him on fire and he would not suffer.Aella 0:08:06Is that the I'm terrible at Buddhism?Dwarkesh Patel 0:08:08No, but like in that sense of like, this guy's almost a god.Aella 0:08:12I've definitely met people who report not having like an internal monologue.Dwarkesh Patel 0:08:16Hmm. I don't believe them. Like they were answering questions. Yeah.Aella 0:08:20Like I've had experience times where I have no internal monologue before, but like the like responses still come out or something interesting.Dwarkesh Patel 0:08:28Like there's no distance between you and what comes out.Aella 0:08:31Well, are you having an internal monologue right now? Yes. Like as you're talking, like, are there words coming in your head that aren't what you'reDwarkesh Patel 0:08:37saying? Yeah, I just I'm not self aware enough right now to observe them. But if I was, I'm pretty sure I would, because I'm thinking about what I'm gonna ask you next or how I'm like, they just yeah, you're saying, yeah, I'm not exactly sure how toAella 0:08:48interpret it. Like there's a way where my guess is the words just like kind of emerge without there being any sort of like word process that happens beforehand. Which seems like a plausible state to me, seems like not an insane thing that human brains can do. Human brains can do insane s**t, right? Like, like your internal felt sense can be so radically different, just just literally evidenced by drugs, like you just take an insane drug, your mental state can change. So we know that it's possible for the brain to be in a state where this is the case.Dwarkesh Patel 0:09:15When you escort, do you charge extra to men who you find less attractive?Aella 0:09:19No, not at all. Uh, no, it feels like counter sort of my psychology. Like in my, my psychology around escorting is that it's like a job, and it doesn't have to do with my personal desires whatsoever. So if I were like charging, I don't really enjoy the same way. It's like, I don't know.Dwarkesh Patel 0:09:39Right, right. It's like, it's like completely independent, which is necessary for me, like, I think IAella 0:09:46have to be completely independent in some way of like my actual preferences in order to do it. Like if I were actually checking in with like, what do I want in this moment? I'd probably be like, I don't want to be here, I don't want to be f*****g a stranger. So I guess like, I just can't let that in at all.Dwarkesh Patel 0:10:00Yeah, how about both bulk discounting?Aella 0:10:03Both discounting?Dwarkesh Patel 0:10:04Discounting, like if somebody gets like a, like a lot, four straight sessions or somethingAella 0:10:08that that seems like more reasonable. That's like a business choice. I don't, I never did that.Dwarkesh Patel 0:10:13But like, I think that could do that. When I tell her how it on the podcast, we're talking about how the people who are top in any field often are smarter, because they have to think about how to get top in their field, somebody like a top YouTube creator, they've actually done a lot of analysis of how to get to the top of, you know, the leaderboards there. Yeah, are the top X-Squads and cam girls, are they noticeably smarter?Aella 0:10:35My guess is yes. Like, like, for example, the OnlyFans, I did very, very well on OnlyFans. I think that was because probably I'm like, smarter than the average. But it was surprising to me, like, especially like camming. Like, I was a cam girl and then for a long time, and this is like really, really competitive. It's competitive because you can see what other girls are doing at all times. So you know exactly what the techniques are, and the techniques proliferate much faster. And there's also stuff like branding and seduction and it's really high intensity, high pressureDwarkesh Patel 0:11:03environment.Aella 0:11:04Again, because like with camming, the site I was using, MyFreeCams, your ranking is determined by your average earnings per hour of live streaming over the past 60 days. And your rankings affect how many more people come into your room. So every time you're streaming, it's like really high pressure, because if you don't do well for an hour, this is gonna make it harder for you in the future. So it's really stressful. Anyway, so I went from that to escorting and escorting what other people are doing are not visible, or techniques are not viewable at all. And they and I think as a result of this, like low pressure, like, private slow thing, there was no ecosystem for like escort like tech strategies to really have like a highly competitive atmosphere. So I just brought all of my techniques from camming in regards to marketing, and I think I just blew it out of the water. Interesting. It was like I was shocked at how terrible the cop I was like this is what the landscape is like, like I could beat.Dwarkesh Patel 0:11:54How do you figure out what the competition is like?Aella 0:11:56You just talk to people? You can look at other escort websites.Dwarkesh Patel 0:11:58Oh, yeah, sure.Aella 0:11:59And you don't exactly know how much they're earning. I did a survey where I asked about earnings.Dwarkesh Patel 0:12:05But it's hard to know. What has building an escort profile? What does that talk to you about building a dating profile? Like, what advice would you give to somebody on building a Tinder or Bumble profile basedAella 0:12:15on I mean, the incentives are different. If you're building an escort profile, the thing that you want is money. Yeah, like that's what you're optimizing for on an escort or sorry, dating profile, you're optimizing for compatibility. So like with escorting, like you're trying to like, make find the kind of messaging that is appealing to the maximum number of people, which maybe is what men do when they're on a dating profile. But for me, I'm trying to alienate the correct people as as a dater. Like I don't want the people coming to me who aren't going to enjoy me actually. Like if I like did the same kind of escort advertising as I did dating, like I would just get a billion men and then like not want them because like, no, it's not I'm not like presenting my my real self like the kinds of things that are actually definitive about like what's going to make us a good match or not. So it's really all about like, sorry, dating profiles or advertising is all about likeDwarkesh Patel 0:13:04D selection.Aella 0:13:05Like how are we not going to get along here that like the deal breakers, you put them up front like. So in my dating profiles, I'm always like I'm poly, sex worker, like weird, right?Dwarkesh Patel 0:13:15That sort of thing. Yeah, narrow casting versus broadcasting. At what age do you feel like you could have consented to sex work? Is like 18 too young, too high?Aella 0:13:25Me personally, could have consented probably 15. I don't know. Like I think like if I had if I were in like the right kind of culture and at 15, like this were available to me and I took it, I think in hindsight, I've been like, yeah,Dwarkesh Patel 0:13:38that seems like a.Aella 0:13:40Right decision that I made that I'm willing to take responsibility for.Dwarkesh Patel 0:13:43Yeah, personally, how about the difference between I guess escorting a cam girl is that when you're putting video out there, it stays there forever, escorting it just like you regret it. I guess it's not there forever. I mean, do you see a difference there or in terms of like, would you is there a different age that makes sense for both or? Oh, yeah.Aella 0:14:02I mean, it's like a little confusing. We don't really have consistent standards about like how many permanent decisions youngDwarkesh Patel 0:14:08people can make.Aella 0:14:09Like we groom young teens into paying a lot of money for college pretty early, which I consider to be like a worse decision than going into sex work. Like in regards to the permanent impact it has on your life.Dwarkesh Patel 0:14:25So I don't know.Aella 0:14:26Yeah, but yeah, I mean, in regards to like the thing is, it depends heavily on culture. Like we're in a culture where like we have a lot of incentive against doing your sex work. I'm uniquely suited to it, but a lot of women aren't. And a lot of women would like suffer actual emotional damage if they did it. And like, it's important to know that. And so if we had like a culture that like adequately informed people, if you're like, ah, like, you kind of know a little bit earlier on whether or not this is going to like destroyDwarkesh Patel 0:14:51your soul or not.Aella 0:14:54So it depends on like how much knowledge we have access to. If we had really good access to it, then I'd be like, yeah, you could probably consentDwarkesh Patel 0:14:59younger. You should actually make that a goal or you might have already had. Would you rather be $200,000 in debt at 22 or have a porn video of you out there?Aella 0:15:07I have done this. I mean, a version of this. Yes. And it was I think most people would rather have a porn video.Dwarkesh Patel 0:15:11Okay.Aella 0:15:12Yeah. But again, a lot of my response, respondents are male, which might be skimming it.Dwarkesh Patel 0:15:16Yeah, yeah. Fair enough. Fair enough. So I've read this theory that if you're a medieval peasant and you encounter a beautiful church symphony for the first time, before you would be like a psychedelic experience. Do you find that plausible given your experience with psychedelics?Aella 0:15:30Have you just said? Yeah.Dwarkesh Patel 0:15:32Okay.Aella 0:15:33Maybe. Yeah. Like, I guess there's like a test where like, if you encountered a church service as a medieval peasant for the hundredth time, it would be like, so beautiful, but less cool. And this also seems to hold true with psychedelics, at least for me.Dwarkesh Patel 0:15:44Yeah.Aella 0:15:45I don't. I mean, what the thing is, you're just finding like a level of beauty that you had not found before that is really incredible.Dwarkesh Patel 0:15:51Yeah, which seems to be true. So yes. I guess then the question is, is it just that is the experience of listening to your first symphony the same as me putting on Spotify, except you just haven't heard it before? So surprising, or is the actual experience like getting on a psychedelic high? You know what I mean?Aella 0:16:09There's nothing like getting on a psychedelic high. Nothing. I mean, like, there's like the sense of beauty and awe is great. And I think there's that in psychedelics. But there's like a kind of like novelty in psychedelics that are just utterly on. Like I can conceive of like a beautiful thing. But like, even right now, I cannot easily conceive of being on psychedelics, despite having taken them a huge amount of time.Dwarkesh Patel 0:16:32Right. If I told you, you can press a button, and you will experience one random emotion or sensation in the whole repertoire of everything a human can experience, including on drugs, you press that button? Yes.Aella 0:16:45You do?Dwarkesh Patel 0:16:46Okay. Yeah, would you?Aella 0:16:48There's a lot of like, a lot of suffering states.Dwarkesh Patel 0:16:49Yeah.Aella 0:16:50But I guess I'm like, I optimize really hard for interesting as opposed to pleasant.Dwarkesh Patel 0:16:54Yeah. I guess that is what taking psychedelics is like. But I don't know, it's a daunting prospect. It could get pretty bad.Aella 0:17:03Are you trying to figure out if you should take them more?Dwarkesh Patel 0:17:05No, this is not even about psychedelics. It's just, are you maximizing the value of your experiences? Or I guess the volatility of your experiences?Aella 0:17:15I just like trying to feel everything that there is.Dwarkesh Patel 0:17:17Do you feel like you've done that?Aella 0:17:21Probably not. But there's a lot to feel.Dwarkesh Patel 0:17:25Is it important that you remember what it was like? Because we were just talking about how you'll forget what many of the sensations were like.Aella 0:17:31Maybe? I mean, depends on what it's for. It's nice to remember, but it's also kind of nice to forget too. There's a way where I just don't have easy access to a lot of quite intense suffering memories, which is nice right now because I can talk to you. So I don't know.Dwarkesh Patel 0:17:47When you think back to the days when you were taking a lot of psychedelics, how much do you feel like you actually uncovered the truths about your mind and the universe? And then how much are you just like, I was just tripping back then. I don't know how much of the stuff was accurate. It was good.Aella 0:18:02Well, I think that for me, the vast majority of psychedelic experience was like, in my head I have a division. Like for me, it was deconstruction as opposed to construction. I think like some people, not due to any fault of their own, I think it's like a brain chemistryDwarkesh Patel 0:18:16thing.Aella 0:18:17Like the experience they have in psychedelics is constructing beliefs. And usually you have this, when you do this, you kind of look back on the trip and you're like, well, I was believing some crazy s**t there for a while. That was kind of weird. But I never really had that because I never really believed a thing. It was more like observing my existing beliefs and then sort of taking them as object. Sort of no longer finding them to be like an absolute thing about reality, but rather like sort of a construction that I was already doing. And that I hold to all of it. I think everything that I experienced tripping was valuable in that way and led me to where I am now.Dwarkesh Patel 0:18:51What were the downsides? How is your personality change? Is there a downside you can identify in the deconstruction? It was just like so overwhelmingly worth it. I mean, the experience itself was often quite painful. And I was pretty non-functional during the time I was taking a lot and for like about a year afterwards.Aella 0:18:58So that was a downside. I would happily pay that downside several times over. But it wasn't like the most rewarding experience. I think it was like the most rewarding experience. I mean, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like,Dwarkesh Patel 0:19:18you had that tweet recently about how you experienced executive dysfunction sometimes. And then there's a story about you working at 50 five hours a week at the factory when you were 19, right?Aella 0:19:29Yeah.Dwarkesh Patel 0:19:30So is do you think that might be because this I can elitist or executive disruption?Aella 0:19:34when I worked at the factory.Dwarkesh Patel 0:19:35But you were just working 55 hours a week anyways?Aella 0:19:37Yeah, well, I was horrible. I remember being at that factory and being really confused about the way other people were there. I was like, this is clearly not what I wanna do with my life. This is actively terrible. But other people were like, oh, I've been here 10 years and this is just fine.Dwarkesh Patel 0:19:56And I was not doing well.Aella 0:19:57I think I'm pretty, Jess would be like, we're pretty smart. But I was scoring really low in my accuracy and speed at the factory. And I think this is an example of my executive dysfunction issues. And even when I wasn't working at the factory, it was not very productive at all.Dwarkesh Patel 0:20:12What do you think is the difference between psychology between you and those people? Was it just that they enjoyed it more or they just were able to suppress the boredom? Or what do you think happened?Aella 0:20:22Yeah, I'm not sure. Part of it might be just they, maybe if I had just done it for some more years, I would have adjusted. But also, I don't know, I had been homeschooled and I think maybe school prepares you, like normal school prepares you better for a job like that. But you just have to sit and do tasks you don't want to for the entire day.Dwarkesh Patel 0:20:41So, I don't know.Aella 0:20:44I do think also just my brain's different. I seem to be extremely novelty-oriented compared to most people. And my guess is that just made me really not, and just attention, my attention is terrible.Dwarkesh Patel 0:20:56Speaking of which, if you were homeschooling your kids, or I guess if you were raising kids, what does their schooling look like? What kinds of decisions do they get to make when? Do you have some sense of how would you raise a child?Aella 0:21:08I'm not sure, I think maybe unschooling.Dwarkesh Patel 0:21:10Yeah.Aella 0:21:11I'm leaning more and more in that direction. My school wasn't great. The quality of it wasn't excellent. It also, I was forced to learn things I didn't want to, but at least it wasn't a huge part of my life. And the things that, now when I look back on my childhood, the things that feel the most valuable for me to have learned was almost entirely stuff that I did myself. On my off time, the learning that I performed by my own incentive, that's what stuck with me. That's what feels like it lasted. And so I'm like, s**t, if that's the case, I should just let my kids learn what the f**k they want, and just enable them, right? Put interesting things around them, and give them a project, if you wanna do this project, you're gonna have to learn these skills in order to do it.Dwarkesh Patel 0:21:51Well, what are some examples?Aella 0:21:53Of projects?Dwarkesh Patel 0:21:54Things you taught yourself when you were a kidAella 0:21:55that you thought were invaluable.Dwarkesh Patel 0:21:56Well, I read a huge amount,Aella 0:21:58which I think led to me being a good writer today. I just read books about things, I don't know. I learned juggling, a lot of physical comedy stuff. I did some movies, some short movies. You know, something like that.Dwarkesh Patel 0:22:15Could you juggle right now? I'm not asking you to.Aella 0:22:17I could, not super well, but a lot of random little skills, which have turned out to be much more relevantDwarkesh Patel 0:22:23to my life than before. Yeah, yeah, interesting.Aella 0:22:26But also, I remember I read psychology books. Just stuff that, in hindsight, psychology books about personality.Dwarkesh Patel 0:22:33I really liked that. I mean, it sounds like you probably didn't have a TV in your Christian fundamentalist house. Oh, we did.Aella 0:22:39We just had TV Guardian installed on it.Dwarkesh Patel 0:22:41Gotcha. So, could you just have watched TV the entire day if you wanted to, or was that not an option? I'm wondering if the voracious reader was because of all the other options were cut off, or you could have just explored?Aella 0:22:53Oh, no, I was obsessed with the reading, yeah. No, not because other options were cut off.Dwarkesh Patel 0:22:57Yeah, yeah, yeah.Aella 0:22:58I made it a vice to read in the shower, because I didn't like showering without reading.Dwarkesh Patel 0:23:03It just took too long without reading.Aella 0:23:06I would read by moonlight after my parents to turn off the lights. When we were driving in the car, you'd hold up the book to read by the headlights of the person behind you.Dwarkesh Patel 0:23:13Yeah, yeah, sounds like an addiction. Yeah.Aella 0:23:16I read about, for a while, I was reading about a novel a day.Dwarkesh Patel 0:23:20Hmm, was it science fiction or fantasy?Aella 0:23:22Anything I could get my hands on.Dwarkesh Patel 0:23:23Yeah, yeah, yeah. How did you get your hands on it? Was there a library nearby?Aella 0:23:28No, well, I would just reread what I had a lot.Dwarkesh Patel 0:23:30Uh-huh.Aella 0:23:31And just, I would get books as gifts for Christmas,Dwarkesh Patel 0:23:36because clearly that was my priority. Right, right, yeah. Do you think that the ratio of submissives and dominance has changed over time? If you went back 50 years, do you think there'd be more dominance than submissives, or even more so, or?Aella 0:23:50Well, my one hypothesis is tied to testosterone, and if testosterone levels have actually been decreasing over time, then this would cause people to get more submissive.Dwarkesh Patel 0:23:59Yeah.Aella 0:24:00So maybe.Dwarkesh Patel 0:24:02Berne Hovart had this interesting theory, where he was pointing out, it's possible that the decline in testosterone we've seen, that's not just the last 50 years, it's been going on for hundreds or thousands of years. So if you went back to the ancient Greeks, they just steroided up men.Aella 0:24:16Like masks. Yeah. That's such a funny idea. But if that were true, would we be seeing a decline in testosterone over the last, I don't know how many decades,Dwarkesh Patel 0:24:28enough to notice? I don't know how you would notice that. You would maybe notice that there's fewer wars, which it is the case, there's fewer wars. I mean.Aella 0:24:38How do we know that testosterone has been decreasing?Dwarkesh Patel 0:24:40Is it just? Oh yeah, we measure the blood concentration, right?Aella 0:24:42Okay, okay, yeah.Dwarkesh Patel 0:24:44I'm assuming. That's what I thought.Aella 0:24:45So it's gotta be over the last few decades, right?Dwarkesh Patel 0:24:47Yeah, yeah, but we don't know. We don't have any data before that.Aella 0:24:50Yeah, but we know the rate of change,Dwarkesh Patel 0:24:52so we could like. Yeah. Well yeah, I mean it wasn't infinite in history,Aella 0:24:57so at some point it's like.Dwarkesh Patel 0:24:58I know.Aella 0:24:59Kind of like, kind of peaked, right?Dwarkesh Patel 0:25:01Yeah.Aella 0:25:02Oh. Yeah, I don't know. I really don't. I should have the data now to look, because I did a survey for people on hormone replacement therapy. To see if people who've started testosterone report. Yeah. And I did find that. But it is a little confusing, because you don't know how much of it is like, narrative or culturally induced. Like, if you're expected to become more masculine when you take testosterone. Like, is this like, psychologically making you believe that you are more interested in being dominant? It's unclear. So I incorporated a question into my survey recently. Like, just the last minute, honestly. Asking just like, are you on HRT? If so, how long?Dwarkesh Patel 0:25:37Yeah.Aella 0:25:38So I should be able to just see if that correlatesDwarkesh Patel 0:25:40with just interest in dominance. Yeah. It would also be interesting to see, another question might be, what age are you? And when you were 20, were you more dominant than submissive?Aella 0:25:53And then- Oh, to see if it changes over time?Dwarkesh Patel 0:25:54Or you would just have, if a 60 year old was really dominant when he was 20, then you'd know that, I don't know, 60 year old. People who were born in 1980 or something. Yeah.Aella 0:26:03Oh, you mean like, if it's correlated with age?Dwarkesh Patel 0:26:05Yeah. Or just like, if people born earlier were more dominant.Aella 0:26:08I found like, a surprisingly lack of correlations with age. Interesting. I mean, yeah, I could put my laptop on my lapDwarkesh Patel 0:26:14and then look at the correlations live here, but. Do you think weird fetishes, like the weirdest stuff, is that a modern thing? Or if you went back 500 years, people would have been into that kind of s**t? Yeah, I think so.Aella 0:26:25It's just like, the really weird stuff is very rare. Like we're talking like 1%, 0.1%. Like, I mean, it's correlated with rarity. Like the weirder it is, the more rare it is.Dwarkesh Patel 0:26:34Kind of necessarily, because if people had it,Aella 0:26:36then everybody would be like, oh, this is normal. But yeah, my guess is that it's like,Dwarkesh Patel 0:26:39has something to do with like a randomAella 0:26:42early childhood neonatal thing. And like, I haven't been able to find any correlates with childhood stuff, which makes me think it's more innate. And if it's more innate, then it's more likely to have existed for a very long time.Dwarkesh Patel 0:26:53Yeah, yeah. And people who just had weirder and more different experiences in the past. Like if you're just in some sort of cult without any sort of internet or any other sort of experience with the outside world. I don't know, the volatility of your kinks might've just been more, I don't know. Is that possible?Aella 0:27:11Well, the data seems to suggest it's not really based on experience.Dwarkesh Patel 0:27:14Yeah.Aella 0:27:15Mostly, I mean, there's like some small exceptions. Interesting. But, so no, also I'm like, I'm not sure that experience was more varied in the past. Like maybe, like the internet is kind of homogenizing, but.Dwarkesh Patel 0:27:29So, since the FTX saga happened, people have discovered Caroline Ellison's blog. I don't know if you've seen this on Twitter. And now she's become, you know, every nerd's crush because of her online writing.Aella 0:27:40Oh, really? I mostly just see people dunking on her.Dwarkesh Patel 0:27:43Oh yeah, well, there's both, there's both. Do people, this probably wasn't in your kinks survey, but in just general, what is your suspicion about, do people find verbal ability and, you know, that kind of ability very attractive based on online writing or, is that a good signal you can send?Aella 0:28:02I mean, yes, like intelligence and competence is pretty attractive across the board.Dwarkesh Patel 0:28:07So if you're signaling that you're smart. You can signal that by just, I don't know, having a college degree from an impressive university, right, but.Aella 0:28:15I mean, it's like kind of better signal.Dwarkesh Patel 0:28:17Yeah, yeah.Aella 0:28:18Like people who have college degrees from impressive universities, I don't think are really that smart.Dwarkesh Patel 0:28:23Yeah.Aella 0:28:24And like probably like actually demonstrating like direct smartness is a lot more convincing.Dwarkesh Patel 0:28:30Yeah, yeah.Aella 0:28:31So it makes sense.Dwarkesh Patel 0:28:32I think her writing is funny and good. You had this really interesting post. I forgot the title of it, but it was a recent one about how the guys who are being authentic are more attractive.Aella 0:28:44Yeah. The thing that like I noticed while I was doing this, that I was attracted to,Dwarkesh Patel 0:28:49was like somebody like,Aella 0:28:50like sort of being independent of my perspective. Like a lot of time in, when I'm like talking to a guy who I can tellDwarkesh Patel 0:28:56is attracted to me and he's like, I don't know.Aella 0:28:59Like there's a way where he's like trying to orient himself to be what I want. Like very subconsciously, I think, or like subtly in body language, like mirroring, for example, like if I like sit one way and then he sits that way, I'm like, okay, this is an example of like trying to orient yourself into like the kind of person that is going to like be, make me attracted to you. Yeah. I was just like a reasonable strategy. You know, I'm not begrudging anybody this, but I think like women in general are kind of, like it's sort of like an arms race between the genders. And I think women are really attuned to this. Like women are like really good at like sussing out how much authenticity is going on. And so in this experience, when the guy was like talking to me, like some part I noticed that I was like meditating on my experience and connection with this person or these people, I noticed that some part of my brain was like, just like checking like really hard. Like, do I think this person is like masking anything at all right now?Dwarkesh Patel 0:29:54Or is he like unashamed about what he is? Sort of thing. I guess I still understand if somebody is attracted to you, they're going to maybe mirror your body language. What is the way they do that in which they're masking? And what is the way they're doing that in which they're being honest about their intentions? Is it, how does their body language change?Aella 0:30:17Like usually what you are is like quiet and flattering to somebody else. Like when I was like doing this workshop, like people were saying things to me that would typically be considered faux pas. And make people not attracted to you. Like somebody's expressing that they wanted to hurt me,Dwarkesh Patel 0:30:33for example.Aella 0:30:38But like I would prefer somebody do that or something.Dwarkesh Patel 0:30:42Say that they want to or? Yeah. Not to it.Aella 0:30:45Well, not actually hurt me. I prefer not to be hurt most of the time. But there's something like, like there's a way when somebody is like attracted to me and like doing a modified thing. It feels like, one, I don't get to actually know what's going on with them. Like I don't get to see them. I'm seeing like a machine designed to make me feel a certain way. And this is like scary because I don't know what's going on. And I don't know who you are. Like I don't know what's going to happen once you finally have like come and no longer want me anymore. And like somebody who, and it also like is like, my cynic side interprets it as like a dominance thing. Like if you actually don't need me, if your self-worth is not dependent on me whatsoever, if this is like truly an equal game, then you aren't going to need to modify yourself at all. You can just like be who you are, alienate me, like be at risk of alienating me and then f*****g alienate me and you're going to be 100% fine. And like, that's hot. That's hot because like when a guy can signal he doesn't need me, this means that he's like a higher rank than me,Dwarkesh Patel 0:31:51like equal or higher. Yeah. No, okay, so that doesn't sound like authenticity then but it sounds just like how badly do you want me? You know what I mean? Like how, yeah, how eager are you?Aella 0:32:03Well, it's like, it's kind of like a loop or something. Like it's hot to not want somebody, but it's hot because you actually have to not want them. Like it's hot to not have somebody like be trying to get something from youDwarkesh Patel 0:32:17for their purposes.Aella 0:32:19Like just don't conceal.Dwarkesh Patel 0:32:20Right.Aella 0:32:21Like, and even if the thing you're not concealing is like a desperate burning desire, if you're like, man, I just like really would want to bang you and I'm like afraid of what you think of me. And, but I'm like, I want you so bad. Like that's hotter than trying to hide the fact that you're doing it.Dwarkesh Patel 0:32:35Yeah.Aella 0:32:36Yeah. I would like, I would consider banging a guy who's just like laid it all out because like by laying it all out, you're like offering up yourself to be rejected. This means that you're like, you're going to be okay even if I reject you.Dwarkesh Patel 0:32:48And like, that's the, so nice. I wonder how universal that is. Like you go to the average girl and you're just like, I really want to just f**k your face or something. What would happen?Aella 0:32:58I mean, it would probably be polarizing. Yeah. The thing is like by being honest, like you might actually make yourself be rejected. Like the point is not like if you're doing it to be accepted, like that's defeating the purpose. Like you just like offer yourself up and they accept you or they reject you. It's like the stupid f*****g annoying Buddhist concept where like by not trying you get the thing, but you have to like actually not try. You have to actually be in touch with the negative outcome and be like, this is real. And which just happened. Like there, like I probably wouldn't f**k a lot of the guys that I talked to despite non-concealing, but like I still, when they were like open and honest, it still like put them into a frame where they could have been sexual. Whereas like before I was like, you're not even in my landscape of like a potential partner. But like by being honest, I was like, now I'm actually doing the evaluation, like actively doing it and considering you in a sexual way, which was like a big leap.Dwarkesh Patel 0:33:51Yeah, yeah. The Buddhist guy to pick up artistry.Aella 0:33:54I'm like, that's a great, that'd be a great book.Dwarkesh Patel 0:33:57What is charisma? When you notice somebody is being charismatic, like what is happening? Is that body language? Is that internal? And I guess more fundamentally, what is it that you're signaling about yourself when you're being charismatic?Aella 0:34:11I mean, like charismatic, charisma can probably refer to a lot of things, but like the concept that I'm mapping it onto is something like when they make me think that they like me in a way that feels like not needy. And you can break it down into like body language signaling or like social moves. But I think like the core of it is like, like you know when you enter a party and like there's somebody who like is like fun to be around and they really like you, or it seems like they're like welcoming or like, ah, hey, you know, they put you on the back, they make a joke and then they like,Dwarkesh Patel 0:34:43you know, flitter off and you're like, ah, that's that person. Yeah. In movies, TV shows, games, what is the most inaccurate, what do they get most wrong about sex and relationships? What is the trope that's most wrong about this?Aella 0:34:58Well, I mean, okay, I'm, I have a personal pedestal, which might be like slightly besides your question, but like the f*****g monogamy thing. Like I get, I'm down if people want to do monogamy, but it's always, it's like 100% monogamy. And cheating is like always like the worst possible thing ever and that bothers me. I just wish there was a little bit of occasionally, once in a while, there's like, you know, we call it monoplot. My, I have a friend who yelled like monoplot every time there's like a plot, lining in a story that is, could be resolved by being just likeDwarkesh Patel 0:35:32slightly less monogamous.Aella 0:35:34And I'm like, every plot's a monoplot, like you don't even have to be full poly, you just have to like have like a slight amount of flexibility, like, oh, well, then just bring me over for a threesome. Like, but that's not even on the table. I'm like, not, well, not only is it not on the table, but like, it feels like it doesn't represent the general population either. Like around 5% of people are polyamorous and probably like 15 to 30% are like, would be like open to some kind of exploration, like a little bit of looseness, which where is that in media? Nowhere, drives me crazy.Dwarkesh Patel 0:36:01But what you're saying is you take Ross's side and they were on a break. Have you seen Friends?Aella 0:36:06No.Dwarkesh Patel 0:36:07Okay, nevermind. It's a joke. The plot basically of the show, Money Seasons, was that one of the main characters thought he was on a break with his girlfriend and cheated on her or not. He had sex with somebody else. And that was just basically the plot for like three seasons.Aella 0:36:22Oh man. So you've engaged in activities,Dwarkesh Patel 0:36:26which are most likely to change a person, you know, psychedelics, you know, stuff relating to sex. How much do you think people can change? Because you're on like the spectrum of the things that are most likely to change you. You think people can fundamentally change?Aella 0:36:43No, I mean, like, it's like a weird question, but like, no. Like if I had to give a simplistic answer, like I think I'm very much the person that I was when I was a child or a teenager. I think it's like innate stuff is like really strong. Like I have a friend who was adopted, but happened to know both of his adoptive and his biological father, fathers. And so I asked like, what, like, who are you more like? Like which one impacted you more? And he says that he just has the temperament of his biological father, but like all of like the weird quirks and hangups of his adopted one. And I think like when it comes like temperament or like your base brain functioning in general, like this is like much more persistent and less open to change than most people think. Like, I think I'm basically the same as I was pre psychedelics,Dwarkesh Patel 0:37:29except with like a lot of maturity over timeAella 0:37:33being added on.Dwarkesh Patel 0:37:35So your mission to experience every single experience out there, is that, that's not geared towards changing your personality anyway. It just.Aella 0:37:43No, yeah.Dwarkesh Patel 0:37:44Yeah, yeah. But you're not, you say you can't remember many of these. So what is motivating it? Like it's not to remember it, it's not to change yourself. What is the-Aella 0:37:53Curiosity? I'm just very curious.Dwarkesh Patel 0:37:56I don't know what it's like. Yeah. But it's weird, right? Because when you're curious about something, you hope to understand it and then internalize it. Like if I'm curious about an idea, it would be weird if I like read the book and I forgot about it. It wouldn't feel satisfying to my curiosity.Aella 0:38:11Yeah, well, there's some, like I think a lot of the way people operate is like sometimes you read a book and you might forget the book, but the book like updates your priors. Like the book like describes some way that the world like history worked in the war. And then you sort of like, kind of update your predictions about like the kinds of things that caused war and the kinds of reactions people have. And you forget the book, but you hold the priors. I think that's still really valuable. And I think like a lot of that has happened to me. Like I may have forgotten the experience themselves specifically, but it updated my model of the world. And also like my model of how I react and what I'm capable of. Like I went through like a lot of, you know, intense pain and suffering with psychedelics. And I maybe have forgotten that, but like there's some like deep sense of safety I have now around experiencing pain and grief that like I just carry with me all the time. So like it like sort of molded. And I know that I said that people don't really change, but I mean, that was like a little bit offhanded. Like there's obviously ways people grow. Like obviously people, you're very different from yourself, you know, seven years ago or whatever.Dwarkesh Patel 0:39:08Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. I hope that's the case that you're updating your priors. Cause that would mean that all the books I don't remember, should they have like in some sense been useful to me, but I suspect that that might just be co-op on my end and it's like gone forever.Aella 0:39:23I doubt it. I mean, did you have like any sort of like, ah, that sentence when you were reading the books?Dwarkesh Patel 0:39:28Yeah.Aella 0:39:30That's probably still there.Dwarkesh Patel 0:39:32Hopefully, hopefully. You've done a bunch of internet polls, many of them in statistically significant. What advice do you have for political pollsters based on?Aella 0:39:42I don't really follow political pollsters. I don't know. I mean, advice for polls in generalDwarkesh Patel 0:39:48is just have better wording.Aella 0:39:49Like I'm really surprised. I was, I mean, again, I'm taking a side note, but like I went, I want to include some big five questionsDwarkesh Patel 0:39:56in my really big survey.Aella 0:39:58And I understand that the way that they selectDwarkesh Patel 0:40:00big five questions is just,Aella 0:40:02as far as I know, like factor analysis, you just pick the most predictive questions. So it's not like people were like, ah, this is the question, but still like the wording of the questions was terrible. Like it's so much easier to make clearer questions. And I did use the big five questions. I forget exactly what they were, but I'm just like, is this what's going on with surveys in general? Like you don't want to, you want to be careful when you have a question to have it as worded so that people take them as homogenous a meaning from it as possible. But most of the other polls I see in other surveys and other research, it's like people just sort of thought of a good question and kind of slapped it down and never really deeply dug into like studied how people respond to this question, which I think is probably my best comparative advantage is that I've had like a really massive amount of experience over many years and thousands of polls to see exactly how your wording can be misinterpreted in every possible way. And so right now I think probably my best skill is like knowing how to write something to be as like very precise as possible.Dwarkesh Patel 0:41:02Yeah. How do you come up with these polls by the way? You just have an interesting question that comes up in a discussion or?Aella 0:41:07Often it's with discussions with friends. Like we'll be talking about something and somebody brings up like a concept or a what if. And I just have like a module in my brain now that translates everything to potential Twitter polls. So like whenever something like generates a concept,Dwarkesh Patel 0:41:20I'll go put that in a poll. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hey guys, I hope you're enjoying the conversation so far. If you are, I would really, really appreciate it if you could share the episode with other people who you think might like it. This is still a pretty small podcast. So it's basically impossible for me to exaggerate how much it helps out when one of you shares the podcast. You know, put the episode in the group chat you have with your friends, post it on Twitter, send it to somebody who you think might like it. All of those things helps out a ton. Anyways, back to the conversation. I found it surprising you've been tweeting about your saga of learning and applying different statistical tools in Python. And I found it surprising, don't you have like a thousand nerdy reply guys who would be happy to help you out? How is this not a soft problem?Aella 0:42:16People are not good at helping you learn Python.Dwarkesh Patel 0:42:18At least not good at helping you.Aella 0:42:20At least not good at helping me learn Python. There are some people who are really good, but sometimes when I'm trying to learn Python, it's like at 3 a.m. and they're all sleeping. So I'm not saying that like everybody, I have some people who are like really excellentDwarkesh Patel 0:42:30at understanding and responding to me.Aella 0:42:31But when I'm tweeting, usually it's like, I don't wanna bother them or they're on break or something. And I have a chat where people help me, but often it's very frustrating. Because I, they just like, they're trying to explain, what I want, the way that I like to learn is, you just give me the code, give me the code that I know works. I do it, I test it, I see it, whether it works. And after that, then I go throughDwarkesh Patel 0:42:51and I try to understand the code.Aella 0:42:52But what people wanna do is they wanna explain to meDwarkesh Patel 0:42:54how it works before they do it.Aella 0:42:55Or, and it's not really their fault, but it's like there's the unfortunate thing where if somebody wants to help you do a problem, usually they have to go do a little bit of research themselves because programming is such a wide, vast landscape. Like people just don't offhandedly know the answer to your question. And so it requires a bit of work on their part. And it requires them being like, oh, maybe it's this. And then they post a bit of code. And, but you don't know, I try it and like it doesn't work. And they're like, ah, well, I'll try this other thing. And then it becomes like a collaborative problem solving process, which is like more annoying to me. I mean, it's necessary. I'm not saying it's their fault at all. It's like my fault for being annoyed. But I just want like, give me the answer. And then we can go through the whole like questions about it.Dwarkesh Patel 0:43:32Have you tried using CoPilot by the way? I haven't.Aella 0:43:34You got it.Dwarkesh Patel 0:43:35Yeah.Aella 0:43:36It's gonna solve all your problems.Dwarkesh Patel 0:43:37That's what people said. Yeah. It's like the ultimate. Okay. Autocompletor. It's like basically what you're asking for.Aella 0:43:42I was like trying to like look into it recently,Dwarkesh Patel 0:43:44but this is like the push that I need to. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I had heard about it too. And then my friend is just like, I'm gonna watch you install CoPilot right now. Don't say you're gonna install it. And yeah, it's been very valuable.Aella 0:43:57That's good. That's a useful anecdote.Dwarkesh Patel 0:43:59Yeah, yeah. I found your post about hanging out with elites really interesting.Aella 0:44:05Hanging out with elites, yeah. Do you, and I was wondering,Dwarkesh Patel 0:44:08is it possible that all the elites feel the same way about being there that you did? They're all like, this is kind of bizarre and boring. And I guess I'll just try to fit in. You know, is that possible? Or do you think they were actually different?Aella 0:44:22I guess it's probably a little of both. Like I wouldn't be surprised if everybody else felt it more than I thought. But also I would be surprisedDwarkesh Patel 0:44:28if everybody else felt it as much as me.Aella 0:44:30Because like when I do have like, it seems like I do have a like actually very different background than most of the people. And most of the people I asked about their backgrounds and they usually come from like much wealthier familiesDwarkesh Patel 0:44:41than I did.Aella 0:44:42Like went to school. Usually that's a big thing.Dwarkesh Patel 0:44:43They went to college. That's a huge, big, to me,Aella 0:44:47like if you're in my group or not in my group,Dwarkesh Patel 0:44:48is did you go to college? Yeah. And I feel like much more at ease with people who didn't. But when you're talking about these boring conversations, I know you were calling them. Do you think that they also thought it was boring, but that they were supposed to have those conversations? Or do you think they were actually enjoying it?Aella 0:45:01I don't know. Like recently I was at a party and I was like, okay, I'm not, I'm just staying at this party, but like, okay, let's take matters into our own hands. I'm just gonna run up to groups of peopleDwarkesh Patel 0:45:11and ask them like the weirdest question I can think of.Aella 0:45:14And then, and in my mind, I was like, okay, if I'm standing up there, standing at a party and somebody runs up to me with a weird question, I'd be like, f**k yes, let's go. Like, okay, I would like respond with a weirder question. I'd be like, let's dig into this. You know, I would be so f*****g thrilled. And so I was at this party, what I would consider to be like in the crowds of elite. It was like a little bit of a, it was like a party, less like a cocktail thing where people like be smart at each other and more like a get drunk and dance thing. But it was still like a much higher end kind of, so tickets were like really expensive. So I went around, I ran, I asked a whole bunch of people weird questions and just, like people obviously were like down to participate in like somebody trying to initiate conversation with them. But like the resulting conversations were not interesting at all.Dwarkesh Patel 0:45:57I was shocked with like how few conversationsAella 0:46:01were interesting. It was just people,Dwarkesh Patel 0:46:02it was just like, there was nothing there.Aella 0:46:05And I'm like, are you not all desperate to like cling on to something more fascinating than what's currently happening? It seemed like they weren't. I just got that impression.Dwarkesh Patel 0:46:12But do you think they were enjoying what they were doing?Aella 0:46:15That you mean just the normal conversation? Yeah. I think so. If they weren't, they would be searching for something else, right?Dwarkesh Patel 0:46:21That's not obvious to me. Like people can sometimes just be super complacent and they're just like a status quo bias. Or they're just like, I don't wanna do anything too shocking.Aella 0:46:28Yeah, but if I'm handing them shocking on a platter, I run up to them. They didn't even have to do anything. I just like walk into the, I interrupt their conversation. I'm like, here's something.Dwarkesh Patel 0:46:36What is an example?Aella 0:46:38Like, like, like, you know, like what's the most controversial opinion you have?Dwarkesh Patel 0:46:43You just walk in like Peter Thiel.Aella 0:46:44Is that what he does?Dwarkesh Patel 0:46:46Oh, well, he has this, there's a famous Peter Thiel question about what is something you believe that nobody else agrees with you on? Or very people agree with you on.Aella 0:46:53Yeah, okay. I didn't know that, but yeah. My version is like, what's the most controversial? And then usually I say either like in the circle people discussingDwarkesh Patel 0:47:01or like people at this party.Aella 0:47:02And it's shocking how many people are like, I don't have a controversial opinion on. How do you, like out of all culture, like you think that this culture is the one that's 100% right and you don't agree with all of it? Like out of all of history, you think in like 500 years, we're gonna look back and be like, ah, yes, 2022, that was the year.Dwarkesh Patel 0:47:19So in their defense, I think what could be going on is you just have a bunch of beliefs and you just haven't categorized them, indexed them in terms of controversial or not controversial. And so on the spot, it just like you gotta search through every single belief you have. Like, is that controversial? Is that controversial?Aella 0:47:37Yeah, but you can make allowances for it. Like sometimes people are like, ooh, I don't know like which one is the most, you know, I'd have to think like.Dwarkesh Patel 0:47:43I have so many.Aella 0:47:44Right, or like, well, I mean, there's some things I disagree on, but they're not sure they're controversial. Like these count. Like there's like a kind of response people give when you know that the thing, the issue is not that they don't have a controversial opinion, but rather that like it's sorting. But like I've talked to people who are like, oh, I don't really have one. And I was like, you mean you don't have any? And I would like pride, like there's nothing that you believe. And they'd be like, no, not really. And like, maybe they were lying, but like usually people are like,Dwarkesh Patel 0:48:12well, I have one, but I'm afraid to say. And like that's. No.Aella 0:48:17Anyway, I don't know. I don't understand.Dwarkesh Patel 0:48:20I wonder if you were more specific, you would get some more controversial takes.Aella 0:48:24Like what's your most controversial opinionDwarkesh Patel 0:48:25like about this thing? Yeah, yeah. What should the age of consent be? You know what I mean?Aella 0:48:29Yeah, yeah. Sometimes I do questions like that,Dwarkesh Patel 0:48:31but I like the controversial one is a good opener.Aella 0:48:34It's like it gives you a lot of information about the other person. Like it gives you a fresh about what their social group is. But I also like the game. I've started transitioning to a game where I'm like, okay, you have to say a pin you hold. And if anybody in the group disagrees with it, they hold up a hand and you get pointsDwarkesh Patel 0:48:50for the amount of people that hold up a hand. Oh, yeah.Aella 0:48:52And the person who gets the most points wins. Because people have this horrible tendency. Like I'll be like, what's the most controversial opinionDwarkesh Patel 0:48:57that you have in this group?Aella 0:48:59And then they'll say a controversial opinion for the out group. And I'll be like, but does anybody actually disagree with that here? Like, oh, like Trump wasn't as horrible as people say he is.Dwarkesh Patel 0:49:09I'm like. Yeah, no. One interesting twist on that, by the way. Tyler Cowen had a twist on that question in his application for emergent mentors. So everybody's been asking the P.J. Teal question about what do you believe? And nobody else agrees with the most controversial opinion. And so it's kind of priced in at this point. And so Tyler's question on the application was, what is, what do you believe, what is like your most conventional belief? Like what is the thing you hold strongest that most people would agree with you on? And it kind of situates you in terms of what is the, where are you overlapping with the status quo?Aella 0:49:47Like, I feel confused about this. So I would probably say something like gravity is real.Dwarkesh Patel 0:49:52No, exactly. I think he's like looking for. Oh, something like that? You being conventional in a contrarian way. Maybe you just said something weird. Like, I believe that the feeling of the waves on my skin is beautiful and feels great, you know? It just shows you're not answering it in the normal way.Aella 0:50:08Oh, he wants the non-conventional answer.Dwarkesh Patel 0:50:10Yeah, yeah.Aella 0:50:12Yeah, I'm not a huge fan of that question though. Like I'm like not sure that question is like, like the best question to test for non-conventionality.Dwarkesh Patel 0:50:18Yeah, yeah. I would have thought by the way, that high-end escorts would be very familiar with elite culture. Because you watch these movies and these, you know, these escorts are going with rich CEOs at fundraiser dinners and stuff like that. I would have thought that actually the high-end escorts would be like very familiar with elite culture. Is that not the case or?Aella 0:50:38I mean, probably some are, but I'm not. I mean, like I've had a few people offer to take me to public events, but never actually happened. I've never appeared, like been hired to be aroundDwarkesh Patel 0:50:51like a man's social circle.Aella 0:50:53Usually people are very private about that.Dwarkesh Patel 0:50:55That's interesting. Because I would have thought one of the things rich men really probably want to do is signal social status. Probably even, potentially even more than have sex, right?Aella 0:51:04Maybe.Dwarkesh Patel 0:51:05To show that they have beautiful women around them.Aella 0:51:07Yeah, I think my guess is they would be seen as high risk. And I've known other escorts who have in fact been brought to events. So it's not that this doesn't happen, but like, I don't think it happens a lot,Dwarkesh Patel 0:51:17at least based on my experience. No, interesting.Aella 0:51:20It's possible that I'm not like pretty enough. It's possible that like a woman is very beautiful that she might get invited more often.Dwarkesh Patel 0:51:25But my guess is like,Aella 0:51:29like they can't trust that I know enough to be able to pass as an elite in those circles. Like I'm a weirdo sex worker who the f**k knows. Like, am I going to be doing drives in the bathroom? Am I going to be ta

I greet you in Jesus' precious name! It is Friday morning, it is the 9th of December, 2022, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today.This is Paul speaking: “My manner of life from my youth, which was spent from the beginning among my own nation at Jerusalem, all the Jews know.” Acts 26:4Then Agrippa said to Paul, “You almost persuade me to become a Christian.”Acts 26:28I want to speak to you today about the power of a personal testimony. There is nothing more powerful. Most of these men in the Bible are telling us about their personal testimony, their meeting with Jesus, their commitment, their repentance, and their new life. But I want to say to somebody who likes to tell people all about the past and then not too much about the present, a good testimony should be 25% of your previous life and 75% of your life since you met the Lord, otherwise, it doesn't come across too well.I have heard some guys go into great detail about all the horrible sordid things they did in their past and then they met Jesus and their lives changed and that's it. No, no, no! King Agrippa said to , “You almost persuade me to become a Christian (by your testimony).” Saul of Tarsus was determined to destroy as many Christians as he could. Then he got knocked off his horse on the road to Damascus and his life changed instantaneously, and instead of becoming a persecutor of the Christians, he became an apostle for the Lord Jesus Christ.I can tell you right now, I love listening to testimonies. You can ask my wife. Any book I buy will always be a biography or an autobiography if I can find one. I have read most of them. I just love to hear how God transforms men's and women's lives. I once was lost but now I am found, I was blind but now I can see - John Newton, what a story! But there are so many - what about that lady, Mary Slessor, that Scottish lassie that came from Aberdeen, where my folks come from? She went into the jungles of North-West Africa. She rescued little babies because in that particular area if twins were born they would automatically kill one twin. She adopted them and went where very few missionaries went - a woman with a powerful testimony.Go out today and tell people what Jesus means to you.God bless you and goodbye.

Damon Burton has built a thriving business helping companies drive traffic to their products with his proven SEO strategies.  In this episode he gives you the secrets to how he built his business with organic content strategies.  And how you can implement the same and GET RESULTS FAST.SEO is like the old grandfather of the industry 0:48Why you need to give value first.  5:08How to use LinkedIn to drive traffic to your content.7:14How to gain traction with this strategy. 10:32The three types of "content consumers". 12:49See Damon Burton here:Linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/in/damonburton/FB: https://www.facebook.com/damon.burtonFree SEO Book "Outrank": https://www.freeseobook.com/Blog: https://www.damonburton.com/https://www.seonational.com/___Want help getting your customer testimonials go to www.TestimonialGuy.comEmail me: contact@belove.mediaFor social Media:      https://www.instagram.com/mrmischaz/https://www.facebook.com/MischaZvegintzovSubscribe and share with your business associates who could use a listen!Transcript: Mischa Zvegintzov  00:00So, David Burton is a leading authority on SEO. And you built an an internationally successful search engine optimization company through the various strategies that you teach and that we're going to talk about. You've optimized websites for Inc 505,000 companies, NBA teams, businesses featured on Shark Tank. You've been featured in Forbes, entrepreneur, Buzzfeed, USA weekly, and an endless list of podcasts and SEO industry websites. But best of all, Damon, you help people stop paying for expensive ads that don't work. And you show people how to get traffic without ads, which I love. And everybody listening should love. Damon Burton  00:48Yes, it's, it's been interesting. So I've been doing this for 15 years. SEO specifically got into design about 20 years ago, I give you that that timeframe reference because it's been interesting to watch the attention in the industry. So 15 years ago, Seo was the new thing was the sexy thing got the attention. And then Google Ads started taking off Facebook ads got introduced. And so SEO never went away. But the mainstream attention went to paid ads. And it's so fascinating because some people don't even know that SEO exists. And SEO is like the old grandfather of the industry. And it's been around for a long time. But But what's more fascinating is the attention coming back, like the pendulum swinging back the other way, because people are getting burned out on paid ads. People are sick of the politics and the red tape and the compliance with paid ads. They're getting exhausted with ad accounts getting shut down with increasing cost per click. And so it's been really fascinating to see. Things kind of burn out on the other side, which then by process of elimination, is drawing a lot of attention back to SEO. Mischa Zvegintzov  01:55Yeah, that's, that's cool. That's fun. That's fun for you because you're in it. I mean, you're in it. That's your thing. That's that's your bag, baby. When I when we first met and we're chatting, back in Mexico, at the mastermind in paradise, Russell Bronson's group, what there was 600 of our closest friends, perhaps, or 500, inner circle, and the what's called the two comma club x, which is that we've got that other price metrics of 25,000. So you've got to have some resources or be willing to spend resources. And you've got to be excited about what you do, right. But anyway, you had said, I want to talk a little bit about how you built your business and effect you said, Hey, Nisha, look, I don't if I remember the conversation, it was like, Look, man, I'm not paying for anything. And I'm driving a huge amount of my business through LinkedIn. And this these are the type of posts I do and again, anybody listening right now we're watching go go to Damien's LinkedIn, and you can see what you're up to and how you give and and these things. So again, it's LinkedIn, forward slash, Damon Burton, no dots in there. If you're gonna follow on Facebook, Daymond dot Burton, and love your Facebook, it's so fun to watch. Just your journey. Your family just have super fun, engaging content. So anyway, yeah. What was I gonna say, Oh, you you're like, hey, I thought what was compelling about what you said at that time was like, I add so much value, and it pisses people off. In fact, do I remember that correctly? Damon Burton  03:45I do add value, the pissing people off part. I'll have to try and connect the dots, probably what I was referring to was like, I'm not I don't throw rocks at marketing, cuz a lot of people in marketing are like, I'm the paid ad guy. So SEO sucks, or I'm the SEO guy. So paid ads suck. And for, for me, if it works, it works. Right? You can you can do it all. So as long as you're getting return, there's no, there's no bad form of marketing. Probably what I was referring to is, is the time I do throw rocks is usually at my own industry. And so it's like the guys that give the industry a bad name, the guys that, you know, take money and run and things like that. And so a lot of times I'll poke fun at my own industry. And what happens is, it can offend other SEOs because they know I'm right. And I'm calling things out but but it comes back to that value thing because then what it does is it filters out the leads because then the leads that have been through that or have been burned or at the higher level. They know that I'm I'm beyond the that lower level that they're trying to get past and they see that I've been around the block a time or two as well. And they go okay, well you know, he's marking this level of relatability. So that's probably what I was referring to. But as far as the value thing like, yeah, that's, that's what it is. Like, if you look at my content. Yeah. I almost never have a call to action. Mischa Zvegintzov  05:14I got a I'm gonna drop a shade really quick. I've got a I've got some sun coming in. Yeah, it's the California lifestyle. There we go. Thank you. Sorry about that. Damon Burton  05:29Yeah. Okay, go ahead. So if you, if you look at my content, you'll notice that I almost ever have a call to action, I would imagine, out of 100 posts, 99 of them do not have a call to action. And it's intentional for two reasons. One is these platforms don't want you taking the attention off of them. So as soon as you put on an external link, they're going to devalue the visibility of that post, because they don't want people seeing it because they don't want people leaving. Even a lot of people be like, well, what if what if you put, you know, see the link in the first comment below, like, they get that like, that thing's been burned out for a year or two. So if you keep your content native to the platform, it's going to give it more visibility. But the other reason I give value first is because we've all seen those posts, where it's like, Hey, I'm gonna give value just kidding bait and switch by my thing. And so we we get burned out on that, and that you lose credibility when you do that, because you've set them up. And then you took something from them. And so if you just give only, then over time, what happens is, I am no longer an SEO guy to consider, I am the only SEO guy. So when you continue to give value, it just filters out all the other competition. And probably five out of seven days of the week, I get tagged in a post on social media when somebody asks about SEO. And nowadays, I'll walk you through how I how I structured my posts here in a minute. But I've been doing this so consistently now, that now it's it's creating, like a butterfly effect where the majority of people that tagged me, I don't even know, because it's created such a precedence. And other people mentioning me. And then those people follow those people. And it creates a compounding effect. So when I post, here's my, here's my strategy on LinkedIn, you're gonna have to tweak it for different platforms. But here's how I distilled it down to LinkedIn. So I go with LinkedIn, because my consumers b2b, LinkedIn is a b2b platform. My ideal buyer is savvy. And so they want insights and data, and validation. And I can't do that on as well on Instagram, where, where it's pictures versus context, read a readable text. So I focus on LinkedIn. And then what I do is, I post between 630 and 7:30am, I've narrowed down that timeframe where that's where I get the biggest visibility, it can be the difference between 5000 views and 24 hours and 50 views in 24 hours, by by focusing on that timeframe. Now, I'm not saying that's the magic timeframe for everybody. My guess on why it works well for me, is because the type of people that are reading my content is so I'm in mountain time. So I think it's kind of as good of a sweet spot in the middle of timeframes as I can get between East Coast and West Coast, because the East Coast people have already beat the traffic got to the office, whatever. Now they're sitting at their desk, and they're killing time for 10 or 20 minutes. And that's when I can get them in that little window. The West Coast people are waking up, they're sitting on the toilet, they're doing whatever, and I'm catching them at their early 10 or 20 minutes. So figure out where your audience is and then figure out the timeframe that works best for them, and then just show up consistently. So I post Monday through Friday, you end up building an audience that looks for your content, you end up getting rewarded by the algorithms by being consistent. So over time, they're going to continue to show you more. And now it takes a while to gain momentum. I would say it took probably three months for me before I started to notice any sort of consistent feedback or engagement or private messages of gratitude. over about six months, I started monetizing it and getting leads. And then in about nine months, is when I said a lot. I'm getting business now maybe I should quantify this. And so it's been I think it's been three years this month. So then, three years ago was the nine month mark, Damon Burton  09:39give or take, and I added it up and I had $150,000 in annual recurring contracts that came from just doing this, and I haven't quantified it since because that was enough for me to go okay, this is worth continuing and it's only grown exponentially from there. So it's added several $100,000 a year in reoccurring revenue. From just showing up and giving value, because what happens is they you're building, they're building a relationship with you. Like you're not talking one on one, but they're getting to know you. Like you even said, you said, I love your Facebook, I love how you talked about your family. So you already know a family guy, even though we haven't talked about it, you already know that I give value, even though we haven't talked about it. So people start to understand your persona and who you are. So then when they need your thing, when I have somebody reached out to me, on LinkedIn, there's next to zero sales conversation. It's, I know what you do, how do we get started? Mischa Zvegintzov  10:32That's amazing. First off, I want to comment on imagine when you said, it's gonna take a long time, it might take three months, I'm guessing most people listening when Oh, my gosh, only three months start gaining traction. Like to me, that's awesome. And then six months for leads and nine months for, hey, you can start quantifying quantifying literal success and and in revenue. Like, that's awesome. I think I want to ask you two things, or whatever question and I'll make a comment on the limb pissing people off. I think that was me with little shock and awe. But I think what from that initial conversation we had back in Mexico and again, everybody, Damon Burton, on on LinkedIn, and it's LinkedIn forward slash Damon Burton, no dots. So so go there and find him Daymond dot Burton on Facebook, because like, you can start getting results that you're talking about authentically, too. And I want to make sure that, that you're authentic, like what you're putting out is authentic. And I think when when I see people on the social media, you know, you can tell if it's authentic, authentic or not. And so, I'll just say for you, I'm assuming, like, make sure it's the values authentic to what you actually have to offer. Right. But I think the you were like it's I think it was upsetting to people or unnerving to people. That the value you give like that's, that's the piss people off part or so like the snap Pisky GPA because pissing people off is not the right term. I think I think it's unnerving for, for people as what you'd said, when they would see the value you would give like, they're like, wait, you shouldn't be giving this much value? Is that a better wait a minute? Yeah, Damon Burton  12:28I get what you're saying. Yeah, it's, it's kind of confusing to people. Because a lot of people are brought up in the world of entrepreneurialism, where it's like gate, everything, charge for everything. I think there's a time and a place. I'm not saying one is better than the other. For me, it's just been the other. So in my mind, there's really only three types of content consumers. And this is why I just give away everything. Because my ideal buyer is the person that values time more than money. So if I give away the answers, I will tell anybody anything about our processes, because if you're the type of person that wants to take that advice, and run and implement it, you're not my ideal customer, but I just helped you. So that's fantastic. I didn't lose anything because you weren't gonna be my buyer anyway. But now I increased the credibility and my reputation and my reach. The second type of content consumers, the person that may not need your thing now, but they may later or they know somebody that does, and they'll send a referral, great, you help somebody again, you might get business from a later. The third type of content consumers is the one that shows Misha, I want to buy your thing. So from my perspective, you can't lose by giving away all the answers. Now, other people's products are different, you know, mine's a higher ticket couple $1,000 a month, somebody else might be a single a one time transaction, or a lower reoccurring thing, that they could just take the advice and run, and that could have been their customer. So I'm not saying this applies to everybody. But I would challenge the listeners to reconsider how they can bring their expertise to the market, there's probably some middle ground in there, or some sort of new opportunity that you can consider in separating how you give away value or, or even just give away a micro piece of it. You know, maybe you have a low ticket thing that doesn't make sense to give it all away, give them a little bit. Give them like the freebie thing or the thing that's only if you have $100 ticket, give them the thing that's like 10 bucks, you know, build up that credibility with them, because would you rather have, you know, 95 out of 100 people that convert or would you rather have one out of 1000 people to convert? So just look for different opportunities and how you can give away value and and give it enough time for it to work its magic and more people than not, it'll provide some sort of return.

What to Do When You Feel Overwhelmed (Replay of Season 4, Episode 71. Back with an all-new Tuesdays with Tata tomorrow!)A quick conversation about how to prepare for and deal with overwhelm.Self-Brain Surgery Tip #15:The secret to overcoming overwhelm is to stop worrying about all the things you need to do. Pick one and do it. Then do that again. You'll feel so much better, and you'll have two less things to do!Scriptures:When the cares of my heart are many, your consolations cheer my soul.Psalm 94:19Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me.John 14:1We have troubles all around us, but we are not defeated. We do not know what to do, but we do not give up the hope of living. We are persecuted, but God does not leave us. We are hurt sometimes, but we are not destroyed.2 Corinthians 4:8-9Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you restMatthew 11:28I 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 16:33Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.1 Peter 5:7But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. 2 Corinthians 12:9No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.Romans 8:37-38Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.John 14:27But Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” Matthew 19:26You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you. Trust in the LORD forever, for the LORD GOD is an everlasting rockIsaiah 26:3–4Hear my cry, O God, listen to my prayer; from the end of the earth I call to you when my heart is faint. Lead me to the rock that is higher than I.Psalm 61:1-2Matthew 6:34Isaiah 41:10Psalm 27:1 This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit drleewarren.substack.com/subscribe

Despite being a common diagnosis, many people with ADHD may go most of their lives without ever officially being diagnosed. Although there are a number of challenges that this presents, one of the most frustrating is that the longer ADHD is left untreated, the more difficult it becomes to change our habits. Even so, that doesn't mean it's impossible - and our guest today proves it!For this week's episode, I invited Bob Shea - a renowned children's author who only recently received an ADHD diagnosis at age 52 - to talk about the trials and triumphs he experienced living with hidden ADHD for so long. Although Bob has some legitimate regrets about not getting diagnosed sooner, he's worked hard to address his challenge areas and make meaningful transformations in his habits. As a result, Bob has seen major improvements in both his personal and professional life that he's excited to share with our listeners. He also reveals the tools, systems, and interventions that helped him along the way. His contributions to the podcast reveal an important lesson - it's never too late to get the support we need to become the best version of ourselves. I know you'll enjoy listening to Bob's advice, wit, and humor just as much as I did during our conversation.Here are some relevant resources related to our conversation:ADHD ResourcesOn-Demand Webinar: ADHD Fundamentals - What you need to succeed after diagnosis: This is the link to a webinar Beyond BookSmart held recently. If you register, you'll gain instant access to the webinar. 8 Things You Need to Know About ADHD After a Diagnosis: A blog that summarizes key points from the webinar linked above.ADHD Information for Adults: This website includes information on medication and non-medication approaches to managing ADHD.How To ADHD YouTube Channel: An amazing channel that tries to both normalize and help support the trials and tribulations of living with ADHD. Dr. Tracey Marks - Skills Training for ADHD Playlist: A fantastic psychologist and content creator with invaluable insights on living with ADHD. Other Stuff We DiscussedBob's Planning and Time Management Strategy Here's a pic of Bob's notebook so you can see how he lays out his tasks and week.The Sam Harris Meditation App: This is the meditation app that Bob likes to use every morning.Jetpens.com: Bob's favorite place to shop for pens online. The Pomodoro Technique: 25 Minutes to Increase Productivity: This is the time management approach called the Pomodoro Method that Bob uses. We also use it as coaches!Leuchtturm1917 Notebook: This is the notebook I use for my bullet journal.Time Timer Visual Clock: This is the visual timer that I asked Bob about and then he showed me his which he had on the desk next to him.River Fox BuJo: My daughter's Pinterest account I mentioned in the episodeBob Shea's Instagram and WebsiteContact us!Reach out to us at podcast@beyondbooksmart.comIG/FB/TikTok @beyondbooksmartcoachingTranscriptHannah Choi 00:04Hi everyone and welcome to Focus Forward, an executive function Podcast where we explore the challenges and celebrate the wins you'll experience as you change your life through working on improving your executive function skills. I'm your host, Hannah Choi. When my kids were little, we spent hours at our local library and we'd go home with 50 or so books at a time. We especially loved picture books that made us laugh. And one day we discovered an author called Bob Shea, and Bob's books quickly became some of our favorites. Thanks to the internet, we found out that Bob also lived in our home state of Connecticut. We followed him on Instagram and really enjoyed his drawing tutorials and quirky posts. And Bob started inviting other children's authors and illustrators to have a conversation with him on Instagram Live every Friday. And one day he had author and illustrator Charles Santoso on for a chat. And Bob openly and very candidly shared about his experience having ADHD. He talked about the time management strategies that he uses, and how important they are for him. I knew at that very moment that I just had to invite Bob on to be a guest on the podcast. So today, I've got you a very entertaining and very real conversation about how ADHD impacts his life, how medication really helped and the tools and strategies that he uses to find satisfaction in his life. And I'm really thrilled to share Bob's story with you today. Before we jump in, I want to acknowledge that not everyone with ADHD uses medication. And whatever choice people make about medication is theirs and theirs alone. There are alternative options for those who choose not to use it. And for those who do use it, they likely find that it doesn't work well just on its own. As you'll hear Bob say it works well for him because he combines it with other non medication strategies. If you are interested in learning more, check out the show notes for more reading and resources on this topic. Okay, now on to the show. Okay. Hi, Bob. Thanks for joining me today. Do you wanna introduce yourself to our listeners? Bob Shea 02:10Sure. My name is Bob Shea. I'm a children's book author and illustrator. And I found out that I had ADHD when I was 52.Hannah Choi 02:24Did you, did you won...have you had you wondered before in your life?Bob Shea 02:30I not in a serious way. It was probably the six months before I was diagnosed that I really started to think that it was more than just character flaws.Hannah Choi 02:51Did something happen? Was there like a some kind of shift in your thinking or something that got you to start with questioning that?Bob Shea 03:00There were two things I did start following some ADHD accounts on Instagram. That was one thing. So that put it on my radar pretty strong. And what would happen was or what happened I remember specifically, someone did a real that had symptoms of ADHD that I had never known would have been things and it was exactly how my brain works like exactly. And it wasn't the traditional. This is what ADHD is why because my the one of the reasons I one of the reasons I didn't think that I had it was because I know people who you know, in five minutes, you're like, Man, this conversation is 20 different subjects. And my my brothers both have it in and in the three of us it presents differently. So that was difficult. I'm not hyperactive, I don't have any of the traditional things. My my thoughts about ADHD were Bart Simpson, bad student acting up can't sit still. I was I did well in school. I wasn't a troublemaker at all. None of those things. So I was like, I don't have any of that stuff. And then there was a day when I was trying to finish a project I was trying to finish a book that I had do. And I couldn't do it like I couldn't pick up my iPad and open up the file and start... like it was due it was like that safety net of, of a looming deadline did not fail to ignite the fire. And I was scrolling on the Instagram instead. Like, compulsively. I was like I can't stop doing this. I'm look I was like I need some kind of stimulation that and the the I was I'm looking forward to doing the book. Like it was not like Yay, I'm gonna do this book and I'm excited finally gonna get to dig in. I've avoided it and I, I made an appointment for the next day with my, with my doctor with a physician's assistant. I went home and told my wife and she was like, Yeah, that's a really good idea.Hannah Choi 05:23She's like, finally the day has come.Bob Shea 05:24She was like, yeah, she was like, Man, she got the worst of it over the years, I'll tell you. So, yeah, so then I went to the, you know, when I went to this appointment, and I almost cancelled it. I was like, you know, just do your work. I'm sure you're fine. She's gonna let I had gone to her one time for Xanax because I had to go on tour. And I didn't want to talk to people that asked for like, I'm like, Look, I just need, I don't take it normally. Like, she has my records. Like, I'm not a drug seeker. But I was like, I'm traveling, I got to talk to people. I need some Xanax. And she was reluctant to give it to me, and like really gave me a hard time about it. And so I was like, she's not going to do anything for this ADHD, she's gonna laugh at me. She's like, come back when you break an arm. That's what I thought it was gonna be when you have when you're bleeding. Give me a call, like not for this. Boo hoo hoo, you can't get your work done. But she was really, really empathetic. And I had I had in the three months prior stop drinking, because it was a pandemic, and I was getting really heavy. Yeah. I was exercising every day. And I was, I had cut sugar out. And I was meditating a lot. I'm a big meditator. And so I went down the litany of what was happening, and that I had that I had and hadn't been doing these things in the last three months. And she said, everything you just said is what I would have told you to do. I would have said, eat better exercise and meditate. She said, if you're doing that stuff, and then she gave me an assessment, and I was laughing, because it was like, they were watching me during my day. I was like, Yes. Like, that's what I do every time. Yeah, they're like, do you like not? Do you get really close to the end of a project and not finish? I'm like, there's something new to do here. Like, right? I'm like, Yeah, you know, like everybody does that like, no, not everybody. And she put me on Adderall right away. And it was flipped, like flipping a switch. It was great. It's wonderful. I know it doesn't work for everyone. And everyone has their own way of treating it. But for me, my wife was like, thank God.Hannah Choi 07:48That's awesome. Yeah, that's so great. It's so great that you that you didn't let the part of you that wanted to not go that that part didn't get its chance. And you just went anyway and talked with her. Yeah. Well, I mean, I actually know that a lot of people are afraid to find out because they don't want to find out that that, that they have X, Y or Z. And but I'm sure it has been your experience. Once you find out it actually can really open up a lot of doors and opportunities and possibilities and totally different way of thinking about yourself.Bob Shea 08:23Just Yeah, I saw my, the past 50 years of my life and an entirely different light. And I was like, Man, why did anybody put up with that guy? He was the worst. I was, I was so glad I actually was birth because I was like, man, like,my life would have been so much different. Had I known that I could have been fixed. But you know, and then the other thing is like, both of my brothers have it. They don't want to do anything about it. Like they like it. And I'm like, really? I'm like I would I can't get rid of it fast enough. I'm like this is I don't I don't spin this into a positive thing at all. For me personally, I'm like, I have I could get I could have been high. Who knows what my life would be like, if I didn't have it? It's not it's not some secret power that I have.Hannah Choi 09:18Right? Right. But like we were talking before we started recording, don't you feel like it has given you some of the creativity that you've needed to to create the do the stuff that you've done, create the books that you've done andBob Shea 09:34yeah, I'm, I'm hesitant to give that so much credit because, but I'll tell you I think that that's true. I think that it allowed me to say, see to make connections I wouldn't have made otherwise when I was coming up with things and what it did was it gave me a unique voice creatively, my sense of humor is very unique to me, for good or for bad. I'm not saying that it's better or worse than anyone. But I'm saying when I write jokes or make a joke, it's comes out of left field. And it's not, Oh, I see what he's doing when he's doing this. It's very strange, for better or worse, but I'll tell you all the things that it didn't wear me all the things that it did for me, I would trade it to be have had a normal life, because I think it was a million times a detriment than it was, then then whatever it gave me.Hannah Choi 10:39Yeah, that's so interesting. Yeah,Bob Shea 10:41If I was sitting right now in my office up in Hartford, Connecticut, as executive of insurance company, in the HR department being like, you know, we have a lot of events coming up. And we have to do these things in a nice, neat desk. I'd love nothing more.Hannah Choi 11:00Well, I have to say that I'm really glad that you did not discover your ADHD until you were 52. And I think that there are lots and lots of children in the world that are really glad you didn't. And lots of parents.Bob Shea 11:12Well, I appreciate you saying that. But you know,Hannah Choi 11:15So if you look at your life, since you were diagnosed, since you started, like, you know, taking Adderall and just being okay, I have a diagnosis. This is this is why do you see Have you seen the change? Could you compare the like before and after?Bob Shea 11:33It's night and day, I mean, that there's there's work things like like right now, I'm as busy as I've ever been in my career. Right now, for the last two months, and probably going into the next couple of weeks, I have so much to do. And it's fine. Like, it's not, I'll have to work this evening, I'll have to get up early in work. But it's fine. I can. I can see it for what it is. I it's not overwhelming things. I was overwhelmed. I was overwhelmed all the time. And that affected my relationship with my family. Because nobody can talk to me. Because you have so much going on in your head. That is all equally important. That was the thing. Everything you had to do was just as important as the other next thing, which actually wasn't as important. So when my wife would come in the room and go, Hey, what should we have for dinner? I'd be like, how can you come in here and add another thing to this pile that's in my head, right? And now I'm just I'm so much more pleasant to be around. I was irritable all the time. I was I thought I thought it was over. I thought I thought I was going to I thought we were going to split up because it may like we didn't talk about it. But in my head. I was like head in my head. I was like, I don't know what's wrong with me. But I can't be around people.Hannah Choi 13:04Do you think that it was it's mostly that medicine that has changed things for you?Bob Shea 13:11Yes, you know, yeah, because, but that but there's I have to explain that a little bit. I do think that that's the case because I wanted to change. I didn't want to be like that. I knew that I was I knew that I was a jerk. And I knew that I was impatient, and that I couldn't she on the weekends. She'd be honest. She's like, you know, when you're home on the weekend, all you want to do is be at work. I know that you're I know that you're not happy. I couldn't, I couldn't relax. I couldn't go just do something. And it was because I thought I had failed the previous week, getting things done. And so I was trying to always try to catch up. I was always trying to catch up. The medication allowed me to make use of the systems I had been trying to put in place because it was always planners. So always had calendars, planners. How do I do this? How do I do this? And once I took the medication, I was able to do all the things. And everything fell into place. It's all it's all a bit. It's not just oh, it took a pill. I was fun. It was it was a framework of things. And knowing that you're even now I'm like, You're bad at this. So you have to do this more than other people do. Because you're so bad at it. Yeah, yeah.Hannah Choi 14:32So what's what kind of systems and strategies do work for you?Bob Shea 14:36It's sort of a it's sort of a mix of a lot of different systems that I had found. But But basically, it's capturing all the information in your head. So I I just did it this morning because it's Monday. I usually do it on Sundays. I write down everything I have to do that week like and it's all in a big pile. So it can be work on this illustration. And the next thing could be make an appointment for a haircut. Like it's not there's no over here you put work and over here you put it it's it's a, it's a messy list on the page next to that I put big blocks because I have to see things and I can't do this on the computer, I have to write it down with my hands, or else. It all looks the same on the computer. It's just like typed words. It could be anything. Yep. And now, because a draw, we're like writing a list, you can draw a little picture of something. Oh, yeah. Whatever. Yeah. So then I, so then I do the days of the week next to that, just horizontal bars of Monday through Friday. And then I drop in roughly, where what I'm going to do on what day really rough like not like you at three o'clock are going to do this. Yes. Then when the day comes...this all sounds so complicated. And it's not. Then on the day I draw a box for every half hour of the day, I make a list, I make a list, I'm going to I'm like, I'm going to work on this. And I'm going to work on this and I make a box for every half hour of the day and I write in the box, what I'm going to work on at what time and it's it is very flexible. If I don't, I'm okay with that. But I have to just know that I have a plan. I will not make this punitive because I will be mad at it. So it's to help me it is not to punish me ever. And one of the things that I did it first, or one of the things that helped the time while blindness was so bad because I'd be like I have a book to I'll take me two days, I don't know, that's fine. You know what I mean? Like, I had no concept. So what, so what I do is I write what I plan to do in that in those blocks time. Then when they pass, I go, and I don't do it immediately. Like at the end of the day, I'll say, Boy, I thought that thing was going to take me an hour and a half took me three hours. That's awesome. So I'm training myself to know what things really take like, oh, going to the post office, that's probably negative 20 minutes. Like, really, you gotta get an envelope, gotta find the right size envelope, you got to pick up the address the person gave you you got to seal it, you got to walk down, there's probably going to be aligned, you know, you're gonna get a coffee after because you did an errand and you need a treat. And then you know, by the time you get back, like how long did that trip to the post office, it takes an hour. And then you have to be like, alright, you have to go to the post office today that costs an hour. Like and then you know, because then you're like, then you're not, you overestimate what you can get done. And then at the end of the day, you feel terrible. You're like, you beat yourself up and you're like, what's wrong with me? And you're like, Yeah, you know?Hannah Choi 17:48Yeah, time blindness is a really big. It can, it can really impact so many aspects of your life like, like actually just running out of time. But then also the your opinion that you have it yourself. Yeah, if you constantly are not estimating the time correctly, then you're just gonna feel like you can't get anything done.Bob Shea 18:12Yeah, yeah. And as a result as a result of doing that. And the medication I don't take on as much. Yeah, ever. Because now when I see so if I'm sitting here, and I go online, or whatever, and I go, Hey, look at little felted animals, looks fun. I could get some felt. And I'm gonna make little, like penguins and foxes. It'll be adorable. I'm a children's book author. I should be doing this whimsical stuff all day. And then you go and you look that stuff up. And you buy felts and you got felting needles and stuff. And then you're like, how am I going to do this? And then the reality hits.Hannah Choi 18:55It's just so funny because my other my other job is I, I teach fiber arts classes with a friend of mine and that's like exactly what we do!Bob Shea 19:07Right? But it looks really fun. I have the needles here. I in my closet, I have the needles. But now I see that and I go Yeah, that'd be fun if you have time because and the only reason I say this because I'm like, Well, what are you going to do the other 20 things I taught myself that. Agreeing to do something means you're saying you're not going to do something else. Right? And I'm talking to the guitar in my corner. Okay?Hannah Choi 19:37Just this morning, I was talking to a client and he, he is an adult who was also recently diagnosed with ADHD. And he was talking about how, like for work he's doing really great like staying on to on on track and not taking on too much. You know, and checking like, Is this realistic? Like if my you know, am I is it realistic to take on another client or whatever. And then and then we were talking about how you also have to kind of do that in your, you know, in the in the fun things. Like you, you, you might want to make the felted animals and play the guitar and you know, be really good at all these things. But if you would you ask you have to ask yourself the same thing you ask yourself with your work, like, is it realistic to take on all of these things? If you if you take on too much, you can't do it all and then you just beat yourself up?Bob Shea 20:29Yeah, that's the thing. I could enjoy none of the things. Yeah. And all it was was another source of tension with my wife, because it's like, my half done projects were all over the place. And she was like, can you just throw this out? Now just bring it to Goodwill, or give it to somebody throw it away? And she was right. But I mean, I was like, I was like, I'm gonna make that it's gonna be great. And that's the other thing too with ADHD, you can't be bad at things. Like if I played guitar, I was like, I'm gonna be really good at it. So I didn't say that with guitar, but with most most things. I'm like, I don't want to just, I don't want to do this half measure. I want to be good at it. It's like, Well, yeah. And again, with the paying attention to how long things take. I'm like, I can't do anything else.Hannah Choi 21:15Yeah, right.Bob Shea 21:16I'm full! Like even with work, I'm like, when are you gonna do all these amazing?Hannah Choi 21:21There's only so many hours in a day. Yeah. And you have to sleep and you have to eat and you have to have some downtime.Bob Shea 21:27Yeah, I belong to a Makerspace in New Haven. And it's good and it's bad, because it's great because I can go there for the day. And I'm like, I'm just doing this and I enjoy it. And I I said to my... I stopped putting up requirements on myself. I'm like, when I go in, you're gonna fail at all the things and not walk out with a wooden, whatever you were making. You're going to walk out with your materials all ruin that you paid for. And just and but I'm like, That's the day that's fine. And the other thing, the other other reason it's bad is because they keep getting new stuff, which Oh, wow, you guys gotta chill. So I could do pottery? Oh, my gosh, I'm looking at slip casting. And what do I need? What do I need to buy for this? Man, I'm like that. So now I'm like, ignore that, don't learn how to use the tablesawHannah Choi 22:23You're getting a lot of practice of saying no.Bob Shea 22:25I am! I'm just ignoring stuff. I'm like, I let me tell you, I hate Pre-Adderall Guy so much, that I'm saying no out of spite. I'm like, you don't deserve to make pottery. Help bring another thing into the house. You. I see you back there. You know, because it's still I'm still the same thing. Like my brain still is seeking those that stimulation to like, it's still dopamine, when I'm like, a new thing to learn. There's a lot of dopamine in that goldmine of dopamine. So passing that up as Adderall makes you say, you've got enough to get by. You don't need to go look for other places, even social media. I'm on social media so much less. I used to be on Twitter all the time.Hannah Choi 23:17So going back to the strategies that you use, how did you develop those? How'd you come up with those?Bob Shea 23:22Even before the Adderall, I was obsessed with time management. Always, always, always, always, unsuccessfully. I remember in the 90s, A long time ago, I went and did a Franklin Planner thing. And I think I kept a Franklin Planner for a while, like for a year, probably about a year and then I had to refill it. And I'm like, fellas, I'm gonna have to do that anymore. But I always remember the sort of the principles and stuff. And I remember now thinking back, like it's not ADHD friendly. Like they're very, it's very, like, it's for people who already have their act together. And it's just a way to clean up their act.Hannah Choi 24:08Those linear thinkersBob Shea 24:09It's so I always thought it's always like, something wrong with me. I thought I always thought it was like a character failing that I had, I was like, Well, you know, I was like, You know what, I always hated sports. When I was growing up, I probably just don't have discipline. And that's a now that's why they always wanted you to do that, so that you could do a boring task that you didn't want to do. And then, so I had an even I was even going back to the makerspace I was designing all these electronics, things that were all about how to remind me to do things. Every one thing, I had a thing where I'm still making this one, and that's not me lying, it's my first project. I was gonna have more successful authors than may record a message to me like, "Hey, how's that book coming you were telling me about?" Yeah, and then randomly during the day, it would announce that whatever I was doing was like, Oh, I was looking at felted animals. Back to work, yeah. I had I have it all sketched out, like, how it works. And the components I need, but everything I did everything I was like, seriously, I was like, I'm going to film, because I didn't know how the day worked. I'm going to film this was an idea of flowers, drying and decaying and falling off the thing. And then I'm going to play it fast during the day over eight hours, so that when I looked up, I go, Oh, the things are starting to fall. That means I have this much time. I was trying to, I was trying to find ways to look at time visually that I'd understand and not like just a clock, which I'm like, that's just the number I don't know. Because you come in in the beginning of the day, and you're like, I have all day. You know, and you're like, well, and then you're like, Well, I'm gonna go get a cup of coffee. I'm gonna go take a walk. And then I'm like, Jesus running out real quick.Hannah Choi 26:06Yeah, like half a day now. Have you heard of the Time timers were like shows a red...like, It's like, it looks like a clock. And yeah. That right there. Do you use it?Bob Shea 26:19Sorry about that noise. That's part of my thing with with the, with the blocks that I draw out the half hour blocks, 25 minutes, because it's the Pomodoro Technique, basically. Yeah. Yeah. Are you if that is the I'll tell you something. The timers are the key to everything. If if I use the timers, the days I'm I'm, I'm diligent about using the timers. That's a good day. If I'm just like, oh, just freestyle it today. It's like it's not a bad day, it still works falls apart a lot easier. Those timers, because it gives you a little deadline. Yep. And you look at that thing. And you're right, like the visual thing for me was huge. And so for that deadline, I go, I tell myself, you can't look at your phone, because you're working. And so then that way I go, Well, there's only 15 minutes, I can not look at my phone for 15 minutes. But if I don't have the time, or it's every three minutes up, pick it up. Yeah, I'm better about it now, but that's how it works. I also blocked Instagram on everything but my laptop so that when I sit down, it's intentional. Like I'm gonna go on Instagram now. Look at messages I do. scroll a little bit. It's boring on your laptop. You're not on the sofa looking at TV and doing it. So I'm out faster. I'm in and out faster. And and then on my devices for work. Like my iPad. No. No social media. Still the news? I still look at the news all the time. But no social media. Yeah. Pinterest is great. I like Pinterest. Yes.Hannah Choi 27:57It is great. My daughter is like slowly racking up a whole bunch of followers. She does bullet journaling. Yeah, she does. She does bullet journal. She has this bullet journal. She's 13 years old. And she's really starting everyday. She's like, Oh, I have like 20 more followers. She's up to 350! Yeah, it's so cool. But she like shares like her that art the art that she did it for the week and how she laid it out. AndBob Shea 28:24Does she get this she get... she's been to like JetPens, right? And she gets all this stuff fromHannah Choi 28:29I don't know what JetPens is. But she's got all the pens. Bob Shea 28:32Sorry, I told you because oh, there's a whole other world of pens you don't know aboutHannah Choi 28:38JetPens, okay, I gotta write that down. Bob Shea 28:39So good. I love I love that stuff. And like pencil cases and like pencil sharpeners that look like pandas. Hannah Choi 28:48And you guys could talk for hours. She's totally into it. Bob Shea 28:52So So I give her a lot of credit, because I couldn't keep up with a bullet journal. My thing is like black ink and then read for like, what I really did, because I'm like, I had to pare it down to a simpler.Hannah Choi 29:04Yeah. Well, I keep a bullet journal too. But mine is also like, super. It's just like, there's nothing fancyBob Shea 29:11Yeah, that's what mine looks like. Yeah. And you have the same you have that kind to Yeah. Yeah, my wife made minus 10 or something.Hannah Choi 29:20Yeah, yeah. IBob Shea 29:20don't know how you say it. I use those a lot for other things. But I don't but I use a different I just use a grid. Very simple one because I go through so many of them.Hannah Choi 29:30Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So keeping systems like that requires some practice. It requires quite a bit of perseverance and quite a bit of, you know, discipline. What motivates you to stick with it?Bob Shea 29:49This I think what, what motivates me to stick with it is that, like I said before, it's not punitive. It's not it's not it's here to help me not make me feel bad. So as I use it things that don't work for me, it was a little more not complicated. There were more, there was more to it when I first started doing it, anything that didn't sort of serve me I got rid of. So now it's like, it's a way to collect my thoughts. It's not a way to to be a taskmaster that you have to do these things. At the end of the day, a lot of times, I'll have gotten made a lot of progress on things, but maybe not even the things I thought I was going to do. And then I'm like, that's still a good day, I made a lot of progress. And I'm proud of what I did. Like, I'm glad that I moved the needle on this project. The other project can wait a day, because I have long deadlines. You know, like, I don't usually I think, like when I was doing graphic design, like maybe I didn't notice it much because it was like That thing's due in two days, like and it would be like in the next week, something else would be due now. It's like months at a time. That's bad for people like me.Hannah Choi 31:01Long term planning is like a whole different set of skills thatBob Shea 31:04I'm still working on that that is like, time makes no sense to me. Three months, like, that's never gonna happen. It's never gonna be here.Hannah Choi 31:14Have you ever watched inside the mind of a master procrastinator with Tim Urban? He, it's a TED Talk that...Bob Shea 31:22Yes, I think so! He has he does his thesis in the last day. That was hilarious. Yeah. So good. Before I knew I had ADHD. Yeah, it's hilarious!Hannah Choi 31:35it's a great, that's such a great example of exactly what you just.Bob Shea 31:41Yeah, yeah. It's like, and it's, I'm not. I so I just turned in a book. A couple of, I'm in the revision process of it now. And I was proud of myself. Because it was only two weeks late, instead of three months, like yeah, I was real- And I'm sure they are, but it was a new art director and I don't think that they were as proud of me as I am.Hannah Choi 32:05You're like, you don't know what this means.Bob Shea 32:08Like, I'm like, checking outside to see if the UPS guys bring in like, you know, a Harry and David box gift basket. Two weeks late, two weeks late, not three months. Like, oh, look, guess who's almost like a normal person?Hannah Choi 32:26That's so great.Bob Shea 32:27I have friends who are like, Yeah, this isn't due till September. So I finished it early, so I could get out some other things. I'm like, What are you talking about? I've never, ever done that. Ever. That's the thing. I had a friend who told me he did that. And then I was telling him about the ADHD. And he's like, maybe I have ADHD. I said, let's take a step back. Yeah. Remember how you told me? You just finished something up? That's not due for three months? No, no, no, no. I'm not a medical professional, but no.Hannah Choi 33:01So funny. What do you think would happen if you turned something in on time?Bob Shea 33:06I might have no, I don't know. I have no idea what that's like, I think that I'm gonna tell you though, I see the I see the benefit of doing that. This sounds so dumb. This sounds like such a, Are you new to being in the world? Like, if I so working alone and making up my own projects and things it's like, it's it's so much more helpful to me to have a system and try to get in on time. Because that frees up time for other things. Not felted animals, other projects that could maybe make money, right? Like there's, I mean, it's a balance with the kids books, because I can't, I can't have people be like, Man, he's cranking these things out once again. You right, you know what I mean? Like, Hannah Choi 33:57Can't be too productive! Bob Shea 33:58Good, right, like, have a side hustle. I can drive for Uber in those two weeks. That's what I could have been doing.Hannah Choi 34:08No, no, Bob. Bob Shea 34:10I don't think that's not a good idea. Hannah Choi 34:11You obviously did something different to get your three week overdue and a three month overdueness down to two week, two weeks overdue. What do you do different?Bob Shea 34:20That was that that's the last piece that I'm working on now. What is the long term plan? I can't I don't understand how time works. I don't get that. You know, I don't get that. Laters not does not a thing. Laters Not a thing. And it's not better than now. Like the way I behave now? Yeah, I'm gonna behave like that tomorrow. Like, I'm like, I can be like, Oh, tomorrow when I wake up, I'm gonna be all put together. You know what I mean? So now this machine that I've made that can kind of not a very fast moving thing. It's it's constantly pressing forward, which is good and not speedy. But so it's only recently that I've acknowledged that the future is going to happen, whether I like it or not. So I start to use. So now I am using a calendar. On my computer, which I don't like to do, I should actually get a physical one. And I'm writing in dates things are due so that I can see them approach. Yeah, that's good. I know that I have something due on August 1. And I'm already obsessed about it not obsessed. But I'm already like, if you don't get started on July 1, you're never going to get that done. I know that that's and I'm like, I can't. Last minute panic. It gets old after 50 years. Yeah.Hannah Choi 35:47Takes the wear and tear on your body. Yeah. What if instead of... what if you put the deadline- So you have the deadline that it's due on August 1? What if on the calendar on July 1, you wrote, like, start the thing?Bob Shea 36:04Yeah, that's, that's what I should do. And I did. I did that. The one that was two weeks late, I put in every day like you are supposed to be working on this thing. I am the worst employee. I just, I That stuff's easy. If I'm like, if it's due in 30 days, I'm like, Well, I can go to MakeHaven today. You know what I mean? Because it's 30, I still got 29 days - work a little harder.Hannah Choi 36:36And I suppose thinking, well, if I just do it all now and I get it done five days before the due date, then I could spend five full days in a row at MakeHaven.Bob Shea 36:46that sounds like a wonderful world that I do. You know, I'll tell you, I have that conversation with myself in a very convincing manner. executing that plan, to a degree where all the steps are taken care of in a in a timely way. And let me tell you something, too. It's not me. It's not me blowing it off. It's, it takes longer than I guess. So even with this thing, even. And then things happen that you don't anticipate. You know, that's the other thingHannah Choi 37:19Yeah. And the unpredictable variables of life,Bob Shea 37:22That and that's even going back to the boxes, and it applies to the month to going back to the boxes. If you write down what really happens. You can look back and go, oh, there's all these things that I didn't know in the morning were going to happen that I had to deal with. And so you don't feel bad. At the end of the day. You're like, well, it wasn't my fault. I wasn't I wasn't like googling what movie was Nicolas Cage in in the 90s was the thing and they switched faces. You know what I mean? You're like, you don't you don't stop to do that. As long as I'm like working and not like, just looking at, you know, woodworking videos. What I like to do - keep that to my personal time.Hannah Choi 38:05Yeah, having some flexibility, like, like, flexibility both in what we do during the day and also like recognizing that, that we cannot be rigid all the time. We cannot. As much as we want to stick to whatever we have planned for that day, it just doesn't. Yeah, definitely gonna happen.Bob Shea 38:25Yeah, it's, it's, it's about being honest with yourself about how you work, and then saying, Look, you work this way. Here's what'll work with that without you beating yourself up because I because I couldn't figure it out. Because I was like, I did all this stuff in my career to get to the point where I'm have autonomy. I can work by myself. I come up with my own projects. Great, great, great. And I'm like, and then you ruin it because you're on stupid Twitter. Why would you do that? You have you? Here's everything that you wanted. And you undermine yourself. It's awful. It wasHannah Choi 39:10How much do you think that had to do with fear? The fear that you weren't going to be do it do it right or fear that it was going to be uncomfortable while you were doing whatever it was.Bob Shea 39:22That's a big part of it because I would - the books - I can't look at books that I did already. From the past. Somebody's using an angle grinder outside. So I can't look at Yeah, so good. It's like, I hope I hope they're making a playground. Something good.Hannah Choi 39:45I never found out what my neighbors were doing.Bob Shea 39:48Right. Hold on. Let me look real quick. Oh, soft serve ice cream. It's gonna be good. Yeah,Hannah Choi 39:55Wait! That's another distraction. Now, I think they're building a brand location of the makerspaceBob Shea 40:02Oh, that's good. Right there. Right? They are. It's they're putting in a table saw. More noise, Great. Yeah, you know, you get so excited for these projects. And in your head, it's perfect. It's the best thing you've ever done. And then you can then you put it down on paper, and there it is going through the filter of your abilities.Hannah Choi 40:25And your own self criticism, I'm sureBob Shea 40:27I can't I was saying before, before they were making the ice cream stand outside, but I can't look at my old books. I can't open them up. People are like, Oh, what was that thing? And I'm like, I'm not going I'm not opening that again. All you see is the things you did wrong. And and in my case, all I see is Yeah, you did that at the last minute, didn't you? Yeah, you're a champ. You're a prince. Look at that, aren't you Like, aren't you professional?Hannah Choi 40:53I'm so curious. I want I kind of want to follow up with you in a couple of years and see, like, if you, like see how your thought processes about your own work have changed? Yeah, I'd be interesting to see that.Bob Shea 41:07I think that I think that I'm managing expectations about that. And as long as I can be comfortable with myself, I'm fine. Like I said, like the overwhelm went away. So I'm not always like, yeah, I sort of can just accept things the way they are and be like, yeah, that's okay. And I'll tell you, that is so huge. Like, it's so huge.Hannah Choi 41:35Yeah. So I'm, I'm doing an episode on procrastination. So would you say you are a procrastinator?Bob Shea 41:46Yep. Yeah, more. So before the Adderall for sure. Yeah, yeah, I still do it. And now when I do it, I can stop if I want to. But also, if I'm doing it, and I know that I'm doing it, I'm like, give yourself a break. You're okay. It's not that big a deal. Because what the other thing is about understanding how you work. So I write this grid during the day, the last couple of hours, like probably from from four to four to six. You're not getting anything done. Like you're not, you get it you get an ice cube of creativity every day, you get like, here's this, you can you have this for like an hour and a half, and then you're not gonna get anything good. Stop. So I know from four to six, I'm like, Alright, clean up your office, which is still a mess from ADHD, I'm still working on that. Clean your office reply to emails, low cognitive load things. Yeah. Because that's the time when I'll be like, looking at Instagram or something. Because I'm, I'm out, I'm out, I'm out of stuff, you know.Hannah Choi 42:53So something that I try to work a lot with my clients on is is exactly that, like noticing, diminishing returns, noticing when your effort is not, is not being effective anymore. And so that's so great that you, you know that about yourself, and you know, what the things that you can do, instead of just messing around, like, you know, you can still do some things, which is going to make you feel better about yourself by the end of the day, like, oh, like, like all these other things that I did? Yeah, I may not have like, written more or drawn more, but I did make my space more usable,Bob Shea 43:30Which is another goal. Like it's one of the things so it's like, yeah, I can I can move piles around for the next hour from one spot to the next. Just which is another thing I can't I bet it. I can't see. I'm clutter-blind as well. Anyway, but uh, but yeah, that's, that's the thing is to just be easy. Go easy on yourself. And if you if you know that you're diligently trying don't like I'm like, yeah, they know. It's all working out. Okay, it's all from everything's for my benefit. So I don't mind it so much.Hannah Choi 44:04Yeah, that's great. And being able to do that self reflection is so important. And, and, and recognizing, like, what your strengths are and what's challenging, and how you can use both of those. Bob Shea 44:17Yeah, a lot of that, too. I mentioned before I'm a big meditator meditation has allowed me to understand my thoughts as they're happening, and to recognize thought patterns and be like, alright, I see what it is you're doing now. And you take your level you're a little distanced from you don't become your thoughts. You're able to like observe them and go, alright, you you don't want to do this. Why not? Yeah. And then think about what else can I do instead? And that lets me shift and then that way I'm not hooked on the well you back off other thought because I'm getting some dopamine from this Instagram and then I'm gonna ride this for a while.Hannah Choi 45:05So how do you? How did you get into meditation? And how do you keep yourself? How do you? How do you keep up with the practice?Bob Shea 45:13I, you know, my, my mother in the 70s was into back when it was a super popular thing. She was into Tm. It's a transcendental meditation because it was like on the Merv Griffin Show. You know,Hannah Choi 45:26I remember people talking about that when I was little.Bob Shea 45:28Yeah, you know, I was like, That guy was on TV all the time. It was super like it was a pop culture thing. And then she would do it, she went to some meditation thing, tried to get us boys to do it, we laughed, and we're like, I'm not doing this. We tried once. You can't make people meditate, you cannot make them do it. But I always remembered that she did you know. And so I think when I was like, in my 20s, I started doing it again, late, my late 20s, I did it. And I did it in a different way. I didn't do TM, but I would just do it with the real. And again, I had to do the ADHD, I'm like, You need to build this muscle of focus. And so I did it that way for a while. And it was fine. It was fine. It was good. I didn't really know what I was getting out of it. And then I started to use the Sam Harris app a couple of years ago. And that's really the thing where he walks you through why you're doing it and how to do it and all this stuff. And that and he's like, he comes at it from a point of view of not like it's a spiritual thing. It's other goes my my cuckoo clock to did let me know that an hour has passed in my head. So I have an understanding of time. I've 10 clocks all around the thing. I'm obsessed with clocks now. It's a good one. Yeah, and I'll let the bird keep talking for a second. There it goes. And that the keeping up on the practice is, all of these things work in tandem, I have to, I can tell when I'm eating poorly, if I'm not exercising, if I'm not doing meditation. Life's worse. Like even with the medication life's worse. So if I try to try to ride my bike in every day, I usually when I you know, and this is more of a habit forming than anything else. Usually what I'll do is when I get in right away, I'll sit and meditate. When I walk in the door, put my stuff down, sit on the cushion. There's on the app, it's a meditation everyday 20 minutes do it and it's over. Like when I wake up when I wake up. I try to write for a while. Then I'll exercise that I might go for a run. I'm in, meditate, set, it all sounds wonderful. It sounds like you have this wonderful thing. It's all it's all tension. It's all motivated by fear. So that's the foundation is fear. So but it all helps me stay focused a little bit.Hannah Choi 47:54Yeah, right. It's a fear of not feeling good, right? I feel a fear of failing, you know, those strategies are to help you be successful.Bob Shea 48:02I can feel better. I feel better. If I get sleep. I have to get enough sleep. And then I just I feel so much better. I'm so much more able to deal with things.Hannah Choi 48:13Yeah, I I really feel that with exercise. Like for me, I really need to exercise if I don't exercise then I tend to really beat myself up a lot. And when I exercise I'm much gentler myself. And I actually just ran a half marathon yesterday I ran the Fairfield half marathon. Yeah. It wasn't my first half marathon but was my first time during the Fairfield one. It was really fun. Two more questions for you. They're not long. What are you excited about?Bob Shea 48:43What am I excited about? Me personally? In the world? Because nothingHannah Choi 48:52Okay, personally? Yeah, I know the world is awful, right? PersonallyBob Shea 48:59I'm excited about my son's graduating high school, he's gonna go to college in the fall. I'm pretty excited about that. I'm, I'm doing I'm - because I do one thing at a time now. I'm doing some I have some good projects at the makerspace that I'm excited about. I'm excited, just even about running and riding my bike. I'm so excited that it's nice outside. It's all very simple things that I do. And I write down gratitude stuff at the end of the day. And it's always the same thing. It's always like my wife, something delicious, and out and my bicycle.Hannah Choi 49:35I have been keeping a gratitude journal for - I'm in my fifth year now. It has, I have to say like I think that has made one of the biggest impacts on my life. Bob Shea 49:39For real? Hannah Choi 49:39Oh, yeah. It's amazing Bob Shea 49:42Do you do it in the evening or in the morning to start your day and set your intention kind of thing.Hannah Choi 49:54Yeah, that's a great question. I do it in the evening and I also sometimes end up doing it in the morning for the previous day, because I forgot to do it. But what I have found, it has helped me so much with negative thinking. And, and I find myself throughout the day going, Oh, that's something I can write about. I automatically think that way now. And it also at the end of if I have like a particularly hard day, it forces me to look back on it in and look for the even if I can be grateful for the challenge of that hard day. I made it through or, or whatever, like my kids made me happy or, you know, something.Bob Shea 50:43This day is over. I'm grateful. Yeah.Hannah Choi 50:47During the pandemic, I often just wrote, "I'm just glad this day is over". Oh my gosh. Yeah. Yeah. So that's been a huge thing for me. So I'm glad you're doing it too. Yeah.Bob Shea 50:58That's good. I'll start to - I'm not mindful of things during the day. To to jot down that's a great idea. That's good. That brings it into the whole day.Hannah Choi 51:08Yeah, yeah, it's been really nice. And it's cool too, because the one that I use as a line a day journal, so it's actually got five years on each day. So I can look back on that, that day from the previous and so I'm in my fifth year now. So I can look back on on all of them before and it's really interesting to see that I do tend to be thankful for a lot of the same stuff. And so that makes me feel really good. Like, Oh, those are those are things that I should be doing. Like I do kickboxing, and I'm very often thankful for kickboxing. And, sadly, the place where we do it at is closing. But umBob Shea 51:43Oh, really? Hannah Choi 51:44Yeah. It's a real bummer. But it's it is it's really nice to look back on that. And just, it's like evidence. I just I love looking for evidence. And there's a lot of evidence in that book.Bob Shea 51:56Yeah, yeah.Hannah Choi 51:59All right, one more question. How do people find you even though you're not too much on social media?Bob Shea 52:05On social media, on Instagram, I'm Bob Shea books. And then I do have Bobshea.com. That's my books website. But those are really the two main places the main thing is is Instagram, @BobsheabooksHannah Choi 52:22and on your local children's library bookshelves.Bob Shea 52:25Oh, yeah, exactly. Wherever, from your local independent bookseller. Yeah, just go in and go in and demand my books. And if they don't carry them there, they usually have a display in the center of the store, like new releases or whatever. If they don't have it, just flip that over. Flip it over, run out.Hannah Choi 52:45Well, that's that's how we found you, my kids. When my kids were little, we can't remember how we maybe they had one of your books up on like the, like the top, they put like one of the books up on the top?Bob Shea 52:56And oh, okay. Yeah, good I hope so.Hannah Choi 52:58So every time we found out you had a new book, we are super excited. So thank you for being a part of my children's childhood.Bob Shea 53:04Oh, sure. Thank you.Hannah Choi 53:08All right. Well, thanks again, Bob. This is great. It's really interesting to hear different people's perspectives. And and I'm so glad that you found strategies that are working for you. And I wish you luck on figuring out long term strategy planning, I think that I was thinking about it, like, just the fact that you're very good at doing your daily stuff is probably why you ended up with only being two weeks late and not three months, like, Yeah, I think that daily practice, probably just made you more aware of time and just made you more productive at, you know, the only thing I was, I was wondering, do you work backwards? Like, do you ever do start at the finish? And then figure out like, Okay, well, I know that they want it, like this amount of time ahead of time. And then and then okay, that means it takes me usually takes me about five days to do whatever and then schedule that there. And then it's like, all of that, all of that time blindness that you're conquering, can be so useful, right? Because, you know, you know how long things take now. So then it makes it easier when you're working backwards to budget in time. So yes, yeah, I think take now,Bob Shea 54:25I would I, I know I should. I should do it that way. In fact, I used to use Gantt charts, you know, again, you know those things. So again, a Gantt chart. I, this is my pre ADHD like, I was so obsessed with them. Like I gotta come up with a way that I can do this. Basically, it's a timeline, and then you hang like a string that moves along with for every day. But on that chart, you have the different things that you're different tasks that have to get done, so you can see where you are and whatever tasks and then So But what ends up happening is you just keep moving the task, like the Gantt chart is, so that is a quick visual, like, if you have five things going on where you are and all those five things.Hannah Choi 55:10Yeah, that's cool.Bob Shea 55:12Yeah, no, yeah.Hannah Choi 55:14I recommend looking at how long things take you and trying to, trying to figure out and adding in buffer time and adding in time for all those variables that we can't predict.Bob Shea 55:28I do. I try to add 50% more than my guess. And I'm getting better at it, but not still can't do like I'm never spot on.Hannah Choi 55:40Have you ever read Atomic Habits by James Clear?Bob Shea 55:43I did. I did. That's where I got the sit down and meditate as soon as you come in.Hannah Choi 55:47Yeah. Habits stacking. Yeah, I was meant to. I meant to mention that earlier when you were talking about that. But I like his idea of just 1% better. It obviously adds up over time, like you have you have proof. You have proof that a little bit better does add up over time.Bob Shea 56:05Yeah. And then the other the other thing I do in the book with the boxes, the next day, I look at how I did the day before. And I go Yeah, you know, you kind of were messing around too much at this time. And you know, you went for that walk was longer than you thought. So then that day, I can be like, Yeah, that's what I say. I'm like, I'm going to be a little bit better today than I was yesterday.Hannah Choi 56:27Yeah, that's so great. Oh, you're like a dream client. Oh my gosh.Bob Shea 56:31I'm too introspective. Hannah Choi 56:34Nah. No such thing. Well, thanks so much, Bob. This has been great.Bob Shea 56:39Thank you. That was fun.Hannah Choi 56:43And that's our show for today. I really hope that you had a chuckle and learn something useful from Bob. Or maybe you could just really relate to his story. More and more adults are being diagnosed with ADHD, so this feels like a really relatable and important story to share. Check out the show notes for a link to see some of Bob's time management strategies. And thank you for being here and taking time out of your day to listen. If you are enjoying learning about these important topics we're covering in each episode of Focus Forward, please share it with your friends, and be sure to check out the show notes for this episode. And if you haven't yet, subscribe to the podcast at beyondbooksmart.com/podcast. We'll let you know when new episodes drop and you can easily find the resources we share on each topic. Thanks for listening

Transcription:Intro  00:02Welcome to Changing the Rules, a weekly podcast about people who are living their best lives and advice on how you can achieve that too. Join us with your lively host Ray Lowe, better known as the luckiest guy in the world.Ray Loewe00:18Hi, everybody, this is Ray Lowe, and welcome to Changing the Rules. You know, this week we're going to do something a little different. We also have been recording podcasts on another network and we had one the other day that is just so good. And it just fits so well with the Changing the Rules network that I have to make it available to you. So, we're going to be talking with a young lady by the name of Marianne, and rather than make a lot of comments, let's just listen to our podcast.  Welcome to the willow Valley podcasting channel where exciting podcasts are created by Willow Valley residents, for Willow Valley residents, and about Willow Valley residents. And good morning, everybody. My name is Ray Loewe, and I'm a member of the podcast club here. And I want to welcome everybody to our brand new podcast studios here at Willow Valley communities. And we have an exciting guest today. All right, so I need to kind of set the stage for this because Marianne is on the staff here. She works here; her full name is Mary Ann Steinhauer and I met her because she was running the concierge desk over in the north building. And she was indispensable to me. You know, first of all, she had all my packages and, unless I behaved, I couldn't get them. And second of all, whenever I needed some information about where to go or where something was going on, she's the person who had it. But then the surprise came because I found out that Marianne has hidden talents way beyond what she was doing. And I found out, and I don't remember how the conversation came about, and Marianne, you can fill us in, but I found out that Marianne pilots hot air balloons.Mary Ann Steinhauer  02:09It may have been a reference to how I was so full of hot air. And I just jumped right on it.Ray Loewe02:16Well, whatever it is, it just changed our whole relationship because I've been fortunate enough that I have been up in a hot air balloon. I've been in a chase car chasing around at other people, who were in a hot air balloon. And I was lucky enough to be at the Albuquerque Balloon Festival, where 800 balloons went up in the air at one time and the sky was filled with color and it's absolutely spectacular.Mary Ann Steinhauer  02:43It's an amazing event.Ray Loewe02:45And then to find out Marianne here actually pilots one of these and so let me ask you a couple of questions before we get into hot air ballooning. Hot air ballooning is only part of Marianne, Marianne actually has a master's degree in elementary education. She has a master's degree in library science and she has been an author of a number of publications. And the other thing that I found interesting in your background is you actually took graduate studies in folklore and folklife from the University of Pennsylvania. So, why did you do that? And what where did that take you?Mary Ann Steinhauer  03:25Well, I've always been fascinated with folklore, folk life, and also storytelling, and what a magnificent place, you know, to be studying that, you know, it was just absolutely amazing. So it was a graduate program for older people because I had already done my other education work. And I just lapped it up. I mean, I just got really, really excited. You know, I'm interested in what people consider really important to continue their traditions and their culture, and it's all through performance and storytelling, the oral tradition, and all of that, that is really, you know, I'm a storyteller. Ray Loewe04:17All right, now we're going to have to do another podcast some other day just on that because I think that whole area is phenomenal and, you know, everybody has a story. Mary Ann Steinhauer  04:28I believe you're right.Ray Loewe04:29Everybody has a story. And the secret is to get it out there. And you know, you're never going to get the story if you don't talk to people. And ever since I started talking to Marianne about what she loves and what she's passionate about, it just makes me have more fun when I go down there. So thank you for that. And let's start with a really important question. So, why in the heck did you ever get interested in hot air ballooning?Mary Ann Steinhauer  04:59Wow. The first seeds were planted back when I was teaching at the lab school at Millersville University. And I was with the children out on the playground. And low and behold, here through the sky, we see this beautiful, hot air balloon. And not only did we see it flying, we noticed that it was coming toward us. And it ended up landing in the playground, at the playground. And I, of course, I had all the children were like all excited. And then I had to tell them, you know, you got to really be careful about this, but I was beside myself, I was more excited than they were. And it turns out that, you know, we managed to get safely around the balloon. And what happened was the pilot was stopping to get refueled. Because typically, and I, later on, found this out, that you can fly just so long before you have to stop and get more fuel. And so they were waiting for their chase vehicle to come with more fuel. Okay, so we didn't know this. But I was just I knew right then in there that I really wanted to go up in a hot air balloon. And I said to the children, I'm going to do this someday. And this was back in the 70s.Ray Loewe06:12Okay, and, you know, you talk about dancing with the wind. And that's how you feel when you're in the balloon, isn't it?Mary Ann Steinhauer  06:18Oh, absolutely. You know, people always ask, like, how do you steer the balloon? Well, really, you are dancing with the wind. And sometimes you, you know, you'll release it. First of all, you have to check the weather. But then you release this helium balloon to see which way the winds go. But then once you're up there, you know, you can take a turn, just because the wind says this is where you're going to go. And I know with the British people, they usually have a can of shaving cream. And when they're in the basket, and they're up aloft, they do a doppel of shaving cream to see which way it goes, then they can tell which way the lower winds are. Now you don't know about the upper winds. But you know, you can start to climb, and you sort of park there and you see where that takes you. Does it take you right? Does it take you left? And, I never had a can of shaving cream, I just spit out of the side and that worked.Ray Loewe07:18So that's kind of how you control the balloon, you control it by going up or down and finding the wind that's going kind of in their direction you want. Mary Ann Steinhauer  07:26Exactly.Ray Loewe07:27So that's why in Albuquerque at the balloon festival, they have these two levels where the balloons go one way at one level and they go up to another level and they go the other way. Is that what goes on? Mary Ann Steinhauer  07:37Absolutely. That's what happened. They are dancing with the wind.Ray Loewe07:41Incredible. Okay, so how does one get a license to pilot one of these things? Mary Ann Steinhauer  07:48Well, first of all, I spent a lot of time as a crew chief. Because my husband at hell she, at the time was very, very interested. He wanted me to take fixed-wing flying lessons. And you know, after the fourth lesson, when I had to stall the plane in the sky, I said, this is not for me. I think I would prefer being in the basket surrounded by this wicker. And I would rather be in a balloon. So, what does it take? Well, I did a lot of crewing and of course, you know what that's like, you have to chase the balloon. And you have to make sure that you handle landowner relations when you're on the ground. And also, you have two-way radios and you let them know, you know that there's there's a field that of course, they can see where the field is. But you sometimes have to clear permission. So I did a lot of crewing. And I would get thrown in the basket every now and then in fly. And I thought you know, I can do this. And before I knew it, I had like 100 hours in the balloon. And I took okay what do you need. And it's not just having the hours you have to be pilot in command, you have to know how the workings of the balloon are. But you also have to take a written test. You have to take an oral test. And just like a driving test, you have to take a test with an examiner, a federal examiner.Ray Loewe09:14Oh my. So, do you have to parallel park too?Mary Ann Steinhauer  09:17No, but I'll tell you what, you know, one of the things that's an absolute no, you don't want to land where there are horses, and you don't want to land in the middle of cows or any kind of livestock. The Federal examiner that I had for my test, you know, my driving test, and no, I didn't parallel park, but he said why don't you just land here? And I said I'm not landing there. There are cows there. You know, I'm not doing that. And while you know he's talking to me about where I should be landing he was testing me out to see if I could take off and land and do all that. He was messing around with the tanks he was turning the valves of the tank saw. And I looked at him and I slapped his hand and I said, stay away from that! You know, because he was gonna knock my pilot light. But he wanted to see if I was attentive to it. You know, if you have passengers, a lot of times they're touching all kinds of things. And that's a no no. Ray Loewe10:20So what do you do when you land someplace like in a farmer's field? That's where you become a diplomat, right? Mary Ann Steinhauer  10:26Yes, absolutely. And you hope that your chase crew has already, you know, set up, of course, I did that a lot. But if I was the pilot, you know, you wanted to make sure that it was okay. And most of the time, people love to have you there. And occasionally, we'd stop at an Amish farm. And the Amish men would hop in the basket and we'd give them the second leg of the flight. You know, we'd let them fly and they could see their land. They could see their handiwork in a way that they never could before.Ray Loewe11:00You know, you are a storyteller, aren't you? Okay, and what a great story. And you know, when I went hot air ballooning, the one time I was up in a balloon, we had a bottle of champagne with us. And, a basket with foods so that if we landed in a farmer's field, you know, we could we could have like a picnic and celebrate?Mary Ann Steinhauer  11:00Yes, well, yes. I know, when flying in France, they really love to have the wine and the champagne. But you have to understand that if you're the pilot, there is no alcohol, from you know, bottle to throttle. And you only have that once you land. And you have the food and the party and I love that part of it, too.Ray Loewe11:44Okay, so before we get into some of your adventures, I know our listeners are gonna want to know what one of these things cost.Mary Ann Steinhauer  11:54Well, when people asked me that, I mean, there's more than just the balloon, there's a basket and the tanks. And then there, the beautiful, artistic piece. It's called the envelope. And it's made of ripstop, nylon and some fireproof, you know, portions of it, where the flame goes. To answer your question, I always say it is like the cost of a car, like a luxury, nice luxury car. And the thing is, once you have the basket and your tanks and everything, you can fly with the envelope for so long. After how many hours you get on it, and over time, because it's heated up a lot, and it's put down and it goes through a lot, it gets porous. And so you know, a new balloon is really tight, like a new car. And you could always just change, you know, just get a new envelope, design a new envelope, and that's another cost, but you also need a chase vehicle. You need a fan to put cold air in. You need radios. You need little helium balloons. There's all kinds of equipment that you need before you even go out to a launch field and start the inflation.Ray Loewe13:18All right. So tell me you had to design your balloon at least once in your life. So when you design your first balloon, how do you design it? Would did you put on it?Mary Ann Steinhauer  13:28Well, first of all, we started out with a used balloon that had quite a few hours on it. And we knew that it was going to be good for us to learn how to fly and to have our instruction. But when it came time to actually designing our envelope, my husband really felt that we were flying in Lancaster County. So he designed a map, an outline of Lancaster County, and it was a yellow map and he had a red rose in the center so that people knew we were from Lancaster County. And then on my side of the balloon, I asked that they do the flying horse, Pegasus, which is a beautiful white flying horse. And whenever I'd see her coming up over the hill, you know, people would see this beautiful Pegasus, and Pegasus is definitely a symbol of inspiration and creativity. So it held a lot of meaning for me.Ray Loewe14:23Alright, I think you're more than a storyteller. I think you're a poet too. Okay, I mean, it's great. I can just see having so much fun with this. You know, first of all, being aloft is quiet, you know, except when that darn blast of propane takes off. And you just get these magnificent views. You know if people that are listening to this have never been up in a hot air balloon, you have to do this at some prime in your life. And you also have to be in the chase car because that's an adventure too. Mary Ann Steinhauer  14:55Oh, it is, it's a lot of fun. Ray Loewe14:56So, let's talk about some of the great places you've been, and let me give a list that you gave me, and then you pick the one that you want to talk about first. Okay? Mary Ann Steinhauer  15:05Okay.Ray Loewe15:05So you were in Austria flying in a balloon, you were in Costa Rica, you were in Spain, you were in Japan, you were in Leningrad. And then who knows where else in the United States you've been. All right. So pick one, and tell us what the appeal was, what the adventure was, and be a storyteller and a poet.Mary Ann Steinhauer  15:25Well, let me tell you. Oh, my goodness, alright, you mentioned Albuquerque, and I'm going to tell you about a time we were flying in Austria, and we didn't have our balloon, a lot of times, there's a network of balloons, ballooners, balloonists around the world. And so if we would be invited to fly in a particular country, there would be balloonists who would lend us their balloons, and then they would come to the United States, and we would reciprocate. So, it was a very, very nice thing. So we were in Austria, we were flying this particular balloon. And we were going over cows and churches and whatnot. And so I thought, well, let's see if we can just land here in this churchyard. And we came through and landed there and all of a sudden, I hear this brass music from a brass band. And I'm thinking, where is that coming from? I mean, this is a church, and out comes this band of Austrian brass trumpet, trombone, and tuba players, and they are serenading this balloon. You know, they were so excited. And they said to us, oh, you know what, we want to come to Albuquerque, you know, and I'm thinking yeah, well, we were rarely at Albuquerque, you know? And I thought, yeah, right, I will never see them. And so later on that year, we were in Albuquerque, and I was there early early morning. We get started at four o'clock in the morning, and we're out in the field. And of course, there's all these stands that are selling breakfast burritos and whatnot. And there are tents set up. And all of a sudden, I hear brass music coming from one of the tents. And lo and behold, it was the brass band that greeted us when we were in Austria. And they recognize me and I recognize them. And it was like a grand reunion. Ray Loewe17:22Incredible.Mary Ann Steinhauer  17:23They were they said they were going to come to Albuquerque. And they did. They did.Ray Loewe17:27Alright, we're getting near the end of our time, but pick one of the other places that you've been, and tell some other story.Mary Ann Steinhauer  17:35Well, I'll tell you, I should talk about Costa Rica, because we were friends with the Minister of Trade of Costa Rica, and his job was to bring new businesses into Costa Rica. And this was a number of years ago, he contacted the ballooning company that made the balloons in the United States and  his name was drawn Luis Escalante and he was definitely interested in getting more flights from Florida to Costa Rica from American Airlines. So he thought it might be a great idea to have a balloon that had the American Airlines logo on it, it would be great publicity. Well, my husband and I and our girls went to Costa Rica on two occasions. And we were in charge of teaching Don Luis how to fly this balloon. It was designed and it had the American Airlines on it. But I mean, what we saw, while we were there, the people were so friendly. There was flowers and beautiful plants everywhere and macaws flying in pairs. So I would see things like that, you know, and I thought, oh my gosh, this is really fantastic. Anyway, we came to the point where the training had gone so far, and it's time to do a solo flight. So Don Luis had to do a solo flight. Now you have to understand, his father-in-law also had a sugar plantation. And so we were flying, and actually over the plantation. And I, you know, I said, Don Luis, you can do this solo flight. This is really good. You know, I was on the chase vehicle. Ed was there, you know, so there we were, and he's getting ready to come in for his landing, actually on the plantation. And I thought this was really wonderful. And then all of a sudden, I hear the clanging of the tanks in the back of the pickup truck. And I looked at the power lines, and I saw that they were undulating. And so finally he landed, and the earth started to move. We were having an earthquake. I couldn't believe it. I mean, it actually happened at that moment when he was landing. And I said, Don Luis, that was a hell of a landing! I could not believe it!Ray Loewe20:03So welcome to Adventures in Costa Rica. And, you know, we're gonna do another one of these if I can get your attention later because the stories can go on I'm sure. Okay, but before we sign off, your daughter is also a hot air balloonist, isn't she?Mary Ann Steinhauer  20:19Oh, yes, my older daughter, the younger daughter never really cared for it. But the older daughter definitely took to it. And she's highly competitive. She actually competes all around the world right now. I mean, she lives in Colorado but she was in Lithuania, she's qualifying for the Women's Championship. And I think it's going to happen in Australia. Ray Loewe20:45You know, when you compete, what does that entail? Because you don't have control over where the balloon is going.Mary Ann Steinhauer  20:51No, but you do map your course. And there's always a big x at one of the fields. And the whole idea is to be able to fly over that X in your balloon and toss a beanbag that has your balloon number on it. And the closest you get to the center of the X, you're definitely you know, the winner or you get the ranking. But there's also a hare and hound. So  there's a hare balloon that leads the way and whoever can fly closest, and land in the same place that the hare does, the Hound is the winner. I mean, so there's those kinds of competitions. Ray Loewe21:40So who knew, right? So  again, you know, we're at the end of our time and Maryanne Steinhauer has been our guest, and she's opened up this whole world of hot air ballooning to us and she's available, stop at the North desk some time and if you're lucky, you'll see her. Mary Ann Steinhauer  21:59I do want to read one thing as we close. Ray Loewe22:02Okay, go ahead.Mary Ann Steinhauer  22:03That is called the balloonist prayer. The winds have welcomed you softly. The sun has blessed you with her warm hands. You have flown so well, and so high that God has joined you in your laughter and then gently set you back into the loving arms of Mother Earth.Ray Loewe22:24There's nothing more to say. So Luke, sign us off, please. Thanks for listening. And be sure to listen again next week. And every week when we'll have another exciting guest. I hope you enjoyed this. This is something we're going to do from time to time, and I think you can certainly see why our guest is one of the luckiest people in the world. So listen again next week and, Luke, sign us off.Outro  22:58Thank you for listening to Changing the Rules. Join us next week for more conversation, our special guest and to hear more from the luckiest guy in the world.

The Insurance Dudes are on a mission to find the best insurance agentsaround the country to find out how they are creating some of the top agencies. But they do not stop there, they also bring professionals from other industries for insights that can help agents take their agencies to the next level. The Insurance Dudes focus on your agency's four pillars: Hiring, Training, Marketing and Motivation! We have to keep the sword sharp if we want our agencies to thrive. Insurance Dudes are leaders in their home, at their office and in their community. This podcast will keep you on track with like minded high performing agents while keeping entertained!About Jason and Craig:Both agents themselves, they both have scaled to around $10 million in premium.  After searching for years for a system to create predictability in their agencies, they developed the Telefunnel after their interviews with so many agents and business leaders.  Taking several years, tons of trial and error, and hundreds of thousands of dollars on lead spend, they've optimized their agencies and teams to write tons of premium, consistently, and nearly on autopilot!LEARN MORE BY Registering for TUESDAY's LIVE CALL With The Insurance Dudes![Episode Transcript]Jason Feltman  00:00Your agents are coming up to bat and presenting quotes and giving them a chance every single day. And really, it enables you to really turn on the spigot and get those sales flowing. Insurance dudesCraig Pretzinger  00:14are on a mission to escape big hit by our agents.Jason Feltman  00:19How? by uncovering the secrets to creating a predictable, consistent and profitable agency Sales Machine.Craig Pretzinger  00:27I am Craig Pretzinger.Jason Feltman  00:28I am Jason Feldman.Craig Pretzinger  00:30We are agents.Jason Feltman  00:31We are insurances. Right now, while it's fresh in your mind, check out live dot tele dudes.com. We tookCraig Pretzinger  00:41our notes from over 100 interviews with top agents from around the country and made it into a live webcastJason Feltman  00:48using these strategies led Craig and I to selling more than 10 million in premium in the last two yearsCraig Pretzinger  00:55on this call, you'll receive the exact blueprint to get the same results.Jason Feltman  01:00Just go to Live dot tele dudes.com To register for this upcoming Tuesday's live call with us.Craig Pretzinger  01:08If you jump on this call with us we're certain 2022 will be an absolutely fantastic year for you.Jason Feltman  01:14See you there. Hey, it's Jason, and welcome to another insurance playbook. All right, it's just me today. Craig's doing his own, I'm doing my own. The thing I wanted to talk about today is the number one thing, the number one skill for you as an agency owner and your agency. So let's dive in. So the number one skill, I believe in your agency is marketing. Marketing is not just you might think it might be something that you don't need, you might think that all we need to sales, but really marketing is the whole part of includes sales, sales does not include marketing. So yes, you need sales, but it's the whole psychology behind it, right? That skill and learning that will help you with buying leads, it'll help you with training your team. Marketing is really like the number one thing, you as an agency owner need to make it rain in your agency, literally like our&

When we look to a professional for support, we may be looking to improve our mental health or confidence, but at a fundamental level, we're really hoping to change our lives. So what does that mean when it comes to Executive Function support? In past episodes, I spoke with parents of kiddos who are in coaching now and have made great progress in their own executive function journeys. If you've listened to those episodes already, you'll have heard them share that while it hasn't been an easy or quick journey, the rewards for both their children and themselves have been tremendously life-changing. I really wanted to explore another perspective on the coaching journey, so I reached out to Fran Havard, who is a mom of four kids, two of whom have executive function challenges. Fran knows a lot about EF coaching because she's one of Beyond BookSmart's EF coaches and she also shares her knowledge with families in the role of coaching coordinator or, as you'll hear her call it “CC”, by providing support by answering questions and sharing additional information about the process of change to help families and clients navigate their way through coaching. Fran and I sat down to talk about what she's learned and how she manages all of this. Here are the show notes for this episode: Helping our Kids Learn EF SkillsActivities Guide: Enhancing and Practicing Executive Function Skills with Children from Infancy to AdolescenceHelping Kids Who Struggle With Executive FunctionsSmart But Scattered Kids book by Peg Dawson, Ph.D.A Day in the Life of an Elementary Schooler with Executive Function ChallengesFinch App for Android or Apple devicesHelping Ourselves Practice EF SkillsExecutive Skill Challenges: Adults Have Them, Too!Executive Functioning in Adults: The Science Behind Adult CapabilitiesSupport for Adults: New Ebook from an Executive Function Expert by Michael Delman, Beyond BookSmart CEOHow to ADHD YouTube ChannelHow to Work or Study in a Noisy EnvironmentStaying Focused in a Noisy Open Office6 Ways to Minimize Distractions in a Noisy Work EnvironmentWhy Are Power Tools So Loud?Contact us!Reach out to us at podcast@beyondbooksmart.comIG/FB/TikTok @beyondbooksmartcoachingTranscriptHannah Choi 00:04Hi everyone and welcome to Focus Forward, an executive function Podcast where we explore the challenges and celebrate the wins you'll experience as you change your life through working on improving your executive function skills. I'm your host, Hannah Choi. In past episodes, I spoke with parents of kiddos who are in coaching now, and have made great progress in their own executive function journeys. If you've listened to these episodes already, you'll have heard them share that well. It hasn't been an easy or quick journey, the rewards for both their children and themselves have been tremendously life-changing. I really wanted to explore another perspective on the coaching journey.So I reached out to Fran Havard who is a mom of four kids, two of whom who have executive function challenges. And Fran knows a lot about EF coaching because she is one of Beyond BookSmart's coaches, and she also shares her knowledge with families in the role of coaching coordinator, or as you'll hear her call it "CC" by providing support by answering questions and sharing additional information about the process of change to help families and clients navigate their way through coaching. Fran and I sat down to talk about what she's learned and how she manages all of this. I don't want to give too much away. But as you listen today, you'll hear that recording this episode challenged my attention and cognitive flexibility executive function skills like no other. This episode is authenticity in practice, we are truly keeping it real. Now on to the show. Hi, Fran, thank you so much for being here today. Do you want to start off by telling our listeners a little bit about you and your background?Fran Havard 01:48Sure. My name is Fran and I'm a parent first. I've joked with a lot of people around me that I wear many hats. So when they're interacting with me, they got to make sure I'm wearing the right hat. So if I go to meetings, and I'm in my journalist hat, I have to announce that ahead of time, if I'm in my doctoral classes, I announce that ahead of time. I am a parent first though, for children ages 5, 8, 9, 8? I think he's about to turn nine. So nine and 10 and 12. I have worked with adolescents most of my life. I coach, older us adolescents, usually at 19 starting college. And that is my favorite age group to work with.Hannah Choi 02:34Can you explain a little bit more about the roles that you've played at Beyond BookSmart? Just so we can kind of get a little more understanding about your perspective when it comes to executive function challenges.Fran Havard 02:46So I play two roles at beyond booksmart. One is I work with families as a coaching coordinator. So I sort of as a support with the coaching process, but not in the role of coach. I answer I, you know, explain or narrate the growth process to families and I you know, celebrate the successes when we've met another part of the change process. And we're in a different phase of development, I, you know, communicate what's happening in coaching, I answer questions about, you know, if there's resistance to coaching, what that means and how we overcome those hurdles. And I'm also a coach, so I work, I'm also living the challenges that our coaches are living with and living the successes that we're seeing through this process.Hannah Choi 03:35And, and you're also a parent, do you like I know myself being a parent, I, I bring a lot of what I what I've learned about executive function into my parenting, how does how does, being a coach and a coaching coordinator affect you as a parent?Fran Havard 03:56So actually, how I started coaching is an interesting story. I knew, you know, I was a stay at home parent, I had left teaching. And I was sort of working in virtual ed. And I had a child who was she was, I didn't know what it was, I'd been in teaching for a decade. She was messy. Everything was messy, like the hair, the books, the backpack, everything was all over the place. And I just started like, I mean, like the emotions, everything was just and I had an older daughter who was neat and tidy, right? And then the second daughter came along, and I couldn't believe how different they were and I thought that's strange. So I started like googling like anything else just seeking out why is like, literally Why is my kid so messy? And somehow I stumbled across this language called executive function. It was like new at the time. I don't know it was like it felt like new language that I hadn't even heard as a teacher as a veteran teacher. And so I started to look more about it, and then all of a sudden, I hit the on Beyond BookSmart. And I said, Well, you know, at that point I'm not working, but I applied for the job because I thought if I could learn what they're doing, and I could try it, maybe I could help this really messy kid I have. And that's how I started Beyond BookSmart. And it turned out that I ended up out of four kids, two are very messy. And what I realized the most through asking you like, your question is, what do I learn, I learned the language to communicate with them, you know, that I wouldn't, didn't, that I wouldn't have had without, you know, being an executive function coach, like, how to help them reflect on their experiences to help them grow, you know, and learn how to listen more to them, rather than trying to force them into a mold that they, they're, you know, like squeezing them, but you know, you can't put them I've learned how to accept that they're not going to be neat and tidy. And that, either I get them to, you know, through that messiness articulate their authentic selves, or, you know, I'm forever nagging and yelling at them. And I think executive function coaching, which you think, Oh, you must be so perfect and organized to do this job. But, you know, that's how I learned I had ADHD, that's how I learned my children had ADHD, you know, I learned what it was, through my interaction with it, it's a learning, you know, it's a, it's a different style of learning, and being and observing and knowing. And we just have to find how you can be that person in another environment that wants you to be a certain way. And then through reflection, through questioning, and I would say, you know, as a coach, and as a parent, that's what I've learned how to coach my kids.Hannah Choi 07:02Is I one thing that we hear a lot from parents, and I'm sure you have to is parents feeling like, like, I didn't know, like, I didn't know what was going on, or like, I knew something was off, but I didn't know what it was. And then, you know, like, I wish I had done something differently, or I wish I had found, you know, about executive function, just executive functions earlier. Did you go through any of that?Fran Havard 07:30Oh, absolutely. It was like, there's this expression, if you can name it, you can tame it. Yeah. And I found when I could name those EF executive function areas, like, you know, metacognition, or planning, prioritizing time management, task initiation, if I could name it, see the strategies that I could bring in. But before I could break it down and see those parts, I just saw a big mess. Once I can name the parts, I was able to analyze how those pieces were coming together to create what I was seeing in front of me. And that's knowledge feature, every parent, every kid needs to know. Because if you can say, task initiation is my struggle right? Now, I know I don't want to do this, but I'm going to give myself a five minute goal to get over this hurdle, you will find that they are the awareness to know what their drag is use that tool to get through it. And then it's not failure. That's why I love executive function coaching because these messy kids meet failure again, and again, because they don't know how to name the pieces. So it just seems like a giant mess. And if anything that I've learned from working this job, it's like it's and I always say this with clients. It's a constant unraveling, like this braid on the back of your head, and you're pulling apart the strands, and you're rebraiding it. So that it's, you know, how they want it braided but it has shape, it has definition and the parts are recognizable.Hannah Choi 09:15I love that. So when you're working with families, and you're working with the you know, so say the child is in coaching, and the child has you know, been identified as someone who is not like fitting in to the mold I mean, really they are they just haven't found the strategies that work for them to fit into society as it is. Now I'm sure there's like a world somewhere where messy people would just be like embraced and welcomed Fran Havard 09:44In their their messy world right? Yeah. children's book writer that has that messy character it's like this blob of color and you know, the sunshine guy he's got Mr. Messy is my favorite character of all because it's like You're just like, what is it? It's like, I wish I had a piece of paper, but it's like this big scribble guy walking around with.10:08I think I remember that10:08He reminds me of my daughter, you know, use that metaphor we use that. I use that with her so that she laughs about it, because, and you gotta you gotta have laughter right?Hannah Choi 10:20Yes. Speaking, I don't know if you can hear it, but there's some kind of loud noise going on Fran Havard 10:25Is someone serenading me? What's happening out there?Hannah Choi 10:28I don't know. There's like a loud drill or a saw, like people don't realize I'm recording right now? (laughter)Fran Havard 10:34I thought that was a song I was like, kids playing instrument out the window. (laughter)Hannah Choi 10:39No, it's the neighbors. Okay. A big part of parenting, at least I know, for me, and many of my friends is this guilt that we that we feel. Regardless, like, regardless of what the topic is, what area of life it is we're bound to like find some, you know, something that we fault ourselves for. Do you? Does that come up in your conversations with parents?Fran Havard 11:02Yeah, I mean, I think it's really important that, you know, me having had the experience of not knowing what was happening and having an experience where I was yelling at my kid, you know, to get them to put their shoes on, or find their backpack or wonder why one morning, she grabs a backpack, puts it on her back and gets ready for school. And it's not even her backpack or you know, I've had those experiences, where you can't understand why they just don't get it. So for me to have made changes to my own behavior, such as: This is your hook. This is your backpack. For me to have made changes to how I parent and my expectations for her and how I can better support her and the youngest son made a world of difference on conflict in the house. So whenever I work with parents, I some part of the conversation that I'm listening to what they're saying, I'm hearing that your son is not filling out a Google Calendar. But what I'm saying to you is, what can we do to sort of support that process? How can we help? Because telling my daughter to pick up her backpack and put it on her back? Doesn't mean she's gonna know which backpack. And so just because your son has a Google Calendar, how can we increase the our interest in it, get engagement, you know, engage with that tool, as a family. And I feel like a lot of my experiences as CC is translating.Hannah Choi 12:44I know for myself, like my son is very forgetful. He's he's very much like me. And so. So every morning, it would it was this constant thing of me saying like, did you get this? Did you get that? Did you get this? Did you get that? And I'm like, What are you doing? Hannah, you need to you need to approach this like a coach. So we made a list. And we have a list on the door that goes out to the, we leave from our garage, so there's a door that goes out there. And so there's a list on there. And he's gotten so good every morning, he stands there in front of it. And he's 10. And he stands there in front of it and reads everything off and then scampers off to get the one thing that he forgot. And it and it's totally taken the stress out of the mornings. For us. It's, it's absolutely, it's taken the pressure off of me, it's removed that from my role, which is great for him and for our relationship.Fran Havard 13:33Exactly, because it gives them I know exactly what you're saying. Because there's this tool that I used with one of my children, I just started using an app where it's one of my clients actually showed me this, they said they use this little character, and you set goals for yourself. And you design your character and you set goals like brush your teeth in the morning, make sure your math homework is packed, wear underwear. Your parents of kids with executive function issues, like the first thing you're like is you put the underwear on, you know, because that step they miss. So like we have tags like that on this app. And then they he comes in the morning, and he'll slide that he did these things. And then the character will get moving. And the character goes on an adventure. And you don't know that's adventure. It's just it's little penguin walking. And and when you do more, it shortens the journey. So they, he will come home from school and he'll pick up his iPad to look at his penguin and what the penguin found on the journey because it's usually a four hour journey or five, he'll make find coconut milk, he's like, "Ma, I found coconut milk". And I'll be like "that's amazing!", but it all stems from him having done those acts and that's tied to the metaphor of task initiation. Right, right.Hannah Choi 14:51 Yeah. I love that. That's great. We will include more about that app in the show notes if anybody wants to get in We have that. So if any, any of our listeners hear this noise in the background, the house next to me is apparently undergoing some kind of alteration, there's some wild saw or drill or something going on. My apologiesFran Havard 15:13 I'm a bit nervous about the timber part, when whatever they're sawing falls down. Hannah Choi 15:20Okay, they obviously do not see the big red Record sign that I have, that I should have. Something that I write about a lot. And I, I struggle with myself a lot is this expectation that just because we are executive function coaches, we kind of put this pressure on ourselves, like, oh, maybe we are also supposed to be excellent in all of our executive functions. And I think executive function coaches are such great examples of how no one on this earth has perfect executive functions. And so where, what if What areas do you have to work on and what challenges do you find? Fran Havard 15:56You know it's funny because when I think about executive functioning coach, we're just having strong executive function, it doesn't always have to look neat and tidy. Like, I have a friend who is, I mean, counters are sparkling, everything is white, got three kids, right? Everything's still white, even with the three kids running around the house, everything has a container, I'll never be that person. So what executive function skills look like, for me, are not what they look like for other people. And for me, it's become like, it's about knowing how to prioritize what's important. That's strong executive, you know, how many projects we deal with every day, when we sit down? If you have four kids, three of those kids are classified special ed. I mean, that alone is a bucket, that alone is a task list. Yeah, that's how I think in those terms, you know, I think I have to do X, Y, and Z, my house doesn't look perfect. My purse, I, I haven't carried one in a very long time. Because I, I lose it, you know, like, but what I've gotten really good at is thinking in categories, and then sub categorizing. And I can, you know, I've gotten good at a planner or, you know, things like, things like that, when it comes to executive function, but and that's what I say, like, we have this image of what's perfect, what has very strong executive function skills. And if there is like, anything that I've learned as a coach, and as a parent, there's no perfect, there's no perfect if you can figure out like, you know, this is all about the change process, if you can figure out what you want to change, and own that and want that and that's the hardest part. And that is the hardest part of executive functioning as a, you know, strength. It's most people that are good at it, either a going through the motions, or B, they know what they want. And that that's nuts. That's the difference. So you know, if my friend has a perfect pristine house, she prioritizes that executive function area, all right, I don't. I mean, I literally went to bed last night with dishes in the sink. My friend would have a mini heart attack if that happened. Like she she says and understand she I called her once and I was like, What color should I paint for these cabinets? And she's like, I can't watch that video. I was like, Why can't you watch the video? She goes, You left all your cabinet doors open, who leaves the cabinet doors open? You know, like for her executive function coaching is everything neat and tidy.Hannah Choi 18:38My god, I seriously think there's someone. Also, there's like someone here.Fran Havard 18:45In your house? I didn't notice, I feel like you're doing great. But I'm like trying I'm like, I could tell there's a lot happening!Hannah Choi 18:55There's like someone in my house. My husband is working from home as well. Okay. Hey, you know what we said we were gonna go into this being really authentic. Well, listeners, I am treating you to authenticity today. Welcome to my life.Fran Havard 19:15Well, Hannah, you know executive function coaching is a lot about how you respond to things, right?Hannah Choi 19:20It is. It really is. Yes, I'm just gonna get through it. And I'm gonna just love it. And I'm just so happy that I'm talking to you. You can go through this with me. So something so two things that I wanted to talk about. One is you said something earlier about comparison and I feel like that comes up a lot. We have these assumptions in our head about how we are or our children are like supposed to be and how other like other kids It's other are like our friends, kids are a certain way. And oh, like my kids are supposed to be that way. And I think that I'm, I wouldn't be surprised if many of the parents of our kiddos that are going through executive function coaching are feeling this way. And it's just so important to recognize that everyone has strengths. Everyone has challenges, your kid is not the same as as someone else's kid, you are not the same. There's going to be things about your kid that are you know, that they're better at something than someone else's kid. And I don't know, that's just something that comes up a lot. I've noticed in conversations with friends and just conversations with other coaches and parents. That comparison is it's tempting to go down that road. And it's can be a little dicey. If you do.Fran Havard 20:56Well, I find that I have to fight that as both a coaching coordinator and as a parent, this idea of what's right. Fix my kid, you know, this is not what coaching is about, I always find I have a definite focus on what's your authentic self. Because these kids have learning differences. And it's not so much that they have learning differences, how they engage and see the world is different. That's why the result, what you see on the other side is different. Because the kids that we work with the ADHD kids, and other learning difference, kids don't see the same world. And I have to temper the expectation right away that that's a beautiful thing. They will never see the same world that x sees it or Y sees it. They interact in a very unique way. And that is something to celebrate. And so, I had a line with parents, that is where I go, allowing parents to understand that it is okay, that your child engages in different way with the world. Congratulations, you've birthed an individual with a unique perspective on the world. Yes, Well done for cultivating that through their early childhood. Well done for keeping that special bit of them right through, you know, school, and yeah, they might not have straight A's in high school, but we'll help them find a way to be successful.Hannah Choi 22:40Oooh, you're giving me the chills.Fran Havard 22:41I mean, like, yes, it's so true. Hannah Choi 22:48I, one of my adult clients and I were having a similar conversation, he was recently diagnosed with ADHD, and he did a project for grad school where they interviewed educators and just people from all different aspects of education, and about how so, so many people don't fit into this, you know, the mold of, of education, as it is today of most schools. And, and then we were saying that, but it's the people who don't fit in, that are the ones that you know, can really end up making change. And it's the people that are different, that see the world in a different way. And that, you know, that that interpret the world in a different ways. They're the ones that keep things interesting and keep us on our toes. And we need more people that think that way. And then in order for them to reach their goals, yeah, they need to develop some executive functions, strategies that support the areas that, that make it maybe make it hard for them to do X, Y, and Z.Fran Havard 23:53Yeah, I, the other day, a little I was in my son's third grade classroom. And we were doing a word search. And like, I've always been a sort of outside the box thinker. And it, I took the word search, and I started doing it with his class. And then I turned the paper to the side, because for me, I could look at letters, you know, turn around, I can all of a sudden see a pattern that I didn't see before. And I and I, all of a sudden, everybody's sitting at my son's table, turn their paper to the side because they had never thought and I thought and I always think when I work with kids who are, you know, have learning differences. They always have their paper to the side helped me see things a little bit differently, you know?Hannah Choi 24:32Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I was talking with someone she was, I can't remember who it was, but she was saying, you know, like, if you walk into a special education classroom in an elementary school, you might see someone like lying on the floor and doing their work or someone you know, using some kind of manipulative or you know, sitting in some kind of unique chair or something. And that's what we need in every classroom. Like it should be just sort of accepted and standard. Some people work on the floor. Some people hold their paper sideways. Yeah. And that's, that's one thing that I love about coaching is helping people find what works for them. And I always say, like, I'm gonna make this suggestion, but I don't want you to think, oh, I have to do it this way. Like, I want you to say like, I want you to tell me when it doesn't work, I want you to tell me what you didn't like about it. I always start my question. Okay, you tried this? What did you not like about it? That's it's super valuable, really valuable information. I'm sure that you've had conversations with parents, when they say it feels like it's taking a long time. Because a common thing that we talked about with clients all the time, I'm sure you've talked about it with your clients. And I know it comes up a lot is like how long it takes to make change. I mean, there's 1000s of books on, you know, developing new habits, there's, you know, podcasts and executive function coaches and everything. And it just takes a long time. What do you how do you, how do you help parents understand that and how do you yourself manage it, when, when either one of your clients is taking a long time, or if you're taking a long time, or one of your kids.Fran Havard 26:11I'm a firm believer that you have to get underneath, you got to get up underneath the resistance to change. So you remember, we we learned a lot about friction when we that when we read the article I sent and you have to understand as a parent, as a coach, what's creating that friction, that resistance to change. And I think a lot about problem solving in those terms. Now, because change is slow because of this friction. And then when you look at like a kid who's, you know, 17 in pre contemplation, which is there, they don't even realize they have to change, they're so over it, they're so detached, and how to bring them to that line, that takes a long time, relationship building, and a lot of making that child feel like they can be successful. And then the more that you can reshape that perception they have of themselves, so that they can see I'm a person capable of doing good things, I am a person capable of having a conversation, then you get the wheel starts to spin. So you have less of that, you know, that friction, and you have more of that's what we're going for the snowball, where one good idea feeds another good idea. It takes it takes a lot of verbal unpacking, we have to change the narrative inside the head. And when we do that, then changes quicker. But and that friction causes that slowness then causes the rate of change to slow down. Like we use physics as we use Newton's law of motion in this company, in Beyond BookSmart to talk about, you know, force and change in the process. It's not always the carrot, I'll give you this and you'll do it. Right. That's artificial. We've learned as coaches that that doesn't work. What Works is how we change this.Hannah Choi 28:19Yep. And so much of that is confidence, right? The how you were saying like, like, if you are at the point where you've like, say, you've been labeled something, you know, you've been labeled, you know, disorganized or you just have, the messages that have been given to you growing up is that you are incapable of doing this thing in a way that people like, and so your confidence has been eroded. And so I imagine that a lot of the friction that we that we do experience is for is not necessarily being able to believe that we could change, right?Fran Havard 29:03That's exactly it. This is me Take it or leave it. That's pre-contemplation. This is who I am. I'm not capable of change. Right? Yeah, that mindset, that's what you're working with. That's what you're changing. You're you are, you know, Emily Dickinson said "Hope is the Thing With Feathers that perches in the soul", like you are giving them that hope that purchases in the soul and then grows so that they can feel that they are more than this label.Hannah Choi 29:32Yeah, yep. It's a it can be hard. It can be hard waiting for someone to, you know, or walking away. ItFran Havard 29:40can be hard because there's a lot of conflicting messages and you makes you think I need to fix everything. And that's why that's why the executive function pieces so great, because it's about the parts, right? Yeah. What are we going to fix this week? We're going to fix we're going to try to and see if we're ready to fix task initiation. We're gonna try by, by getting over this hurdle of going to the gym, or dealing with my physics teacher, or writing this English assignment, Hannah, you know, writing for me is, you know, where my energy mostly lies when it comes through executive function coaching and getting a kid over that hurdle of you write the first sentence, then that's huge. We can get the first sentence written when you know, if we can isolate those parts, then we're not taking on everything. And then those quick wins those small successes that you're feeling, I wrote a sentence. Great. You weren't or you had nothing before that. AndHannah Choi 30:43I opened the doc. Sometimes it's just opening the doc. Yeah, yeah. Yep. And I think that as an outsider, as an observer of someone who struggles like you said, you can you find yourself saying, like, why can't they just that without breaking it down like that so small into such small, tiny little goals can be challenging for the observer. Because it's, you know, we just don't understand. But for the person who is learning better strategies to support themselves, that's the key. And that's kind of why it takes so long right?Fran Havard 31:26To unravel the mess so they can see what they want to work on. Yeah. So they can realize it's not really a mess. It's just a beautiful bunch of parts looking different.Hannah Choi 31:36Yes, that's right. Yeah, it's all there.Fran Havard 31:40It's all there. You would necessarily want to see it or not how they feel that they should show it, you know?Hannah Choi 31:50Yeah. Do you have any questions for me?Fran Havard 31:52Why don't you tell us a little bit about how starting this podcast challenged your EF skills?Hannah Choi 31:58Oh, yeah. Well, that's a great question. As you know, I really love to write, if writer, if listeners don't know, I write quite a bit for Beyond BookSmart. Internally, mostly internally. And so I was super excited about doing this, because I knew that I was going to be able to write a lot. But that also meant I had to be extremely organized. We have a lot of working parts, we have the audio, the writing, the planning, there are so many executive functions that are tied up with planning a podcast. So I would say for me, mostly, it has been task initiation, getting myself to make sure that I do the things that I need to do, because there's a lot of things on the list. Writing everything down. Absolutely. So I don't forget. And organization, keeping it all organized. So yeah.Fran Havard 32:54But thinking what are you going to do next?Hannah Choi 32:56Yeah, right, right. And cognitive flexibility,Fran Havard 32:59right. Next steps is the most important executive function skill you could have.Hannah Choi 33:03It is yeah. So next steps is - we end every meeting with the next steps, you know, what are we all going to do next? I end every writing session. If I sit down to write I end, every single writing session with what's next. I think, Oh, I think if I were to give one tip to anyone in the world, would be to use Next Steps. What is your next step when you stop doing the thing? What is your next step saves a whole bunch of heartache when you can't remember what you're gonna do,Fran Havard 33:33What you're gonna do, like you get up a podcast, most people get up and Chuck their stuff, they go upstairs and drink a cup of coffee. If you sit there for 30 seconds, and take a quick note, you save all those ideas flooding your brain, it's like it's a time window, you got to grab it.Hannah Choi 33:48Yeah, it's so true. And a huge thing that I talk a lot about with my clients is frontloading and doing as much as you can upfront to save yourself a whole bunch of grief later on. And, and that is for me, too, is that like you were saying earlier to the whole reflection piece, like quick, like if you do our little reflection session after anything that you've just done, then you are frontloading a whole bunch of work for next time.Fran Havard 34:15Exactly. And it's like, it's like a flood after you're in one of these and you just got to gotta get it down. Got to capture. Yep. Well, thank you, Hannah. Hannah Choi 34:25Oh, thank you, Fran. I really hope that our listeners can hear it. And that's our show for today. I really hope that you found something useful in today's episode and maybe even had a little chuckle listening to our attempts to maintain focus while the house next door was attacked with a power tool. Here at Focus Forward, we aim to bring you authentic stories and give you opportunities to learn and also be entertained. So hopefully today's episode did just that. I'm so glad you're here and you took time out of your day to listen, be sure to check out the show notes for this episode. On our website and subscribe to the podcast at beyond booksmart.com/podcast we send out an email after every episode with links to resources and tools we mentioned thanks for listening

*Mental Health & ADHD/Executive Dysfunction section starts at 20:21*When we talk about Executive Function, we also need to talk about mental health. Taking care of our mental health is important for everyone and studies show that there is a connection between executive function challenges and mental health diagnoses like depression and anxiety. There are many, many ways that executive function challenges affect mental health. In today's episode, I'll explore just two of these: emotional regulation for kids and the impact that ADHD can have on kids' mental health. I had the absolute pleasure of sitting down with two guests to talk about these interesting topics. Sherry Fleydervish joined me from Chicago and Sean Potts joined me from Brooklyn, NY. Sherry is a child and family therapist who is trained in many therapeutic areas, including theraplay, dyadic developmental therapy, art and play therapy, and cognitive behavioral therapy. Her areas of expertise and interests include anxiety, depression, ADHD, parent support, family transition, divorce, and separation support, trauma, attachment issues, and social and relational skills. Learn all about her work with Best Self Inc. here. Sean is one of Beyond BookSmart's earliest coaching clients as well as the producer for this podcast. Now, as an adult, Sean has developed a passion for raising awareness around ADHD and is especially interested the increased risk for mental health disorders and the societal stigma associated with ADHD. He uses that passion every day as a driving force in the work he does as Beyond BookSmart's Marketing Specialist Check out some of that work on BBS's Facebook page and blog. ---Here are some readings and resources for topics that came up in my conversation with Sherry & Sean.You can find more about Sherry and her work at https://www.bestselfinc.com/Mental Health and Executive Function Challenge ConnectionExecutive Functions in Students With Depression, Anxiety, and Stress SymptomsWhat Should You Treat First? ADHD or Mental Health Challenges?Executive Functioning: How Does It Relate To Anxiety?Academic Anxiety: How Perfectionism and Executive Dysfunction Collide3 Ways ADHD Makes You Think About YourselfSelf-Regulation and Co-RegulationExecutive Function & Self-RegulationWhat is Co-Regulation? | Best Self Family PostDeveloping Kids' Executive Function, Self-Regulation SkillsHow Can We Help Kids With Transitions? - Child Mind InstituteContact us!Reach out to us at podcast@beyondbooksmart.comIG/FB/TikTok @beyondbooksmartcoachingTranscriptHannah Choi 00:04Hi everyone and welcome to Focus Forward, an executive function podcast where we explore the challenges and celebrate the wins you'll experience as you change your life through working on improving your executive function skills. I'm your host, Hannah Choi. When we talk about executive function, we also need to talk about mental health. Taking care of our mental health is really important for everyone. And studies show that there is a connection between executive function challenges, and mental health diagnoses like depression and anxiety. There are many, many ways that executive function challenges affect mental health and vice versa. And in today's episode, I'll explore just two of these: emotional regulation for kids and the impact that ADHD can have on kids' mental health. I had the absolute pleasure of sitting down with two guests to talk about these interesting topics. Sherry Fleydervish joins me from Chicago and Sean Potts joined me from Brooklyn, New York. Sherry is a child and family therapist who works with infants through adults, and also supports the parents and families of these children. She is trained in many therapeutic areas, including theraplay dyadic, developmental psychotherapy, mindfulness, sandtray, and cognitive behavioral therapy. Her areas of expertise include anxiety, depression, ADHD, parent support, and family transition, divorce and separation support, trauma, attachment issues and social skills. And Sean is one of Beyond BookSmart's earliest coaching clients. And now as an adult, Sean has developed a passion for raising awareness around ADHD, and is especially interested in the increased risk for mental health disorders, and the societal stigma associated with ADHD. He uses that passion every day as a driving force in the work he does as Beyond BookSmart's Marketing Specialist, and it's the reason why I thought he'd be a great fit for today's topic. I also need to mention that Sean is my partner in crime for this podcast, he does all the editing and all the sound, which is good, since I can't stand that kind of stuff. So without him, this podcast would not exist. Thanks, Sean. Okay, so keep listening to hear my conversation with Sherry and Sean, and learn some great strategies to support both our own emotional regulation and that of our kids, and to hear how ADHD impacts the mental health of students, and how we can help support kiddos with ADHD. Okay, now on to the show. So today, I would love to talk about two topics that are really, really important to me as a coach, and also to, I think everyone, the first is emotional regulation. And that's how we manage our emotions. And emotional regulation can be challenging for everybody. And it is especially challenging for kids, because they don't have a lot of experience, yet their executive functions are not completely developed yet. And they just haven't had a lot of opportunities to practice emotional regulation. So I'd love to talk about some, you know, ideas that you have shared from your perspective. And and then I would love to cover the idea of the connection between executive function and mental health. Because we see that a lot that there's a lot of challenges by people who have executive function challenges, often go hand have some also some mental health challenges along with them. So if we could cover those two topics today, that'd be fabulous.Sherry Fleydervish 03:48Absolutely. You know, something that I talk about, every single family session, every child session intake is just emotion regulation. You know, a lot of times I've see, I start my intakes with parents, and they come in, and they tell me what's been going on. And oftentimes I hear, you know, these behaviors are showing up and these labels and these things that kids are experiencing, and my mind immediately goes to regulation and where they got in their, in their ability to do that, and their ability to regulate and then the parents ability to help them co regulate to, which is something I talked about. But all of that comes from a deeper lower part of our brains that take so much time and years and experiences and everything to start to build. And so that's that's oftentimes regulation is oftentimes the first place that I really start with families.Hannah Choi 04:43And I feel like so many of us, at least in the generation that is old enough to have kids and then then the generation before us. There wasn't a lot of education about about self-regulation, emotional regulation, and especially co-regulation. I think, maybe even a lot of our listeners don't know what co-regulation is. Would you like to explain that a little bit? Sherry Fleydervish 05:03Yeah, absolutely. So what I often say is that we are sharing our nervous systems, especially with our children. And when they're little and they're babies, we're really doing everything for them, we're rocking them to regulate them, even when they're in our bellies, we're rocking them, we're regulating that, then we're feeding them, we're watering them, we're doing all of those things for them. And then as children get older, we start to help them use build their own ability to regulate themselves, but you know, even, we're even co-regulating with, with our high schoolers to, you know, instead of, maybe before you would pack their lunch for them, but, you know, now you're just putting things in the right spot in the, in the fridge for them instead. And so all those little pieces are helping them regulate, you know, instead of maybe holding them, you're just sitting next to them while they do their homework now, instead of really being there, but it really is just sharing your nervous system and sharing your regulation with your child. And I'm also always, you know, talking about how different energy states require a different type of regulation. So if you have a child who was really upset and sad, you can mirror that with your body, you can get lower with them, and you can talk to them at a lower level and put your hand on your on their shoulder. But if you have a child who's really angry and frustrated, "My brother just ripped apart my favorite stuffed animal!" and, you know, I, I invite parents to match that same energy with their child and get bigger and meet their effect and just tell them how frustrated it is that they this just happened. That's co-regulating, it's showing through your body through or voice through your aspect that I hear you, I see you. And then a child begins to be able to regulate themselves as we, as we kind of practice and learn and model that.Hannah Choi 07:03So so much of, of helping our kids is learning first, for ourselves what we need to do to help ourselves and then through that we can help our kids.Sherry Fleydervish 07:16That conversation invites a lot to understand our own systems, you know, I help parents understand what comes up for them as their child moves through different things that maybe, maybe transitions are really difficult. And so I invite them to wonder what does that feel like for you to when that is happening. And so the first step is regulating yourself, you can't help you can't help your child you can't help them regulate when you are in that state of dysregulation as well. So it really starts with just taking, taking a deep breath, and being you know, taking care of yourself first.Hannah Choi 07:52And it's so hard to do that. It's so hard to, at least I personally find myself feeling like well, that whole idea of putting your putting that mask on the oxygen mask on first, it's so hard in the moment, or just in the busyness of life, it's so hard to remember to do that. And, and that's, that's why I am always I think anybody who knows me, well, I'm always talking about self-care. And, and I think part of it is because I'm trying to remind myself like Hannah, you have to do that too. But it's so important to to take care of ourselves first. Sherry Fleydervish 08:28I think even just hearing that it's okay to pause and put your mask on. And model that's, that's a modeling moment. You know, mom needs a break, mom needs 10 seconds before she can figure out how to help solve this problem. That's, that's everything. And your kiddo feels like they can do that, too.Hannah Choi 08:43You mentioned transitions. And I know that's a really big, that's something that a lot of our clients find challenging. And I just know kids in general, and even adults can find transitions challenging. What what do you suggest for parents or ourselves? If we struggle with transitions? Do you have some kind of go to strategies that you'd like to suggest?Sherry Fleydervish 09:08Transitions are so so hard, and especially ones where we're moving from something that we're really enjoying and really liking and maybe can be regulating for us too, for example, you know, if your kid's playing video games that is actually really regulating and then they're, we're asking them to move to homework or dinnertime or whatever it might be - bedtime, that isn't so regulating for them. And so, just being mindful of that piece, too, when we're supporting our kids through a transition, it's just how you're approaching it and your own. You know, I talked about expectations a lot - the expectations that you don't even realize you have as you're leading up to a transition, what you want it to be like, even if you're expecting it to be abrupt because maybe it has been in the past and then tying in this topic of Co-regulation, how can you use yourself to help your kid get from A to B? Does, you know if the video game is super regulating, can you come in and say, "Okay, you have five minutes left. And then as soon as you turn off, we're going to pass the ball outside. Or as soon as you turn off, we're going to go, you can pick up your favorite game, and we're going to play it for five minutes before we move to dinner", or get out the house or whatever it is. You are offering yourself up to play into be almost like the little train to get from regulation to task that I don't really like so much. But just use yourself as a tool to do that. And that's in the moment. And then before it's trying to set up for structure and as much as as much as you can you have a plan for how often or how long you're going to be playing each game or doing each activity or whatever it might be, so that your child feels as as prepared as they possibly can for the next for the next things.Hannah Choi 11:08Transitions are so hard. I see just parents struggling with them on the playground after school. When the kids are they've come out of school and they're going on to the playground to play and then it's time to go. And I often hear parents say like, "Oh, I don't want to tell them it's time to go because then I know what I'm going to have to deal with". So what could a parent do in a situation like that?Sherry Fleydervish 11:34Oh my gosh, notice that notice that dread? Notice that worry? You know Where's where's this gonna go today? Are we gonna get to the car, are we gonna have a dragging, screaming kid to the car. Just be mindful of that. First off, take a deep breath before you're going. And then how? How can you enter that same playful state that they're in right out there on the playground? They're playing. They're having so much fun. And then they hear time to go right now? What if it was, "Hey, this seems like such a fun game of tag. Can you go and tag whoever it is that's next. And then we're going to head out". It's - you enter, join in the play join in even if it's for a minute, I bet that that minute ends up being more worth it than the potential 10 minutes or the potential screaming, you know, just join in notice what they're playing and then kind of come out together to the car.Hannah Choi 12:40That's so smart. Seems like co-regulation is I mean, it probably doesn't work every time I imagine. But if it sounds like it's a great strategy to practice a lot.Sherry Fleydervish 12:51It might not, you might get, "I don't want to I don't want to go. This is too much fun. I don't want to leave". You can still co-regulate, right? You could say "Yes, I know you're having so much fun. And you don't want to go to piano. You think piano sucks. And this is so much more fun". That's still you're still entering and you're still like meeting them for that really frustration. But we do have to go so like I'm, I want to help you I want to problem solve right now how to make this easier.Hannah Choi 13:19So sure, that read that makes me think of this idea that we should just stay calm, you know, and so that kind of makes me think maybe we shouldn't just stay calm. Maybe we like you said we need to meet them where they are. And it feels a little strange for me to think Oh, wow. Okay, yeah, to get angry with them. But, but then it really shows them that we understand where they are. Sherry Fleydervish 13:43I hear this so often, it's um, I tried to stay so calm, I stay so calm, I have, you know, me as calm as I can with my voice and all of these pieces. And that's incredible if you can, if you can be there. But that idea of mirroring your child's emotion, emotional state, it's okay to not be cool as a cucumber, you know, because if you hear a child to saying, you know, I'm just I'm so so sad. I'm so bummed out or I'm so angry and I'm so frustrated. Kind of like what we said earlier, it's, it's okay to meet them with that with that same emotion it shows mom and dad or whoever feels can feel that way too. SoHannah Choi 14:30I remember my mom when I first started working with kids as a teenager, my mom gave me some advice. And she said, when a kid is upset or just won't stop talking to you just say back to them what they have said to you, just repeat back to them what they've just said to you. And and it's and they just sometimes just want to be heard. So this idea of it's almost like this idea of co-regulation like they you are acknowledging their feelings. You're not You're telling them through your behavior that these feelings are okay. Is that would you say that's an accurate description?Sherry Fleydervish 15:07I love that I love that advice so much because it just shows a child it shows your child that it's it is okay to have all of these feelings. And later on, you know, addressing the behaviors and the way that you express them. That's that's a different story. But you you're modeling that it's okay to have have all of those different emotions, and they're welcome here, too.Hannah Choi 15:28Yeah great, thanks, Mom!! One time I was in a store and there was this little boy and he was probably three or four. And he kept saying he was with his grandparents and he kept saying over and over and over again. Like, I want Mommy, I want Mommy and they were they were yah. Yah, yah, yah, yah, yah, yah, yah, you'll see her later. Mommy's busy or whatever, and I want mommy he kept saying, I went up to him, and I said, you want your mommy? He said, Yeah. And then he stopped yelling about it. Like, see, you just need to say back to him, He just wants someone to acknowledge that.Sherry Fleydervish 16:11Sometimes we just we miss that piece. And, and, and it's almost out of the moment, it seems so simple or from, from that, from the observer, you saw that, like, that kid just wants his mom, you just want your mom so bad. You're so you just miss her. You know, and it stepped him right? Back into right back into it like, well, this adult just heard me okay.Hannah Choi 16:35But I guess it shows that when you are the parent or the caregiver in the moment, it's hard to, to step out and say, and like look at it, like an observer. Look at it like that crazy lady who just talked to my grandkid.Sherry Fleydervish 16:52It's a lot easier not in the moment to do that. Yeah.Hannah Choi 16:55So do you have any strategies for when you are in the moment, and it's hard, and you're having trouble getting out of it as as, as an adult.17:03The first step, it's just it's noticing, and maybe taking a step back, and maybe even getting lower getting on your child's level. And just even if, if it just means, you know, just looking at them in the eye and saying, you're just, you know, you're so worried about, you know, the test that you have tomorrow at school, if your kid just won't stop talking about I have to study I have to do this, I have to do this, I have to prepare this way. And my my advice is, is not so much to focus on the behavior, but to focus on the emotion underneath of what your child is saying. And just get curious with them, they might not be able to tell you how they feel. But they're communicating through even that little boy in the grocery store was probably feeling worried or missing, or just wanted, wanted his mom. And that's an opportunity for us to say and wonder, I wonder if you're feeling worried right now you don't know where Mommy is. Or I wonder if you're just nervous for your test tomorrow, we can pull the emotion out of the over and over and over talk that we hear. Notice maybe what it's bringing up for you, that might be the same feeling that your kids feeling, and isn't able to communicate it.Hannah Choi 18:22Being able to label your emotions is so important. And I feel like I and I think that is a skill that goes along with emotion with executive function. And just sort of that emotional awareness. And that's a big part of emotional regulation is labeling your emotions? Do you have any strategies for all ages for little kids up to adults for helping to figure out what you're feeling or maybe helping someone else to figure out what they're feeling? Because I imagine a lot of our coaches might need to help their clients figure out what they're feeling and maybe the client doesn't know what they're feeling, and they're hoping to figure that out.Sherry Fleydervish 19:04I always say as the whether you are the that whatever adult you are that's in that child's life, or that teenagers like it's, it's okay to guess and it's okay to guess wrong. You know, if you're noticing that a child is something just changed, you can just say, Oh, I just noticed something changed now. What happened for you, but what's going on right now, and it might not come out as a feeling. It might be I'm thinking this or you can you can still use that to be curious about the moment and if they can't connect to what they're what they're feeling, then maybe you can help them connect with what's going on in their body and I invite all ages, clients of all ages to do that. And if they can't express to me what they're feeling then I asked them to just draw it you know, can you pick a color can you draw what that what that feeling feels like in your body? Can you identify it somewhere inside write up your body right now. Or where that change just happened. It doesn't have to be through communication through through verbally, we can find other outlets. And maybe it's just a quick journal for a teenager or for us to just, I don't really know what's going on. But I'm just going to write for a minute and see what kind of comes out.Hannah Choi 20:20So something that that comes up a lot for, for us as coaches and I think just us as humans, and is what I talked about in our first episode is this idea of failure. And I the emotions that go along with that, and how I think with for people with executive function challenges, we, you know, people can often feel like failures, and there's a lot of emotions there and anxiety that might come up. And do you do have any, what's your insight on that, like the connection between between executive function and feelings, emotions,Sherry Fleydervish 21:05To follow up on the conversation about failure that you bring up is just how I loved the first episode that you released when we were talking about failure, because it is an it is a learning opportunity. But in the moment, it sure doesn't feel that way. It was really, really, really bad. And we have our own self beliefs that show up and start spiraling. And then we have all the messages that we've heard, you know, and if you're a kid or teenager struggling with some executive functions as well, then at school, you're probably oftentimes getting redirected and reminded and something wrong. And it's really hard not to internalize all of that, and end up with these negative thoughts about ourselves kind of swirling.Hannah Choi 21:56Well, I was just going to ask Sean, if he was comfortable sharing your own experience growing up, I know that you can relate personally to some of what Sherry was just saying, you want to share any of your experience.Sean Potts 22:09Yeah, I, I grew up most of my life, not really knowing I had had ADHD, it was one of those things where I would never really love going to school, it was very hard for me to sit still, it was very hard for me to like, have that sort of rigid, structured time. And that, you know, there was definitely a lot of friction that happens when I was younger around that, you know, and my parents noticed it at a fairly young age. And that led to me getting my first ADHD diagnosis tests when I was probably in fourth grade. And for whatever reason, I didn't get diagnosed at that time. So the problems continued to get worse. And until about halfway through middle school, when it was just sort of kind of hard to ignore the level of executive dysfunction that I was experiencing. I mean, I was a C/D student and I, you know, could never sit still, I was constantly getting kicked out of the classroom for whatever annoyance my 12 year old self was contributing to the classroom and distracting from learning. So I eventually at that age, was able to get diagnosed with ADHD. And that was sort of the beginning of my journey to treating it. I mean, of course, getting that diagnosis is huge. So from there, very soon after, you know, we started doing trials with medication. And also, I mean, that was a big component. But the biggest for me, it was definitely the executive function coaching. I got, I started working with a coach when I was at this point about 13, 14. You know, it took a little while, probably a year after my diagnosis before I really got moving forward with coaching. And for me, the transformation that happened was just like, was unbelievable. You know, within six months, I would say I was coaching, I was almost a completely different student I was, I was getting A's, which was the first time in my life and you know, I, there was no C's to be found on my report card. But more importantly, I rebuilt this confidence that I felt like I had lost from my years of going to school with untreated ADHD and just feeling like I was so different. That was huge. All of a sudden, I was like, teachers were complimenting me and I was, you know, like, the, my parents didn't have to nag me about homework. And I was feeling really confident in my abilities. And it was a big revelation. I think that confidence was sort of the the boost I needed moving forward. And now looking back, it's been what? Over 10 years since I had started coaching at this point. I'm 25 and the you know, I still am so grateful for the experience I had then, but I also recognize a lot of the problems that I had are not isolated incidents that I only experienced. I mean people all over the world have on untreated ADHD and the consequences of that can be really substantial, both on their mental health, their sense of self and their, you know, future prospects. So I'm have become very passionate about that. It's why I also love my job now working as Beyond BookSmart's Marketing Specialist, where I'm able to educate and spread awareness and advocate for a lot of the stuff that I struggled with and so many other people struggle with. So it's really cool to be here and talking to both of you about this, it's really, it's kind of an amazing, full circle to be here and be able to talk about it in the way that I am.Sherry Fleydervish 25:35Oh, that's, it's a really important piece to bring up. And I appreciate you sharing a little bit about that diagnosis coming a little bit later in adolescence too and what that must be like to experience or go through all of those years of school and not really understand what's different about how your brain works, and what your brain needs, until later on. And when we tie in mental health. And what we know about regulation, as well, is that we can't really access those thinking decision-making parts of our brains when we're not emotionally regulated. And so mental health, and if we're struggling with, even if it's stress, or anxiety, or depression, or whatever it might be our whole, we aren't able to plan and organize and our memories impacted. All those pieces that we need to be successful are, it just makes it harder to do that to get there.Hannah Choi 26:36And I imagine if you have grown up with this continuous message that you're hearing over and over and over again, that you're a failure, I mean, that maybe that's not the words they're using. But that's might be the message you're receiving. And imagine that that causes an amazing amount of stress on the brain, and then makes it even more challenging to access the executive function skills that that are already challenging.Sherry Fleydervish 26:59Absolutely. Yeah. You. It's, you know, those beliefs and your own perception of your own abilities, and can lead to some of those thoughts. And then that I can imagine how then having those feelings, and maybe leading to that either leading to avoidance or anxiety and not wanting to go to school or not wanting to go certain places where maybe those feelings have come up in the past and all of those things, kind of becoming comorbid and leading to each other.Sean Potts 27:33Yeah, absolutely. That's totally true. And I think, from my own experience, and from the research that's been done, I think there was something that said that by the time someone with ADHD turns 10, they've heard, I think, 10,000 more corrective messages than their neurotypical peers, which is, I find very sad, because that has a big ripple effect that impacts someone with ADHD's perception of themselves, first and foremost, but also of their capacity to do things and their confidence. And that, again, it has a ripple effect later in life that really impacts your mental health, your sense of self, your, again, your confidence. And I find that to be one of the saddest things about untreated ADHD is the fact that there's this coexisting mental health risk that people with ADHD also have. This leads me to my first real question, which is for you, Sherry. And it's that I'm very interested from the work that you've done, how you've seen some of the impact that that type of corrective messaging or other challenges that people with ADHD have, how that's manifested into mental health challenges, and the clients that you work with, would love to hear anything you have to say on that subject?Sherry Fleydervish 28:53I'm just thinking about the first thing that comes to mind is this environment, the environment of school, and what is expected of students, and how if you're not fitting in, maybe because of your ADHD diagnosis, executive functioning challenges, you're not fitting in with what is expected. And where I start, oftentimes, I do collaborate with schools, and I'll kind of talk about how I do that with my clients. But it's first starting with, with my clients and with their families, and recognizing that maybe these pieces of the environment actually aren't working with me or for my brain or for how I needed and so not necessarily adapting yourself in that moment, but I'm more wondering how can the teachers support the state that you have, and how can we adjust this expectation to fit in with what you what you need and talking with teachers and maybe even providing some education to about how oftentimes these students are experiencing redirections? And how can we You help them without constantly correcting correcting their behaviors. Instead, working with teachers has been really, really validating for for all the families and the clients that I work with. Because just knowing just a student going into school knowing that my teacher gets it, you know, she knows that I'm not trying to misbehave, or trying to be a bad kid, or whatever it is that had been coming up in the past is is not the case and knows that, you know, I'm trying to try and make the best that I can.Hannah Choi 30:36Have you noticed an increase in opportunities to work with teachers? Like are, is there more of a, are educators becoming more aware of kind of like a holistic approach to teaching?Sherry Fleydervish 30:52Absolutely, I, I really, really appreciate all of the teachers that I that I'm able to collaborate with, and that they're able to take the time to speak with me for, you know, 15, 20 minutes about one of their 30 students, and there is so much more social emotional learning going on in the classroom these days, it's truly incredible. And then that insight is so helpful for therapy, I use everything that the teachers are giving me all those observations, and bringing them into the room. And then life on on the flip side, as well, I feel that teachers are craving this piece and needing it and wanting to know what works best for each student. And they're so willing to implement it, because that's all they want is the success of their students. And then unfortunately, a lot of times, it's you know, what, if you're not supporting my kid, you're not doing what they need. And teachers are self-internalizing, to, like, I can't connect with this kid. And this is so hard, where, you know, I try so hard to just let teachers know you're doing the best that you can. And it's not, you know, some kids have different needs, and how, how open they are to having those vulnerable conversations, something I'm really grateful for.Hannah Choi 32:03And I imagine that there's also it also varies from school, depending on the, you know, the the leadership, and how aware of the leadership is of, of the importance of social emotional regulation, and just how important that piece is, I was just talking recently with our, my, my children's elementary school principal. And, and she was saying that, that for her, that's number one that's, that comes first. And the happiness of her teachers, you know, is just so important, and that she sees mental health as the most important thing first for everybody. I love. I just loved hearing that. And, and so that's great that you're seeing a lot of partnership between schools and mental health providers.Sean Potts 32:48Yeah, that's a great point, Hannah. And Sherry, I'm just curious, I just have a quick question for you, too. Do you find in the work that you do, that teachers have become more aware or perceptive to the, to these issues around ADHD and executive function than they were, let's say 10 years ago, because from my experience growing up, it really felt like, almost no fault of their own, teachers just didn't really know about these challenges, they didn't really know how to handle them. And because of that, oftentimes, you know, that would manifest into frustration or other areas like that. And I'm just, I'm just curious, if you think that's changed at all, in the last 10 years, in the work that you've been doing,Sherry Fleydervish 33:27I think, you know, to Hannah's point, it definitely depends on the administration, the higher-ups and what that, you know, the different environments and of each school as well. But overall, I definitely see teachers were invested on that mental health, emotional piece, I think, because there's so much more education out there on it, the stigma is decreasing, and so many more people are open to therapy, and there isn't this huge stigma on it, for lack of a better word, that it seeps into education, and it seeps into the teachers as well, you know, they are recognizing that they have their own things going on too, then it's so much easier to see and to connect with students who are also experiencing that. And so, I think overall, just it's, it's a lot easier to have those conversations and teachers are really willing to go there.Hannah Choi 34:27And breaking down that stigma around mental health and therapists and you know, taking care of our mental health is so important. And and why continuing to have these conversations and normalizing the idea of having a therapist normalizing the idea of, yes, everyone has executive function challenges like I am the first one to admit Yeah, I'm a coach and I love helping people and I also really struggle with in certain areas of executive function, and you and just just having these conversations and showing people You can talk about it, and it's okay. And talking about it is going to help, it will help, it'll help someone. Oh, that's great to hear that that conversation is happening more.Sherry Fleydervish 35:13And sometimes even just talking to teachers on that note of acknowledging your own challenges, whatever, whatever it might be, you know, that is such a great way to connect with your kid, you know, or your student, whoever it might be that, you know, I have a really hard time organizing my stuff to, here's something that has helped me or let's problem solve together, let's, let's work through this, let's figure out how to do it. Just that little piece, that little nugget, I'll have kids come in, and just tell me that they had this great talk with their teacher, and the teacher might not have even noticed that it was just this little piece little thing that they connected on, you know, I felt this way before. That's everything can be everything.Hannah Choi 35:50I see that a lot in my clients, whenever I you know, if I share something that I've really struggled with, I see, like visible relief on their face, like, wow, this person who's supposedly, you know, obviously, she knows something about executive function. She has struggled with it, too. And it's, yeah, it's so important to share that. Although it can be scary to be open about your own struggles, your own challenges. But I think it gives everyone else permission to think, oh, I actually feel that way too sometimes. And that's okay.Sherry Fleydervish 36:24I've worked through that over the years as a therapist, and how to self-disclose and learning how to disclose in a way that's really validating, and opening up this place of, of comfort. And it sounds like you're working on that same thing, too. And just showing, no, I have, I have these struggles, too. And I have these feelings. And these eyes open up so wide, some of these kids like, well, you know, adults that I model also experience struggles.Hannah Choi 36:56And it's okay. Something that reminds me of the idea, I can't remember what it's called, you probably know, the, the idea where you can feel two different two opposing feelings about the same thing at the same time. So the idea of replacing but with and then so that reminded me of Sean, your your experience growing up? And how, if you had, maybe you've received the message, like, you know, you, you are, you need to work on your organization or whatever, and you're, you're a great student, or you're a good, you know, you might have heard like, yeah, you're smart, but you, you know, need to work on this. And it kind of negates everything that was said first. So do you is that a strategy that you have shared with people? Or is that something that's coming up for you lately?Sherry Fleydervish 37:56I think that when you're when you're offering that opportunity of learning, right, that's usually what what we're doing, at the end of the day, when you're offering criticism, or you're offering your observation or whatever it might be, it's an opportunity for that other person to, to learn or in your mind get better at whatever that challenge is. And so we have to sandwich those pieces with, obviously, things that will make them feel proud of themselves and feel accomplished. And then when you're adding in these pieces of but you can do this next time or but whatever it might be, you know, here's the place, sometimes I'll say it like this, you know, your brain works really, really good at your, you have a great memory, you're very creative. And you have an ability to see all these little details that everybody else may not be able to see, but your brain at, or I don't even want to say but your brain has a little bit of a harder time with shifting attention from this to this or from whatever activity we're doing before to this one. And so maybe connecting with, with that actual piece that they're struggling with. And saying, you know, I'm here with you, I want to help. I want to help you strengthen this part of your brain, I want to help this not be so hard for you. And connecting with you know how hard it is for them feeling that comes up for them. And then working together to be kind of kind of like a consultant or that you know, how can we problem solve together?Hannah Choi 39:36And that makes me think of the idea of meeting someone where they are and and not asking more of them that they are then they're ready for and figuring out what their strengths are and how they can use those strengths. Sean, do you remember do you think have you ever thought about that concept of like, of, of you can be this One of the thing and the and the kind of opposite at the same time. And do you think that any of the messaging that you received growing up as a kid with ADHD, do you think if you had been told this message of you have challenges, and you're like, you're this and you're that instead of you're this, but you're that, do you think that would have made a difference for you?Sean Potts 40:21Oh, yeah, I think that would have made a huge difference. Particularly around when I was maybe nine years old, I remember I just had this one teacher that just never really understood or got me beyond the surface level challenges that she saw. And my mom often recalls this one parent teacher conference, or the typical one that would happen near the end of the year, where she, you know, once the conference with my dad, and you know, for the next 20, 30 minutes, my teacher just kept listening, all these negative things I was doing wrong. And eventually she just snapped and was like, "Do you have anything positive to say about my son?" And I think that's the best example of what it was really like for me being in the classroom every day with the teacher who saw me in that way. And I remember the next year, I had just such a an upgrade, where I had a teacher who immediately got me and saw some things that I didn't even see in myself, particularly around writing and creativity and some things that I've since learned that I really like. And the first time the parents come into the classroom, she mentioned how the first thing she said to my mom, when she came up to her was your son, so creative. He's such a great writer, and my mom tells me that she just started crying, because from her perspective, she had been hearing these negative things. And that was in stark contrast to what she knew about me. But at a deeper level, it was a stark contrast to it, I felt like I knew about myself, but I had really impacted me hearing all the things I had heard that year before from that one teacher, and some of the ways that she approached my challenges. So, you know, I really think it would have been a huge help to have had that earlier. And I think, you know, overcoming that was a huge part of my journey with my ADHD and the executive dysfunction I was experiencing. So no, absolutely, I think that would have made a huge difference. But I also do recognize that I was lucky to have had a teacher like that. And I also recognize that there are a lot of students who don't. And that's really, really sad and unfortunate, because I think anyone growing up with those types of challenges, needs to needs to meet somebody who can see you as an individual beyond just those sorts of those surface level challenges. So that you can realize that they're really just that surface level challenges. They're not some inherent character flaws that makes you you know, irrevocably messed up are different. They're a challenge that you have a whole lifetime to be able to overcome. But within that, you also have your strengths. And if you can have a teacher or somebody in your life who can help you realize that as someone who's young with ADHD, I think that is one of the most important ingredients for future success. And I again, I feel very lucky to have had that both in that teacher but also in my coach.Hannah Choi 43:07Yeah, and then what you said about confidence, I mean, that keeps coming up in every conversation that I have had, I feel like about everything recently, but especially these conversations for the podcast is it all seems to come back to confidence. And I imagine share, you see that a lot in both your clients and the parents of your clients. And that when you learn the skills, then you become more confident, which then helps in I imagine more ways than we will ever know for people.Sherry Fleydervish 43:39That is something that comes up in almost every intake, "I just I want my kid to feel more confident". And that shows up in every aspect, then up up their identity. And when I bring kids into my office, that is one of the first things that I work on is Where do you feel your best? Because these are not, kind of to Sean's point, these are not conversations or things that kids just inherently think about, you know, where my where am I? Where do I feel the best? Where do I feel strong? Where do I feel empowered, and confident? I bet you every kid you speak to will actually have an example of it. But then and offering your own piece if they don't you know why see how how focused you are whenever you're drawing in session. Or seems like you're three steps ahead when we're playing Connect 4 for every single week. Those are these little pieces where you're starting to notice other their notice there's their confidence when they might not even be seeing it themselves. And then using that to work towards some of the challenges and the pieces the things that they want to see different in their own lives. Even five year olds can tell me "I want to feel less of this feeling and more of this feeling". Like, Okay, great. Well, using the things that I know where you feel competent, we're going to, we're going to build on those pieces that feelings you don't want to have any more the challenges you're having at school. You're not just this one thing.Hannah Choi 45:17That reminds me of a conversation I had with my family recently, we went around the room, and we challenged each other to come up with five things that we were really good at, we had to say it about ourselves. It was so hard. It was such a hard thing to do. And I think you're right, we don't naturally think that way. And, and so how great to start off, you know, a conversation with someone that way i when I've meet for when I first meet a new client, I always ask them, so what are you good at? And it's it's hard to think that way. But it's important. Yeah. Great to have any. Sean, do you have any other questions for sherry?Sean Potts 45:59Yeah, so for the clients that you work with that have, let's say, anxiety and depression, but also have ADHD where these two, these two, or maybe even three things are existing simultaneously? How do you assess where to start treatment? Do you start with the ADHD? Do you start with the depression, anxiety, what's the focal point for treatment, and why?Sherry Fleydervish 46:23This happens often, right? Where a client is experiencing symptoms of different diagnoses, and maybe if it has comorbid diagnoses already coming into, into my session. And I start by just really, really, really, for a moment, putting aside that diagnosis, and noticing what is what is showing up the most, and what is the most symptomatic, and what is getting in the way most for this client. You know, if they have dual diagnosis, then maybe we need to first focus on that anxiety. And that is the most important and to figure out how to calm your mind calm, your body be a little bit more regulated. So then you can tackle some of those some of those pieces and those thoughts. And then we can dive into the other diagnoses or the other symptoms, you know, that the diagnosis is important and really validating for so many people. And for me, too, and it helps with treatment, but just kind of looking at a client and a person as a whole, and parsing out what is what is really the most important thing to support in the beginning. And everything else will eventually fall into place.Hannah Choi 47:36I find that to with coaching, you know, we always start off like, what's the thing that's the hardest for you right now? Like, what's the thing that's causing the most stress for you, and the thing that, that that's keeping you up at night, and just starting there, and you're right, I do find that the other things kind of end up naturally just getting involved and and leading into them. And then and then I do notice also that some of the challenges that came up, once we address those challenges, they actually were associated with some of the other stuff too. So then it makes the other stuff that used to be super challenging, also a little bit less challenging, just by working on this one other thing.Sherry Fleydervish 48:19I wonder if it's that they're building on their strengths, or they're starting to feel more competent in one area, and it kind of just even without even that conversation happening. It's just starting to morph into those other places. Other things.Hannah Choi 48:32It's pretty magical to see. So I imagine you have that experience as well. Yeah, thank you so much, Sherry. It's just so interesting to listen to you talk and and you have such a calm manner about yourself. I bet your clients just love talking with you.Sherry Fleydervish 48:51I loved this conversation, I feel like we just I wish it happened more. I wish these conversations were out there more just kind of normalizing therapy and parenting support. You know, it's just, you need the space, you know, and it's not just a drop-off service. I won't let that happen. I don't let that happen in my office. I make sure parents know from the beginning. I don't care if your, you know, your kiddos coming in here, five or 17. You know, I want to work together so that what's going on in my sessions is is coming and translating at home, too.Hannah Choi 49:32When when my kids were little I lived on Cape Cod and I have to give a shout out to Cindy Horgan at the Cape Cod Children's Place. It's a an organization that provides support for young families on the outer and lower cape. And my kids went or my Yeah, my kids went to preschool there and she approaches it like that when you. Yes, your kids go to school there, but she supports the parents so much and you could just make an appointment to go talk with her about any parenting challenges that you're having, and she just wrapped you right up in her, you know, figurative arms and just kept you, you know, gate gave you great strategies and and, and she was so great she was so open about her own challenges and just normalized everything so much. And just what you were saying right there just reminds me so much of that experience and I wish that every, every child, and every parent would have an opportunity to work with someone like Cindy Horgan. So. So thanks, Sherry, could you share with our listeners, where we where they can find you if they're interested in asking you more questions or learning more about you? Sherry Fleydervish 50:42Absolutely. So you can find my profile on bestselfinc.com. And you can also find a whole lot of other resources for children, teens, parents, families of logs, and resources are all on our website. You can even subscribe to our family newsletter. And we often will send blogs through that updates, anything that we've written.Hannah Choi 51:08I'll be sure to include all of that information in our show notes, too. So if you're listening, check out the show notes. And you can find it there too. Thank you so much to both of you for joining me today. I just I loved every second of this conversation. I feel like I could have talked for a whole nother hour, but maybe maybe another day.Sean Potts 51:28Absolutely. Thank you both. This has been such a pleasure to join this conversation.Sherry Fleydervish 51:33Thank you so much. It's been really wonderful to be here.Hannah Choi 51:38And that's our show for today. Thank you for joining me and taking time out of your day to listen, I really hope that you found something useful in today's episode. As Sherry said, it's so important to have these conversations about mental health, executive function challenges and parenting support. The more we talk about these so called stigmas, the more we normalize them, and by normalizing them more and more people will be able to access the support they need without negative reactions from the people around them. And here at Focus Forward, we will continue to have these important and sometimes difficult conversations in the hopes that we help someone, somewhere. If you are interested in normalizing these topics, please check out the show notes for some tips on how you can help. Oh, and hey, you can start off by sharing our podcast with your friends. If you haven't yet, subscribe to this podcast app beyond booksmart.com/podcast. You'll get an email about every episode with links to resources and tools we mentioned. Thanks for listening

Writer/Director Jonathan Lynn talks about his work on the classic films “Clue” and “My Cousin Vinny,” as well as his comically dark novel, “Samaritans.”LINKS 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/BehindthePageTheEliMarksPodcast“Clue” Trailer: https://youtu.be/KEXdWfsKZ1k“My Cousin Vinny” Trailer: https://youtu.be/HrfXTjYyenE“Yes, Minister” Clip: https://youtu.be/KgUemV4brDUThe Occasional Film Podcast - Episode 102 Transcript[SOUNDBITE FROM “MY COUSIN VINNY”] John Gaspard 00:32That was Joe Pesci and Fred Gwynne in a much-quoted scene from the much-loved film, My Cousin Vinny. Hello, and welcome to episode 102 of The Occasional Film Podcast, the occasional companion podcast to the Fast Cheap Movie Thoughts Blog. I'm that blog's editor, John Gaspard. In this episode, we're talking to Jonathan Lynn, the director of My Cousin Vinny. But Jonathan Lynn is much more than that. He studied Law at Cambridge, appeared in the Cambridge follies, went with that show to Broadway and the Ed Sullivan Show, and played Motel the Tailor in the original West End production of Fiddler on the Roof. [SOUNDBITE FROM FIDDLER ON THE ROOF]He wrote for television and—with Anthony Jay—created Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister, two classic British situation comedies. [SOUNDBITE FROM YES, MINISTER]Lynn came to America and wrote and then ended up directing the classic movie comedy Clue. And he did all this by the age of 42. As the satirist Tom Lehrer said, Tom Lehrer 01:54It's people like that will make you realize how little you've accomplished. It is a sobering thought, for example, that when Mozart was my age, he had been dead for two years. John Gaspard 02:39In my conversation with Mr. Lynn, we talked about what he learned from shooting Clue and went into detail about the making of My Cousin Vinny. But we started our conversation talking about his new novel Samaritans, a caustic look at the American Health System, viewed through the eyes of one hospital, and its staff in Washington DC. What was it about this story that made you think this should be expressed as a novel? Jonathan Lynn 03:05I played around with it as a in other forms, because mostly I haven't written—I mean, I've written four or five prose books. I wrote The Complete Yes, Minister and The Complete Yes, Prime Minister, which were enormous bestsellers. But mostly I've written, as you say, in script form, either plays, TV or film scripts. The more I played around with this, the bigger the subject seemed to get. There was no way I could explore the characters of all of these people in a two-hour script, which is actually not very long. A screenplay is 120 pages, that's a pretty well-spaced out. Stage plays, you know, are a similar length we're talking about, you know, usually no more than an hour and a half, especially for comedy. You can make dramas last longer, because you're not asking to be so on the ball and get every joke. But with a comedy you don't want it to go on too long. The famous comedian's rule, you know, leave them wanting more. And as I kept writing. I found more and more to write about, and it seemed to expand, and it seemed to me that expanding it was good. So, in the end, it seemed to me that its best form would be a novel. John Gaspard 04:27As I was reading it, I began to think at first, oh, this is going to be a farce. It's going to be absurd. It's going to be like, Catch 22. It's just going to take an idea and take it to its illogical endpoint. But then as I got into it, I realized, no, this is completely grounded in reality and every bizarre thing that happens seems to have an analogue in the real world and it isn't absurd. I mean, it is absurd. It's kind of like reality. Was that your intention? Jonathan Lynn 05:03Well, yes, you're right. It is absurd and it is reality. It's the absurd reality of the healthcare system in the United States, not just in the United States. I mean, I come from Britain where the National Health Service is in a state of collapse, for similar reasons. Because everything is viewed as a business model. And patients are viewed not as patients, but as consumers. And hospitals and healthcare is viewed as something that has to in some way make money. It's worse here, because healthcare in America costs approximately 1/3, more than in any other developed country in the world. In every other developed country, health care is regarded as a right, not a privilege. So, the absurdity here is greater than anywhere else. So, when you mentioned compared to Catch 22, which, by the way, is a very generous compliment that is such a wonderful book. But that's only a little exaggerated too. I mean, that really is what the military was like and World War Two. When you write comedy, you heightened things to exaggerate on the comic effect. But essentially, if they're not true, the reader, or the audience, recognizes that they're not true, and doesn't think it's funny anymore. And so, the balance is always to keep it truthfully observed so that people recognize it and slightly exaggerate it so that people laugh at it. John Gaspard 06:36And it is a very funny book. I don't want to talk about it and make it sound like it's dour or serious. I mean, the subject matter is serious, and it is, in many cases, literally life and death. I mean, I just jotted down a couple of quotes that I loved. Referring to healthcare as the ultimate lottery. A student loan, like a diamond, is forever and then I know you put this in for those of us who are fans of your other work to find when Blanche says, I feel you know what I feel flames on the side of my face. Jonathan Lynn 07:08Yes, that's a little indulgence for people who are fans of Clue. People really love Clue and that seems to be everybody's favorite moment in the movie.Madeline KahnI hated her soooo much, it, it, flame, flames on the side of my face, breath, breathing, heaving breaths. Jonathan Lynn 07:08Because I always saw Blanche. I mean, in God's production, you know, sadly, Madeline Kahn is no longer with us. But if she was, and if we did of production of Samaritans, you know, Madeline Kahn would be the perfect Blanche. John Gaspard 07:47She'd be ideal. Jonathan Lynn 07:49So, you know, it just sort of came to mind that maybe that's what Blanche say and why not have a little in joke for the benefit of fans of Clue. John Gaspard 08:02Absolutely. It's a weird thing to say about a novel, but it's really well researched. At least it appears to be really well researched, which isn't something you think about with a novel. I have written a couple of mystery novels that involve a magician, and it does for me—not being a magician—involve a lot of research to understand that process for me. What was the process for you? Was it research first and then writing or writing leading you down rabbit holes of research? Jonathan Lynn 08:29It goes hand in hand to me. The idea comes first. The idea, that the funny idea that hospital beset with raising costs and poor management should decide that they need the head of a Vegas casino as their new CEO, because he understands about check out and check in, beds occupied, and dinners, and has no interest in healthcare. That struck me as a really fun idea as that truthful about the way the health care system is operating here. Then, when I was writing it, I discovered, I read a story in a paper. That said I think it's Aetna, it was one with the big insurance companies, had hired a new CEO, the CEO of Caesars Palace. So, I discovered that life was imitating art in that case. But what happens is that as you can see, when if I got an idea, I started researching simultaneous. So, then I had to find out about hospitals. I knew a bit about hospitals because, well partly I've been a patient more than once, partly my wife taught in two major London teaching hospitals, partly because I have friends who are doctors, and they were very unhappy with the way the situation, the system works here. And you start researching and you start talking to friends and acquaintances or people that you get in touch with and gradually, you discover things that are actually both more appalling and funnier in real life than you would probably ever have thought of as you sat at home trying to make it all up. I've always found that research led me to greater comic possibilities than I ever thought were there, in anything I've ever written. I think humor is about dark subjects, because it's about serious subjects and I know we're also going to talk about My Cousin Vinny in a few minutes. But you know, that's a perfect example. I mean, that is funny, only because of its terrifying implications that those two kids would have been electrocuted, would have been killed by the state, if they hadn't had a peculiarly argumentative lawyer in Vinny. And you know, so what makes that film both funny and compulsive viewing for people is that it is about something terribly serious. It is finally about life and death. It's a film about capital punishment, although people never talk about it in those terms, but that's at the root of it. So, the answer to your question is yes, I think the more serious the subject, the better the comic possibilities. John Gaspard 11:16What special pleasure does novel writing give you that you're not getting as a playwright, or a screenwriter, or a director or an actor? Jonathan Lynn 11:25The pleasure is that I only have to please myself. I don't have to worry about, you know, is there some actors who would like this part, or will somebody demand that this character has made more likeable before they'll play it. How can we raise, you know, millions of millions of dollars, in order to get this out before the public. There are all kinds of ways of putting you in a straitjacket when you're creating a play or a film or TV series. That are all to do with the fact that they cost so much money and that, therefore, you need the approval of producers, directors, executives, star actors and everybody else about everything and if you're not very careful, they get compromised out of existence and that often happens. As you know. That doesn't happen if you're writing a book. All I have to do is please myself, and then hopefully find someone who will publish it. [SOUNDBITE FROM MY COUSIN VINNY TRAILER] John Gaspard 12:26The other reason for the call now was, this is the 25th anniversary this year of My Cousin Vinny and I'm sure you've been involved in other interviews and events about that, and those will continue. But I thought it'd be kind of fun to revisit this, you were kind enough to talk to me, I actually don't know how many years ago, but there were some of the questions wanted to ask you about it now that it's 25 years later. But to back up a little bit: So, your first movie, as a director was Clue, which you'd written.[SOUNDBITE FROM CLUE TRAILER]And I know you have had before that a lot of experience on stage, both as a director and an actor, but it's a really self-assured directing debut. It's a big movie, although it's in one house, but it's still a big movie with a big cast and a lot going on. What was the biggest lesson you took away from that directing experience? Jonathan Lynn 13:33The biggest lesson I took away, although I don't always manage to stick to it, it to trust my own judgments and don't, don't be overly impressed by what I'm told by studio executives. There are things in Clue that I regret, that I should have changed, and I didn't because I was persuaded by the studio that's what I should do, and as a first-time director, I assumed they knew what they were talking about. There are various examples of that. But perhaps the most obvious example is the multiple endings, which was a great mistake to release them in separate movie theaters. Because the whole point about the multiple endings is the ingenuity of the fact that the story could lead to three different outcomes, all of which made sense, and all of which were funny. The film wasn't a success until I put them all together for the video version and they started being seen on TV. I mean, I also learned all kinds of other things that I haven't found about how to use camera, because directing on stage is completely different, especially directing a farce, which Clue is, a broad comedy. Because on stage, you see all the characters and your eye takes in all different sorts of actions. The camera has to focus on little pieces of action one moment at a time. You can't have too many wide shots with eight or nine people in them because they all become too small. You can have some. So, for me it was a big lesson in learning how to photograph comedy as opposed to stage comedy. Staging it was not a problem for me, making sure that I had photographed it exactly right. So, and it was complicated because there were so many people in every scene, that the geography of the scene always had to be clear. You know, the audience needs to know where people are and in the case of Clue, they need to know where people are not, because that of course meant somebody was missing, they could be the murderer. And whenever I've been left alone by the studio, or by the producers to do my thing, my films have been better than when I've been subjected to too much pressure from the parent company. John Gaspard 13:41And then we get into My Cousin Vinny. Now, my, some of my questions are going to be based on having re-looked at your book, Comedy Rules. Because there's some stuff in Comedy Rules, although it doesn't refer specifically to Vinny, it feels like it sort of tendentially does. And one of the things you write about there a couple times, and this is I think, first in reference to Yes, Minister, is the idea of the hideous dilemma. Can you just define that for me? Jonathan Lynn 16:07Well, yes, I think there has to be. I think all comedy needs a hideous dilemma. And, you know, in, in my book, Comedy Rules, I talked about it in connection with, Yes, Minister, and Yes, Prime Minister, because the politician Jim Hacker, in those series and books, is like all politicians torn between doing the right thing and doing the thing that will either advance his career, or make him look better to the public, or go down better with the press. And these things are nearly always fighting each other. Doing the right thing is often not the safest thing and politicians are always scared of being exposed. Being in government or being in politics is essentially about having two faces, about hypocrisy, and you never want it to be revealed that you said one thing one day and then did something else another day. Now that rule has slightly changed since the advent of Donald Trump, who doesn't seem to care that he's caught out in the lie every day of his life or maybe 10 lies. But it matters to most politicians, and it kills their careers. Sir Humphrey, the senior civil servant, was also always caught in a dilemma. That was some of the nature. Now in My Cousin Vinny, the hideous dilemma is obvious. The two boys are charged with murder that we the audience know they didn't commit, and they have to make a choice. They have to hire Vinny, who has never had conducted a trial. He's only been qualified at the bar for six weeks and he's never done a murder case.[SOUNDBITE FROM MY COUSIN VINNY TRAILER]Jonathan Lynn 18:09They have to hire him. They have nobody else. This is a hideous dilemma for them. The hideous dilemma for Vinny is that he knows that if he fails, his cousin will be executed. I mean, what worse situation could he be in? The hideous dilemma Mona Lisa Vito, Marisa Tomei, is that she's living with this guy who means well, but just can't get it right. All of this is what makes it funny. John Gaspard 18:38You know, it could have been played as a completely straight drama right out of John Grisham, because all the elements would be the same. Jonathan Lynn 18:44It's a trial movie. It's just that comedic choices are made instead of dramatic choices. But you're right. That's why it works. Because most trial movies—I mean, I didn't know there was another trial movie that's a comedy from start to finish. There are comedies with trial scenes, but most of them are rather treated rather frivolously. In Vinny, I treated the situation with the utmost seriousness. And I think that's why it's funny, because it's so frightening. John Gaspard 19:16Exactly. Another thing you mentioned in the book Comedy Rules that I think applies really nicely here is the concept that it helps to be an outsider, which Vinny clearly is. And that gives you a great way into the story. Did your experience sort of as an outsider, a British director working in America, was that also helpful? Jonathan Lynn 19:39When I look at the history of Hollywood movies, one has to assume that that is helpful. If you look at the extraordinary number of really good directors who came from Europe mainly but also from other cultures to Hollywood and one of the best things about Hollywood that has to be said, that's good about Hollywood, that it is not at all xenophobia. It welcomes anyone from anywhere. But if you look, I mean, Billy Wilder is my favorite comedy director. He was Viennese, Fred Zimmerman was from Vienna, Milos Forman is from Czechoslovakia. Michael Curtiz is from Hungary, and you could go on all day. I mean, a colossal number of the greatest Hollywood directors of—Alfred Hitchcock from Britain—are from somewhere else. And I think it helps. I think as an outsider, you see it maybe more clearly. People always talk to me about the fact that the South is presented differently in My Cousin Vinny than in most American films. That's because I think most American films are directed by northerners and they see the South as some strange, foreign place. To me, the South and the North they're all just America. I mean, the differences, there are obvious differences, but they're still part of American culture, all of which is, or was that time, foreign to me. John Gaspard 21:01I don't know, I'm one of those people who I'm sure you're running this all the time, who say if you're flipping channels, and My Cousin Vinny is on, that's it. You're gonna watch the rest of the movie. Jonathan Lynn 21:10That's really nice. I feel like that about some movies. I feel like The Godfather Part One and Two and you know, some other movies. I mean, if I see the Godfather on TV, if I happen to stumble across it, I have to keep watching. And, you know, there are some other movies. It's very nice to that people feel like that about Vinny. John Gaspard 21:32Yeah, everything came together in that movie, the script is very strong the way you directed it. And I don't mean just where you put the camera, or how you cast it. All those are great and you have a really very clean, non-intrusive visual style, which allows comedy to play really, really well. But between the script and the directing, and the way it's edited, all the pieces are there as a mystery, which it is sort of. It is completely fair. All the clues are given, and they're given so subtly, the how long does it take to cook grits, which is an important thing, is almost a throwaway line. You don't even think about it, it's perfectly in character for that conversation to happen. Just even the shot of the boys pulling away from the store at the beginning, where the curb can be seen on the left side of the screen, and you don't make a point of the fact that they don't go over the curb, because we don't know that's a fact. But when we see the photos later, we—if we had any doubts at all—knowthat wasn't their car, because they didn't go over that curb. I mean, it's that sort of attention to detail, you wouldn't necessarily see in a quote unquote, light comedy. But I think it's what makes it a perennial favorite. Jonathan Lynn 22:44Perhaps it's because I have a degree in law and I wanted it to be legally good. And perhaps because I've seen a number of trial movies that I really, really liked, like The Verdict and Absence of Malice and of course, To Kill a Mockingbird, there's a lot of great, Anatomy of a Murder. One of those are films that I think are full of tension and suspense and hold the audience's attention and I think I felt that was important. You can't make the whole movie about a trial unless the trial is dramatically effective from start to finish. So, yes, I approached it as a drama, except that we made comedic choices all the way through. John Gaspard 23:24What was your rehearsal process like? Did you have time for rehearsal? Jonathan Lynn 23:27No, there was no rehearsal. I discussed it with Joe Pesci and Joe said he hated rehearsal. He felt it took away his spontaneity and of course, he liked to rehearse a scene on the morning that we were shooting it, but he didn't want any advance rehearsal. Now, one of the jobs of the director, maybe the main job of the director is just to get the best work out of all the people in the movie. If you're leading actor doesn't want to rehearse, there's no point in trying to make them rehearse. It won't improve the result. So, we didn't have any rehearsal and all the rehearsals were just on the day of each scene. John Gaspard 24:06Well, that sort of jumps us right to my next question, which is going back to Comedy Rules again. This is rule number 140, which was remember the old English proverb you don't buy a dog and bark yourself. Talk to me about how that applies to your work as a director, because you are also an actor, and you're also a writer. Jonathan Lynn 24:28I never demonstrate how everything should be done. I never say play it like this. I never say, say it this way. I assume that the actors that I've got are high level, skilled professionals. And what I want them to do is bring what they can bring to something that I already have in mind and that the writer—which may or may not have been me—has already written. You know, with really good actors, with leading actors you know, you don't tell the movie star, this is how you play the scene and then demonstrate, because they would, you know, rightly send for their limo and go home. That's not what they're there for. They're there to bring what they can bring to the proceedings. And what you have to do as a director is have what know what you have in mind and meld it with what your actors bring. And that's why casting is so absolutely critical, because if you miscast a part, you know, it will never work, or will certainly never work the way you intended it to. John Gaspard 25:37You mentioned Billy Wilder, and I'm going to mention another rule from Comedy Rules, because there's a lot of good ones in there. Rule 149 is the last part of every film and play is a race to the finish between the show and the audience. Which I think is something Wilder would have agreed with. And you went on to add, the show must get there first. One of the things that makes, I think, Vinny so successful is that when the end is there, it's there. We zip right to the end. You don't hang around, there's not a lot of extraneous stuff. It's like the movie is over and we're out. How hard was that to achieve? Jonathan Lynn 26:17Well, it was interesting, because of course, that was done in the production rewrite. Dale wrote a wonderful script, but there were things that still needed sorting out and Fox hired me to do the production rewrite. And in the original draft that I was given, we never knew who committed the murders. You never knew what the real story was. So, that was a problem. For me, that was a problem. You can't have a trial movie without knowing what actually happened. Now, obviously, we didn't want to see what actually happened, because that would have been time consuming and boring. That's the problem with a Who Done It. That's why Hitchcock never made a Who Done It, because in a Who Done It, there's always a scene at the end, when the detective explains what really happens and that's always really dull. I made fun of that in Clue, with the butler's ludicrous explanation of everything. But I made it into a joke, because that film was a parody of a murder mystery. But in this case, we didn't need to see it all on camera. But we did need to know that the real murderers had been found and had been caught and that it all made sense. The other thing is that we didn't want to have the jury. Once it was clear that the two boys have not committed the murder, we have to get out of that trial as fast as possible. So, that meant it didn't have to it couldn't go to the jury. We couldn't have a boring scene when they came back and the judge said, you know, have you reached a verdict? Yes, Your Honor and reading out the verdicts and all that stuff that you see on television every week. So, it meant that we had to have the prosecutor do the right thing, which was very good anyway, because for me, there's no bad guy. The one most interesting thing about film, I think, is there is no villain. The court system, the justice system is the antagonist. So, we have to get out of that fast. So, it meant that the prosecutor did the right thing and simply withdrew the case. He just said, you know, we're not proceeding with this. So, that was the end of the trial. And that meant we could get out of that trial, in terms of screen time, probably five minutes sooner then if we'd gone through the whole thing of it going to the jury. John Gaspard 28:27Now, is there anything looking back in the movie that you wish you would have done differently? Jonathan Lynn 28:30Well actually, no. When I see the movie now, which I don't very often, but I you know, I have seen it occasionally. I'm really pleased with it. I have to say, most of my films, I see plenty of things I would like to change and that one, I think, you know, was a lot of luck. We made all the right choices, I think. I don't see anything I would want to change. John Gaspard 28:53I would agree. Is there anything any consistent thing you hear from fans about that movie that if someone mentions it, you know, they're gonna say this or that? Jonathan Lynn 29:04No, I get a lot of terrific response from judges and attorneys, who will say that it's legally the most accurate film that's ever been produced by Hollywood. I've met a number of federal judges who use it in their teaching at law schools, especially in the teaching of evidence. That's very gratifying. I was asked to speak at a couple of legal conventions to federal judges and others, not about the law, of course, which they know more about than I do, about how Hollywood treats trials and legal firms. So, they're very gratifying group of people. And then of course, they're just favorite moments that people refer to, which always happens in films, just like we were talking about in Clue, like Mrs. White's lines about the flames on the side of my face. It seems that a large number of people quote Vinny's line ‘Two Youts,” and there are a number of other moments in the film which people refer to with the great affection. [SOUNDBITE: MORE FROM THE MY COUSIN VINNY TRAILER] John Gaspard 30:23Thanks to Jonathan Lynn for taking the time to talk to me about his new book Samaritans, as well as Clue and My Cousin Vinny. If you liked this interview, you can find lots more just like it, including the transcript of an earlier interview with Mr. Lynn, covering other facets of My Cousin Vinny 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 and Noble, Kobo, Google Play 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, starting with The Ambitious Card, can be found on all those online retailers I just mentioned in paperback hardcover eBook and audiobook formats. You can find information on those books and all the other books at Albertsbridgebooks.com. That's Albertsbridgebooks.com. And that's it for episode 102 of The Occasional Film Podcast, produced at Grass Lake studios. Original Music by Andy Morantz. Thanks for tuning in, and we'll see you next time.

For my hurting souls: In 2 Corinthians 10:3-5 the word says that we are delivered from the power and authority of darkness. It states that we cast down all reasoning and imaginations that exalt themselves against the knowledge of God, and we bring every thought into captivity to the obedience of God's word.The light that God has instilled in you is bright enough to fight off the darkness around you. You have been enriched, and as such, you must enrich others through the word.You have been delivered from failure! You have been delivered from fear! On days where you can't see the light, know that it is within you, and that darkness cannot overtake it!KINGDOM KEYSTrauma, Triggers, and Triumph - Bishop T.D. Jakes - https://youtu.be/HzujSUnYUyQEPISODE AFFIRMATIONSI am worthy of great things in life. I have faith in myself and my ability to reach my goals. I make an effort to always live in the present moment. Everything is going to work out for my highest good. I am releasing any bad thoughts that keep me away from my happiness. I have the power to improve my situation.timestampswelcome to a work in progress, the podcast - 0:00 the process of grief - 3:08hoping for a new beginning- 9:09the seasons of setbacks - 11:21better is coming- 26:20anger and hopelessness- 35:08the object of the game - 26:11life update / my “currently” list - 37:28I need a Cootie - 45:57kingdom keys 51:50episode affirmations - 54:41send me a messageIf you have any feedback on the podcast, please let me know on Instagram or send me a message below. If you enjoyed the show, please share it with your friends and family and leave a review on Apple Podcasts! It really helps :)Thank you so much for listening to today's episode! If you enjoyed it, please subscribe! You can do so on Spotify, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to your podcasts! If you're not already watching the pod, don't forget there are accompanying video podcasts on my YouTube channel Beauty and Brains, so join me over there and subscribe to that channel as well! You can follow me on instagram and TikTok @BrelynnHunt or visit my website: brelynnhunt.com for weekly podcast updates or to contact me to share your story.Until next time, be sure to live each day to the fullest because you only live once, and give yourself some grace! We all are just a work in progress.

Zach and Mr. Sagacity discuss chapter 2, the Slough of Despond, and the way that enemies and even close friends might treat a newly called pilgrim. -----more----- Here are the Scriptures: His neighbors watch him run: Jeremiah 20:10  For I hear many whispering. Terror is on every side! "Denounce him! Let us denounce him!" say all my close friends, watching for my fall. "Perhaps he will be deceived; then we can overcome him and take our revenge on him." Burden will sink him lower than the grave: Genesis 19:24  24 ¶ Then the LORD rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the LORD out of heaven. Revelation 20:15  15 And if anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire. Revelation 21:8  8 But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death." What you leave behind not worthy to compare: Romans 8:18-19  18 ¶ For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. 19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. 2 Corinthians 4:17-18   17For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, 18as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. Where I am going, more than enough to spare: Luke 15:17  17 "But when he came to himself, he said, 'How many of my father's hired servants have more than enough bread, but I perish here with hunger! Treasure stored up in heaven: 1 Peter 1:3-4   ¶ Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, Matthew 6:19-21  19 ¶ "Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, 20 but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. ...and are secure there: Hebrews 11:16  But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city. Obstinate's description of crazy-headed coxcombs... Proverbs 26:16  16 The sluggard is wiser in his own eyes than seven men who can answer sensibly. Confirmed by the blood of him who made it: Luke 22:20  20 And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, "This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood. Hebrews 13:20-21  20 ¶ Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, 21 equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. Written by the one who cannot lie: Titus 1:1-2  Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, for the sake of the faith of God's elect and their knowledge of the truth, which accords with godliness, 2 in hope of eternal life, which God, who never lies, promised before the ages began Endless kingdom, we inhabit forever: Isaiah 45:17  But Israel is saved by the LORD with everlasting salvation; you shall not be put to shame or confounded to all eternity. John 10:27-30  27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. 28I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. 29 My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand. 30I and the Father are one." Crowns of glory and shining garments: 2 Timothy 4:8  8 Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that Day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing. Romans 13:14  14 But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires. Zechariah 3:1-5  Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the LORD, and Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him. 2 And the LORD said to Satan, "The LORD rebuke you, O Satan! The LORD who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you! Is not this a brand plucked from the fire?" 3Now Joshua was standing before the angel, clothed with filthy garments. 4 And the angel said to those who were standing before him, "Remove the filthy garments from him." And to him he said, "Behold, I have taken your iniquity away from you, and I will clothe you with pure vestments." 5 And I said, "Let them put a clean turban on his head." So they put a clean turban on his head and clothed him with garments. And the angel of the LORD was standing by. No crying or sorrow there: Isaiah 25:8  8 He will swallow up death forever; and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the LORD has spoken. Revelation 21:4  4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away." What company will we keep?: Revelation 5:11-12  11 Then I looked, and I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the elders the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, 12 saying with a loud voice, "Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!"   Elders w/ golden crowns: Revelation 4:4  4 Around the throne were twenty-four thrones, and seated on the thrones were twenty-four elders, clothed in white garments, with golden crowns on their heads. Virgins with Golden Harps: Revelation 14:1-5  Then I looked, and behold, on Mount Zion stood the Lamb, and with him 144,000 who had his name and his Father's name written on their foreheads. 2 And I heard a voice from heaven like the roar of many waters and like the sound of loud thunder. The voice I heard was like the sound of harpists playing on their harps, 3 and they were singing a new song before the throne and before the four living creatures and before the elders. No one could learn that song except the 144,000 who had been redeemed from the earth. 4 It is these who have not defiled themselves with women, for they are virgins. It is these who follow the Lamb wherever he goes. These have been redeemed from mankind as firstfruits for God and the Lamb, 5 and in their mouth no lie was found, for they are blameless. Martyrs Alive and Rejoicing: John 12:25  25 Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. "How can we be partakers?" Isaiah 55:1-7  "Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. 2Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. 3Incline your ear, and come to me; hear, that your soul may live; and I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David. 4 Behold, I made him a witness to the peoples, a leader and commander for the peoples. 5 Behold, you shall call a nation that you do not know, and a nation that did not know you shall run to you, because of the LORD your God, and of the Holy One of Israel, for he has glorified you. 6 "Seek the LORD while he may be found; call upon him while he is near; 7 let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the LORD, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. "Help": Psalm 20:1-2  May the LORD answer you in the day of trouble! May the name of the God of Jacob protect you! 2 May he send you help from the sanctuary and give you support from Zion! The Steps: 2 Peter 1:3-4  His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, 4by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. Help pulling him out Psalm 40:2  2 He drew me up from the pit of destruction, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure. "It is not the pleasure of the king:" Isaiah 35:3-4  Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees. 4 Say to those who have an anxious heart, "Be strong; fear not! Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God. He will come and save you." "As if I had no family" (another iffy ref): 1 Corinthians 7:29  29 This is what I mean, brothers: the appointed time has grown very short. From now on, let those who have wives live as though they had none, All the dangers confirmed by testimony of many pilgrims (WW): 2 Corinthians 11:23-33  Are they servants of Christ? I am a better one--I am talking like a madman--with far greater labors, far more imprisonments, with countless beatings, and often near death. 24 Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. 25 Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; 26 on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; 27 in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. 28And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches. 29 Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to fall, and I am not indignant? 30 ¶ If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness. 31 The God and Father of the Lord Jesus, he who is blessed forever, knows that I am not lying. 32At Damascus, the governor under King Aretas was guarding the city of Damascus in order to seize me, 33 but I was let down in a basket through a window in the wall and escaped his hands. 1 Corinthians 15:30-32  Why are we in danger every hour? 31 I protest, brothers, by my pride in you, which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die every day! 32 What do I gain if, humanly speaking, I fought with beasts at Ephesus? If the dead are not raised, "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die."

Who is Jamie?Jamie is a CRM expert. No matter what size your business is, the importance of a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system should not be underestimated. Over time it will become your greatest asset for delivering more sales.Key Takeaways1. An effective CRM system means you capture the details of each customer from their personal details (with full GDPR compliancy) to how they found you, what they bought, the value, when they bought, how they use your product/service and so on. This also gives your customer the feeling that you understand their needs and show a degree of care which in turn delivers a great customer experience. This customer experience will hopefully develop into customer loyalty which will help to generate referrals for your business.2. You need to think about GDPR - if you're not registered with the ICO, and you store data about people's personal details, you are subject to putting yourself in a very difficult position when it comes to being fined for breach. So yeah, that the whole GDPR process is becoming very much, much more strong.3. You really need a CRM strategy, If you don't have a strategy for how to build a relationship with customers. And that comes from their stakeholdersValuable Free Resource or ActionSee Jamie's website at https://jamie-allan.com/crm/A video version of this podcast is available on YouTube : https:////youtu.be/zrPDzr2q-Bo————————————————————————————————————————————-TranscriptNote, this was transcribed using a transcription software and may not reflect the exact words used in the podcast)SUMMARY KEYWORDSbusiness, jamie, crm, data, problem, customers, relationship, question, people, book, talking, companies, coffee, realise, programme, clean, called, smes, database, contactsSPEAKERSJamie Allan, Stuart WebbStuart Webb  00:33Hi, welcome back to it's not rocket science, five questions over coffee. Although today I have in front of me very nice green tea being a little bit more healthy than having too much too much coffee in the morning. I'm here with Jamie Allen, Jamie, and welcome to the podcast. I'm looking forward to this conversation very much. Jamie is a CRM specialist and has been a CRM specialist for all let Jamie decide if he wants to say how many years it's been. He's been a CRM specialist, let's just say it's more years than I want to accredit him with. But I think he's more than happy to answer any CRM questions. So, Jamie, welcome to It's not rocket science, five questions over coffee really looking forward to the conversation.Jamie Allan  01:17Now, thanks for inviting me, Stuart, and I've suitably complied with my coffee.Stuart Webb  01:22Excellent. Well done. Okay. So, Jamie, let's, let's just start by asking you the obvious first question, which is, who is your ideal client and what's what's the problem that they've got, which you help them to overcome?Jamie Allan  01:38Ideally, their businesses are growing, so they're at least three years old, want to develop the business, get people on board get new products and services, so very focused on that that development stage. But one of the main problems is actually finding out that they've got data that they don't know where it is. So they need to centralise that, and more importantly, need to get it clean, because a lot of companies do is they can go through their business career, it just keep on going for new business without actually understanding about the existing business, and looking after your existing customers. Because relationships are really important. So really, the biggest problem is actually realising that they need to clean the data, because it goes out of date, really, really quickly. But every six months, you should really do a review. And very, very few companies, I haven't come across a business yet, that's got an absolutely clean database. It's it's, at best, okay, which is no good. Because it's the old 8020 rule. 80% of your business comes from critics and your customers. So make sure at least that 20% is right. And that's where you build the relationships. And reallyStuart Webb  02:44interesting you say that, because regulators are getting more and more firm at the moment with the idea of making sure that you're not just contacting people unnecessarily, the GDPR, the, the even in California, they're now getting very firm on there. So we've really got to be much more careful about how many emails and contacts we meet with people, which are just inappropriate, haven't we? Yeah.Jamie Allan  03:06Oh, very much. So the the ICO was started off going for the larger companies, but they're really powering down now on the SMEs. I mean, they sent out a an email to all SMEs saying, Are you registered, and it costs 40 quid a year. But if you're not registered, and you store data about people's personal details, you are subject to putting yourself in a very difficult position when it comes to being fined for breach. So yeah, that the whole GDPR process is becoming very much, much more strong. So far as the ICO is concerned.Stuart Webb  03:41Sorry, I interrupted you, I think you're gonna go on and say a second problemJamie Allan  03:45I get the second problem was, they really don't have a CRM strategy, they don't have a strategy for actually how to build a relationship with a with their customers. And that comes really from the fact that they don't get input from their, from their stakeholders. So they buy a CRM, put it in the system and make it work with really, you've got to plan the workflow, about how everybody wants to use the system. So that data gets put onto the system and managed properly. Because if you've got Duff data going in, you've obviously got data going out, which means the reports are useless. So your CRM is never going to work. And I've been into many organisations, and they've said, look, what we've got just isn't working, can you make it work? Or should we start again? So we do that whole process of well, what have you spent, what's the investment? If we do this, what's the return on investment on a new project? So, we have to go through that phase, but more often than not, we go back to the basics was start small and keep it simple. If you keep it simple, people could then build and see value as they as they work through the the business and and develop those relationships. So you then got a centralised CRM, which is not siloed so all your data Once cleaned, is centralised, you know, sales marketing admin accounts, everybody looks at the CRM because the customer is everybody's responsibility. So everybody needs access. So that's really the second part of it. Keep it simple growers, the business needs it. So don't have all the bells and whistles, which, obviously, a lot of the online businesses, they have to offer all the options, because they have to be a one for all. But what I'm trying to do is say, look, tell me what you want, what's your workflow, and then make the business? Have a CRM that actually works for the business?Stuart Webb  05:38Terrific, Jamie? What are the common mistakes that people make them when they're trying to solve those problems without any sort of help?Jamie Allan  05:47Well, they try and do it themselves. I mean, once they do realise and accept that they may have an issue, they try to themselves. But again, you've heard the stories of companies just sending out emails willy nilly, oh, you know, we've got this fantastic product you were with with us a few years ago, would you like and what they're doing, they think they've got it right. But actually, when you try and clean a database like that, and you have been in touch, you really need to actually, first of all, say something like, you used to do business with us, would you still like us to keep in touch, you shouldn't try and market to them. Because for all you know, three years ago, whatever they could have said, we don't want to be contacted anymore. So you've got to start again. And if there's any doubt, just get rid of it and start again, just to be safe. So that's the main thing. They try and do it themselves. And they can't they fall into holes occasionally. The second thing is they think that they need to do well, they, they think that they ought to do it sooner rather than later. So they give it to some employee, like a marketing manager or somebody in the business. So go on and do that. Well, they've got the same problem. So it's passing the buck almost. So you've got to actually, if you're going to do it yourself, you've got to actually do your research, and get onto it and do it properly. And it takes time.Stuart Webb  07:09Yeah, brilliant. So what's that valuable free action or valuable free resource that the audience can implement that will help them solve that problem?Jamie Allan  07:20Well, there's so much research out there, all you need to do is punch into the, into the URL, free data cleansing, or data cleansing services, and a number of opportunities will pop up. I mean, I think you've got a link on the on the programme now. But if you go to something like data cleaning tools, you've got a plethora of options that you can tag on to where you can get some ideas as to how to do it for yourself. I mean, there are companies out there that will do up to a certain amount of time for nothing, just to give you an idea of this is what it could look like we will do a sample I mean, I work with a business that we do samples, this is what the data will look like. And then if you want to clean the rest of the data, then obviously we'll do a quote. But there are data free data cleansing tools out there. But again, you've got to learn how to use them. So you've got to invest the time. So this is balance of do I invest the time? Or do I actually do a horses for courses? They've got it what doing they're doing? I'm going to do what I'm doing? Why don't we just share the share the results?Stuart Webb  08:28I completely agree with you, Jamie, I'm so frustrated by so many business owners, even even very serious, large business owners, who so often attempt to do things, as I call it, using the path of least assistance. They also around say, well, that's something we could do. And often I turn around to them and say, it would be cheaper, quicker and easier to just employ an expert who does nothing but this because frankly, even if you have bought bought the the time and effort to learn how to do it yourself, they'll do it better. They'll do it so much easier than than trying to sort of learn how to do so much. So much of this yourself, it's so much easier to just get an expert and say, just make that happen for me, please and then walk away confident that it's going to happen.Jamie Allan  09:15Well, you're right, because again, data is a real asset. A lot of companies think data is a whole lot of numbers, words on a page. It's actually what your business is all about. It's your customers, it's the value that your business will deliver for you. So why don't you just get it done, right? What's the right people at the right time and help everybody get more business as a result? It is not rocket science. I mean, this is really what the process is. It's keeping it simple. Get it right. Talk to the right people.Stuart Webb  09:49Brilliant, love it. So what's the concept or or books that's been most impactful in your experience that you want to pass on?Jamie Allan  10:00Well, two areas, first of all a book and then a programme. But the book that has been quite influential. It's a recent book written by a Michaels V band, Zed VI, ba, MD. And his book was called success in your sphere. And what this does is it leverages the power of the relationship. So you can achieve your business goals. So the focus is on the hot the customer journey, effectively what you do from start to finish. And he's got an an acronym called capital. And I don't know if you picked up the notes that I sent you, but essentially, that the capital is the see is the consistent execution. So you need to be able to develop good habits, stronger customer relationships. So you need to have the right customers at the right level. And then the aggregate, you need to actually then curate the the database of who your professional contacts and what level they're at. And then you prioritise. So you order that database, you investigate, which is the eye, so you collect intelligence, I mean, the whole thing about a CRM is to collect the soft, the soft aspects, you know that the birthday dates, the children's names, the dog's names, so that you can go back to them and you have this empathy with this emotion, emotional capacity. Another another book, two links to this to the power of persuasion by Robert Cal Dini, he talks about the law of reciprocity. And you know, if you if you, if you give, or if you take the time to learn about others, it will be astounded, and then that, that, that that relationship gets stronger, because the know like trust in a relationship is really important. You can't get to doing except this without, in the first place, liking them. And then trusting them. It's when you get to the trust, and say, the V band book, it's all about getting through that process and building that strong relationship. So the T is timely engagement, then you add value, then you leverage the process. And you constantly doing this with your contacts that match your power.Stuart Webb  12:14Or make sure that that accurate and that that goes into the notes, Jamie, because I think that's some valuable stuff to try and remember there, Jenny, my final question to you, and this is my Get Out of Jail Free card. I'm happy to admit it. So what's the question that I should have asked you today? That I haven't? And please bear in mind that having told us what the question is, please answer it. Otherwise, you'll leave us hanging, waiting for part two of the of the podcast.Jamie Allan  12:47Well, how do I keep customers that my task my leads and maximise sales opportunities? It's a straight question. And you do that by making sure the data is out there. And it's clean. Because without data, there's no business. If you understood data, you can get more out of it. And really, it's about looking at what you've already got. maximising what you've already got. So it's actually the way we came in. It's looking at that at 20% Your customers will deliver 80% Your Business. Jamie pretty imposed profile business, and you threw a cent.Stuart Webb  13:29Sorry, you broke up for a minute, just just carry on. Gone. Now I'm just I'm so glad you put it like that. Because I don't know where I got to. You were talking about the fact that you can you can leverage the data in order to maximise customer value.Jamie Allan  13:47Yes, the data is everything.Stuart Webb  13:51It is. It absolutely is. Jamie, it's fascinating. I'm sure we could talk for many more hours on this, but we've run out of time, largely because otherwise coffee will be getting cold. And none of us want that. So I'm just gonna remind everybody if you want to see more of these and know when they're coming up, because we do get out and tell people when they're coming up. You can you can find us all over the social medias. But also we're on this link which is HTTPS, colon forward slash forward slash TCA dot FYI, forward slash subscribe. I'll just see those last few things again, t ca dot FYI, forward slash subscribe, get onto the mailing list, and then we will let you know what's coming up in the next couple of weeks. Jamie has been an absolute pleasure talking to you this morning. It's been so I'm so pleased. You're talking about this. And I think it's incredibly important that people understand how they can use those relationships use that understanding they've got of customers in order to be able to maximise the time they spend with their customers and and sell more of them. stuff to customers. Because, you know, if you've made a sale to a customer, it's probably because they really want to have more of what you've got. And just understanding the right time to engage them. And understanding more about them enables you to do exactly that. So it's been a brilliant conversation. Thank you so much. I look forward to seeing more of your more of what you're talking about on the internet. And I really hope that we get to do some of this again, thank you so much.Jamie Allan  15:25Thank thank you for inviting Mr. Pleasure.Stuart Webb  15:28Absolutely, no problem. Speak to you soon. Bye._________________________________________________________________________________________________Subscribe to our newsletter and get details of when we are doing these interviews live at https://TCA.fyi/newsletterFind out more about being a guest at : link.thecompleteapproach.co.uk/beaguestSubscribe to the podcast at https://link.thecompleteapproach.co.uk/podcastHelp us get this podcast in front of as many people as possible. Leave a nice five-star review at  apple podcasts : https://link.thecompleteapproach.co.uk/apple-podcasts and on YouTube : https://link.thecompleteapproach.co.uk/Itsnotrocketscienceatyt!Here's how you can bring your business to THE next level:1. Download my free resource on everything you need to grow your business on a single page : https://link.thecompleteapproach.co.uk/1pageIt's a detailed breakdown of how you can grow your business to 7-figures in a smart and sustainable way2. Join The Complete Approach Facebook Group :  https://TCA.fyi/fb Connect with like-minded individuals who are all about growth and increasing revenue. It's a Facebook community where we make regular posts aimed at inspiring conversations in a supportive environment. It's completely free and purposely aimed at expanding and building networks.3. 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After another eye-opening Leech Anatomy 101 segment (2:39), Aaron, Banks and Evan dive into Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind's leechiest themes (11:29), scenes (16:37), and characters (23:04). To get some relief, the guys head into their second Leech on a Beach segment (33:32). They conclude by considering the film's medicinal qualities (36:15) and giving an overall rating -- from 1 to 4 -- of the film's leechiness (43:26).We're always looking to expand our pond -- please reach out!Series URL: www.theleechpodcast.comPublic email contact: theleechpodcast@gmail.comSocial Media:@leechpodcast on Twittertheleechpodcast on InstagramExternal Links:“Leeches,” Australian Museum [link]Transcript:Evan  00:11Hey everyone. Welcome back to the leech podcast, the most visceral podcast. As always, the leech podcast is a show about movies that suck the life out of you, but also stick with you, and may even be good for you. I'm joined as always by my two favorite leechy gentlemen, Aaron Jones, and Banks Clark. Hey guys.Banks  00:32Hey HeyAaron  00:34Hey Hey HeyEvan  00:34It is great to be with you again. Listeners might remember the three of us used to teach together that we discovered our shared love of difficult movies that make your heart bleed. And of course, we used to teach together now we leech together. So it is great. Great to be together as always. We have a packed show for you all again today. This is I think we're halfway through our first season of the leech podcast, which is very exciting. Today we'll be talking about Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, a 2004 film starring Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet. We will dive into that as we go. We always also are looking to expand our pond. So to that end, if you like, communicate with us @leechpodcast on Twitter, and theleechpodcast on Instagram. Please send us your ideas, your thoughts, your feelings. We like all those things. And this week in particular, if there is a leechy novel, a book, a story…Aaron  01:43[Gasps]Evan  01:43… that is leechy for you, we would love to know what that novel is, because if there's enough “suction” on this idea, oh, we might need to have any tea book club. So @leechpodcast on Twitter, theleechpodcast on Instagram. Please send us your leechy novels, Jen. So other other other things that the listeners should chime in on,Aaron  02:06But don't send us leechy navels! Like if there's a leech on your belly, but...Evan  02:11… A leech in your navel actually should probably you should probably go talk to your doctor.Aaron  02:15…. Talk to your primary care physician.Banks  02:18That just makes me think of that one scene in The Matrix. The part where that thing goes right in...Aaron  02:23Oh, oh, that is the truly leechy naval scene of all, yes.Evan  02:28That scene has stuck with us. Okay, before we dive into this episode, Aaron, please teach us about leeches.Aaron  02:36“Teach us about leeches”. Yes. Well, this week's movie where we watched was a little more romantic. So I was wondering about that, you know, with your romantic partner, I was kind of looking each other in the eye. And I was wondering, could I look a leech in the eye. And I became curious about the eyes of leeches. I found this bit of information from the Australian museums kind of natural history museum in Sydney. And it is sort of deliciously vague in a way that I want to share with you. And these are about the sensory organs of leeches and I quote, sensory organs on the head and body surface enable it to detect changes in light intensity, temperature, and vibration. chemical receptors on the head provide a sense of smell and there may be, this is what gets me, there may be one or more pairs of eyes.Evan  03:36One or more?Aaron  03:39One or more pairs of eyes. The number of eyes and their arrangement can be of some use in identification. However to properly identify a leech, dissection is required. I was struck by that this time whether that some different kinds of leeches have one set of eyes. Some have none, apparently, and some have many. And I'd like to know more. Anyway, looking a leech in the eye may be difficult because probably all they can see of you is a shadow in the way of the sun.Evan  04:09Wow, that that feels apt for this...SunshineAaron  04:13Sunshine!Evan  04:14Wow, look, well, points. Anyone who makes a metaphor out of that bit of leech anatomy. Thank you, Aaron. So let's dive into this episode. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.  Banks, will you tell us what happened in this film?Banks  04:30Well, I will try. As always, quick spoiler warning. If you have not seen this movie, pause this episode and go watch it. There are some movies that you can hear about and then watch. And guess what you could do it here and you would be doing yourself a terrible disservice. The first time watching this film you will be transported in 1000 different directions and it is a delightful transportatio--and it's just worth have been carried along in that journey. So watch the movie if you haven't, then unpause this leech podcast and purse and then we can leech with you. So quick spoiler warning. And this is a movie that has multiple timelines, you know, these timelines converge, they diverge, and it's definitely it's …. you know, we just recently watched it, I'm still, like, late, which timeline was happening when, but it's, it's really remarkable how it all comes together. The movie starts we meet Joel Joel Barish. He's played by Jim Carrey, you know, sort of quiet character. And there's this really interesting use of voiceover, where we learned that this very sort of quiet, normal, somewhat boring gentleman all of a sudden is doing a very impulsive action, on been sort of surprised, and even to himself, and he ends up on a beach in Montauk, where he meets a woman and they all of a sudden have this unexpected chemistry and the woman is, in a clementine paid brilliantly by Kate Winslet. And through the sort of the course of their conversations, and everything, you realize there's some sort of interesting history, there's some things that make sense. And then all of a sudden viewers are transported to a different moment. Right, to a different time at which, actually, this relationship has been ongoing for some reason. And also that there's been a fight, and that the relationship ended. And so all of a sudden, the viewers made very terribly aware that there are multiple things going on at once. The histories don't align properly. And what we learn is that after this fight, Clementine, who is this, you know, opposed to you know, Joel, who's this, you know, very sort of boring, keeps himself more of a quiet gentleman, Clementine is, you know, she changes her hair color all the time, she's impulsive, she's vivacious, she's all over the place. And what she has done after the fight is actually go to this, it looks like a dentist's office, it's like the world's most mundane-looking thing for a sci-fi film. But it's like this futuristic technology that wipes up like a very specific traumatic memory from your brain, in a very specific way, and that she has had this done. And Joel learns this through some friends who shouldn't have been able to like to pass it along, but Joel learns. And then he is then realizing that he's in this different, like an area that he himself needs to have this done. And so then he goes and demands that this same office, you know, do this procedure on him because it is too painful for him to know that she has wiped him from her memory. And so, all of a sudden, we're caught in these timelines, that's also you know, where we started. There's the timeline of the history of him learning about it, but also we learn we're actually in the timeline of him actually undergoing the procedure as he sleeps.Aaron  08:23Mm-hmm.Banks  08:24And what we then learned is that through the course of him actually going to the procedure, he decides he does not want it. He decides that, actually, their relationship was so powerful was so meaningful, that in spite of all the bad things, he wants them to stop....but he's already asleep. They're already wiping his brain and it's hilarious. The technicians doing it are played by Mark Ruffalo and Kirsten Dunst. Mark Ruffalo plays Stan and Kirsten Dunst plays Mary, who are themselves are in a relationship, and themselves are like throwing like a party while they're doing it. We also recently then we also learned that Elijah Wood is playing this character named Patrick, who is stealing Jim Carrey's identity in order to be able to date Clementine. So Jim carries obviously, Joel's identity to steel to be able to date Clementine. Right. So we have all these crazy timelines happening at once you learned that the doctor in charge of this entire facility actually had a relationship with one of the technicians. So you have these love triangles. All of this is happening while Jim Carrey is asleep, trying to evade the very process. And the thing that is giving, you know, Joel and Clementine the ability to evade, right, this process of wiping the memory of the relationship, the very life of the relationship, what's keeping them and sort of the very vital breath of that alive is the fact that there is something about the relationship that allows them to want to do something different, do something impulsive, and that breaks the cycle and they're able to evade through memories and all these, you know, interesting psychological pathways, they're able to sort of thwart parts of the procedure. And in the end, interestingly, they fail...and the procedure succeeds. So it would seem. Because Jim Carrey wakes up the procedure, seemingly a success, and we are brought back to the very opening scene of the movie, where he is then, for some reason, this boring man impulsively does something almost like Clementine would, and they end up in Montauk. And these, you know, two individuals who had erased one another from one another's memory, insist upon meeting one another, again, in spite of themselves. And it ends on this hopeful but restrained hope or they found each other again. But will this repeat again? That's the movie.Evan  11:12Yes. Yes. Really? Well, put Thank you Banks. So we're going to move into the leechy. See, or sorry, leechy themes from this movie? And I think I'll just build off something you left us with there, Banks, which is this interplay… so my theme would be the interplay between their individual choices, and I don't know, fate, I guess. The theme is, can maybe another way to put is, can people change? Or are they always going to repeat patterns of behavior, patterns of relationship? If they can change? What is going to be the engine of that change? What actually drives it? And I do think this film has something to say about that. I'm going to put a pin on it, because I think we'll come back to it. But my theme is this interplay between fate and choice, especially through the prism of a relationship. Hmm.Banks  12:09Wow. And that's a really powerful theme to the film plays, right, you know, one of the plays right into what I'm thinking of, for a lot of the film. For me, one of the most powerful themes, is just an explanation of coping. How do people cope with difficulty, and this film is just just takes your right into people's coping mechanisms, at least for me in a way that like, is a little too relatable to be comfortable. Oh, gosh, I've done these. Evan  12:42Ooh, Ooh… That's real.Banks  12:43That's really, like, you know, for Jim Carrey, I relate to his character, so much I relate to Joel, because he's just this, you know, resorts to, to the same patterns to cope with the things that are just difficult in life. And he himself is at odds with his own state of being boring and doesn't know what to do with it. And is oddly attracted to this woman who is the opposite of that. And so it's about you know, well, some people cope by creating patterns, some people cope by being wildly different. And, you know, trying to do things in different ways. And, you know, there's this theory out there that, you know, Clementine, Caitlin's his character is like, has like Borderline Personality Disorder, I don't really think that's a really you don't need to psychologize it like that. She's just a really awesome, I think strong character, but definitely is coping with life in a different way. And then you also meet through all these other characters in the side, just different ways of dealing with difficulty. I think coping is just a huge part of this movie.Aaron  13:47Mm hmm. I mean, hmm, I have a lot of things in my mind. Some themes that stick out to me is one that I'll talk about for now has to do with memory. I'm thinking about the power of memory, and even even the sort of mirrors residue of memory. Now, after these two people have found the procedure done, there's a way in which memory sort of like persists beyond all active attempts to erase it. There's something like core and deep, and that in sort of goes beyond the mechanical, neurological parts of memory, down into the level of identity. And I'm just I'm thinking about all the ways it's like we are the finger. We like the fingerprints of our experiences and memories are so deep in us. The idea of erasing them becomes ridiculous, even at the level of the science fiction we're given at the lacuna, doctor's office.Evan  14:53Right. And I think what's I think what's so interesting there is that they do succeed in erasing her From his mind, but it's but they don't. They can't tracer from his body. His body remembers. And there's something like deeper than his mind that remembers her.Aaron  15:09Yeah,Banks  15:10Truly. If I'm not mistaken “The Residue of Memory,” to quote you know, maestro Aaron Jones over here. Isn't “The Residue of Memory,” the title of your very first jazz fusion album?Evan  15:28I know it was his second one. Oh, that's right. I believe compromised second draft.Banks  15:38Oh, that's right. You might remember from an earlier episode, he quoted it. It was the subterranean network that fuses the different buns of the sandwich. Oh, that was the parasite episode. That was his first episode.Evan  15:54Yes, yes.Aaron  15:55Spicey call back, sir. Spicy indeed.Evan  15:59Banks is there a scene that leeches on to you?Banks  16:05 It speaks to the to0 close for comfort. For me, it's it had there's this scene it's fairly early in the film and epitomizes almost the thorn in the side of Joel and clementines relationship. And it's it they're sitting down. And they're eating Chinese food.Aaron  16:32Oh, no  Banks  16:34It is the most painful scene. It's and this is leechy to me in the sense that like, I kind of want to forget it. Because I really can't forget it.Evan  16:45And because I've lived it, right.Banks  16:48Yeah. Like, I've been like “Daaang, I've been there, man.” But like, but like, I think we've all been in relationships where we felt this sense of being suffocated by monotony, the sense of something that was at one time supposed to be celebratory, has instead become like a performance of, you know, all the reasons why the relationship is not working and it's just boring. And they're just sitting there eating Chinese food, commenting on how the food that they've been ordering every week, the same day, is the exact same, and having nothing to talk about. And the silence is just so palpable that it will it just makes you kind of want to, I don't know, attach some leeches to you to suck it out of you. Because …. somebody say something interesting. Aaron  17:43Kind of want to run away screaming.  Banks  17:44For me it's the Chinese food eating scene. It's just, it's for me that's like, almost unwatchable. But like, in a powerful way, not like, bad but like, I have lived thatEvan  17:55We cannot speak into something very real, right?Aaron  17:58Yeah. I'm really gonna jump in here. I'm, I'm thinking of like, what are the different kinds of things that relationships can survive, and one is the site horrific level of monotony that we're describing. But the other thing that for me, the can relationships survive the full voicing of the truth, the full voicing of the truth and the leakiest scene for me, that just, I just brings me into agony, I feel awful, as I'm watching it, and listening to it, is the scene at the end where they have both received the recorded tapes of them sort of naming the things they despise most about the other person. And then, Clementine walks into Jim Carrey's apartment as he's listening to the tape where he told the doctor everything he despises about her now. All these like nasty, ugly things he thinks about her. And she makes him keep the tape running while she is there. And the discomfort is just like rising and rising and rising until I feel it in my body as I'm sitting there watching the film. He's talking about how she just uses sex to like, make people like her. And she's this like, shallow, foolish person. And she's listening to it. And he's listening to himself say it and horrified. And for me, there's the kind of weird hopefulness at the end of the movie is where they decide they're going to try and be close again, not only with this kind of remembered level of monotony, but with the full, like, difficult truth spoken. Oh, that's leechy for me. Oh, took something out of me!Evan  19:37That is an amazing, amazing sequence. I think I'm torn--I have two scenes. I think they… I think they actually sandwich the one you're talking about. The first one and I want to highlight just the visual storytelling that's going on in both of these scenes. This film was written by Charlie Kaufman Who is an amazing screenwriter, but this is the place where I think the director and the director of photography directors, Michel Gondry, I think they really shine. Because the first thing I'm thinking about is the final memory he has with Clem before, his mind is completely wiped of her. And it's actually the first night that they ever spent together, or that they met. And they were on Montauk. It's they met on the beach at a party, and they connect. And basically, she convinces him to go into this house that's owned by someone else, but no one's currently living there. It's dark. He feels really uncomfortable because you could tell he's a rule follower. He's, he doesn't like to, you know, transgress rules. She's going upstairs with alcohol, saying, hey, come upstairs, spend the night with me. And he remembers that he did not actually spend the night with her that night. He actually left he got scared, and he left. But the way the film tells this is that you actually see them talking to each other. And he says to her or his memory of her, I wish I had stayed. I wish that night that I had stayed. And it's so powerful to look back on the very first interaction with this person. And you see the regret. But you also see this, sort of, change in perspective that's happened to him. But then, and this is the part that is leechy for me. He leaves in the memory. And as he's leaving, Gondry has the house literally collapsed, just as his memory of her is collapsing. And so it's this good. It's multi-layered, right that their relationship seemed to be almost doomed from the start. The house is crumbling in their first interaction. And, and yet, he's also where he is now in the storyline. He knows, oh, actually, I still love her. And she whispers in his ear and meet me in Montauk. And that's what sets the chain in motion to get to come back to the beginning of the film. So it's just such a multi Vaillant image. I think that's my leechy scene.Aaron  22:05Almost leechy for the artistry, as much as anything in the story.Evan  22:09It's unforgettable, for me.Banks  22:13The artist is not lacking--that's for sure.Evan  22:16It's stunning.Aaron  22:17Oh, yeah, consistent throughout the film. I mean, the film is a complete package where every knot has been tied. It feels like you modify it. Can I jump into leechy characters? Leechiest character, I have to talk about another kind of leechy scene that kind of fits into this. The groove I'm describing about the film containing all these kind of like perfect moments of symmetry. And I … so leechy character for me, who I hate, just deeply despise and hate is Patrick, Elijah Woods character. I freaking hate that guy. For like, part of me, like I'm addicted, addicted to these ideas of like, of authenticity and originality, and to see someone sort of like, he takes Jim Carrey's journal, Joel Barish. His journal and is sort of like trying to recreate with Clementine, all these moments that Joel Barish already had with her and I'm just feeling sick watching this happen. But then the ultimate moment is when they go to the the frozen lake, the frozen lake, where Joe Parrish and says and recalls and writes down in his journal, he says they're lying down next to each other on the ice. I could die right now. I'm just happy. I've never felt that before. I'm just exactly where I want to be. And then to watch the scene where freaking Patrick, just like stumbles and fumbles his way through that line, and it means nothing and Clementine doesn't care at all. Like, oh, I Oh, this is so gross. And I hate Patrick. Like he's he like he sucks so much life out of me. He's least number one for me in this movie, that's me.Evan  24:05He is definitely high up there. I also would on that kind of leechiness, Dr. Mierzwiak. Oh, Tom Wilkinson's, character also is leechy for me, but I'm actually not going to talk about them for a while much like, in Pan's Labyrinth when Vidal was so obviously, the villain so, so terrible. Yeah, I think I mean, Mierzwiak, and Patrick are obviously leechy. And they suck life out. Yes. But for me, the painful one who is instructive and who sticks with me is kind of like what banks was saying earlier. It's Joel. I think Jim Carrey's character is really on this viewing? He sticks with me and I think so many of his insecurities and his questions and his doubts of himself and his doubts of the relationship. Man those structures towards, you know, early on. It becomes ironic later, but early on when he's looking at Kate Winslet on the train and he says, “Why do I fall in love with every woman who gives me the time of day?” I mean, that's an extreme statement. And also like, I have been in places where that is a real thought. And that movie named it. And so, I think there's that and then just his, you could tell he's smart. He's really sharp. He has some creative elements like he, I think he draws and he writes, and yet he's so unable to vocalize what he feels. He's so inside. And, yeah, there's just resonances for me that his character sticks with me and embodies those hard parts of myself but also embodies, it's just kind of he goes through a hero's journey through his mind, through his memory, I think. And we'll talk, I think we'll talk more about this. But where he ends up makes me oddly hopeful, while also recognizing the pain and struggle it took to get there is leechy for me,Aaron  26:11Can we say Have we talked about this idea that? I mean, there's something leechy about Joe, but there's also something leechy about the process of like, delving into the underworld like this is Pan's Labyrinth? We've talked about this before. But yeah, like going into the depths like this, the descent into his memory is also a descent into opening up all these different kind of Pandora's boxes of repression inside him. Yes, like the moment of shame where he longs he like longs to be hugged by his mother, but she like, won't pay attention to him or he's caught masturbating. And he's like, so uncomfortable in his own skin. Like having those boxes opened. Oh, oh, this is leechy. Indeed,Banks  26:54You cannot watch this movie, and not imagine your own embarrassing moments being so exposed. Everyone watches this movie, and everyone just like, peeks into their own little box isn't the same or like, ooh, that's like, oh, “That's what it would be for me!” There's something about that movie that,  does it like it is a journey into one's own embarrassments at times. Aaron  27:22Makes me want to tell all my dirty secrets. But I'm not going to….Banks  27:33Haha, please don't… please….I mean, you know, if, if I'm honest, I will say, I think that Joel's character is also for me right there. But if, if no one's else gonna is going to talk about you know, Dr. Howard, is it “mirrors-wack?” Miers-wack?”Evan  27:48MierzwiakBanks  27:48“Mierzwiak!” He, you know, there is one thing I would like to highlight about his leechiness, and yes, there's a huge li uncomfortable, hugely inappropriate, hugely leechy component with regard to him. You know, having an affair with a young woman and then allowing his own lab to then wipe her memory of that affair only to then rekindle it. That's just that's just absurdly, it's so bad. But like, also very believable. But like in a terrible way. For me, one of the other things, it's very easy to miss, I think, but really, just for some reason sticks with me is this is his lab. This is his company, this is his lab, this is his company, and his company, has these policies that you actually get to hear about and the background of some of the scenes. Like you get to wait in the room with Joel Well, we learned that, Oh, no, you know, “I'm sorry, Miss so and so but we can't wipe your memory three times this month. That's just against policy.” Like they're going like, it's they make they have turned this method of memory wiping, into a deeply unhealthy pattern of coping, that is, and just are profiting off of it. There's something that like you are seeing these people in waiting rooms dealing with the death of a cat, dealing with all these things, just wiping them from memory, as well. That's just what you do. So you can move on. And now obviously, like “Welcome to the modern world,” we all have our own ways of doing it. But I think that's a part of the modern world but saps us as we are just only using avoidance as our coping. Like what happens if that's what it is, what if memory wiping becomes the only way that we cope with difficulty? Like that's one of the major questions that this film asks and the answer is not a pleasant one or one that is hopeful. In fact, it's is the reconnecting of memory with difficulties, and the radical acceptance of it that I think does it there. And I'm going to stop there because I'm getting into the positives and the “hirudo therapy” aspects. For me, I'm just gonna say the doctor there has some high leech levels that need to be, uh, need to be expressed.Evan  30:18I think that's really well put and I think just to build off it real quickly, I do think that it is the contrast between characters who basically just have their mind-wiped, and where they end up by the end of the film, they're all pretty much alone. Whereas the character that did go down the road of having his mind wiped, but then chose actually to  embrace memory, Joel and then also Clem, they end up in some kind of connection. And I do think the film is we should play around with this some more but I do think that something about facing memory going into it is actually the way to connection and the avoidance leaves you alone, perhaps.Aaron  31:03Yeah, anyway, can I, I would love to jump in here because I think there was something that this movie taught me something new about leakiness Oh, oh yeah. Next to the the act of remembering and Dr. Mierzwiak and all this, that the moment so what I'm what I learned about leechiness has to do with my physical experience in my body as I'm watching a film. And there was a moment where like, from the center of my body, kind of radiating toward my hands, I started to feel physically numb, like something weird was happening to me. And the moment that that happened was when Mary, Kirsten Dunst's character, learns that her laundry was wiped at the moment where Dr. Mierzwiak's wife arrives on the scene and sees them kissing inside and, and says, “You can have him, you've had him before.” And at that moment, like my whole body just goes, [Makes out-of-body-expierence sound]....This is really like taking something it's doing something to me.Banks  32:13Isn't it true that when a leech bites you, there is a numbing agent.Evan  32:19There is a numbing protein? Yes, that's right.Aaron  32:22Oh, guys, I tell you what, I think I like me to take a quick vacation though. This is getting like, a little intense. For me.Evan  32:29It's getting a little intense. Aaron, do you want to take this top beach? Do you want to beach? Are there any leeches on that beach?Aaron  32:35I wanna do the leech on the beach segment? Come on, let's do leave on the beach. On the beach. When I try and want to go on vacation on this film, where do I go? Actually go to one of the moments of like greatest dysfunction, which is this ridiculous relationship? In the movie between Joel's two friends, Carrie and Rob. Remember what I'm talking about? Yeah, like Carrie and Rob, who are like, there's something about the way that their relationship is just so obviously bad. Like they're throwing laundry at each other and like always sniping at each other. She tries to pick up a cooler and it just like falls over on her comedy montage. Evan  33:20At the beach, at MontaukBanks  33:21At the beach!Aaron  33:21But a moment that gets me the most I just can't help but laugh is where Joe's over at their house and you just hear this relentless hammering. And Rob is just sitting at the table like making a birdhouse. Like, why? Why is this even here? Why is this happening? But uh, that's it this moment of the just deep absurdity. And we're where we're seeing actually like, what love looks at, like, in a way that's not all that inspiring or interesting. But for some reason that like it's uplifting and light-hearted to me, and I go on vacation in those moments.Evan  33:59I love that. My vacation is also related to Bob, who of course is played by David Cross, the immortal Tobias Fuque from Arrested Development, and perhaps a satire, perhaps unrelated, but in that show Arrested Development. There's a pill called a “Forgive me now.” Which I think perhaps is based on this movie. And that is a funny version of something very serious. That has happened in this movie. And I laugh at that…;Aaron  34:27that's beachy, that's beachyBanks  34:31Arrested Developemnt is talways a good beach to go to. It'll ride on Montauk anytime. Just not the Netflix seasons, don't do those.Evan  34:40Yeah, yeah. Wasted time. Well, that is our leech on a beach segment for this week. Here. Thank you for taking us to the beach.Aaron  34:50And to be clear leeches also their bodies are like segmented they are segmented worms. So the idea of segments is really nice for the pod. Thank you.Banks  35:00And we are now transported from the beach. So thank you for that.Evan  35:05We have built leach anatomy into the structure of our podcast. Speaking of which, I think it's time for some “hirudo therapy,” the medicinal purposes of leeches. Who would like to begin?Banks  35:24I'll begin with one here. So for me, I think that there is a hirudo therapy in this, you know, this, this one goes out to all the Dialectical Behavioral Therapy fans out there. But in DBT, there's this important idea called “radical acceptance.” Okay, which is the, you know, it's simply looking at difficult situations, and, and simply trying to see them as they are and accept reality for what it is. And so we can move forward. And there's this great moment, I think of radical acceptance throughout this movie, but one in particular. And that's when, after the fights after everything at the very end of the movie, you know, you know, Joel has just heard Clem's, worst comments to him, and Clem has just heard Joel lay into her and these recorded videos, and then they stand in a hallway about, they could, you know, both ready just to end it with one another. And they just say, you know, we could try again. And guess what, this is probably gonna happen again. And that's when Joel, that's when Jim Carrey's character, says, “Okay,” It's this moment of incredible radical acceptance that I've never seen a better portrait of it. It's an acceptance of who they are, and acceptance of what their relationship could be the good and the bad together. And the acceptance of, “We could see where this goes”Aaron  36:58In most moments of acceptance, with that level of like, crystalline, very fresh sense of everything that's wrong, and tragic, and toxic and weird. Yeah, that's very radical.Evan  37:11I think that connects in a lot of ways to the therapy that I was thinking about. And it connects back to my theme of fate and choice. And there's so many patterns that repeat in this movie, and you see the dynamics of their relationship, keep repeating in the memories, and they keep repeating, because in some ways, Joel is fundamentally who he is. And Clem is fundamentally who she is. And you can't change those things. And yet, Joel has been on a journey in this film, he has gone into his memory, he's gone into happy memories, but really, it's the traumatic ones that he has to go to, to come out the other side as a different person. And the time works so funny in this movie, I think Banks you put it well, it's only one night, and yet he is a different person. That morning when he wakes up, although he doesn't know it totally, than he was when he went to sleep. And I think for me, what's therapeutic about that is this acknowledgment that the way forward, perhaps in a relationship, but perhaps just for self-acceptance, is actually through memory. It's through facing past things, especially past trauma. If the way forward for Ophelia was through fantasy in Pan's Labyrinth, I think this film offers us a painful, but ultimately, a restorative way forward through memory.Aaron  38:45Yeah, this is what yeah, this is this movie is hard for me. Yeah, I think that anyone who anyone who's had a lot of heartbreak, and I've been divorced, you know, watch you watch this film and watch the kinds of dysfunction and kinds of pain that people experience here like I can, I can dredge up a lot of hard material. But I think that one of the things that I find medicinal about the film is that it's I think that after you've, after you've been really hurt by love. There's this question of like, am I gonna open myself up to that again? Is it worth opening myself up to love again? And the message of this film is it like it's a high risk proposition to love. Because the things that you will learn the things that you will come to know involve pain. And I and I find myself both really chastened by this film like, “Hello, sir. Be cautious about love but But sir, you should, you should open your heart because there's something deep and real really meaningful about coming to know that the difficult risky thing called love.”Evan  40:07I think that raises a question for me. I want to know what you think. The film seems to say. “Yes, it's hard. Yes. All this pain has happened. Yes, there's risk. But yes, but okay. But try again” or “Say yes to love again.” And just speaking for myself it. It rang true. I felt like the film earned that optimism. But I don't know what do you guys think? Did it? Did it earn it? Is it too? I mean, because there's also a way you could argue like, this relationship was toxic, and probably bad for both of them. And is it good for them to keep trying on something that?Aaron  40:57The film seems like make a virtue out of continuing to try things that are destructive?Evan  41:05Yeah, I think you could read it that way.Aaron  41:07Yeah. Make a virtue out of dysfunction. Oooh, yeah. I don't know about that.Banks  41:12You could read it just as a cycle of codependency.Evan  41:16Oh!Aaron  41:18I don't know what I think about that. That's not what I want to believe about the movie. But I think that the movie entirely leaves that door open, actually.Evan  41:26Yeah. Same.Banks  41:29I agree. Both with the sentiment of not wanting it to be that way. And also having a very hard time arguing against it. But I'm gonna fall and say it's not that's not. I'm just gonna go with my gut and say, I don't think that's what the movie is about. I think the movie is asking, in the end, it does earn, you know, as you're saying, a bit more optimism a bit more of the sense that the worst of us doesn't define the all of our future.Aaron  42:03What does that mean? I think that that immediately leads me to the burning question of if this movie is a movie that is that has this like this optimistic note to it. Like how many leeches am I supposed to give this movie? Oh?Banks  42:21Oh,Aaron  42:24OOh Ah! I see how many leeches now? Does anybody have a sense at this point?Banks  42:29I did remind our viewers we do this on a scale of four. Right? One out of four leeches: four leeches being the, you know, the the “gold standard” of a leech movie. And “one” being not so leechy, but maybe a wee-bit? “Zero” being not leechy at all. What are you doing on the show? So.Evan  42:49So I'm at I'm at three leaning for but I'm going to go three? Oh, I want to save four for a couple that, well, we will get to that. I think I just want to hold it like I think parasites are solid for oh, there's a couple of others. In my book. Here's why I'm at three. Okay. I couldn't get this film out of my mind. We watched it a while back. I've been thinking about it. I've been wanting to write about it. I've been busy and haven't been able to write about and I've been frustrated that I haven't been able to write and think about it. And so it's just like, wormed its way into my brain. And so it is stuck with me. And I think it's stuck with me on this viewing. And I'll maybe I'll highlight the other leechy scene that I didn't talk about, which is after they agree at the very end, to try again, the film actually closes with this image of the two of them on the beach in Montauk with snow on the beach. And they're running and they're like playfully, hitting each other with snow. I believe it's from maybe the first time they hung out or some other memory. But it's this playful image in this very cold beach. And it's it's a haunting image on its own. But then Gondry repeats it two more times. This repetition, this repetition, almost like the cycle of this relationship will continue and continue? Oh, and I think in a way, the coldness of the image, the repetition of it. I think it tempers a little bit of the optimism that I feel in my bones. When they reconnect. I'm like, Oh, this is the best. This is it. I think that they end the director ends with that note of No, this is a cycle of cold playfulness, not a cycle of Cold Play, but in a cycle of cola. Playfulness, that maybe that's just what love is. Or maybe it's a more ambiguous thing that he wanted leave us with I don't know, but I can't stop thinking about it. I found this film so instructive about so many things. It's such a “three-leecher” for me. I yeah, I just love this film.Aaron  45:11Mm-hmm.Banks  45:12Three leeches.Aaron  45:14Yeah, honestly, Banks. I think I need to hear from you. I'm not even like, I'm not even sure. You got to help me out, convinced me.Banks  45:21It's I think it's three. For me, I'm going to agree with Evan. And I think that its three for me, like, if I were to say, like, find to give it like, in terms of just how much I like it. I probably give this a “four out of four” stars. But we're talking leeches here.Evan  45:39Leeches not stars.Banks  45:41Just the, you know, for me, the film has so many incredible qualities, like three leeches is a high bar and it does, it sticks. It's difficult. It's it takes something out of you. I do not want to watch this movie sometime again in the near future. But I desperately.... there's a part of me that never wants it to let go either. Like, yes, it's for me like that need like, okay, that we're in leech territory here. But in the end, you know, for me, when I think of a truly [leech movie], there's almost a fear that needs to be there. There needs to be that. Like, there's a space that enters. That is deeper, that's darker, that is more powerful, maybe even brighter, I don't know, but it's just more visceral.Evan  46:35I mean, this is the most visceral podcast, it is. You tremble, you tremble before and I feel like….Banks  46:44...and I might be shaking a little bit, but ain't trembling yet. So, three leeches for me.Aaron  46:49Hmm. This movie came out in 2004. I was in high school. I think definitely at the time, I would have seen it as a one or two. I thought it was like, artsy and cool. Kind of great. But it wasn't something that likes stuck close to me. You know, at that time, I think this movie is like a heat-seeking missile, except that it is like the heat that it seeks is heartbreak. And like it sniffs out the heartbreak and attaches there. Wow. And I think that would pull me up to a three now. Definitely not for me. But that sense of it, like just finding my heartbreak and leeching on right there. Ooh, for me three. Yeah, I'll give it three for that.Banks  47:43Is this the first time we've all agreed?Evan  47:45I think so. Which is great. I think. I think aside from ratings, I think something I just feel like we have to talk about this movie or I want to name is this would be a somehow a romantic comedy, drama, a sci-fi, a horror movie, like there are horror elements in the some of those memories. It's almost like a Freudian meditation on childhood, like, and it's visually stunning. I mean, I think this is where thanks to your point, like it is a four-star in terms of the quality of filmmaking and writing and performances. I mean, we have really talked about the performances, we talked about Kate Winslet who is like,Banks  48:23She's the star. And this is yeah, she puts everyone else to shame in this movie, and everyone else is brilliant.Evan  48:33She's like, literally the figment of Jim Carey's imagination in the movie, and yet unforgettable she's unforgettable.Aaron  48:40The moment immediately comes to mind is where we're, uh, Jim Carrey is like being a baby toddler version of himself like under a table. And she is being his like mom's friend who, who's like also herself and is like, what is this dress I'm wearing? And then in order to like bring him back from his babyish waist tries to like show him her underwear. This is so strange.Banks  49:10It's so funny because like in the scene before it's like this very like sensual like thing and like, they're they like, that's where like, you like see like the underwear in there. It's like, very sexualized and very, like, you know, intimate and then it's here. It's like the least sexual scene ever, and it's such hilarious change. It's like, Oh, we're gonna flash a three-year-old. Let's just do that. It's brilliant. So weird.Evan  49:37So weird. Well, on that note, it's been another episode of the leech podcast. Thanks, everyone for tuning in. This was about the Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. There are many more episodes to come in this season. And we hope you will join us for all of them. Again, if you would like to contact us You can find us on At leech podcast on Twitter and the leech podcast on Instagram. We would love to hear from you, including leechy novels that you have in mind for a book club.Credits:Hosted by Evan Cate, Banks Clark, and Aaron JonesEditing by Evan CateGraphic design by Banks ClarkOriginal music by Justin Klump of Podcast Sound and MusicProduction help by Lisa Gray of Sound Mind ProductionsEquipment help from Topher Thomas

19I hope in the Lord Jesusto send Timothy to you soon, so that I too may be cheered by news of you. 20For I have no onelike him, who will be genuinely concerned for your welfare. 21For they allseek their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ. 22But you know Timothy's[a]proven worth, howas a son[b]with a fatherhe has served with me in the gospel. 23I hope therefore to send him just as soon as I see how it will go with me, 24andI trust in the Lord that shortly I myself will come also. 25I have thought it necessary to send to youEpaphroditus my brother and fellow worker andfellow soldier, and your messenger andminister to my need, 26for he has been longing for you all and has been distressed because you heard that he was ill. 27Indeed he was ill, near to death. But God had mercy on him, and not only on him but on me also, lest I should have sorrow upon sorrow. 28I am the more eager to send him, therefore, that you may rejoice at seeing him again, and that I may be less anxious. 29Soreceive him in the Lord with all joy, andhonor such men, 30for he nearly died[c]for the work of Christ, risking his lifeto complete what was lacking in your service to me.

 Ep. 39:  Choosing What Your Next Job Is (Live Coaching) Lindsay  00:00I'm Lindsay Mustain, and this is the career design podcast made for driven ambitious square pegs and round holes type professionals who see things differently and challenge the status quo. We obliterate obstacles and unlock hidden pathways to overcome and succeed where others have not stagnation feels like death. And we are unwilling to compromise our integrity and settle for being average in any way. We are the backbone of any successful business and those who overlook our potential are doomed to a slow demise. We do work that truly matters aligns with our purpose, and in turn, we make our lasting mark on the world. We are the dreamers, doers, legends and visionaries who are called to make our most meaningful contribution and love what we do.  Lindsay  00:42So I'm going to introduce you today because some of you have been along for the ride, some of you haven't. And this is the first of my broadcast this particular livestream series. I think I'm going to see some apologize in advance. Because I'm a human, I'm, oh, it might go rough here. But but but Abby, Abby, why don't you just give me like the quick one minute spiel of how we got to this place today where we're at and why I'm sharing your story, publicly and widely? Abby  01:12Sure. Yeah, let's I should probably have this down by now. Lindsay  01:17There might be a reason why I'm making you do that. And I want to thank you for tuning in. from Facebook. Hi. Abby  01:24Hi, guys. I was so happy you're all here with us? Um, yeah, be active in the comments. We love to see what you're saying and thinking as we're going Oh, please. That's awesome. Thanks for coming. So my my one minute spiel. So I, like many of you had a career change happen during the pandemic, there was, I worked in the same field for 16 years working corporate beauty retail. And, you know, with COVID-19, a lot of layoffs happen. And there was a reorganization eliminated my position, and I was faced with the decision of what, like, what do I do now. And I decided to go back to school during that time and train myself for a new skill in UX design, and took a boot camp and graduated in June. And I see some of my boot camp friends in the chat. So congratulations, you guys. We did it. As I went through this boot camp, and coming out of it, and looking, you know, for a new job and being on the hunt. And in this market. It I heard all these stories of how difficult it was. And I just didn't believe for myself that it was going to be the same thing. Because I've I feel like I've always been very fortunate. And so when I went into it, and I haven't gotten much of a response, and I've been putting in all this effort, I just became really frustrated and was asked to reflect on like, what, what is my journey so far? So I kind of wrote this very honest piece about what my my job hunt journey has been like. And so if you haven't read it, there's a link to it on my LinkedIn. But it's also on medium. If you're on medium. My name is Abby Mueller 411. Check it out. And yeah, it got some traction on LinkedIn. And that's how Lindsay and I got connected. She read the the piece, and it resonated with her. And it is just really in alignment with what she does, which is career design. So we hooked up and decided that other people needed to hear about what was going on. And this might be beneficial for others who are in the same boat as me looking for a job in 2021. In a new career, possibly even and yeah, just kind of hoping, like I said, to break the code last time of how to how to get past this stagnant place that we're in. Lindsay  03:39Yeah, absolutely. So there's some pain and we've been so I asked Abby, if she'd be willing to do this, like bear her soul publicly and do this in front of everyone. So first off huge, huge props to that because I said like, do you mind if I give you a publicly and walk you through the intentional career design process? I had somebody who recently started me, they're like, Oh, my, the person I was interviewed a whole bunch of job coaches, and they were so focused on what's the next title? What's the next company and I'm like, you missed the whole point of what we're trying to do here, which is get into doing work that truly matters that fills our soul that lets us actually do work that we feel energized and excited about. It's not about a job title. It's not about a particular company. It's all about what I want to do with my life. And now I wanted a lot of times people here they want to take control of their career trajectory. They want to find something that's really meaningful. The next thing is okay, now I want to work for an employer that models the values that I have. And then last actually like to be paid really well for what I do because I I'm worth it. And so that's what I teach. I'm not teaching you how to get a better job. There are a million people out there there's a reason why I'm the best in the world at what I do and I am willing to say it, I have 1000s of testimonials. I mean there is people who pop on here all the time to talk to you about what the results are working with me so and obviously that I don't ever have these people I Even though they're coming, they just come and show up. And so what what I'm going to do is walk Abby through this process. And so last week, we did. Well, she said last week, technically it was this week it was earlier this week. That was the most important thing about this is getting in the right headspace. Because if you believe that you were a victim here, if you believe that you don't have control of your circumstances, if you're doing things that limit, your, you know, energetic vibration really, honestly, is what I'm going for. If we raise that and you believe that you're capable, that you understand your worth, and that you believe that you can do this, then the rest becomes an act of of true courage and faith and walking through the process of the strategy. But if I neglect your mindset, which is what most job coaches do, then you're going to fall through the floor, and you're going to get paused on this process. And it's just it's not, you know, how emotional it can be. I asked you to do some work this week, and I want you to be really honest here. You struggled with it, right? Abby  05:53Oh, yeah. I was doing ghost cruising right along. And then it was like, like, for this job, I go, where I'm like, I throw?  Lindsay  06:03Well, there's a lot of structure and what I do, mostly because it allows people this pathway, it's not been just a few time, you know, a few people, it's 15,000 people. So I 50,000 people that I've worked with them four years and my business, but before that I'd hire 10,000 people I looked at over a million resumes, I wrote the book. And now that we've had, you know, millions of views of my content, that I know what I'm doing. So the process is pretty systemized, so that we walk through it. And what I'm doing is I want to Abby, this and she is coming. I think one thing she said this week that might resonate with people, she said, I have exactly zero years of experience. And I'm looking for how the heck I even position myself here. And of which I said, What did I say? Abby  06:48Oh, I actually have a lot of relevant experience. Yeah, I've been doing this all along. Lindsay  06:53Yes. So one of the reframes, the most powerful reframing here is that she's actually well qualified to do this work. She's done it a lot. She hasn't done it, necessarily in the same modality as this. But just like my experience in recruiting and HR delivered this process, I didn't actually teach job coaching most of my career, but what I did is I walk people through the job process. And so that's easy for a lot of people to understand that we get into the mindset here a little bit, where we think we're not qualified, or we don't know how to express what we want to do. So if you've ever struggled with this question, what do I want to be when I grow up, you're in the right place, because that Peter Pan thing that we have, or that you don't want to grow up, I want you know, you can have fun at work, you can love what you do, and you can get paid well to do it at a company that actually will treat you like you matter. So that's what we're going to go through today. So we're this module that we're going through right now is called career clarity. So I'm going to tell you that I talked about the traits of high performer earlier this week, and I'm going to I just want to say here a little bit higher. LC, Catherine, Sasheen. I always mess up her name Cuzhana, I feel like I always mess it up. So tell me how to say that Asoko totally my setup to just know that I'm doing this with love. And I'm excited to see you hear me does hear Shivani is here and William, he just lost his job. So if you, William, you're in the right place. In fact, I'm going to ask you to do me a favor, because I've extended the bootcamp. You guys have been telling me how amazing this is. And I'm so glad because when I built this, it was so powerful. And hey, Hunter, so if you would type this in somebody, especially on LinkedIn, if you're on Facebook as well, I would like you to do Oh, it's Ruby. She says clarity is number one. I don't know why it doesn't aggregate inside of here. Oh, William. Okay. Sorry. It does aggregate here. I don't know why can't see. So Ruby. But Ruby is also saying clarity is number one. And Alex says thank you for sharing. Abby Lindsay's amazing a true genius provides incredible clarity. She's changed my life. So I wishes that she's and I know Abby and I are friends on Facebook. So this is coming between my Facebook my actual business page and LinkedIn. Thank you stream yard for that. So okay, all right. Blue otter is here, Mike Wallace, and Jody is here and hunter says hi. So if you'll do this for me type dream job hacker comm slash boot camp all one word. I'll tag it on this video. And then people can go in and opt in because what I'm trying to do is get you to clarity and clarity is actually the very first thing I cover. In boot camp, believe it or not, I go straight to that mindset is most important, believe it or not, which is what goes inside of potential career design. But inside of this process, clarity is really important. So let me just tell you about why clarity matters. When we are, I'm gonna tell you a story of Alice in Wonderland, which is one of my favorite stories, in particular, the Disney movie and Alice in Wonderland, and she's going down the path and she's never been there before, right? So she comes to a fork in the road. And she's like, where do I go and the Cheshire Cat appears in the tree? And he says, or she says, Well, I don't know where I'm going with road to take. And he said, well, where would you like to go? And she said, Well, I have no idea. I've never been here before. And he said, Well, then all roads will lead you there. So without any direction, you will end up exactly where you set out for which is nowhere So this is the main strategy of why people don't have momentum in their job search, his main challenge is that they have not picked a destination. So I'm going to give you a revolutionary idea. Just pick something, just pick something, it does not matter if it is if you turn, we went north, it turned out you need to go south, you can course correct, but staying still and delete. delaying the inevitable first step is the biggest problem. And lots of people do this, because they don't have this answer. They're like, and this is not, I want you to know, Abby decided intentionally that she wanted to do something different. She wanted to take some actions into that. A lot of times people be like, Oh, I should probably get my MBA cuz then I'll be more well qualified. Folks, you'll still end up back here dealing with this same crap. I try not to swear because LinkedIn gets mad about it. They'll still deal with the same crap no matter what. So I have people come back with like three degrees. And they're like, Well, I'm not any more qualified. I have somebody who's like, they're just they've generated billions of dollars in revenue in their job, billions of dollars. No, I'm not sure I'm qualified. I have somebody who has, you know, had their their JD, they're an attorney, they also went to MIT and they still don't know what they want to do. So I'm going to tell you doesn't matter. If you have been, you know, in the world, and you've 16 years now. And then you have to start and you go back to school, or you go to MIT or you go get three master's degrees, you're still going to end up with this same crap between your ears. And so the big thing is, pick a destination and work towards that we course correct on the way okay, that analysis paralysis, yes. Okay, so I'm gonna put that up here, analysis paralysis, and it's a trait of a high performer, by the way, when we want perfection. And so we want to not take the wrong step. And this is gonna say, this is the failing that I had, I went to school for 10 years, not because I was a bad student, but because if I couldn't get a b plus or greater, and I couldn't get I couldn't get the most out of it. I withdraw. So I have a series of Ws on my transcript, because I didn't want to not be perfect. All right, perfect, does not get you jobs. Alright, so we need to just pick and so you might be and like, Abby, we're gonna go through her stuff right now. How was it going through this process? Because did I have you pick like a destination? First off what happened in the process? Abby  12:07No. And actually, I'm, like, so grateful that I, I found you that and you have the same kind of mindset, because for me, like I can do, I've been kind of a chameleon of sorts, like I just adapt to whatever environment I'm in. And I can find something to like about anything that I'm doing. It's really for me more about the culture that I'm in and like doing, like being around people who are passionate and excited about what they're doing. And, you know, being part of a team that that is doing something meaningful, and less about, like, Oh, well, I enter information into spreadsheets, or I don't even know, like, whatever it's gonna be, um, you know, it's less about the work itself and more about the environment for me, and that's what makes it so hard to search for a job because like, how do you read that in a job description? But yeah, it was for me, it was like, Okay, well, this is what I know what I want. I know, it makes me feel good, but makes me happy. But yeah, when you have to, I don't know, describe yourself in that place. It's really tough. So. So yeah, I think there was a lot of like, I guess I never really thought about that moments when I'm going through this career clarity curriculum, and just, just really breaking it down is tough for me, because I don't, I tend not to stop and think about myself, I guess I just want to like, go for the goal. I got this goal in mind, I'm going to get this goal. And like, that's what I'm going to do. And I don't stop to think about, you know, like, just check in with yourself. Is this actually still what you're wanting? Is it what you're going for? Yeah, and I don't know, I guess I, it's been interesting for me to just slow down and like, really focus. That's tough. Lindsay  13:49And it is I say, and I don't know, I can't remember I say I say there's a lot of Lindsay'isms along the way, but we have to slow down to go fast. So we go slow to go fast. And so we're trying to increase velocity, but we need to choose if we can go with full gung ho. But if we go in the wrong direction, we're just right. And I get that because I am asking you to slow down and I asked you things like, what do you enjoy? What have you done? And people are like, I don't know when I was like, okay, so if you don't know, then what's the likelihood Lindsay recruiter hire 10,000 people is going to know. Okay, and so I'm going to give you an example of how quickly it goes wrong. I want to tell you about the story about the most qualified person I ever really dealt with. And he said, Lindsay, I cannot get an interview. And thanks so much, Randy. He's been following me for this long so and Mohit Hi, it's great to see you. Um, he said, Lindsay, I cannot seem to even get an interview with your company. And I am a former top gun commander, which I didn't know is an actual thing. So I'm on your resume, Commander. Yeah, exactly. All right. Talk on commander for Harvard alumnus, former White House aide to two presidents and I can't Don't get a callback. All right. And I was like, well I feel really intimidated by that list of qualifications. But the bottom line question What did he do? Abby  15:14Do you know? Lindsay  15:16I'll tell you what I had to go dig into it and let me tell you I nobody bothered to talk to him because he couldn't articulate this to anybody and just know it plagues every single person. So I'm trying to deal with multimillion dollar CEOs transformative leaders I deal with executives I deal with thought leaders I deal with people along this way so being able to tell your narrative is not easy at all at all it is my secret power. I am been dubbed the Oracle genius I can tell you what you are at your highest level if you do this work with me and how you show up but he had no idea how to articulate that and so if you cannot ultimately use that I'm the horse here if you cannot lead your horse to water you can't get him to drink but if you can't even give them the path of who you are they will have no idea how to understand it so if it's struggle for you no chance will the person across from the table here so the first thing my people struggle this they don't have a narrative about who it is. So this idea is called a pre frame and the pre frame is the example of how people will view you and you know this it's the headline if you put it on you'll have it on your LinkedIn you'll have it on your your resume when you write a research paper your introduction statement it's really really powerful here okay Katherine says I have so resonate with this at this very moment Yes, so let's target. Abby  16:30Its just like  one or two things you know, when you're trying to sum up the all of your experience into like, a few sentences. Lindsay  16:38It's hard Yeah. The value proposition which is the most difficult thing you do and the most powerful thing you do inside of this I teach you guys how to write this by the way inside of dream job hack. It is the most nobody teaches us so I'm gonna give you access for free please go to dream.hack.com slash bootcamp okay. So what he ended up doing was he did supply chain but it was more powerful that what he actually did was last mile transportation so for anybody who has heard that terminology, it is the sexiest thing right now inside of the transportation industry if you've seen the blue prime now vans that entire business did not exist at that time that's been a creation of Amazon to create the answer for last mile transportation which is the last mile between where the package reaches the hub and gets to your home now when we use vendors we would overwhelm the system and so we needed to create our own solution which is why you know drones will be a thing of the future but we created that and these are businesses now that people run to deliver this I mean this whole thing so that was the sexy hook the thing that people were like oh this is I lead the horse in the water but what was not attractive is being a former top gun commander, Harvard alumnus, and White House aide to two presidents because they didn't tell me jack diddly about what it is that you do. So what you have to do is have the most powerful message the most powerful narrative and pre frame that is easily digestible by your target audience aka me recruiter looked at million resumes wrote the best selling book if you don't have that you lost okay so if you're wondering what the hell is going wrong, you missed this step okay. And I say that with love Let me help you it's right here well hold on we got it right here go get it I will teach you how to do this stuff okay. Now writing it is a whole other issue Mike's is conveying who you are and what you bring to the table in their hiring manager language ensuring is ensuring you're capturing what they need Yes, what they need, how are you the answer to the problem? People don't hire because it's like you know, it's a really great day in sunny out, I think I should go hire somebody, they, they hire because they have a need, and they have a problem. We're going to talk about all of these things. I can teach you everything about what I've done is reverse engineer how we hire the most elusive talent on the planet. How do you position yourself as such, the first thing starts with pre frame, okay, so we have a headline that goes on your profile and goes on your on your resume. And that's what we call a superpower trifecta. And so the superpower trifecta is the summary of the three skills at the highest level of who you are. The reason why we do this is we're trying to create a trifecta is three things. We're looking to create a triangle Okay, here's why a triangle is if you are and I'll give you my example. So for me, I'm a human resource person who specializes in talent acquisition. Now how special am I? I'm not not yet. Special whatsoever, right? I am here with millions of other people. I'm so generic. There's nothing that's particularly remarkable at least I've got some sort of specific like, like, thing I'm not just here's my list of qualifications at least told you what I have. But I'm not particularly different. This is the commodity market space. If you don't know what I'm talking about head into my profile, you can go back and catch our last live where I talked about being a commodity and being like sugar, granulated sugar on the shelf when you want to be the premium brand. So we don't want to do that. We want to position ourselves such so we're looking to triangulate when we try to find somebody who's lost in the woods when we do we triangulate their position. Same thing goes with your we're trying to triangulate Your job, genius in essence, so I need another skill. So the third skill I introduced into this was personal branding. And if I took that a little bit further, I could be talent acquisition. And I could be lean hiring systems and personal branding. And that would mean that I would be a candidate experience expert, okay. So what I'm looking for is some zone of what it is that you do, and it needs to incorporate where you want to be. So I can also, child qualified people can add a lot of different skills on this trifecta. So what we pick is what gives us energy. What makes us excited and motivated, don't choose crap that you don't like. So I can easily seven and somebody asked about this the other day, they're like OFCCP compliance, I'd also rather rip out my eyeball than do that job. So don't pick crap that you're well qualified for, that does not give you energy, choose things that you really enjoy. But what we're looking for is at the highest level, how do you show up and make it so that somebody is able to understand what you do not so the goal of your headline is on your profile? Okay. So from there, what did we what you found this work, and I know you've got something on your so tell me what you ended up doing. And you brought it out even further, you built out your entire LinkedIn, tell me what your superpower trifecta ended up being? Abby  21:09Well, going into this new career fields, I tried to direct it in that way. So I first said, and I mean, this is probably going to get edited probably like 100 times, I imagine because you know, we're getting stronger as we go, right. But the first level was user experience designer, product designer, which is kind of just the title, overarching title. Raymond, Oh, my God. And then content designer, content writer, which is getting a little more specific into the things that I really love to do, which is, you know, I love to be a product storyteller. So Oh, that's the first time I've heard that. Yeah. So for me, the really exciting thing is, you know, I can I can, I'm just gonna do a little brag, I can take a lot of really complex information and like psychology, and data and everything, and just consolidate it into a really beautiful story, which is compelling, and you want to read about it, you want to use it, you want to try it. So I create products that tell a story, and it engages and connects with people. And it makes me really excited. Anytime I can do that. And I get people excited about what I did for them. And it's something that they needed. It's like light bulb goes off. And it was like, I never know I needed this. And this is amazing. Like, it's so rewarding for me. So yeah, I love to take something cold, like a digital product and turn it into something really warm and inviting, like a story. So Lindsay  22:32I love this. Okay, and so, and that is to say, we started with something completely different yesterday, even right? clarity happens through action. I said that in the last session, clarity happens through action. So I'm going to make you do this. And I'm going to be like, Is that enough? Is that powerful? Does it does it answer a problem? This is the first time where I and I feel so I don't know what Abby's geniuses because she has articulated and to be able to digest it. And so now we're getting clearer, and I'm like, That's powerful. That's powerful. And so what I'm looking for is What is it? What is it that you do and now we're going to get into a little bit deeper here. We're just getting a baseline. But if you had gone and said, Well, I was an because I think he used to say I'm an office manager, right? Yep. Yeah. I know that story sound difference. That's how I was like, I looked at her and I was like, she has so much more. She has so much more power than that. Yeah. And now look at it like do you feel tell me I just the difference of that just from yesterday to today? Do you see the difference?  Abby  23:33I do. And I was I just needed I just need to get in front of someone because I know that if I can. Okay. Lindsay  23:44We tend to do this in a vacuum and then we ask people who actually have never hired anybody, or are our good friends. Abby  23:52Um, so yeah, office manager kind of a boring title right? If I'm gonna be honest, and there was a reason that I took it and I've been very strategic about the positions that I took in this one. I've always liked the company that I worked for I kind of went through several different departments because I was trying to understand how the corporate structure worked. Like how does they're all How do all the players work together and they didn't really understand it. And so I would go from team to team to team and I would learn and then move on to the next one. So for this one, I interacted with every department in the corporate structure and it gave me really amazing exposure to different teams their functionality, expanded my network and like for me, as I've gone along in my career, I tried to take on like bigger and bigger problems every time because as I felt more capable, like I just get really excited like if I can if I can take on something that is just terrifyingly large and like nail it. Oh yeah, that's so good. So um, I love that like I wanted something that was like completely out of my wheelhouse and it would force me to, you know, up my communication levels and up my exposure in the company. People are gonna know who I am because I have to make all these teams really happy in the space that they work in. And that's why I did it. And I did that. And it was great. And now I'm doing something totally, like different in designing that. But I'm in I'm designing digital products now. But I understand how the structure works. And I understand the needs of business. And I can speak to a lot of different groups of people, because I've interacted with a lot of groups of different people, and I understand different needs at different levels of the organization. And so for me, like that experience is so valuable, not only just in retail, but I'm just understanding people and people's needs, really fuels, my passion to create products that are going to help enhance our lives and make things easier, better, faster, right? We don't want to struggle, we want things that are tools that are going to help us do what we love. Lindsay  25:50Okay, so and I'm going to, I'm going to repeat back to what you said to me on Wednesday at 3:50pm. Where I mean, I want you to see it, because that's right, we have people going there's another skill, Abby is a genius. Yes, she is. How do I solve a problem? And here's the thing is that administrative professionals that they tend to get so dang, like, that's not there's a hardest job in the world of hire, by the way, like, have the jobs in the entire world. That is the hardest job. Because there's so much magic that goes inside of that. But we tend to like oh, that's not a really valuable player. It's not in the way you describe it like that, when she talks about it in this way. This is a powerful move. Okay, so she said, I have zero years of experience and no proof of results, because I'm not held a single job doing this kind of work. Now you tell me, that story has evolved. And now Do you believe what you're selling? Abby  26:42I yes. I mean, I know that I know that I can do this job. But I haven't done the job yet. I've only done it in school in theory and practice, right?  Lindsay  26:50Well, no, but you have done a job that is a...you haven't done a job description yet. And that's where things you don't like the whole point of this is people will actually create jobs for you. And they will give you the opportunity to be a product designer and storyteller that creates massive, you know, buy in and conversion and adoption for their customers. That's really what you're ultimately doing. And so when I tell that story, does that make sense of what you're actually doing? Okay, now I'm telling you about something that I would hire for because I've solved the pain. This is a little more advanced stuff. So right now I'm just trying to get you and we don't have to be close to the answer right now we just have to have something to shoot for. Because again, I just need a direction. It can be north, it can be south, but we need something because clarity comes through action. Okay, so that was the first thing. Now I'm saying, Okay, how do we back this up, okay. And so the next thing, what we're doing is creating a value proposition, and I'm gonna describe what the three parts of value proposition is. And if you would like access Hello, right here, just go down to dreamjobhack.com slash Bootcamp, and I will teach you this unit is totally free, okay? All right. So there are three parts your value proposition, when you're a business, a value proposition is about what your end result happens for your customer, your customer, your client, what's the end result of working with your business now I went back and mindset was all about, you're in the business of meeting, you're gonna have to articulate this, you're gonna have to sell the product, which is you, you have to sell your business. So what I'm looking for is three things. The first one is the I am statement, and this is the declaration to the universe that I am this thing. Not hopefully somebody picks me and they can see my worth. And maybe they'll give me a shot, you can say I am this thing that gets these kinds of results for this kind of company. So that's what we're really doing. And that's to make it so that Lindsay recruiter understands what the heck it is that you do. And I don't go okay Harvard alumnus, the former top gun commander and you give me this laundry list of tactical bs that does not increase the bottom line is just a list of job descriptions skills. No, we hire strategy at the highest level we're looking for what's the impact how you become the solution to the pain. And when you become the solution to pain people will do whatever it takes them banging down your door to get the result of hiring you because they know what you can articulate what you can do through that story. So the first thing is I am this. Second is and these are really this is I call it this and it's just stuff. Awesome Thing number one. Awesome Thing number two, okay, you can say I am the world's leading expert in intentional career design. I've helped over 15,000 people now do this in the last four years across 121 countries and six continents. That's awesome thing number one, by the way. Average result for was working with me means in nine weeks, somebody is going to graduate with $52,000 more in salary and 2.1 job offers. I can get you more in the course of nine weeks and your MBA program will cost you or make you in the first two years. Alright, that's hard to find. Now I've said that I have I have said who I am and they and the first thing people do is like Okay, cool. Prove it. Yeah, that's what I awesome thing. Number one. This is called social proof. Awesome Thing number two social proof. Okay, so if you can't articulate what it is that you do, and the result that you have Then you have nothing okay um okay so what let's go to what we had before he or not maybe beforehand because we did this work and what I do is I have you when you work inside my programs I actually spent four years developing this tool to make it Mad Libs style where I'm like input this Abby  30:18so easy just plug in yes Lindsay  30:20there's a word choose a word here's another word and put a number put a level of experience and then give me the experience here and then work on awesome thing number one work on awesome The Thing number two and even without Abby She didn't even see that there was the link for that which I'm so glad she's here because she is using literally she can say now and I'm giving you permission to say you've consulted with a seven figure business and creating a new digital product to crease adoption and success rate for her clients love it and this is let me just tell you what that was is one frickin hyperlink for the most critical thing inside of this entire module but it's not something that I caught or my designers caught she caught it okay it's Abby  31:03something I exactly so she is Lindsay  31:06somebody is going to be so lucky when he comes on board and does this and I if I was gonna be honest she could do this inside of all of my entrepreneur community and start a business right now doing this work she's qualified to do that she doesn't know she's qualified to do that and that's okay thank you by the end of this she's gonna be like I'm such a badass at this point like she I'm starting Abby  31:25there I'm like here I just need to get like here yeah the only Lindsay  31:30me believing enough reason a belief into you so that you do it okay. Randy said recap value proposition I am social proof results yes times do so awesome thing number one and two yes fears equal fellow peers or fellow humans Oh I'm so glad you said that my peers are I will tell you that little story at the end because there's some there's some really big painful stories along this way. Um Okay, so let's go into your value proposition and I want you to go like that's not start from the very beginning Let's start from where you're at today. And now we have your you've told me your story let's talk about what it is and then I'm gonna see how we can make it better okay intensity and you've already gotten the feedback once which identity two or three rounds and sometimes didn't work with me good but most the time you start out with I'm not qualified I don't know how to do this I don't know what I want to be okay Josh and that's why I will actually probably be opening dream job hack this Oh, I think it's gonna be this month so just sign up that way you get in the boot camp and you'll know when I'm going to open the enrollment for that and you can work with me like this is this dream job hack is and it's a program where you can work on your own there's other options to work with me but start there because I want you to get a taste of what I am I'm not for everybody. I'm not for everybody like I'm gonna believe in you and I'm going to love on you like love if you can't tell but there's right here love my highest value. It's a really strange thing in the HR world to say I'm going to love on somebody which is why I don't do that crap anymore. I think it's a love on people I think it's a train like he was doing and to see them as souls or families or heartbeats all those things that I'll tell you a little bit more about why I do what I do at the very end so thank you but to start with that start with the because this is a free resource and attends in those five days people transform their mindset and they understand what's holding them back Okay, so let's go to your value proposition so let's go with the I am statement and there were some things missing last time like the level of professional me years of experience so what do you got and this is where this is the most stressful thing somebody doesn't mean in fact he's willing to publicly is the biggest endorsement I can give of how brave she is. Abby  33:29Do you want me to read the original? Yeah. But okay, the I am statement and you know, we'll see because like, again, I'm glad that I get to soundboard this off of you because it's like I think it makes sense but doesn't make sense to you as somebody who's wrapping my head like Totally, yeah. Cool. So I guess I can I guess I'll read the original one if you want.Okay, go ahead. Let's do the original and then tell me what I said about it to actually afterwards. Yep. Looking at the email right now which is I guess I only went through awesome thing number one I didn't give you an awesome thing number two, so Lindsay  34:05Well, let's Okay, so we're gonna start with anything else time I had the, the least effective example that I can say with somebody came back and said, I'm a team player. And I was like, well, that does nothing and team player actually dings your hire ability by 51%. I didn't just make that up. That's actually a statistical study. So we'll talk about this next week, by the way, next Friday, we're going to talk about we're going to do her resume so she actually looks like what she really is, which is amazing. Okay, good. Abby  34:31Okay, um, alright, so I wrote I am a passionate and Creative Problem Solver who transforms challenges into life enhancing tools for businesses and their customers looking for a more meaningful and rewarding digital experience? That was my statement. Um, apparently there's some detail missing so we're gonna and my my awesome thing number one was I worked with the operational and growth and development teams in a fortune 500 company to introduce and implement a stream Instructure for their 100 annual new store expansion projects contributing to a reduction in scope of 75% in just a few years taking the process from a month long project to only five days saving the company millions of dollars year over year.  Lindsay  35:14So and what did I say on this so when we don't have the true structure because she didn't have the access to the generator so the true structure of the value proposition which is we want to say I am this level of experience well I am and it's just because you guys want to love to throw in adjectives adjective an adjective kind of level of experience with this many more than this many years of experience in doing the downstream effect of what you actually do. Awesome Thing number one awesome thing number two, so I added like here's we're gonna add a little more how many years do we have here? What's the actual impact Okay, and the second thing I came back and I would read Dd you have it in front of you because I there's a lot in there that I said yeah, so Abby  35:55On the first sentence, right I'm a passionate and Creative Problem Solver you switch that over and said maybe we do like design an operational professional since I am now a designer but I was an operations professional before so like kind of combining those things and not saying problem solver is a general term so who transforms challenges and you said like what Yeah, describing what that might be and then into life enhancing tools again like what for me I know what that is, um, you know, and then for businesses and their customers looking for a more meaningful and rewarding digital experience and then you said how do you do this both now and before So again, just adding a little more detail to that because I know what that means but that is a lot of like nice words and doesn't maybe mean anything to anyone else without example.  Lindsay  36:42And you're a storyteller so Abby has a little bit of she has a more strategic vision it's the the thing that drives me crazy is when people come in they're like I'm an admin the immediate bias is that that's not a super value out of job and I was like that's a big fat lie by the way and shout out to our all our admins I'm gonna shout to my own Becky North she's our Director of awesome and she started as my VA I would not be able to run this business without her so they have incredible power if you give them the opportunity. So why I was asking is like what you've actually done is an intersection of operations design and actually really lean processes what she really does she hasn't gotten to that point yet so I'm throwing some stuff out Abby  37:20You know, what's funny is that I couldn't get a job that I wanted because I hadn't gone through six sigma and I was like, but I'm doing everything that they train you to do. Lindsay  37:29And that's the thing is like again you don't need the the buy in you just have to be able to tell the most effective story because I've heard a million stories of people getting jobs from having a drink at a bar or on an airplane and we've hired that person before who's qualified internally because they had a better story and so the story is actually what we're doing what I'm actually teaching you now I haven't told you this Abby is I'm teaching you to believe that you are this thing and be able to articulate it because the thing is not going to be the resume of the LinkedIn it's gonna be the conversation who you are as a person that they're going to buy at the level what we're trying to do okay so when we're trying to hire somebody, I do look at their qualifications but I'm looking at it to just immediately cement the belief have already have from the conversation so everything we do from here port forward is the most important thing Oh yes, the most important language to learn is to speak math and I would say results quantitative results we can talk about that next week speaking it learning it and writing it is tough yeah we were taught to be you know, really fluffy and a lot of things and I mean like what I use I make you feel really good and so you believe enough in order to get your most highest purpose on earth? No, I teach you how to get your dream job with 2.1 job offers $52,000 more in just nine weeks which one matters there is your there is a difference both things are true one will actually get the people to tune in and one won't so that's the most yeah So Mike very very good point. Okay, so Abby, let's go a little bit deeper into it what is where are you at now? So tell me about let's go through what your example is today because this is what I want you to walk away with is this value proposition about 85% firmed up Abby  39:05So I started on the if statement and I don't know if it's better the same but Lindsay  39:10I'll keep going. I mean, you're what you're talking about notice you've gotten clarity just in this conversation?  Yep. And that you know, I'm like so excited to hear you say that it's not about my resume or about applications because like it's like soul sucking I can't I'm so happy that that's not what it's about frankly, like that just a huge relief to me. So I think and you know, I believe in myself most of the time, but I don't know how to articulate it well, which is kind of funny considering I'm a writer. Um, I just can't do that to myself. So yeah, I'm really happy.  Now you can Abby  39:47But I need a little push pointers and I will take it the rest of the way. Okay, so Well, I guess do you want me to go through the awesome thing number one Lindsay  39:58Start with the I'm statement nd what I'm doing is I want to make sure that this makes sense for the trifecta the idea of who we are pre framing ourselves as. Abby  40:07Okay, so how do we instill a little little struggling with this, but we'll see what it comes out of. So I changed it to I'm a passionate and creative design and operational professional who transforms the barriers that prevent us from success into life enhancing digital solutions for businesses and their customers who want an intuitive and effortless, effortless way to accomplish their goals. Lindsay  40:26Okay, so there are some really powerful things and there's some what I call, and just No, I, I absolutely adore you, but I call them America answers. And that's where he goes, what is it that I want my platform to be at? I'm like, World Peace makes me think congeniality, world peace, and so Okay, so I am, I want to hear in there with this many years of experience. So let's go ahead and say over 15 years of experience, and I know that goes from zero to 15. But I'm going to point out what Raymond said, this is so powerful in your mind that I went from making 1350 an hour to six figures over a conversation at lunch. personal connection is so important. In fact, it is the game changer when I teach because if you're going to rely on the old, broken jalopy system of apply and pray, it doesn't work. So how we get we have to get out of that commodity market space and learn to market ourselves as an acid and solution to pain. And what is the Alex said solution to the pain is so powerful? That's right, because if somebody says like, I have invested $150,000, in my own personal development in the last six, four years, not even six years, four years, and let me just tell you, nobody goes around like I am buying into what somebody believe what they can do not based on the list of qualifications on a piece of a document, it's going to be the relationship that really changes that. And so what I'm trying to get you to do is see the value in the relationship is actually the differentiator. So if we play, or we start to value, just like you want to be valued as a human and as a soul, as long as you can articulate that to another human soul who has more influence and authority than you do. That's how we get to those next levels. Okay. Abby  41:56Got it. Hunter. I'm really glad you asked this question. And I hope that we get to it later because I struggle with this as well. Lindsay  42:02And I think it might be actually something we follow up. So Hunter, I hope you tune in next week, because this is going to be something this I'm going to tell you it's not like I'm gonna teach you one thing it's gonna be done. This is going to be a thing that you do for the rest of your life is going to be up leveling your mindset about the impact you make, but you're right, because most times especially, we are the or we have the belief that my team did it. But if you're part of a team, you're part of the result. Okay, so you got to stand in your highest power at the highest level. Okay, go ahead. Abby  42:27Yeah. I mean, I haven't gotten we've gotten that much further only started the awesome thing number one this morning. I like I told you yesterday, I kind of got my day kind of got hijacked. So I didn't get as much work into it as I could. Lindsay  42:39Don't worry, you don't have to you whatever you've done again, you show up exactly as you are we just move forward. So don't worry. Abby  42:44So yeah, just the the first part of the sentence where I said, I worked with the operational growth and development teams, you asked how many people which I was sitting there, I'm like, how many people was that? You know, like I had never quantified that. So I counted up what I thought it might be. And it's probably honestly higher than that. But I think it was about 50. A group over a group of 50 plus cross functional partners is what I did.  Lindsay  43:05So this is where we're going to take that we're going to say if it's do you believe so? 49? Yeah, sure. So over 49, 49 and the reason why is we never lie, because one that energy when we lie, or we tell fibs that comes back to bite you and they'll get you terminated. So what I'm looking for you is the only really knows your result. Because let me just tell you, you struggle to do that. Nobody is going to be able to figure you out this information. So we don't lie because it's bad karma. And second, we'll start with the lowest. So when I say like I've hired 10,343, it's actually like 12,000. But I think a very specific number, because it's more powerful. So just pick one fricking number, okay, Abby  43:40it's totally closer. Like, it could be like a few 100 people like I don't I just don't anyway,  Lindsay  43:46If you go through this every and we're gonna go through so your resume, you're like, it turns out to be even more than that. Yeah, probably is when you think about all the work you've done beforehand. That that is probably higher than that. So don't worry, we're just looking to have one baseline, and then we can up level and upgrade as we go. Okay. Abby  44:03So I haven't gone through the like how much revenue, this is where I'm at right now I'm trying to determine because you wrote, you know, when I added design, so I collaborated with a group of over 49 cross functional partners on the operational growth and development teams in a fortune 500 company to design launch and implement a streamlined structure for their 100 annual new store expansion projects. And here you wrote, how many revenue how much revenue would this? Would these stores contribute to the top line revenue? And how many people would be impacted? I'm working on it. Lindsay  44:37Let me see if I know, how many store are there, at this company.  Abby  44:42Currently about 1200. Okay. What's that? 100 every year? Lindsay  44:49Okay, so 100 every year and how many years? Did you do that? Abby  44:54Five years, four years. Yeah. Kind of four years like... Lindsay  45:00But this is where like it was just this is we want to be so accurate on this. So just remember we're going to talk about it. Okay? So if we talk about Abby  45:14I know, open a store at the time, it's more now but I know it was it was about a million dollars at the time that I was doing it per store Lindsay  45:23There are billions of dollars. So we took the number of stores, this is how we could come up with a number by the way, that's the most accurate we can predict. In 2021. We they made $6.1 billion. Yep, now divide that by 1200. And we'll just say the average for those 100 stores is times 100. Okay, that's one year's worth. Now, do you see how we can easily quantify millions of dollars of impact by the way, I know that you're not going to be that but these stores contributed that and you're part of the team. The whole point, by the way is to cement your authority that what you do makes an impact. We'll talk about how you do that as we go deeper in here, but what we're trying to do is establish your authority. So you don't start with zero experience. Okay? In 2020, it was 7.39 in 2019 is 6.7. Okay, so and you can bring this down. Abby, if that feels like that doesn't feel like I am being really fair. Go ahead and do your own math. But what I'm trying to tell you is that it's millions of dollars. I know that Okay, so I'm always looking for people to make least six figures to millions of dollars impact in that first statement. I'm looking for number of team members, I'm looking at this, and it doesn't matter that you weren't exactly leader. And if you were you say like I helped lead a team that did this, okay, there's a structure between was used i right now, we don't put that in the resume, right. But there's truth of people who use AI and personal pronouns, where they actually use it as an individual. They're higher performers and people who are like, Well, my team did that. And so yes, the reason why we do some of these things. That's a tough switch for me. Programming everything. Abby  46:53I love that we could have like, I love the the collaboration as well, I like I know that I'm a top performer myself, but I also love being able to work with others and, and do something together because they think it's more powerful than what we can accomplish on our own. So I want to give credit there as well. But yeah, I understand right here.  Lindsay  47:09right now, we're not trying to employ the rest of your team, we're just trying to employ you. Okay, so I want you to take a stab at getting a little bit deeper here. And I want you to pick a specific number. If it's like if it's, I'd like you to choose three digits if it's more than 100 team members, like 101. So 11 of us know, I mean, like you said, Oh 100 store. Abby  47:27Oh, yeah, I work with Oh, God. Um, I mean, we were hiring, how many people at each store 40 to 60 have a staff of 40 to 60 people at each store. And I would run that project each time. So yeah, and I mean, millions of dollars of revenue, and possibly like, how many jobs did we create as well? Lindsay  47:48Okay, so and then what you're telling me is you're creating the lean process, or however it is that you want to tell me about that. So now that you say that you believe that what you do matters and that you have already been qualified to do it. And now you're presenting yourself as instead of zero experience and zero qualifications? Yeah, that is the most massive change I've seen, okay. It doesn't matter. You know, the person who's created $3 billion in annual revenue for tech 500, or top tech five company. They still struggle with this question. So it doesn't matter where you're at this, this has been changed. Okay, so that's the first thing. Now I want you to take that same idea and I want you to come up with the awesome thing number two, and this is where we're going to refine this inside of the resume. But do you see the transformation of where you were just two days ago to reprogram and so I'm always telling you to see what's at the highest level so when I tell you people I've hired 10,000 people, what I didn't tell you is that a bunch of those people actually hire the fulfillment centers, which hire two to 5000 people and six we open 30 some of those stores every day so I could go higher so I chose a number that felt more like I'm not responsible for 100,000 hires and say that I said I hired 10,000 people so choose the thing you should have read both is that because I'm I am Red Bull or do something in human form. Yeah, I'm like what is it because I don't give you wings. Why? Tell me about that. Okay, so this is the up level the whole point here. So what you have to do and again, I cannot break this down enough for you right here. So go into dream job hackathon slash boot camp, I will teach you how to do this and you are not going to be automatic. So I want you to abandon that you are going to be automatic, you are going to suck if I'm really honest, okay? And does not matter. I made the chief branding Officer of a very, very big company, nearly cry doing this. And so it is hard to stand your own truth. It's a we tend to the people who let me just give you this feedback. imposters don't have imposter syndrome. I love this. A trait of a high performer is to be feel like an imposter and it's to have been a part of a team and to not take full credit. And this is where I say it's okay to do that. It is really what you do. It's okay to brag. Little it's okay to flex a little. And as long as we don't have noticed I never say like, go ahead and lie. I never say that I say how do we do this at the highest level, if we take that frame than the rest of this woman and make it so simple that somebody cuz it's not the resume again, we've just highlighted you at the highest level we make we obliterate the objections, they have have zero experience and zero qualifications. That is the only change I am trying to make here. So I want you to be at the highest level and believe that you can do this at the true level of who you are. Abby, I'm not telling you anything that you haven't just repeated back to me, I just regurgitate it in a way that makes better sense. Okay. Abby  50:32Yep. And honestly, like, this is, like I told you, I kind of like was cruising through the first part of it. And then it just, like, started to slow down. And I was I was like, oh, man, this is getting. And at this point, I was just like, and you know, and so like, I'm glad that we're having this conversation. And other people get to hear it too. Because for me, and I told you this already, but like lesson learned, I didn't ask for the figures that I should have asked for when I you know, like, how I was at a level that I could have had access to it, but I didn't. It wasn't necessarily like, you know, head of the department, you know, wasn't the VP like with all of the facts and figures for for the company. But like I could have asked and said like, What impact did this have year over year, but I don't have that. And some of the things I'm so frustrated that I lost because when I got laid off, like I was cut off within minutes. Like, I think it was like five minutes and I had no access to anything. So like all of my work, gone like and I didn't have any like kills me know, cuz I'm like, Oh, I know. I know we did something awesome. But I don't know what Lindsay  51:37I'll talk to you about how do you always create a contingency plan but when we get to the place of career power, which is on the success path. Success path says that I have unlimited opportunities coming to me I'm doing it without applying. I'm having ongoing conversations, I've negotiated my salary. The other thing that is the checklist says I have also updated my resume accordingly. So that I am prepared for the next job, the moment the opportunity comes because I'm never gonna be in a place where I am not the person who's in control of my career destiny, that my goal is I have the worst business plan ever. I hope you never need to be again, Abby, I hope you never ever mean me again. Now I'll be here when you do. But I hope you don't I just hope you send me a whole bunch of your friends. Because what I want to do is this is the rest of your life. I'm teaching how to like I used to teach people I used to actually do this work for them. And what I did is I didn't teach people how to fish. I gave them the answer and then they didn't do anything with it. So I had to reprogram and that's why the results became more powerful. So just like I've walked the same path of up leveling what I do, same thing goes for you okay. Okay, so, Abby, how do you feel? I'm gonna tell you about what next steps and then I'm going to ask questions. So what we're doing here is, I'm going to give you the to do, I want you to go back. So bring it back. And if you can get that to me Tuesday since the holiday. Also, by the way, I don't ever want you job searching. So eight days a week, I don't know where the hell this came up is not your full time job to look for a job. Do what I do with you two hours a day, Monday through Friday, if you want to rocket launch what you have, that's the most that I want somebody doing no work. If you ever heard of the preta principle 80% of your results come from 20% of efforts that's only two hours a day and Monday through Friday and then you take off weekends and holidays. Because what matters is not your job but your family. We say that again. It's not your job it's your family now I'm trying to get you to do work that actually fills your soul so it's just as rewarding for you to be there at the during the day to at night and that transition your life feels completely holistically you up level and every every range. That's really what I teach people how to do it. I love it had somebody even this year, and he spent a whole month in Hawaii working virtually for his company was everything simply because we don't have ties to a company loyalty is a really powerful thing that keeps us small. You might know that a little bit here because they'll let you go the moment it doesn't serve them. And you always have to be taking control of your career. So I'm not saying loyalty is a bad thing. I would be brokenhearted. If you believe my company. They do regularly because I teach them how to uplevel their careers. No surprise, they get recruited away. And you and I think that I'm so proud and they send me their people and they actually most likely will actually work with me part time still, because they still want to be a part of this mission. So it's a whole other frame of what I do I preach I practice what I preach, I show you what I am do this Abby  54:17for like company leaders because I swear, like as a as a manager of people like I feel the same way and I feel like it's so rare. You know, so like, like bless you for what you do. Because like I was always so excited when someone on my team could get promoted, or you know, move on or do something that they were really excited about like that, to me is like the biggest success that I could have as a brag and so many times I felt like I was betraying my manager when I took another opportunity like it felt like a breakup and it's so difficult to have those conversations sometimes I'm like why is this so backwards? So I just Lindsay  54:57somebody leadership capability is how much their team up levels. That's true. If we see somebody move forward, I'm in there, I actually I probably will go into this at some point. But I, I do teach company leaders how to do this. In particular, I have a really big vision around destroying traditional human resources. And how do we start to invest in people and see them as true human beings. There's a reason why we've treated people so small. And as just cogs in machines. There's a reason why employees are leaving and why they're so massively unhappy. There's the three reframes, I'll teach you about that, actually, because I think it'll be really powerful. But I am consulting with business on this, because what I want to do is, we've stopped we've worked so hard to protect companies from their own people that we never even allow them to be part of a true part of a team. And so yeah, they of course, they don't have any loyalty. I have somebody right now, I just talked to you. And they're like, they're like, Oh, yeah, they like changed how we did our work, and how, what we can wear and like, they're cross training us. And I said, and you're telling me it's too late, right? And they're like, yeah, it's too late and half is already left. And so there is a way to fix this. But people have missed, they missed the forest from trees. So we'll go through that. Okay. So what I want you to do is that piece, all I immediately come back with is the the trifecta, or the trifecta solidified, and your value proposition will continue to up level and you'll get clarity, you'll continue to change it. Okay, we're going into this next week is your resume, this is going to be the part where I do not care how good your resume is, the whole purpose of it is to be that you believe that you are awesome, not the person across the table. Because if you believe you're awesome, I told you the point is, the resume just solidifies the decision we make within seconds. That's it within seconds. And so if you can do that, in less than 10 seconds, you can make yourself appear as the right qualified candidate. And the rest of the conversation is decided through the interview. And through the interview, we're going to hack that too. Okay. So don't worry about the resume piece. So I'm going to ask you a couple things here. So what? Why does this matter? Okay, so no more fluff in this America answers world peace. Or if your job, your resume looks like it's a would be perfect to hire that person who replaced you, then you have missed the point, what we're not looking for is a list of tasks, we're looking for a list of impacts, we're talking about impact in scope. So we're going to optimize for a few things one format, so in six seconds, can I tell what you actually do? And makes sense? The second is content. Okay, do I show impact and scope? Okay, so what I'm looking for is am I solution to the problem? And then last, we're optimizing it in both how we view it and what will match inside of the box for so the hiring manager says yes, the recruiter says, Yes, the system says yes, we're going to optimize for all those. That's what we're doing. And the whole point here is if you do this at the highest level, guys, you do not use your resume. People graduate from my programs all

 Episode 38- The Mindset of the Successful Job Search (Live Coaching) Lindsay  00:00I'm Lindsay Mustain, and this is the Career Design Podcast made for driven ambitious square pegs and round holes type professionals who see things differently and challenge the status quo. We obliterate obstacles and unlock hidden pathways to overcome and succeed where others have not stagnation feels like death. And we are unwilling to compromise our integrity and settle for being averaged in any way. We are the backbone of any successful business and those who overlook our potential are doomed to a slow demise. We do work that truly matters aligns with our purpose, and in turn, we make our lasting mark on the world. We are the dreamers, doers, legends and visionaries who are called to make our most meaningful contribution and love what we do.  Lindsay  00:42So we're walking through, Abby, can you give me like the 92nd version of how we got to here today? And then we're gonna keep going from here. Abby  00:52So yeah, absolutely. So um, the ones who are joining to you guys already kind of know what we're talking about, I think, just career search, I had a career switch in 2021 was laid off due to the pandemic and went back to school, graduated recently and have been on the job hunt ever since. And it's been a little frustrating going through this process. For me, for the first time in over 16 years, I've been with the same company for a long, long time. So I feel a little lost in the woods, and was asked to reflect on my experience so far on this journey. And I wrote a piece that I published in medium, if you haven't checked it out, go look at it, it's posted on my LinkedIn as well. And it's just a reflection on what how I feel about the process and how it's been going for me so far, and put it up on LinkedIn. And I was blessed to have Adam Karpiak comment on it. So if you don't know him, go connect with him he's amazing. And he does a lot of really great things for those who are searching for careers to in with, you know, resume services and whatnot. So he's amazing. And he tagged me in it and just asked everyone in his network to read it, Lindsay was part of that network and that's how we got connected. And yeah, it resonated with a lot of people. And I think there's just many of us out there right now kind of feeling this. And so yeah, Lindsay asked me to be on her podcast and talk about my journey and see if we can't crack the code. Lindsay  02:21We are going to go into talking about mindset today. And I'm gonna say, mindset affects every single one of us. In fact, I'm going to be one of the things radical transparency is one of my, my mantras here. And so I'm going to tell you that somebody came back to us after last week and told me that I told Abby, that I sounded like a valley girl. Oh, my God, which is so funny, because I was. So um, I'm not really a valley girl. But let me just say, if I'm not your cup of tea, then get the heck off of here. And I don't need to hear from you anymore. The same thing goes with you in your job search that there are going to be people who are not going to resonate with you. And a lot of times we're like, What's wrong with me? Here's the deal. What's wrong with it, you is them not, not actually something wrong with you. So a lot of times, people were like, please, please pick me, I don't really care if you pick me. I know that if you decide to follow my advice, we get massive results. In fact, this first somebody just started a job after going through my program. The same program, we're actually Abby is going through right now. He had a 55% raise after being laid off for 12-15 months, 55% raised. And then I had another person who just gave notice yesterday, and she got $5,000 more than her highest end of the compensation target, which we go really high, actually, that's one of the secrets about negotiation. Stay tuned, guys, if you want to get the same kind of information, you're getting live coaching with me, literally Abby's journey here. So please make friend with her and follow me. So you can be here when I'm going live. So what I want to know what I'm telling you about is that mindset is one of the most important things in fact, when I talk about introducing mindset into what we do now, if we don't have the right mindset for success, we tend to be victims of this process. And so I am going to say something really radical right now. Life is always working for you. And I know sometimes that doesn't feel like it. It doesn't. In fact, somebody very dear to me got fired via text, yesterday. I'll go back one year ago today, I sat and some of you don't know this, but my brother was murdered in 2019. One year ago today, I sat and faced his killer and gave a deposition in court. I have chosen to see that as a chance for me to be successful and to help others because I know life is really finite. Okay. So whatever it is, life is working for you and I don't need to share all of the pain that I've had in order for you to recognize like I've been there so have you I didn't start out being awesome. That would have been amazing story. I was born I was awesome and then I've just continued to be awesome. No, I started out with a pretty privileged childhood. I watched my dad go through a layoff and then I happen to have the same thing happened in early in my career, even after being a recruiter and I learned how to kind of crack the code as Vicki said. So that's really what we're sharing today is how do we get into this process, which is somebody who's hired 10,000 people, so 10,343 people, that's what I'm gonna go through here today. And mindset is the key differentiator. In fact, if you go look, I think I talked about resiliency and job search back in circa 2016, which I was interviewed by SHRM, which is a society for human resource management, as an expert about this and resiliency is the thing and job searching that keeps you to stay above the rest. So you have to recognize that life is working. I'm going to go back to Hey, and Waseem is here from Pakistan. 3% increase and Lindsay's guidance help tremendously. And thank you so much, Vicki. So Vicki is amazing. I don't like to volunteer, if you're one of the people who've worked with me, but we have 1000s of testimonials. So this is I love these stories. That's why keeps me going. But I want you to know that nobody has to be particularly special or have a degree from you know, I don't know, yeal, or anything, actually, other than claiming your power. That's, that's what I'm going to walk you through here. And that's what we're doing with Abby. And so, in fact, I've seen some shifts, and Abby just in this last week, in some of the ways that she has approaching things and even some of the changes she's made in her her stuff now so far. So I'm going to say here, if you're not interested in what I have to say, then get the heck off my live stream, because I have no time to waste for people who aren't here to get results. Okay, same thing goes. If somebody is not treating you with respect in your life or your career, then get the heck out of their circle and recognize that that was a blessing, but they show their true colors firsthand. Okay, so I'm going to actually read to you the mantra that starts with what we do for intentional career design. So it is called the I am talent mantra, which says that I can see Oh, no, you can't see it. Well, if you were zoomed out, right behind me. The I Am talent mantra says I am human, I am not defined by a piece of paper, nor defined by a system that has been designed to set me up to fail. I persevere I believe in something better, I give, assist, uplift and empower others, I do not complain, but I take action, I understand that failure is necessary on the path to success. I give before I take I am accountable for my actions, my results and my attitude. I believe in the best in others, I rise to any challenge. And I do not make excuses. I am resilient. I have unwavering faith that I will rise above my circumstances. When I fall down, I get up and I keep moving. I believe I can help change the world for the better. So this is where I'm gonna ask you to go hashtag I am talent. If you'll do that in the chat for me, I'll know that you're here with me. And that you guys get what we're going to do at the very end, I'm actually going to give you an opportunity to join something that'll give you some free results right away. So if you want to fast track some of the work that you're doing, in fact, I've enjoyed it. And I don't know how it's been for going through dream job boot camp so far. Abby  07:57It's good. No, I think it was really helpful just to kind of, like supplemented the other things that I was doing with you as well. And I got a lot of messages from others who joined us last week that were going through it and they were you know, just what did you think of this? And then we kind of got to talk about what we were doing different and it was a really great, yeah, good, good chance to connect with some of the others who are trying like to change up, you know, whatever their, their resume or their, their profile on LinkedIn. And then we'd send it back and forth to each other, like, how does this look, you know, so it was a really cool, cool experience. I think it was definitely a few like lightbulb moments for me.  Lindsay  08:33I love that. And so Bobby has behind the scenes of not just that but like my one of my highest tier paid programs. So she the fact that this free resource it was there to give you because for those that you don't know 80% of my business is run completely for free. I do everything with the idea I given given given to literally hurts we monetize a little bit of the rest. If you want to have faster results. We keep the lights on so we can feed our family one time. It's somebody who asked me, Why don't you do this for free? And I was like, so why don't you work for free? So sorry, folks, if you want the fastest results, you end up working with me personally. So if you're wanting to know what I do want you to is results, how do you get there faster, I have opportunities to work with me individually, you can work with me to apply or you can work with me on a free basis, using some of the tools I'm going to give you and that's what we do here. So if you're wondering what's in it for me, that's what's in it for me. But having the results that I get people who make an investment in their career tend to see that others will invest in them because if they believe they're worthy of it, then others are so if you're whatever you're doing to uplevel your career that tends to be how this process goes. So I'm gonna talk to you a little bit about intentional career design. So this is one of the things that I love Steve Jobs I you know, whenever you think of him as a leader, he was very visionary. And he talked about to the crazy ones. I'm going to talk to you about what that looks like here for what what career design really is about. And it's for driven ambitious square pegs and round holes type professionals who see things differently and challenge the status quo. We obliterate obstacles, and unlock hidden pathways to overcome and succeed where others have not stagnation feels like death. And we are unwilling to compromise our integrity and settle for being average in any way. We are the backbone of any successful business and those who overlook our potential are doomed to a slow demise. We choose to redo work that truly matters aligns with our purpose. In turn, we make our lasting mark on the world. We are the dreamers, doers, legends and visionaries who are called to make our most meaningful contribution and love what we do. This is actually what we what the career design podcast is all about. So if you haven't had a chance to tune into that, please go check out I have so many resources for you guys. It's been week, every time every week, I'm interviewing people and talking with some of the most amazing people out there who are making shifts and changes and have success so that you can get results. So tune in because that's what I'm doing and hit that follow button. Okay. Alright, so let me talk to you. I'm gonna teach a little bit and then we're gonna jump in. Abby  10:53I just want to say one thing real quick.  Lindsay  10:54Yeah, go ahead, do it.  Abby  10:55Um, so that intro like blew my mind when I heard it. And so if anyone else is listening here, and it is just, like, feel super empowered by that, like, just put like a in the chat?  Lindsay  11:06Yeah, okay. Let's put a fire sign, or heck yeah, whatever it is. But let's see, let's call out the people who are the 1% of the 1%. Because most of us have been conditioned to stay small to play by the rules. And it's actually what's kept you small and being a cog in a machine when you are truly the designer of your reality. And I change that through occupation. That's how I do that. And I'm here to help you understand your true mindset like belief, which is marketability body says, awesome. So your marketability is what we're really going into inside of this. So when I talk about intentional career design, what am I really trying to do inside of this process, I'm trying to one reduce bias. So people who are being dinged for being laid off for extended period of absences, maybe you've been a stay at home mom or dad, you have been, you've had a career pivot, you are over 40 or 50, you don't have a college degree, whatever it is that your biases, there's over 150 human biases, the first thing we're trying to do intentional design is reduce bias. So slows down our process. We want to do that. So we were reducing the friction to velocity. So what we're trying to do is, this process is all about how do we streamline it. How do we become what we call the purple squirrel. And so what we're trying to do is increase that velocity. So let's get to results. Let's get it faster. Second, is to increase your power position. Okay, so low power positions means I hope to god somebody chooses me. And I'll be lucky if I make it through all this. And that is not the mindset of a successful job search. So what we're trying to do is increase our power position. So we know that we feel like we have some control in our life, which is a true like, we want certainty, that's a core human need. So that's one of them. And next is to embody that high caliber candidacy. And you have to become this high caliber candidate in order for people to what I'm really trying to get you to do is in the dream job zone, the right job, the right company at the right salary, that's really hard for some people to believe. But I mean, you've seen the results here just in what people post on the live stream, like I'm not making stuff up. This is actual real people who are talking about getting 40% increases 133% increase, or 55% increase from somebody who started yesterday, my goal is to help you get there. Abby  13:21That's the whole point of what you're saying right? Now, if you don't believe that it's possible, it's never gonna happen. Lindsay  13:26Yes, whether you think you can or whether you think you can't, you're right. It's one of my when I was in gym class when I was in elementary school, and to Henry Ford, and at one point, I ended up being homeless as a child. That was on my wall in my elementary school. And it's one of the things whether or not you believe in Henry Ford or not, like, you know, in what his he wasn't necessarily the greatest leader, but he was very visionary. And that was one of things, I realized that you are not a product of your conditions, you are a product of your decisions, no matter what pain or what place you're at, you get to choose whether or not I'm going to increase my success, or I'm going to decrease my success. And that starts with mindset. Okay, and then next is become the candidate of choice. That's aka the purple squirrel. So we're trying to become a candidate of choice. So high caliber candidacy and next level is the candidate of choice, which means that people are banging down your door to give you a job offer and we go through career power, which you may or may not recall that from last week, which is the intersection of both passion and purpose, combined with the pursuit of what you're truly aligned in your zone of genius and to uplevel your career to create profitability for both you and the business. This is the thing, it's a win win, which is why I see career designing the system of the future of how companies will amplify their talent to create massive profitability, which is by helping people enjoy what they do do work that truly matters makes their most meaningful contribution. And they actually go to work passionate, excited and energized so they don't feel like they're selling their soul for a paycheck. Okay, so that's what we're trying to do. Now. I want to break down this and you guys tell me here that are watching right now. Which one of these relate to you because I think the traits of the high performer and this is one of the podcasts I do is I talk about the pains of Being a high performer, is one you are relentless. Okay, like I do not stop achieving my goals. Okay. And I know that Abby for you, I wanted to hear from you what these ones were for you? Yeah, you're goal oriented. Okay? Next is that you validate assumptions, meaning I don't just assume that, like, people were like, I am having age bias. And I'm gonna recognize there is age bias. But most of the time when I see age bias, and that victim mentality, and just remember I say this with love, everything here is with love. That's actually not the issue. The issue is that you believe it's the issue. So you do something to sabotage yourself because you believe that is okay. They also prioritize their goals. Okay, so that means that they don't choose to put others before themselves, they actually will prioritize their goals over everything else. They're looking for long term achievement. So always going for how do I uplevel my life, even if you get knocked down a peg, or stabbin, they're always are coming back up. They are never satisfied. Ooh, Nina says here, absolute what you decide what your destiny is, is by your decisions. Yeah, I've been asking a lot of things around spirituality, because I am very spiritual and what I do, and nice is asked like, do you believe in the law of attraction, but we're whether or not you believe in law of attraction, intention is super powerful. Okay, so what you intend, we tend to hit goals that we actually set for ourselves, whether or not usually that's law of attraction or just intentions? Either way, it's a really powerful strategy. Okay. I'm hoarse being average, radio being. Right, Abby, Abby  16:30That's a killer. Lindsay  16:33Next embraces and invites change. In fact, a lot of the times where we've had our lowest moments, we actually decided to struct ourselves. And I'll tell you that intentional career design is one of those things that I did where I was, like, I'm neglecting someone's soul in the process here, it's not just about jobs. It's about destiny, actually, and how do we create a reality for yourself, and when I decided to do that collapse timeframes, people get 10 times the results in a shorter amount of time, which is pretty crazy, since that program just rolled out this year. Next is I face fail spectacularly. And that means that we are tend to like not want to try until we know that we're going to go all out. And when we go all out, we're they're gonna go amazing, it's gonna crash and burn. So we don't do anything half. We don't do anything like that. Okay. And then the other is that they understand they're in the business of meetings. And that is the most powerful thing I want you to realize you are in a business, whether or not you believe it or not, I'm going to teach you how to market that business through this strategy. And what I mean by that is that you are selling a something of value and someone is going to give you an investment, we're not trading time for money for tasks, we're trading investment for value to get a return for that business that creates profitability. And when you see yourself as that, then you realize the most powerful impact that you can make. So that's the reprogramming here,  Abby for you what was kind of a big one. Abby  17:49Um, so there was kind of like three that tied together, but like the never being satisfied and embracing, innovating change, like for me, those two really go hand in hand. Because if I'm not satisfied, I'm always looking for something else. And I know you mentioned this in your your mantra, like being average is like feels like death. Like, I just feel that if I you know, if I'm not contributing, if I'm not impactful, then like, what am I here for anyway? What is I guess? Like, if you want to get philosophical, like, what, what is my purpose if it results in nothing, right? So like, That, to me is just the worst, the worst things that could possibly come out of my life. Yeah, and I just realized, like, in the never being satisfied and embracing change, like those can be very good things. But it really depends on how you leverage that feeling. And I think going through this, I realized that, you know, in some ways, it's really good, because that means I'm open to try new things, it means that I'm constantly learning, I'm curious about life, and I will take on new challenges. And that gets me excited. But then on the other hand, if I let it overwhelm me, it turns into like, you know, just like being dissatisfied with your life in general. And feeling like I can't enjoy the the journey that I'm learning on because I never quite get where I want to go. And I sometimes don't even know what that means. But when I do achieve a goal, I can't appreciate it. Because I immediately like critiquing what I'm doing. saying like, Okay, how could I have done that better? Or, like, Where can I go next from here, and I don't even appreciate the moments that are successful. So it really kind of goes, it's like a double edged sword for me.  Lindsay  19:24Yes, I feel that one too. So we tend to the closer our goal, the less impactful it actually gets. It's another high performer of not being able to celebrate the journey, and realizing that the journey is actually what we're supposed to be celebrating and the whole point of our experience, actually, so, but it's really hard when we get to that. So for you guys that are tuning in, I'm going to actually drop a link for those that want to jump into the boot camp because if you're ready to change your mindset now and get clarity in the next steps, I want you to go to dream job hack.com slash boot camp. Okay, so I'm going to talk to you about a little bit of the mindsets in order to win okay. Mohamed has a good question. I'm just going to post this up, we're not able to cover all of this today. But in two weeks, or should say, a week from a Friday, we're going to be actually going into this piece. And if you are struggling, again, how to transform your experience two to three pages, which it's two pages, by the way, then the thing is, nobody buys your resume, yet six seconds, you cannot describe your lifetime of experience in six seconds, and then two pages. So abandon that philosophy. I'm gonna teach you more about that. So dream job hack.com slash boot camp, you'll get these answers. Each one of you, it's five days to getting success, okay. And it's the quickest like version of how to get through to a place of momentum really quickly. That's why I built that program. Okay. And it's totally free. By the way, I've extended extended the timing for that bootcamp. Okay. So here's some of the mindset. First thing is I know nothing. This is a Socrates mindset, which says, If I come, I'll tell you like, one of the things that I work inside of right now like I have a coach for energy, healing, whatever it is, that's your, you know, your fruit of the week, whatever it is that you're excited about, go ahead and own it. Okay, own it authentically you. But when I come to that, I don't come and say, Oh, I learned about this, I learned about that. I'm a student. And so in here, I want you to recognize I have hired 10,000 people I've helped 15,000 people on average, someone working with me graduates with a $50,000 pay increase, not $50,000 job, pay increase, okay? Why do they get so high? Because we have people get hundreds of 1000s of dollars, that let me tell you, they didn't do anything spectacular, except work with me and a cool clothes container for that time. So here's the thing, stop throwing away unless you have hired 10,000 people have become a best selling author and have helped 15,000 people. And if you are I don't know why you're on this live stream. Go ahead. Okay, someone else? Yeah. Once you have that, then throw away whatever you know, and start with a clean slate. So we'll come to it with the idea of I don't have anything. Next thing is the secret of success is trust the process and people will be like, well, like what if you through all this? Okay, so go back to that. I know nothing. Trust the process, that has been proven like, it's kind of like, Well, you know, maybe if I'm trying to let's say I'm trying to exercise I think I'm gonna see how well just sitting on my chair is gonna work. Because that's like another idea. I can throw out like, trust the process that you're going to need to move your body if you're trying to increase your physical fitness. Okay? Okay, so I will be your truth teller. So Abby's gonna learn things. And she said she's willing to be up here and publicly critique. So she's going to get some of that. And I've seen some of the change she's already made and things and I'm like, Yes, I don't have to critique it, because she's learning and tradable relentless learner here. And then if it was going to work, what you had already been doing, it would have frickin worked by now. Okay, so stop getting in your own way and join boot camp. Okay, that's the first thing, and then make progress or make excuses. This one's hard. Because a lot of times when I see the victim mentality, and I fall victim to this as well, like life off, things are so unfair. And guess what life is unfair, sorry, that's just how it is. Okay, I can make a list of all the things I've gone through, and no offense, but it's probably bigger than yours. Okay. So and that's not to say that your pain isn't like when people. So I'll just say like, when my brother was murdered, I still ran my business, I still coach. In fact, when I was I, there was a point where I was clearing his house out after the crime scene had come in. And I helped someone negotiate a 60% raise while I was filling up the gas in the rental car, and to return it while he was at his house. I did not stop running my business and the people who are going through the pain of job searching, I recognize that pain is just as acute for them and where they're at. So what I'm trying to say here is you get to choose whether or not you move forward, or you get to choose whether or not you choose to be a victim and have excuses, okay, and I say like I literally have a victims unit coordinator, I am technically considered a victim, I choose to see myself as a frickin survivor, okay. Also, there's no magic pill. If there was, I would sell it for you for a million dollars. Okay, so there's not a magic pill, or I would just give it to you. And the other thing is that you have bad behaviors. And you have learned along the way that are holding you back, and things that you picked up from people who say they know what they're doing. And I'm gonna throw a few stones here. There are a lot of career coaches who've taken some sort of online certification, but I've actually never hired anybody. I sat in the unemployment office during the course of my layoff in the Great Recession. And listen to somebody who had never hired anybody teach me how to job search. And when I tried to do everything that she had said, which had already been doing and thought was the answer. It didn't work. So this program came from actually breaking down the process of how I went and fault found high caliber talent that we reverse engineered it. So I'm giving you the step by step plan. Okay. All right. So here's some things the things that are going to sabotage you on the way is one other coaches. Alright, so there are some people like Adam Karpiak, you should definitely listen to Adam. Yes, you should listen to Adam. Let's go look and see Adam is one of my first endorsements and he's the like, he said, I am one of the reasons that he started posting on LinkedIn. Okay, you should listen to Adam. There are people out there who are good ones, look who I'm following if you want to get the idea. There's a lot of people who aren't Okay, and they give Kumbaya messages that are like, wouldn't it be nice if the world was better? Okay, stop like having a pity party and do something. Okay. And what I share here is about how you do something. Okay. Next is your spouse. Your spouse has a big And this is shout out to all the spouses that are there and being really supportive. Your spouse has a vested interest in your success that cannot be objective. And so they cannot give you objective feedback.  In fact, so my, when I was married, my husband went back to work after four years, and he was stay at home dad. And he's amazing partner and but I said, there's no way in Heck, I'm coaching you, you can work with someone on my team, because I am too invested in what the outcome is. And so I would choose something that would give me safety versus choosing what your actual purposes. So be careful of what your spouse's, your family is another one, your family tends to want to protect you versus and they're not job is not to support you, your job is to support you. So make sure you listen to that. That person is inside of you first, and then your self limiting beliefs, the things that you do to sabotage yourself. Okay. All right. Um, all right, I also swear a little bit, that's one of the things to know. Okay, so I'm here, I say that like, because I can't really swear on this platform. But if you ever join into my other stuff, you will see that I swear, because I'm considered the Antichrist of Human Resources. That's what I do at the highest, I want to completely destroy traditional human resources, it is about mitigating risk from our own people, which are our best asset and get we protect the company from them. And I feel like if we just did, and I'll talk about this through other stuff that I'm doing, if we created an environment where companies amplified talent, that would be a much better success versus trying to protect ourselves from companies, okay, or from our own people. That's ridiculous. And how do we make sure that whether Yeah, preach, right, whether or not for short term or long term, they should walk away, we still want them to do business with us, and we still want them to talk favorably about us, that should be the most powerful thing we do here. Okay. All right. I am going to go through, there's a lot of stuff inside of this. So we're gonna keep going. Okay, so what am I looking for you to do in your career? Well, I told you about the dream job zone, I'm going to reiterate that one, the dream job zone is the right job. And what I mean by the right job, let me just tell you, the right jobs is the moment you're in it, and it can change the next step, it can change because the company got a new leader of change, because your job got reassigned. Nothing is like static, when people are like, I want to find a job for my life. And I was like, good luck, you might want to build your own business, then Okay, and then likely, you're still not going to be able to stick in the same job, there is no job for life, you need to throw away that old mentality from the 1990s, it's not going to happen, okay, you are going to make a job change. And on average, if you want to increase your salary, like every two to three years is about the right move. I know. But this is the whole point no longer a victim in your, in your career, you're going to do this now. Okay, what I want you to do is the right job at the right company in the right company really comes down to both the supervisor and the company. So every job that you see posted out there is not the right job, okay, it's not the right company. That's part of your vetting process. So when we get into the employer, we're making them prove that they are worthy of our talent. That is the main mindset change, here, they are worthy of our talent, and that they would be lucky to have us repeat that for me in the chat for me, I am making sure that they are worthy of my talent, and they are lucky to have us okay. And what I want you to do inside of this is go to the place of last one was the right salary. So, in addition, you should be paid really well. You shouldn't be lucky to get a good job with a good company, you get paid really well. Likely you've generated hundreds, if not millions of dollars in impact for a business in your career. How is that their luck? You're lucky to have a job, they're lucky to have you this is the reprogramming we have to go through okay. All right. So the definition of what I'm trying to get you is this place of career power, which is anything that rewards you financially, emotionally, spiritually, mentally, and allows you to build a life beyond your wildest dreams. Yes, it is possible and I choose the occupation because occupation is one of the core or five core areas of wellness. This is from Gallup. And what we're trying to do here, so there's a few ways you need to know that you should never dim your light for others insecurities going through this. So don't diminish yourself stand in your truest power, and it's going to piss off the people who feel unworthy. It's gonna piss off the people who are not your tribe. So you want to stand in your power and try stop fitting yourself into a box. There is no box, we create the damn box, okay? And it's not even a box. It's some weird shape. Okay. All right. So some of us have this mindset that we're really trying to address, which is whether or not I am worthy. worthiness is the big thing. Okay. So we come into this and we're like, Okay, I'm flawed. I'm not deserving, who do I think I am, okay. And I want you to go and change your my mantras to be I am worthy. I deserve abundance and I will change the world with my gifts. If you truly believe those things, then you will do the work to make that happen. Yeah, I'm making sure they are worthy of my talent. They're lucky deserve me. The companies are lucky to have us. Yes. Preach. Okay. Abby  29:41I hope that just people can believes in this because I haven't seen anybody else. So speak up for this. Lindsay  29:45Yes. Seriously, like this is the one main reprogramming is worthiness. Okay. I'm so ready for Lindsay. I'm so glad you're here. And yeah, I had somebody recently just on my podcast, they're like, let me talk so fast. I'm super sorry. Okay. All right. So here's some key beliefs to self worth. And then we're going to after this, I'm going to transfer mindset here, there's not a lot of work in mindset except ingraining it as far as your programming, so you're going to hear your own talk tracks, which they're going to be days where I'm like, and I'm going to say, like I am, I do not teach anything, I don't have to learn by myself. I have my own coaches, I buy my own, I drink my own Kool Aid, okay? So this will be days where I'm like, I really thought today, I don't feel very good, I am a loser, whatever it is that I want to tell myself and I have these pity parties for myself, and I recognize that I do. And then I have to get and say, I am worthy. I am deserving. Look at the impact I've made. And I'm going to teach you how to do this. Everything I do through here, by the way, is about reinforcing this mindset. So by the end, you become something we call unwithable. I say it like that, because I can't say it. You're okay. With the ball. Okay, that's our that's my favorite swear word, by the way. So what I want you to know is the key beliefs around self worth is that I don't need to please anybody else. When we start giving up what other people believe in us, and this is a practice, we have to continue, I just told you about how somebody kind of made me not to make me feel bad, I chose to feel bad about that. I also believe you choose how you feel, doesn't mean it doesn't hurt just means that I choose to how I believe and I spent a little bit time going through that and realizing, yeah, I don't really care what you do until most people, the people who are criticizing you, and this happens to me in the chat, if this is you, the most people will criticize you or never doing more than you because they're too busy doing other crap. So you're not gonna find out in cardiac, probably on this live stream talking about whatever I'm doing because he's got his own stuff to do. Okay, so people who criticize you, or always have some sort of issue with you, that have issue with you are always doing less than you. And that's offensive to people who don't feel worthy about themselves. But that's not your issue. That's theirs, let them go ahead and keep it okay. I choose how I feel about myself. My actions reflect my values, okay, my internal barometer of my value is based on my alignment to my goals, values, principles and actions, not what anybody else tells me, okay, and even when i f up and you will, because I said failure is necessary in the path to success. I know that I matter, I matter. And in turn, I will do what it takes to align myself to my goals, my values, my principles, and my actions, okay? Things are always going to shift in your job search, your career is never stagnant. It's like saying that you will never change. Okay? Nobody ever can commit to that. We invite change. Okay. One of the reprogramming things they need to have you believe is that every rulebook you've been given around, this has actually lied to you. Okay? job searching is not about searching for a job creating a single page or 17 page resume and applying online, it does not work that way. It does work point 4% of the time. Sorry, true story. Okay. So what we need to believe is that I instead of seeing limits, I see potential, I don't see problems, I see opportunities, I know that I am a catalyst to my own change. I'm not focused on the here and now and looking at my long term strategic focus. I don't care about what other people are doing for like, I was not resentful about other people's success. India's normal, India's human, but really what I'm trying to do is celebrate success for there for all I really believe in abundance, and that there is enough pie to go around. In fact, let me tell you, it's at the very top, they've got enough to give, okay, I'm not tied to any particular outcome, which means I don't care how like that one conversation or anybody here who doesn't like me today, I'm tied to whether or not my clients get results and whether or not I'm making a better impact on the world. I believe that I don't win, I win through my team and my clients. And that's the difference here. Okay, I don't have a problem for every single solution. I'm always looking for solutions that we can overcome together. I know that I creates results by taking action, not just by showing up. And instead of I know it all, I'm always learning like I'm learning from Abby. And that's probably a weird thing to say when you're supposed to be coaching somebody but we learn from every single person here, okay. Okay. All right. So I'm going to jump down here because there's a lot more that comes into this, but we always one of the biggest things inside of in mindset is your self care. Okay? So if you do not put yourself first and this means, yes, mothers or people who have spouses or partners, you put you first Okay, so oxygen mask first. If you ever been on an airplane, they tell you, if the oxygen mask drops, you put it on you first. Okay? If you cannot take care of you, then How the hell can you take care of anybody else? Okay, and it is not their job. Your job, they might support you, but the only person who can take care of you is you. Hey, key. So I'm Vicki. How about Sorry, I'm Vicki. Vicki, you can tell me about yourself here too.  She's pretty excited. I was reading um, Elvie's of comments here. So tell me Abby for you. What have you tuned into for self care now in this process of really upgrading your mindset? Abby  34:54Oh my gosh, this is a big question. I think of the things that Um, we reviewed like, for me, I think it starts with my overall health. And I say that as a very general thing. So that means like physically, emotionally, mentally, you know, making sure that all those things are in the right place. There are many ways that you can shift your mindset. But for me, if I'm not taking care of myself, like you said, How can you take care of anyone else, and that doesn't mean just, you know, not just getting up and exercising, which is what I have been doing. But you know, I'm inconsistent. And I can tell when things shift, I will be, like, for example, when things are going well, it's because I woke up and I started my day, right. And I did my meditation in the morning, I did my exercise, I made myself breakfast, like, I started off on the right foot, and then from there, I can prioritize and organize my life. And on the days that are not, it's probably like, I hit my snooze button a bunch of times, didn't work out, feeling sorry for myself, like, you know, I just fall into this pattern, and it kind of spirals out. So for me, I'm really making, you know, a more conscious effort to do those things right away and just start my day, right. And then, you know, make sure that I'm thinking about it through the day and taking breaks from my screen a little bit throughout the day, just to go out and like be in the sunshine for a few minutes and brief. For me, that's really important. And, you know, taking the time to like, spend with the people who around me that energize me, and that, you know, I can share with and a lot of these guys are here for me as well. All of you guys who showed up today, like that's, I can't even tell you what that means. It's, it's like an overall, like you're frustrated together. But the fact that we're all here supporting each other is I think it's very powerful. And for me, it's very encouraging. So thank you for being here. So yeah, I'm trying to invest my time and the things that I know are going to fill my cup rather than just wallowing in self pity, you know. Lindsay  36:59And Raven says way to be authentic and vulnerable. Yes. And so authenticity and vulnerability are so so one, that's why I like Abby is here. Honestly, if she hadn't bothered to share her, her voice with the world, if she hadn't bothered to be transparent, she wouldn't have all these people who are cheering her on. So a lot of times we like to pretend that everything is okay. It is okay to say, I am not doing super great, but I'm choosing to move forward. Okay. And that's if you notice, like she said, I don't want to complain, or I don't wanna feel like I'm stuck. I know. I was like, I didn't get that at all. I just thought now how do we make the world better? Holly says she's cheering you on. So I love that. You too. Self Care is one of the big things. And I'm going to tell you that after my brother died, this was something I really struggled with, I really, really struggle with and love. People are like, wow, Lindsey, what has changed for you, like you're so much more healthy, more energized, more like able to be more consistent in everything that you do. Because running a business is just like, it is the hardest thing that to do personally, like it's the most expansive growth that I've ever seen. And I think any of my other fellow entrepreneurs will agree with that. How, what's what's changed, okay, I spent and you do not need to do this extreme, but I recommend at least one hour, three hours, three hours of self care in the morning. And here's why I have to look and I get up at five in the morning. So my little kids, when I get to the end of the day, I have something left to give them because you know what, they're the most important thing in my entire world, my job and my business and all my customers. I love you guys, you're very important to me some of my greatest accomplishments. But the thing that matters most to me is my family. There's the ones that really matter. And I mean, I tell lots of stories about my background. But I watched my dad go through an extended unemployment, he spent two years plus searching for a job and I watched his self worth completely wither away. And I'm really thankful I got to spend that time. So I'm here because my purpose is he actually went into the hospital after that job search. And he never got to walk out again.He was had inoperable brain tumor, and it's life into just a few months later. And so like I in my life been very, very hard after that, I became a homeless kid. And things were really, really challenging. So when I say like, I understand your pain, folks, I have been at the very bottom, I have been to the very bottom homeless without even a parent. So when I look at like my kids, I look and I say, they're the ones that matter most are all gonna be this little for a tiny minute. Okay, so we're gonna say an Amen. All right, so I want to say like, there's some things that we do and I love when we were like, I don't have time for this. And I was like, so and I'm gonna use an example full data because I don't watch TV. How to Game of Thrones in you can tell me that then what you're telling me is that you prioritize your entertainment over your self care. And Alright, so the first thing when we don't we, when I see people are like, I can't do this. And I'm like, if you were watching television, you have chosen something different. You have chosen that's a collective consciousness like that. Like oh, you know what is the world going on out there? Your TV is not going to uplevel your career okay? Your TV is not going to save your TV is not your family. So one stop making bs excuses second stop numbing out. And that could be through alcohol could be by hitting the snooze button it could be. And I'm not saying you don't need some time for restorative care, you should, you should and I still watch TV, there's some things I do. I'm not saying that you can't, but I limited and if you I always look at habit stacking which atomic habits is really a powerful thing. So like, I know, I can watch TV after do my dishes. Okay, like that's one of my things in order for me to get that reward. Okay. And the other thing is I do self destructive, self destructive behavior. So I'm gonna be really transparent here. When I feel really bad about my life, or whatever is going on, I will go get a Big Mac. I will go get a Big Mac at a soda two things. absolute garbage is good for which is not even that great for a little bit. And then I feel like shit and I've punished myself. So I want you to know, whatever you're doing, examine the behavior and what's the root cause of the story? You're telling yourself about it? And really, like be honest and stop hiding it. Stop making excuses. Okay. Okay. So let's see here. What? One of the things that really changed for me was when I started embracing habits and habits if you haven't picked up atomic habits, like you probably heard it a million times. It's so powerful. So habit stacking is another thing and also like consistency things like I drink a lot of water. I drink a lot of water. I've meditate I journal I set intentions. Yeah, exactly. So what I want you to think about is how do I change my mind if I can hack the first few hours of my day, when the rest of it in fact, you spend two hours just investing the beginning of your day, setting an intention, being mindful, exercising your mind exercising your body, choosing things that amplify your results versus I'm going to tune out or whatever it is that you're going to do that everyone tells you are so important. It's not so like, yeah, keetsa your legs are going I can tell you're living it. Yes. So I want you to think about what makes me feel good and do more of that. Okay, and not temporarily feel good, like a glass of wine may make me feel good. But I know that a bottle of wine doesn't okay. Choose what behaviors here that you're going to indulgent and choose for self care. And this is one thing like we've somehow especially women, women shout out to Luma shout out to the moms in particular, like Somehow, I get a shower. So I took self care, no shower is basic dignity. Okay, you get a shower. Okay, so anybody who's gonna smell it's not getting a shower regularly, please give that person some help here. Okay. Um, and the other thing here is, if you haven't ever read the book, power versus force, these are two book recommendations. Power versus force talks a lot about the different energies. We all have electromagnetic frequencies. Oh, my god, did you get it? changed my life. This book changed my life. And when I realized, like I was buying into things and grief is one of the hardest grief and shame, which are two of the things that happen in job search. When I was stopped doing that, and started resonating at a higher frequency, we tend to magnify what our successes so take a look at that book, if you haven't had a chance, cutting all the noise on radio made a big difference in my life. Yeah, the other thing I don't do is i'm a no news diet. I don't listen to the news. Because one, I literally have been the front page like of it bleeds, it leads, I have been that I have literally been, they've capitalized on my pain, they twisted my story, they've made it sound horrible when my brother was the one who was attacked and killed. And, um, it's like, I'm no longer buying into what mass media is, we have to choose what what we surround ourselves. So choose your, your, your frequency, choose your circle and choose yourself care. Those would be the big mindsets, okay. All right. So now I've got a little bit of time here. So Abby, I'm going to give you five minutes to ask your questions where you're at. And then I'm going to open up to the rest. And then we're going to talk about what we're going to do on Friday for the next thing. So the very first part here, by the way, is a lot It is low. It's really easy. When I say really easy, like I don't have people like I'm like, go ahead and write your resume. You will have that as an assignment here. But what I want you to do now is if you can change your mindset, everything else becomes exponentially easier because you realize that you're creating your own reality. Okay, go ahead, Abby. Abby  44:03Yeah, like real quick before I ask a question, though, like, I think, for me, going through this week, like you said, I feel like I've already learned so much, but I'm open to it. And I'm in a place where I finally am like, I like I have no other choice. This is where I'm going with choosing this. So it's a choice. It's a conscious choice. Like you said, you know, you can drink a whole bottle of wine or you can sit on the couch and eat like a pint of Ben and Jerry's or you can like, go do something that will actually be beneficial to you. So my, I guess word of encouragement to you guys is just pay attention to how you feel all the time. throughout the day. Start thinking about what you're doing and how that's making you feel and stop choosing the things that are making you feel bad about yourself. And yeah, we have moments, right, we're going to we're not perfect, we're human, we're gonna fall back sometimes, but um, but if you start to recognize it, it's easier to avoid right and you have to create new habits which let me just be honest, it's hard, hard work. breaking your old habits. But if you want to change if you want to feel different, you have to do something different than what you've been doing.  Lindsay  45:07So if you want to feel different, you have to be doing something different. Oh my gosh, yes. Okay, I love that. And this is where I always were checking in on mindset. I'm like, this is just you have to choose to put you first. Yeah, that's the biggest thing, you have to choose to do the oxygen mask, I don't really care what you choose. There are some things like I talked about body, brain, belief and love. These are the three or four components of what I like for people to do in their daily routine, which is, what are the mantras I do? How do I take care of my mind and my body? And then how do I express love, because love for me, you can't really see it. Opposite here. value. And so if I do all things with love, so he asked me what my secret success is, if I do all things with love, then I know and turn the universe comes back to me. And people tend to know that my heart's in a really good place. Like I'm not really, I would, in very truthful transparency, I would love to unemploy myself in what I do. I would love to, because I don't want this to be a problem for anybody. That's actually what my long term goal is very weird, backwards business philosophy. I'm not in the business of making money. I'm in the business of making a difference. But I also want to take care of my family and I want you to be able to carry bores, and that's what we do. Okay, keep going, Abby. Sorry, I didn't mean to keep cutting you off.  Abby  46:17No, that's okay. I kind of got on a soapbox for a second. But I just felt like maybe somebody needs Lindsay  46:21Oh, Fox, yes. If you can give like let's go I go hashtag Abby here. Amazing human, let's I keep telling her I was like, I'm just so thankful for her and being in my world now. Because she's just an amazing person. And she makes me better just by showing up. Abby  46:35I'm so happy you're here to. Um, if you guys feel I have to be up here being vulnerable. So if you feel like you want to share something and be vulnerable in the chat, it's a safe space here too. So, you know, tell us about you know, if you're struggling with something, or if you want to give something up, or if you want to change, feel free to share it. That is, I would love to hear about it. Lindsay  46:54I would love to hear so I'm gonna actually do that. Because you guys are gonna have a chance to ask questions. Go ahead and plug that in now like what are you struggling with? What like, what's the, and I might be telling you, I'm going to cover that in a later week. Or I might be telling you go join the boot camp for a dream job half because you're going to see a massive change in just five days. But let's go ahead and open for questions. And Abby, you go ahead and start with yours. Abby  47:15Oh, my gosh. Okay, I have a few. Let's see. Um, okay, so. Okay, I don't want to jump too far ahead. But I'll talk to you about something that happened to me this week. So I know that you mentioned kind of further along, and some of you guys might already be in this part on your career. Thanks for that. I'm lucky that you applying for jobs is not the way you get a job, right? Like it's not, it's not done that way. I don't know how it's done yet. But we're gonna find out. Lindsay  47:49Well, you guys, I promise. Abby  47:52But my question is, I know that a lot of us get approached, especially on LinkedIn with and I don't know if it's just like recruiters, or like people selling a service, or whatever it is, but we got lots of messages out there that are like, you know, I found you and your look like a perfect match for XYZ thing. And like one of two things usually comes out of it. And I've noticed this, like, for me, it's either I'll write back, and they'll say, Oh, I don't actually have a job for what you do. So it's, I mean, just spam. And then the other one is, sometimes you'll write back and then they don't respond, or it takes him like a week. And they're like, oh, sorry, I got busy. Like, what I guess is your advice on how to or whether or not to respond and how to respond to that, like, what's best practice. Lindsay  48:40I'm gonna give you a couple things here. So one, I'm just like, everything are really poor recruiters out there. And one of the things I do is I teach organizations how to actually go out and target people. If you've ever applied to this, every job with the same resume, you probably have also gotten these math, I'm not saying and one grace the other. But if you ever apply the same job, and then you get a response that's canned and sounds like what we call like a mass market message. Those it's the same thing. So I want you to we're going to change this completely in the way so I want you to think like I'm going to tell you I get reached out about collection agent rules. And so what I when I see that I don't know, what's wrong with me, or what's wrong with them. I think that's a plan. Okay, and so a lot of times when I'm going through this, the things that are not even close are I wouldn't do and people who treat you like you are one of many, like I look at my and I have a large following, but I don't say like oh, like McQueen, everything I have, you know, six figures of followers across all my platforms. I don't think I have you know, followers. I think I have 100,000 people and souls that are following me. So if they don't treat you like you're an individual, they're likely not have the same mindset that you have. So you kind of have to take away that idea that somebody is that they are going to be worthy of you or something's wrong with you. So if we take away that thing, I just want you to think like, these are opportunities that are coming into me. And they may or may not come to fruition, which is why worthiness is so important and why mindset becomes a big one. So that's the first thing is backup strategy. Okay. Second is people, one of the things that's challenging is we tend to, like, we put all our eggs in a couple of baskets. And so we always want to have like, one of the traits of a high caliber candidacy is having multiple options. So we never have all our eggs like, like this one thing, if it doesn't work out, suddenly, something like, all my plans have gone to crap. And now I'm a horrible human, Abby  50:34I have learned the hard way. Lindsay  50:38So this, sadly, like I had one client, she's like, I was just I knew this was the job for me. And everything like I knew it was and then that job, so she got to the second level or second, or second place, and then get the job. And she's I was like, so what happened with all this is what we're gonna do in a few weeks here. What happened with this, they're like, Oh, I stopped doing that, because this seemed like it was a thing. So we never stop, we never stop, I'm going to show you how to focus on what you do. By the way, do what I teach here is not about doing everything I say, for eight hours a day, two hours a day, Monday through Friday, in the course of nine weeks, I can get you those results, okay, we're talking about the freedom principle we're gonna do less is more. So in that every person that you're reaching out to connect with is going to be or that connects with you is going to be worthy of your time. And I say that because there are a lot of recruiters always have options. Yeah, Keith says, I probably see 20 message or respond to that I never hear from him again. Okay, so we are going to talk about this inside. So one, first off, go sign up for boot camp, because we're gonna change how like your optimization on your profile is one of the challenges that you're having. Second, you have to realize that there's people who are doing crap out there, and they're doing like they're sending out garbage and they're getting garbage back. I have been guilty of this, I'll tell you that recruiters get inundated. So we have to become the candidate of choice, which is what I'm going to show you through this process. So it means optimizing your profile, optimizing our story, and having really value out of connection conversations, I'm gonna teach you how to do this. In fact, you might have started some of this work already Abby, the value proposition is going to be the key here, it's going to be the secret sauce. It's also the hardest thing that you will ever do. And I had a Chief Branding Officer at a very major company who almost cried, and it was a guy while doing this with me. And if he couldn't get it together, I don't expect anybody to and I don't cry anymore. So I don't think actually, it's just I tapped on, like, I need you to show me that you're worthy of this. And people don't know how to deliver that. And so that's what I'm teaching you about the business of meeting. So once you to know one takeaway that there that anybody has any decision on yourself worth except how you choose, every event is neutral, it's either working for you. So if they don't respond to you then say that opportunity wasn't for me, okay? Or and I also want you to think that connections, especially the ones who are really heartfelt recruiters will want to make a connection, they may take a little bit of time, but when we want to get results, and we are showing up on our calendar versus theirs, we are overwhelmed as recruiters and so I also am a recruiter advocate. I believe the program that we've worked, like the system that HR is operating in, is not sustainable. And so recruiters, the ones who we typically like we believe in the human, we've somehow forgot about the human inside of businesses, but we believe in the human. That's why we got into it. But we are overwhelmed. Let me just ask you, Abby, how many do you think how many applicants do you think I worked with on a monthly basis? When I was working? Abby  53:17I got 1000s, I'm sure.  Lindsay  53:18Yeah. So far. It's been three and 6000. And I was hiring four people a month.  Abby  53:23I don't think that. Yeah, I don't I I, I mean, you've read what I wrote, like, I know that the recruiters aren't the problem. Hiring managers are not the problem, HR. People are not the problem, though, right? It's the system that they have to upgrade with the program. Lindsay  53:40Exactly, but we don't we don't have HR is not seen as a revenue generating department. So it's understaffed, and people don't place a lot of value in it, because they just don't see it. And so we've always undermined the value that has, so that makes it really hard. And so we have a really overworked system. So we need to get Oh, Vicki got a new job last week. That's amazing. I didn't really she's not sometimes not with me. So this is where I get really excited. In three years, I have people who which you should be doing, they should be about this time changing jobs. Again, we're seeing massive change. So what is don't put a lot of weight in this and know that intentional hyper targeting will be the secret of what we're going to do, we're going to find the right people which combines both influence and authority to identify our and reveal the hidden job market and I'm going to talk about this and some people and some people I really respect will say that's not true. I'm gonna say, I have I think I posted a job a long time ago with my business but I have never ever hired somebody from a job advertisement in my business and I have hired a lot of people like 50 so I'm just know that the for the right companies like I have created jobs for people we can do that. That's what I'm actually teaching you to do is how to have somebody see your value so highly, that they will create an opportunity for you. That's the end goal. So when I say like I can teach you how to land a six figure job without ever having to apply. I'm going to show you how to do that. Okay, so hang on, don't worry about the house so much right now. Exactly how you get access to the frontline, you're going to share with everybody your story so hard to sometimes get caught in that. So the big part is just No, there's nothing wrong with you the system is broken, you already know this, but for everybody else listening, and that don't put a lot of the weight in that my worthiness is depend on whether or not somebody responds to this.  Abby  55:17Yeah, 100% I know, we're kind of near the end here. But like just a couple things that came to mind. Like, what Lindsay said, it's it. It's interesting to me that the job punch for me starts with my own mindset and what I think of myself, internally, it's not where I expected to start, but certainly work. Um, so just a couple things like, you know, mentioning, taking advice from other people, be careful of that, because one thing that I realized, and I'm gonna post on resonate with any of you guys, but um, I take advice from people that I respect, but that doesn't necessarily mean that I want their life. And if I'm taking advice from people whose life is not the life that I want, then guess what I'm going to end up with their life, and it's not the life that I want.  Lindsay  56:03that is the most powerful statement there. So I'm going to tell you, I had a conversation and I love my m

Genesis 25:19-28I kill some of these names:(...Waiting on God's timing.

 Episode 37: Dear Hiring Manager (Live Coaching - Your Deep Dive into the Intentional Career Design Pathway) Lindsay  00:00I'm Lindsay Mustain, and this is the career design podcast made for driven ambitious square pegs and round holes type professionals who see things differently and challenge the status quo. We obliterate obstacles and unlock hidden pathways to overcome and succeed where others have not stagnation feels like death. And we are unwilling to compromise our integrity and settle for being average in any way. We are the backbone of any successful business, and those who overlook our potential are doomed to a slow demise. We do work that truly matters aligns with our purpose, and in turn, we make our lasting mark on the world. We are the dreamers, doers, legends, and visionaries who are called to make our most meaningful contribution and love what we do.  Lindsay  00:42I am so thrilled to have you here today, Abby, and I want to I just want to go back to a moment when I have not a lot of things come across my feet because I have a large network. And I saw a bunch of people that are in my community who absolutely believe in human beings comment on your story. And so I want to go today, we're going to talk a little bit about what's happened in your journey. And we're actually going to do some work today to triage some of the challenges that you've had and help you get past some of the barriers that you've experienced. So can you start by just introducing yourself to me and we will, we'll go from there, and helping you kind of move the dial when it comes to your job search? Abby  01:29Yeah, but I'll give you a quick little intro. So as Lindsay mentioned, my name is Abby Mueller and fun fact, my middle name is Lindsay and spelled the same way as yours, so we've got that in common too. Yeah, and just wanted to first start and just say thank you for, for doing this with me, I think this is incredible. And the more I listened to your podcast, the more I really resonate with what you're trying to do. And I think that this is gonna be really powerful. And I'm just really excited to be here and part of this journey. So yeah, just a quick little video on me. I am a newly certified UX UI designer, and subsequently 2021 career switcher, I come from an extensive background in corporate beauty retail. I live in Southern California with my husband. And you know, when I'm not designing and solving problems, solving problems with excellent design solutions. I love to paddleboard and bake and love to try new things, which is why we're here. That's a little about me. Lindsay  02:34Beautiful. So you, you wrote this really powerful post on LinkedIn. And you told me a little bit about it. So I want to kind of go back to that moment. You had kind of a forced career change, correct? Abby  02:46Yes. Yeah. So my, my educational background is in psychology, which will come into play. But like many who do something completely different. I spent the last 16 years working for a fortune 500 company, advancing my career in beauty retail, which was excellent. And I held many positions with the company and a lot of different departments, but most recently was managing the corporate facilities for the for the business, which is in Chicagoland. And I've always tried to make really smart and strategic moves as I advanced my career throughout my tenure with them and so when my husband took a position in Oceanside, California, in January of 2020, you know, I went to my leadership, and was really fortunate to have amazing leaders who supported my career growth. And, you know, we talked about like, where do we go from here, what's next for me, and we came up with this plan to transition me from a position that was at our home office to a field leadership role in Southern California. So great, next move lined up, let's go. And then of course, as we all know, the pandemic hit two months later, full force, and that shut down all of our stores and our corporate office. And I took a leap of faith. And I moved to California anyway, because that was the plan and that's where we were going. And that's what what I wanted to do. So I moved out to California, and was really fortunate to be able to manage the facilities and manage my team remotely for 10 months, thanks to some excellent support from our leadership and from the company. But I knew that wasn't to last and so I began to look into some other options, because our stores just weren't opening as quickly as we thought they might. So I knew that there there had to be something else out there, which is how I got introduced to UX design, which for those of you who don't know, it's a discipline where you approach things from like a problem solution based approach and you place users are people at the center and you're designing a solution around a person to solve a problem or meet a need for them. It's very cool, and I'm really excited to be in it now. So I went online and I was like, Okay, well, how can I become a designer, and found these boot camps. So that's where I discovered Design Lab. It was a course that I could do at my own pace, you know, in my own time and complete in six months or less, and certify myself to be a designer. So that's what I did. I was working full time, and I needed something that worked around my schedule. So I signed up, I took my first class, and then my company went through a reorganization and my position was eliminated. Day one. So as crushing as that was, and it was like, it was like going through a breakup, honestly, I had been, you know, in this relationship with this business for 16 years. And it was tough, but, but it was also like kind of a relief in a way for me, because I knew that, you know, I was going in a different direction. And it really just opened the door for me to lean into that and you know, really power through this coursework, which I did. And I graduated in June of this year from design labs. So now I can do some UX work and solve some really big problems, which is super exciting to me. And yeah, so I'm just looking for a place to plug in and do some meaningful work with people who are passionate about what they do. Let's go okay,  Lindsay  06:13I love that. So huge, powerful reason up-leveling yourself. I love how you look at your opportunity to make a difference now and what you're doing next, and really thinking about how do I make my best contribution. So these are all incredibly powerful, and you've done the right things, but how is that going actually in the job search? Abby  06:33That's so great. So that's part of the reason I made that posted that article was, you know, I, as part of my design lab journey, they set you up with a career coach. And she's been amazing. But I haven't had to look for a job for 16 years, because I've been with the same company. So this is all very, like, brand new to me again. So yeah, I've been doing all the traditional things, I guess, like on LinkedIn, and I'm on Glassdoor, and indeed, and I'm searching for jobs that are remote or in my local area that I can do. And I'm qualified for that sound interesting. And I'm creating all of this custom content for each of them write custom resumes, custom cover letters, custom pages in my portfolio, I'm following up with emails to a lot of these organizations afterwards, with varying degrees of success there, sometimes the email doesn't even really exist anymore. So that'll come back. And it's just been really frustrating, because I feel like I'm pouring out everything. networking events, you know, LinkedIn, like I said, you know, putting my work up on dribble, which is a site where designers showcase some of their UI work, and not getting a whole lot of feedback, and in many cases, nothing at all. And that's where what sparked me writing that piece was I was asked to reflect on my journey so far and I was just at this like my wit's end. And I was like, all right, well, I'm gonna tell you how I feel about this. And I'm gonna be really honest, it's not been great. I was fortunate to have Adam Karpiak comment on my LinkedIn, when I shared that article, and he asked everyone in his network to read it, which Thank you, Adam, if you're watching, because it really allowed. It's just insane, make you connections with so many people that I would never have otherwise been able to connect with. And to just find out that this is a chord that a lot of people are resonating with. And yeah, so this is, this is what brought us together as well. So hopefully, we're going to continue furthering this journey, and we'll see where it goes. And maybe we'll, you know, be able to solve this problem together as well. Lindsay  08:42Yes. So you are talking about some of my biggest pain points and why I do the work that I do. And so I'm listening to your story pretty much breaks my heart, in listening to out so I wanted to talk to you today was that one just to tell job seekers, they're not alone. This is this is it. So I'll just give a little background for anybody who's listening or tuning in here. Um, you know, funny, you talked about Adam, he's one of the most heart centered people that I actually know. And if you go look at one of the recommendations on my list, he actually started posting content after he saw what I was doing, which is, like probably the most amazing endorsement that I could get, because he's just a really remarkable human being. So I've been in the talent acquisition space for more than 20 years. It's hard to say that these days, 20 years now I started when I was five, I survived. It's probably it's kind of a little bit like the Hunger Games as job searching. And I'm going to highlight some things that people are actually talking about here. As you're as you're sharing these things, because what you're talking about, it's just an epidemic of what people are experiencing. So I'm going to tell you just my background is 20 years. Most recently, I was at Amazon before I started my company four years ago, and there's a lot of people out there now who are seeing these same pain points. When I was at Amazon, I had the opportunity to go into a role where I recruited for the most elusive talent on the planet. They actually designed this job for me after sharing on this platform, the hacks of how to beat the the hiring process, because this was just so powerful and I wanted to help people because I've watched it, I hired over 10,000 people by the time I ended at Amazon, 10,343 people, and I would go out and I would hire these people are like the most elusive talent clan. So there's three people that do this job, Lindsay, go find them and get them to come work for us. So this is what we call the purple squirrel. Okay, so if you've ever heard that terminology, it's kind of it's kind of a joke, basically trying to find a unicorn. And what I did is I how these people show up, and how they get found and how they go through this process is very different than people who traditionally go through the process. So I just want you to know that the rulebook that you've been given, is broken. And this is why you were experiencing the pain. Does that resonate with you? Does that make sense? So we, and I'm going to compare the two between like a commodity space and an asset space. So the best example of what I'm talking about these different marketplaces is, um, let's see here, yeah, I'm surprised anyone can get hired today. Yeah. Okay. And we're gonna, we're gonna dive deep into this. And if you guys, if this is resonating with you guys, please tell me in the chat, that it's helped. Like, it's helping you because I want to give you some tools here. And at the very end, I'm actually going to ask you if you feel like we should continue with Abby's journey, which I hope you will, because she's just pretty amazing. Yeah. Let's, let's keep this journey going. So we can help her progress, where she's going from being stuck. So this reverse engineering of this process meant like, how do these people compete and the different ways that you're playing an asset marketplace versus a commodity, so commodity, the best way to describe this is like, when you Thanksgiving time, you know, we're all making pie, pretty much. I'm just gonna paint with some very white brushes here. So one of the things you need is an ingredient for pie is granulated sugar. Okay, so white granulated sugar. So Abby, when you go to the store, and you buy white granulated sugar, what do you buy?  Abby  12:11What's available?  Lindsay  12:13Usually what I say whatever is cheapest. Yeah, yeah, whatever. Like, it already goes, like I am going, I don't even know what the label Oh, like the the brand is like pink label, right? Whatever it is, that piece and why nobody usually buys it, buy whatever's on sale, right, because it's like everything else. So that is the commodity It's a race to the bottom. And that's how most jobseekers are positioning themselves is just one of many. And they are hoping that they get to pick me right? And so we compete and we we decrease our worth, and we don't we just try to fit into the mold that everyone wants us to. Okay. So that's a true of a commodity. Now, let's say I am and for me like I like stevia, that's my my sugar of choice because it doesn't have a glycemic impact. And sugar in general makes me a little more crazy than I normally am and also, when you go buy stevia, I know in particular, I would have I sweetleaf stevia. How much do you think I paid for at?  Abby  13:09At least two or three times as much as regular sugar? Lindsay  13:12Yes. And I pick it out and I very specifically choose it. And that is an asset. So these are the difference between that. So does that make sense to you about why sometimes that we are competing in a space that's incredibly convoluted, and it's a red ocean and essence of it's bloody with competition? Okay, so right now we have the ones you say in your article 7% unemployment, 7% unemployment. I'm also going to tell you right now and a break some beliefs, this is the best time I've ever seen a job search for real. And so some of it, I know, I'm going to tell you some very controversial things, great candidate of choice. So that's what I'm going to teach you actually through this process here is how to become the candidate of choice. So we were first the the big part is that the structure of job searching is broken. I'll give you an example. When I was at a really large company, I had a team and we had all of the applications that had never been touched. Okay, so on average, we spend about 30 minutes submitting a job application, maybe more, maybe more, especially if you've spent time actually customizing a cover letter and a resume. And there were on my team was like 15 people, yes. How many applications we had never bothered to respond to? Seven? Yeah, 7 million, 7 million people waiting for a response. And so there's a lot of stories back here. And I won't go through all of my stories, because there's a million I have. But that was heartbreaking for me. And when I realized some of my deeper stories around job searching was that I really cared about the individual human being like I really cared like one of the reasons why I got the job at Amazon and I was this matchmaker in essence for talent, was because I really cared about the individual person and finding the right home for them and what they brought to the table and how do we actually build jobs around people versus trying to put people in to what I call job description pages. You're not just a black and white box list of job descriptions and a lot of us have been trying to fit into that box. Does that resonate with you?  Abby  15:10Oh, yeah, absolutely.  Lindsay  15:11that's okay. Yeah. Abby  15:12So it's hard to stand out when that well, a there is no standard. Right. And but we are expected to follow one. But you know, you say it so well, um, you know, square peg round hole. I'm not one of those. Right. I'm a square peg in a round hole. Like, I don't want.. Lindsay  15:29Yes. Okay. So this is and this is why we call like the the trade of the high performers. If you haven't listened, my podcast is the career design podcast. Please go give it a listen. Because it is just, if you listen, I think you said like the introduction. You're like, yes, this is me and I'm like, Yeah, the people who are different than the norm, that's who I work with that's how I specialized. And if you if you want to play the job, search apply game. Like, I'm not for you. I'm just not I'm teaching you I want to create a future for you. That's way more powerful. Um, all right here. Yeah. So, so much text here that like might look like Wilson. 250 applications. Okay, so I'm also gonna start applying before the pandemic, the average number of applications for a single job was 250. So the likelihood of you getting a job offer from that was .4%, I don't have the most recent numbers. But when we we increased the unemployment rate by double or triple in some cases, we can just probably expect that is a lot larger, because I don't I usually want to talk about proof of concept. I don't know the exact number. So .4% please give me something and they're like, okay, here's a medication, and it works point .4% of the time. How long do you think you're going to take better? Do you think you'll find a different way? Lots of people do have 250 applications before they have to find something different. So when I go through this, I actually left Amazon. When I hit a moment, I have three people for this one job, I was looking in Singapore and three people to do this job. And in this job, there was one woman and two men. And I, I got this note, I'll tell you, it broke my heart. I got this note from the woman and she said you like found me out. And I know you believe in candidate experience. If you look back, like 10 years ago, I talked about how important candidate experiences. Finally, just now we're starting to act like people matter. And she said I would never work for your company. And I just want you to know, like how this happened. And it broke my heart like, like to the point where I just started crying. Like I just started crying because I watched this and I think we are going to continue it feels like a lot of people are really resonating with you right now. So I watched this happen in my own life, and I'll talk about that another time. But I just cried, and then I got really, really effing angry, okay, I'm not really supposed to swear on LinkedIn live, but I'm the Antichrist, versus I don't do anything traditionally. And that's what makes me different, and why I am the very best in the world at creating intentional career design. So how do we create these, like $100,000 increases, what I teach is so powerful, and that's what I want to share with you here. So I escalated and the next thing I did is I wrote my resignation, notice, because I was like, This is my limit, I can no longer do this anymore. I cannot deny that these are human beings worthy of being treated like an individual person, and not just a number. And when I did that, I wrote a resignation has zero plan of what the heck I was going to do. Okay, so some of you will resonate with that, because you reached a point where you literally are selling your soul for your paycheck. And that's what I was doing, I was selling my soul for a paycheck. So now what I do is I help people create an intentional career design, like we can actually create the job you were meant to. Alright. And that means and Abby has done this, and I'm not going to fault you because I went to school at night for 10 years to get my degree to be qualified to do the job I already had, how much do you think I got a pay increase for that?  Abby  18:53Probably nothing at all,  Lindsay  18:55Nada, okay. But I felt like I needed it. And so like a lot of times we choose education, and this is this is the programming of our world that says you have to go to school in order to be qualified, like really peer to peer education is the most powerful model that exists right now, we don't need to do that you can do a program that's really short and qualified. So that's a much better option than going back and like your MBA in nine weeks, folks, I can get you two times of what the cost of your MBA is and salary increase without going. That's how powerful that's the journey I want to walk you through here. Okay, so these are some of the things when we go through and I'm gonna say it's not the answer is not the resume. The answer is not your resume. In fact, the people that I work with here, they don't have to apply for jobs. And I know that sounds crazy, but do you think the people that I was looking for like, were they actually applying to those jobs? They weren't they became the candidate of choice. And so that's what I talked about the purple squirrels candidate choice, so the highest power position, so I'm going to walk you through this piece. Yes. And he says, I don't want to apply for 600 applications. Abby  19:55Just everyone in the comments, thank you. Like please keep commenting because it's I mean, I know that this is like frustrating, and we're struggling all together. But this is just it's really encouraging to me to hear from everybody else as well. So I'm glad. Lindsay  20:08People probably be like, just go get a job. I don't know if you felt like that. They say like it's so easy. Hey, death, divorce, moving, job search. Yeah, when we're talking about a couple of those, so you're going for a superpower, like of a storm of change. But also I know that, I think it was. Who was it that said this? It's been Jenelle said, it's been a blessing in disguise. And so they're in my darkest moments, what I see. So I will read it says, your passion alone gives me hope. I love that. You can do this, this is why we do this 80% of what my business does is totally for free, because I just want to help you move the dial and not everybody can take the chance to invest. But if you follow along with me, I'm going to give you the best resources I possibly have. And that's actually why I asked Abby to be on here because I wanted to say, this is how we do this. This is how we do that. Hey, Brian, it's so great to see you. Okay, highly qualified individual here can't find a job to save my life. Yes. And that's really what it is like, it's just this so I want to talk about the pathway. Okay, so the pathway because I asked you guys recently, like, what do you want to learn from me? Like, I'm gonna tell you everything. I can't I can't tell you exactly everything. Cuz I have a nondisclosure agreement. One last things Amazon said is don't want the door, just don't forget, you have a nondisclosure agreement. But I'm going to tell you just about everything in general about how this process is a 20,000 or not 20,000 1 million applications 10,343 hires as an individual. And then in, in my world now I've helped over 50,000 people across six continents in 121 countries. So what I teach works, it just works. And so I want you to know, but the programming after a move here is that what you're doing right now is not going to work. And you'd be here's the proof. You're here and 66% of people that visit LinkedIn every day are here for job searching. So here's the proof. Okay, so just know and that that may be intimidating, but I'm gonna tell you that you become a you create your own reality here. Okay. All right. It just started my job search in this conversation is helpful as I begin. Thank you so much, Abby, I'm so glad you're here.  Okay, so the pathway inside of this, and this is where a lot of the struggle happens. The first thing is marketability mindset. And so when I talk about marketability mindset, that means you have to see yourself as one worthy of being able to find an opportunity, okay, so a lot of times how many of you can if you can resonate with this, that we we doubt our aptitude in our ability, the lot of times we're dealing with job trauma, okay? Job trauma means we have been displaced, or we've been rejected hundreds or 1000s of times. And so we suddenly internalize that, and we forget about our true worthiness. And so I want you to like, what I really do here is I'm teaching you guys how to tap into your soul's true purpose, and I know I'm gonna get I'm a little woowoo I'm really, really spiritual, like the fact this is what's created the massive abundance in my life is this woowooness. Okay. And so I teach a lot of and I fused that inside of what I do, because it's incredibly powerful, like, why why we get such good results in such short period of time, is when we believe in that so I always talk about being in the business of me inc, you are the CEO, of Abby Inc, okay? Like that is the first thing, okay, so everything that we go from here, we can look at it from that perspective, we're always going to do what's in the business, the best business, best business decision for this business. So that's market building mindset. And in order to do that, we have to believe that we are worthy help brands do the work. Lindsay and her do with Lindsay and her team recommend I know seriously, if you just do it, trust the process. Somebody was throwing stones at me here and like, just trust the process. Like, you don't need to reinvent the wheel. You've already done that. Let me help you. Okay, so thanks so much for being here. Abby  23:34Looks like from where I'm sitting, and I think a lot of the rest of us do, like we've tried everything else. We're throwing everything at the wall and seeing what sticks. So like, what I'm what, honestly, could it hurt, like, we have to try something else, right? This isn't working. Lindsay  23:45And I have that too. Like, I'm just gonna say like, I will go through a lot of other stories here with you. But I was unemployed to as a recruiter in the Great Recession, and I was doing everything that they tell you to Okay, I started in the unemployment office and listened to somebody teach me the same thing that I was doing, and it wasn't working. And that's how I came up with this. It wasn't because, like, like I worked it because a lot of people out there and I think that really good intentions, but they have zero clue what they're doing. As far as career coaches. I'm like, I can teach you how to write a better resume. What if I told you your resume isn't the answer? Your application isn't the answer your cover letter, like you might as well just waste time like write some poetry, do something else with that time, because anything besides the cover letter, your cover letter doesn't really help you. Okay, so there are a lot of things where like, this is it? Yeah, I don't know how many times I spent, I mean, 40 hours on average is what I see somebody who's written the resume before they come see me. Like, what if I told you in 40 hours of time we can get you 2.1 job offers? Like, that's what I'm trying to teach people. Okay, so, first thing marketing, mindset, and worthiness. So we're going to talk about some of these things going forward here. But this is the first thing so really believing that I'm worthy of creating this opportunity, and that I have to check a lot of baggage. So a lot of emotional trauma that we bring to the table here is what causes us to limit ourselves. And so we think that we're something wrong with us. There's nothing wrong with you. Okay? And even if you feel a little broken, even if you feel a little like, God, who am I to do this? Like, can I create this? I want you to know what can be done and how I know. I mean, there's 50,000 people, I can tell you how. Okay, so just just like Brian says, do the work to work here. Okay. So that's the first thing. Now the next thing here is clarity. And this for you, Abby, is what I see is one of the struggles for you, because I had this thing. And now I have this different identity shift, right? So I'm trying to evolve into this next level of who I am. So when people are like, I'm trying to make a pivot, and I'm struggling with this, or, and I'm going to say like this, I'm going to say this. I'm doing it with love. Just know like, right here, if you look around, you can't really see, but its value is love. That's fine. Bring it on. I love it. Yeah. Yeah, it's always my highest value is love. And I know you accept this. But a lot of times we identify as our story is, this is why I'm not having success. And what if I told you that the story of what went wrong is actually your story of success? This is hard for people. And so they're like, and they'll say, like I am, I am over 40, or I have been unemployed, or I have a disability. And these things, I'm gonna say they're not invalid. What I'm saying is that what if those things are actually your superpowers? It's true. Okay, so that's the first thing. And that's where people like, really, you don't like yeah, you just have you see it, and you're so close to it, you're like, this is why I'm broken. And I'm like, I don't know what the phrase is. But there's, when you're in Japan, they'll fill like broken bowls with gold, and it becomes a more beautiful product. Because at the end, that's what you are. So what I'm looking for that is that first thing. So this is a little bit of mindset to. And then the next thing here is that we have to understand everything about your experience today, how it transfers into what you want to do. And this is the up level, and it doesn't matter if you actually went to school, or you're you've been, you got out of the workforce, you're coming back, you've been injured, you're re entering the workforce after like, there's so many stories of what people come to me at this point. But we need to know is that your zone of genius is your most powerful thing here. So there is it's not going to be your UI UX answer like it's not going to be that it's going to be that combined with your experience and what you were excellent at not even excellent. What's your genius at? That is so powerful. Okay, yes, we were saying I love that could not agree more. Okay. Yes. And so, some of the things you guys know, in your core, this is like reality, but it's hard. Sometimes you need somebody to just enlighten you a little bit. So clarity is the most important thing. So you have superpowers and superpowers is going to be 1% of what you're good at. Let me give you an example. I am terrible at email. So there's like zone of a competency. There's competency, there's excellence, and there's genius. Okay, my genius is how to land a job without applying and how do I create an environment that creates the Most High Caliber talent to create profitability in organizations? Those are my two superpowers, okay, my superpower is not checking my email. So if you expect that not going to happen, if you ever seen the quote, I think it was our mindset. He said, if you could, if everybody was judged, if you judge a fish, by its genius, by its ability to climb a tree, it would go through his whole life thinking it's stupid, okay. So what you're trying to do is you don't fit into these molds. And I want you to know, you need to break that mold, stop believing that you have to fit into a mold. So that's the other thing. So we want to create that. And then what you need to do is create a value proposition, this is really hard. So a value proposition for yourself is about who I am, and what I have to offer this future organization so that I see myself as no longer no longer about that I am trading time for money. But instead, I am a value, I'm getting value for my trade my value for an investment, which is no longer tied to time. And it's tied to what is my worthiness of what I can do. Because I know there are two jobs inside of a company, I either save money or I make money. Those are the two options. I know that's hard for people to believe you're like oh, and HR. And I'm like, Yeah, I cost people money. Like Really? I do. But what do I do if I hire for sales teams, I'm probably making them money or I am limited. If I'm in the you know, employee relations space, I might be saving money because I'm risk mitigation from lawsuits. So our idea here is how do we turn ourselves into the most marketable thing possible and true clarity. So a lot times when we are stuck in this place, we are stuck because we have 360 degrees of opportunities, and that is paralyzing. So it probably was hard for you think what do I do now? Right? And I'm glad you did something you're really passionate about. But we need to triangulate where we're going next. So that's what we call like the super heart trifecta is your three points of expertise and in the zone here is your your zone of genius and that zone of genius. It's probably gonna feel really wonky in the very beginning, but this is how we build your brand is your authority around this and it's going to be the things you've already done and accomplished combined with your newest skill set. That's actually going to be the amplifier for your success here. Okay. I'm finding so hard okay. Yeah. Is it Shabbat? I think that's that's a really That's the first time I've ever seen this spelled where I'm like, Oh, I get it. I think so if that I'm almost a diversity program on my own. I know the people I work with NIF tend to be completely marginalized. So just know that Ramin needs more coffee. Okay. So that's after we understand we are marketable and what the heck we are actually marketing. Then we can do our rest All right, do you think you might have put the wrap the resume before we got to that point for you? Abby  30:06Uh, I think I have a little bit of both. But I don't think that that value prop is in my resume as much as it is on my portfolio, which someone may or may not ever get to my resume doesn't get there. So, Lindsay  30:17yes. So your resume? Again, more, there's so many stories here. So I just, I'm going to tell you all my secrets, do you mind guys, if you want to know all my secrets, people are saying you're rooting for you. So they require rooting for you. We are in it together. So the resume like, let me just be really clear, I has one job, I'm gonna say and I hope I don't get banned, is to prove your fucking badass. Okay? to yourself, not to me, because I have the chance of it actually being seen by a human being less than 25% 25% or less. And for six seconds. So how many of you feel like a piece of paper in six seconds, actually gonna say, Oh, this is gonna get me in a job. It's probably not it has the can. But really, the whole point is the marketing material for Abby Inc. And if that marketing material, he says I am asked, then I know that I'm incredibly powerful, right. And I have some so much to contribute. Okay, after we do that. So that's how one clarity is so important. After that, the next thing is going to be the LinkedIn. Okay, so LinkedIn here, and like when you say looking for new opportunities, it's actually a lower power position. So there's some things in here we're going to talk about how to optimize a little bit inside of this, but your, your LinkedIn profile, like there's a reason why I haven't looked for a job since 2007. And that that is because of my LinkedIn profile. So if you do this, right, the people just contact you about opportunities, and you might get that already. And I'm not saying they're always the right opportunities, but really the dream opportunities where we can get your, your dream ever has to come to you. And it's by really declaring your superpowers and your zone of genius and what you offer as a value, and aligning what you do as far as scope and quality, scope and impact in particular to that profile. That's what we do inside of the resume. Okay, so that's, that's the secret here. And most people were like, you know, I was looking at Forbes, like, I think it was 2020. Like, well, how to write a resume this year. And I was like, it was one page. It was super wrong. Like I when people like that the answer on your resume is just no, it's not going to get you the job. Like rarely is this like people like oh my god, I found this piece of paper, and now I need to hire this person. That's that's not exactly how it works. Okay. However, it is a tool that you need. So you got to have it and then your LinkedIn and your LinkedIn is the highest embodiment of who you are as a human being. Okay, so after you do this, and why the heck, I got a best selling book without actually trying to sell it when I tried to give it away. I had a best selling book. That's amazing. Yeah, I was I wasn't very happy about that. I asked for permission to do it. And they didn't allow me and I went ahead and did it. Anyhow, you guys see that I'm a rebel in general. So I'm like, against everything that's traditional, because it just doesn't work. Okay, so your, your brand, which have you already done a really good job, people are showing up and like, like rooting for you real people here listening, like you're amazing. Okay, that is your brand, you're standing in your power. And you are showcasing some of the deepest wounds of what people experience inside of here. And I just want to congratulate you for being brave. This vulnerability, this authenticity is actually a superpower for you. Okay? So what I'm always looking for inside of your brand is, do I show up in alignment with my values? Okay. So a lot of times people come to me and they have been there marginalized, in general, they come to me like, and they're just, they end up in one of the protected classes, and they don't identify like, if they don't fit into what's the most easy way. And I'm just gonna paint with a wide brush here. You know why guys under 40, in general, have a lot easier. Like that's what a bunch of white guys said, on the boards of almost all corporate America, like there's 3% of all CEOs are black. Like there's the major, we have an opportunity for diversity and inclusion. We see that happening right now. But in reality, it's not really showing up. So how do you show up in your highest truth and get embraced for who you are, it's by being actually who you are at your highest level, it's stop trying to fit yourself into a box, stop denying the things that you're passionate about, stop denying the things like when you talk about what actual pain was, you saw what people responded to you as? So those things are real true amplifiers for you. So I want you to like why, why I got a book why, you know why you got you know, this mass of views. Why am I Why are you here right now, is your brand. Abby  34:23It's interesting that you say that though, because I wrote that. And you're right. It was like, distinctly different than anything that I had put out there before. And it was very just raw and like, real. And I honestly didn't publish it at first because I was like, Oh, can I really put myself out there like this right now? I'm in the job search, you know, I'm hunting and I'm like, does this present me in a bad light and so I didn't put it out there right away and my mentor got back to me and my husband and both of them were like, you need people need to read this. You have to put that out there and I was like, Okay, here we go. So Yeah, I that I couldn't have expected the response that I got. But like, that was very validating. So thank you everybody for reading and commenting and sharing her. Amazing. Lindsay  35:13Most people won't do this. So this this is one of the secrets here and like why people end up you know, having, you know, massive visibility in their candidacy. It's not actually like, she's she said to me before this, she was like, I don't want to be complaining. I don't think anybody took it as complaining. It was a call to do better. was a call to do better. Ooh, I'm gonna put Deborah said, instead of thinking outside the box, say yourself, what if there is no box? Oh, that is so powerful. Deborah. Oh, my gosh, okay. Yes. All right. Now, I want you to take anything you thought you believed about this process and throw it away, cuz I'm gonna destroy all of that. Let's do something better. Yeah, yeah. And that is the other trees that we're going to make is we're going to make the system better. And there is a better way. And I'll talk about that and other other things. But right now we're going to talk about how do we get ahead as the individual advocating for yourself because right now a company is not going to advocate for you. And vulnerability is a superpower. I love that. Okay. So after we get through extra brand now, so how do we increase the power position we have in this is by having a brand, right? So have he has the ear of a lot of people, right? Now she has a lot of visibility. This is something she should leverage. All right. And this creates a higher caliber candidacy in our brand, because she's able to cultivate lots of people right now who are interested in her. So if we have multitude of options, we increase our power position. That's what we want when we walk into networking. So I'm gonna tell you what most networking looks like is like, hey, Lindsay, look at my profile. Here's my resume. Can you find me a job? Alright, I'm gonna tell you here. I love you all. It is not my job to find you a job. Okay, it is not the recruiters job to find you a job. That is your job. Okay, you need to find the best way to do it. And seriously, it is not is not easy. Okay, if you want to see her go through this with me, because I think we're gonna do it. I feel already inclined to do it. But I need your guys's proof that we want to do this. Okay. All right. So networking, we I just want you to know, if you make up anything that has a question mark, in your networking, try to connection requests, you have failed before you've even started. All right. So nobody owes you anything. This is not a job search. Soup Kitchen. Nobody owes you anything. So how do we do this? We create a high caliber candidacy, we create a lot of power. Ooh, I want more. I want more. I want more. Okay, so we're good. Okay. All right. This is powerful. Okay. So, um, we need to change how we think about networking. And it is not I showed up because I want something it showed up because I am here to build a relationship. So I have a relationship with Abby, like, and when she sees something in that I'm connected to you, I will go and advocate for her. Okay. And look, how long have I known Abby? I'm only for a week. Right? Yeah. You know, it goes both ways. Like I said, I really believe in what you're doing. I think this is incredibly powerful. And I want to be part of that. Yeah. So that's, that's what I like, what I have goosebumps, because like, that's why I do this is because I care about people like I care about people. So what I do mostly is for free, I'm gonna give you guys some resources at the end here to start changing your job search actually today. But um, and then what we do to keep lights on and take care of our families is we monetize people who want the fastest results and then inside of our containers, but I'm going to teach you everything I know, right? I'm just gonna show everything I know. So after we do the networking piece, then Okay, so we've chosen who we are, we believe we're marketable, we show up in our power, we have brand equity, and now we've had authentic true connections. Now we get to the opportunity to interview and I also say at any point of these milestones, when somebody steps into their power, we see people who just graduate like three weeks like that's, I have one gal who just graduated 133% increase in her salary in three weeks. It's pretty freaking powerful. And the reason is, we stopped denying our true sovereign being of who we are truly divinely created to be and walk this planet on. So this is the woowoo side All right, when we do that, and when we declare I am this and this is what I deserve, and this is what I want, we can create those realities. Okay, so everything I do is reverse engineering that and I don't care what you want to do. Let me be really clear here. I don't care what Abby wants to do I care that her soul feels fulfilled when she gets to do what we call a place of career power. I'm passionate about this I feel purpose around it I understand that the pursuit and how to uplevel myself and next it's profitable for both me and the business. It's a win win for everything we call that please career power. So that's what we're gonna work towards getting her on that pathway. Next is the interview okay? So how these people that are the most elusive tell in the world how they show up in interviews is very different. A lot of times we do validation seeking behaviors, which is I hope to god this person chooses me to God this person chooses me that is the lowest power position in here and you were acting like a commodity when I need you to recognize that you have created millions of dollars of value for business, okay, so somebody is not lucky to have you, or they are not you're not lucky to get chosen. They are lucky to have you as an employee and that is a very different so we talk about mindset, these are some of the things I go through. Okay, mindset is so important here, when I recognize that I have true value that I can actually ask somebody to demand that for me and create opportunities for me, okay? This is where people when they come to me, I'm like, they're like, Oh, yeah, I had an interview. And I'm like, that wasn't the right job. But they created a whole nother job for me, or I just had a networking conversation. Yeah. So this is when I say you don't have to apply. And some people are like, there's not an unbelievable job market there is there is like, when I had somebody come in to Amazon, you better believe that they didn't show up at the level I was looking for. And they were amazing. I would go and create a job for them, right, but upload or download that job, you do not need to fix in a box, okay? You not need to fix yourself into a box, you need to be exactly you authentically you. And that is the most powerful thing, okay, when we stand in our power. So how do you do this? There are three ways the high performance interviewing process optimizes across first, your elevator pitch is the most powerful thing. It's 90 seconds, there's a free three part framework. I'll go into that just a second. Next is how we respond to interview questions and your how you're going to interview questions is not like, we want to disrupt this process that we don't get interrogations, but when when they happen, we want to show up where they go, wow. And there's a way to do that. And so and the last thing is there's opportunity and ask questions, I'm going to tell you right here at the time, where you ask questions is not about you getting your information found out is about reselling your candidacy and positioning yourself as the candidate of choice. So you walk out of that. Okay, so that is the secret. Then, the next stage is the elevator pitch. So we have to have the elevator pitch. So in these 90 seconds, we're trying to stop people to believe that we're commodity there's something called frame disruption. And this is a psychology technique. And this process I want to walk into the room I'm going to start immediately of Abby is qualified or not, I'm gonna say there's things that are gonna ding her like her having one here is actually a date for her, okay, like, or there's something I had a traumatizing thing with somebody need to Abby, identify the way I'm just using example, like em as an example, for me, Ian's in general can traumatize me because of a bad experience I had. So I have all these unconscious bias I bring into it, we need to disrupt that strategy immediately. And the way we do that is the elevator pitch. And it's three parts. And that's the most powerful thing. So 90 seconds after all of this, I'm trying to get you to deliver 90 seconds of awesomeness to create the reality and create the job of your dreams. That's all. And I know it takes a lot to get there. Okay, it takes a lot to get there. So I want you to know, because we've done this and you're talking about the highest level positioning, have you heard this before? I mean, have you heard this process before? Abby  42:12Not not exactly like this, but it's feeling similar to what I did when I was creating my portfolio and that I can advocate for others and I can build up other people very well that that's something that's a strength for me is really like tuning into to other people and helping them become their best selves. But when it comes to like selling myself, that was such a struggle for me, I was like, I don't even know where to start. I don't know what to say. I just couldn't find the right words. And so yeah, writing my, I guess what you call an elevator pitch for my About Me page on my portfolio was probably one of the longest projects and I feel like it's still not quite right. Like, we're gonna make it. But yeah, it's a it's it's feeling very, very close to home. I've done this recently. So Lindsay  42:56yes. Okay. So do you have understood and tapped into some of these things? And yes, we tend to be amazing at seeing brilliance and others, and diminishing our own aptitude and our ability, like we said, and it's the trauma that's so we come back. So what I teach you is actually Product Marketing for the product. That is Abby, that's what I'm teaching you is how to market this business. Okay, until the person across the table seat and apartment yes pile, you end up on the callback code on the Hot candidate list. So when a job before it's even published, I go to a pool of people, you're on that list, and that that exists inside of like high performance organizations they are not looking for, like, it's kind of like hoping that falls into a trap in your backyard. When we post a job application. It's not a very strategic way to recruit. So we look for people beforehand. That's why applications don't really work. I'm already looking to hire somebody beforehand, okay. Okay. So when we do this, if we become the candidate choice, and we know that this person can provide a solution, I'm going to go deeper into these things, because Abby, for sure, we're going to continue this process, okay. And I can do this, okay, we've got enough people to say amazingness here. So we're going to continue to go together. But the so called power negotiation is a strategy and it's not about it's not about being a jerk, it's not at all about it's about saying the right thing to the right person and standing in your own true power. And there are four, four questions or four words that you need to ask the question, then on average, give somebody $10,000 more just by asking this, but you can't demand a higher amount of salary, unless you believe you're worthy of it and position yourself as the candidate choice if you've applied and you're like, Okay, I hope that they'll give me an increase in salary. They're probably like, you know what, there's 20, more of you. Like, I've got a whole bunch of other options here. Now, you're lucky to work for us. Instead, when they go, we cannot operate this business, like Abby is the most strategic investment we can make with our money right now. And we would be lucky to have her on board. That is the candidate of choice, and that's when we will pay more money. And like we're talking like $10,000 more, that's $833 a month. Like it has nothing to a business. Okay, if it's for people, it seems like a lot. It is not when we make an investment that can create millions and return. Do you believe that you're capable of doing that you're able to create this massive return on your investment and your salary? Yeah, okay. Yes. Okay, so when we do that, then we become the candidate of choice. Okay. So that is the entire path I'm going to walk through again. So the first one is markedly mindset. The next is your resume Oh, sorry, is your career clarity and then is your resume then is your LinkedIn after that it's your personal brand after that is your network. And then from there as your actual interview, and the key part of that interview is the elevator pitch. And last is salary negotiation. When we do this, this is the secret, this is the entire pathway. I'm giving it all to you guys. This is how you do this. This is how you show up as the candidate of choice. Okay. So when you look at that, what would you say? Are some of the big ones and I have my own ideas around it? What are the biggest challenges for you? When you look at that piece? Hmm. Abby  45:45Probably honestly, the first part, I think I'm not getting past step one. So let's start not Lindsay  45:51so rarely, rarely does somebody actually see that they're like, when I can look at I can troubleshoot across the original, like, apply interview offer, okay? So like, wherever you're at, if you're not getting calls back, your Something is wrong. One market only clarity and resume, right. Like, that's the big thing. And really, you have to go deeper, because whatever energy you put out there, like we tend to bring that back to us, we have to have clarity on what we're trying to do. And then we have to have a resume that embodies that. Okay, when I told you the resume doesn't work majority of the time, so it's not the answer, but we can look at it probably because you've had enough of a sample size to say that actually doesn't work. Okay. So I do believe that clarity is going to be a really well one. Always mindset like mindset is the secret here. So we're going to dig deep into that. Next is going to be like, let's get really clear on who you are and what you have to offer the world because it's incredibly powerful. So that's the clarity. And then after that is going to be the resume. Okay, so those are gonna be the big things. Now, how you show up, like when somebody gets to talk to you about you are incredibly likable, you're great congeniality like and really, I want to give you a secret here, guys. Nobody cares about your qualifications, they care about how likable you are. This is why interviews are not a good future indication of performance. All right. And that's not just me saying that, that study after study, but we like to put people through interrogations and these processes where people interview for weeks and months, even in some cases, and we interrogate them, and hope that they can perform. And then we wonder why they're not successful on the job is because they were great in the interview, maybe not so great in the actual embodiment of the work that needs to be done. So just know that same process happens. Okay, so we're going to work on that together. So we're going to continue this. Abby, I'm really, really excited for you guys. To get to watch her journey. How do you feel? Abby  47:28I'm excited, honestly, like, you know, and I told you as well, like, even if I feel like something will come up, that's I have full confidence. Like, I know that this this happened serendipitously, like this is supposed to, this is supposed to happen, when it happened, how it happened. And not even for myself. But I was excited when you said you wanted to go live and provide feedback, which I know maybe kind of difficult for a lot of people but for me, like, I I'm not into spinning my wheels and wasting my time like, so if there's a better way that I need to apply myself then like, let's do that. And everyone gets to come along with me. So all these people that resonated with things that I wrote, are also getting, you know, the How to so I think this is going to be really powerful. And I'm excited for all of us. Lindsay  48:14Yeah, let's help us help as many people as we possibly can here. Okay, so it opened it up for talking to Abby, I realized how much help needs to happen out there. And I'm in the process of rebranding, lots of things. So I don't know, I'm going to open this again. But it's dream job bootcamp. And this is five days, the most core things you need to do to move the dial inside of your job search, and I want you to go dream job hack, dream job. hack.com slash boot camp. One word, okay. So dreamed up hack slash boot camp, it is open, I opened 500 spots, and about 25% of them were taken yesterday. So they went really quickly. And that's just a way for you to move the dial right now. And it's totally free. So if you're not getting a call back, if you're not interviewing at your highest level, if you don't have a resume, that makes sense. If you don't have your LinkedIn, get a lot of these answers answered right now before we go into the next sessions, because this is where you can answer some of those or ask some of those bigger questions. Okay. Here is my my story is much deeper than what it is cuz I just watched millions of people apply, like I looked at over a million resumes by the end of my career, but each of those people are individual human backslash, boot camp, you are my hero, okay? Is that those are individual people. Because what happens is we all have a family and a lot of times we have our whole life trying to work in our job, and we go home to what really matters. But what if you could do work every day where you feel energized, excited and motivated. You got to work that fills your soul. You feel that passion, purpose, pursuit and profitability for yourself, do you think you could live your best life? That is? Exactly how could you like it's simple. It's the most important point for me. So what I do is i'm not just tapping into like how to have a better job. I want you to go to your true purpose here. That's what I'm looking to do. Abby  49:57So I'm so excited. Thank you so much. All right, well Lindsay  50:00thank you so much for being here and showing your your truest self with us and I'm so appreciate you and being so brave and you just let me know what else I can do to help you. Okay, awesome. All right, I'll talk to you later.

Are we the reptilians?!  In this episode, Mandy and I deep dive into holistic medicine, energy, Law of Attraction, Gnosticism, A.I., magic, the multiverse, and more! I hope you enjoy.   Check out Mandy's work at: IG: @theportal_ep    IG: @cosmic.native    Please shoot us a comment, rating, and follow us on social media! Check out our website at www.thejuanonjuanpodcast.com IG: @thejuanonjuanpodcast YT: "The Juan on Juan Podcast" TIKTOK: @thejuanonjuanpodcast Stake your Cardano with us at FIGHT POOL at fightpool.io! Thank you for tuning in! Full transcript: 00:00:13Welcome back to another episode of the 101 podcast. I'm your host one. As always follow me on social media, Instagram. Tik-Tok YouTube at the 101 podcast. And today we have a Mandy with us. Mandy. How you doing today? 00:00:57I'm doing fantastic one. Thanks for having me. So we connected on Instagram and you reached out to me and you said that you wanted to speak about this Matrix. And I know you have a podcast and you also do some what is it that you do with the with oxygen cbd-infused oxygen. 00:01:20Holistic, lab and a Healing Arts Gallery. So what I do is 00:01:26In that I tried to bring the metaphysical, the concept of metaphysics until more physical practical tool way. And one of those is administering, aromatherapy CBD oxygen. And so, a lot of people would say, what does it have to do with metaphysics? And really, it's about. Well, first, the basic one, which is everyone's, you know, muzzled right now and we're we're not breathing correctly. So if this is ever a time to really use some oxygen, it is right now. But really my Approach is about Awakening, The Prana the life force and we do that simply just by breathing, and we don't realize how much were not really breathing until we have that to. I, I give my guests really pretty like cool neon tubes to put in their nose, which they keep for sanitize purposes. And you're feeling that oxygen for the first time running through your nose and your like, oh my gosh. Is this really what? It's like to feel like legit are going through my nose. 00:02:26Breathing all the time, you know, so it's this actually feeling that Prana and incorporating essential oils. And CBD is a corporate meeting. The aspect of the plant medicine and integrating going back into the organic human cuz I'm all about the organic human timeline. So perhaps that's them, you know, that's that's part of my mission on Earth. I consider myself a cosmic agent and I guess I was programs as as bringing unfolding that organic path and we do that by integrating the pure oils in the CBD, the plant medicine and then the prime of the oxygen before we get deeper into it. Can you share your social media with with whoever wants to find your work or connect with you? Absolutely think. If you'd like to follow the portal on Instagram, it's the portal underscore EP or you can go to my personal page, which is 00:03:26Cosmic. Native, I'm mostly on, on the Instagram to Facebook. I'm kind of like, I don't really care. We're going to show that off. So what got you into that? Type of it, cuz I'm in and it seems like everything that the honestly seems like the only thing that 00:03:47I've been talkin about as of lately has been it. You know what I mean? Like the everything that's going on in the world has just been about covid-19 and I took a break for seven eight months because of a family emergency. My dad had a heart attack, right? And it was at the. So I thought that 2020 was wild beginning of 2021 was like, none of this is going to be an even Wilder ride then then 2020. And so I took a break cuz I had to take care of the family business and what not. And then I finally got back into it, but it's, and I'll actually have somebody my DM's right now that we're talking about how 00:04:30How dark everything is right now as far as like, the energy and just the atmosphere and the, the anger that some people have, especially at this time. It's almost like a mass hysteria, this this hypnosis. And I've talked about simulacra where people take symbols and they give value to it for no apparent reason just because you have a symbol of of a cross doesn't mean it's God or just cuz you have a symbol of Christ, doesn't mean it is Christ. And for some people it is the literal meaning of 00:05:07God, whatever it is, right? I am usually symbols and I've been wanting to do mushrooms for a little bit now. And I, I saw Joe Rogan live on Saturday and he started talking about mushrooms and I told my fiance, I'm like, and I grew my own mushrooms for like 3 months. And a first time I did it was, it was like this weird experience because it was like this, this create I was that much closer to it. I took it for, you know, like a spiritual type of thing. I wanted to look Inward. And when I ate some mushrooms for the first time, it was all that work of taking care of them. Every day for three months will looking after them, make it show up there. They were growing correctly and I was like this, this weird. Like spiritual thing for me is I go home. I'm eating like what I've made and not only that but it's I'm in this other dimension now and 00:06:07Long story short, I was a horrible trip for my first, it was horrible. It was at the peak of Corona and it was, by the way. I had an ego to change my life on Tuesday to say that but it really did because it just rewire the way I think about things and just were so caught up in the insignificant bullshit of life. And yes, so it's, it's funny. You say that because I have this, this mix relationship with with the big Pharma cuz my dad also has that messed he's diabetic. And I've seen the corruption of these things that they, they need to keep you sick to keep you coming back. It's that's what people don't understand. That it's a business and there are alternatives, holistic medicine, Reiki, healing up, other things that were not open to why? Because we were indoctrinated from the very beginning to say, look, that's bad. That's not, that's not going to work, right? 00:07:08So I have this again. I have this animosity towards a big Pharma because my dad's MS treatment is $30,000 a month. And if you don't if you don't have, if you don't have insurance. 00:07:22You don't die from it. Guess what? There's no there's no there's no cure. You don't die from it. But you stole D. Just a grade in your body just eats itself and some people just stopped breathing just cuz their muscles and everything comes up and that's that's dark. 00:07:38Yeah, absolutely. And you know what you hit it. You hit the nail on the head when you said you had an ego death with your mushroom. 00:07:43Well, actually, it's with the entire planet is experiencing right now. Is there a ego death? And they're walking through the Dark Shadows, their collectively with this Collective Narrative of covid, and being sick in like the end of days. And then everyone's also having their own individual experience of what that looks like, you know, are they not being authentic to themselves as far as their work, are they not being authentic to themselves as far as human being, their alignment of who they are and what they want to be and we are experiencing, you know, I don't know if anyone's ever said this, you know, to you in the last year-and-a-half, but some of the very beginning would say that covid is actually part of the crown. So accessing that Crown chakra, you known that multi-dimensional level of really opening ourselves up to the most, you know, your potential Supernatural human being is that we can be 00:08:43Has the Earth is having her own time of Ascension time of regrouping time of evolution. And so when this is happening and we can measure this scientifically with the Schumann resonance. And so, when this is happening in the energies, are changing, guess what? We are also Earth bodies. So our energies are going to change. And I used to read, you know, Barbara Clow and in some other, you know, author is back when I was really young and they would say, prepare for this time because people are going to start to lose their minds because the energies are going to get really weird. And it's only because we're just changing our vibrations. No, I didn't know. It is really fascinating. I didn't think it was going to show up like this like a pandemic, right? But really it's like 00:09:36If there's so many levels to it and it is it, it is actually the most fascinating time to be awake because it's like in my perception. We're witnessing this sci-fi movie like playing out in front of us. It's super Syfy, right? So the thing is is that because the energies are changing everything in the atmosphere of Earth and in our Dimension is becoming more malleable. So what you believe perceive and embody in your energy and what you project, guess what? You're manifesting it, you're creating it. And at the same time, you are also either becoming more part of the illusion, or you're becoming kind of like a fringe dweller outside of the illusion saying this is not real. This is not, I don't want to be a part of this movie. Does that make sense? That's scary because 00:10:26I've I've delved into the the world of the gnostics and the demiurge in the false reality that that in the movie, The the 2001 Space Odyssey, how in Coptic timing simulation, pick up the gnostics use that and I've actually brought this up on the livestream. I did yesterday with my my buddy Tom on strange strange World podcast. When we we have a sideshow Regis talk about all types of stuff and I and I said 00:10:58When we look at the planetary in the celestial bodies according to Gnostic cosmology, it was, we live in a world created by the demiurge and the damage is the state in archetype. And I said, is it weird that we find beauty within that in something that the demiurge created? Because it's supposed to be evil. But if you look at it, it's, it's beautiful, right? So is it bad that we think that it's beautiful and in end? 00:11:28When you talk about that about either becoming part of the simulation or whatever, or right now, I feel that everybody that's awake and I don't like using that term walk or anything like that. But if you're awake, I feel like we are the ones that broke out of Plato's Cave and we're coming back inside and tell the others and saying, hey, there's another world out there. These Shadows are saying is there's more to it than that. And obviously we know how that story goes with the people within the cave were fighting against cuz they didn't want to break free. It's it's Stockholm syndrome. What's going on right now, what you said earlier? 00:12:10Corona in Spanish means Crown. So it would make sense with the with the Contour and then, and that's, that's what Kundalini is all about. Right. Aligning the chakras and open yourself up and being able to, is it a form? And correct me if I'm wrong cuz I'm not well-versed in this at all. Is it to where you can line up your chakras in your able to ascend like until like a light body or something? Or how does that work? Well, okay. So with the chakra system, everyone has a chakra system, right? And we work with the main seven, chakras, from the route, all the way up to the crown. And so when we have all the chakras and in the Kindle, any lit up, which that is the Kindle eating and you see that the the, like, the Serpent's coming together, anytime you see, Ken dilanian work, that's bringing your left and right brain together your masculine or feminine, your dualities together, and that's essentially what it is to get the balance of the chakras. All in this light alignment. 00:13:10So really what it is is your ascending regardless, whether you're working on this or you're not there just different levels and it doesn't mean that you're going to leave this body. And means we're going to have the experience in the physicality. Cosmic energy by accessing all the way up to the crown to access that connection to God Universe Cosmos, or however you want to see that's the energy. We want to Anchor Inn at the same time of being rooted in the healthy, balance rooted and that's the red root chakra and we're bringing the Earth. So they said the grounding and the cosmos together. So we're having this Fusion, this ultimate. What is the next verbal? Absolutely. Absolutely. What is this ultimate, you know, Human Experience now because listen, we're done, we we can whether you're in the The Matrix system in totally, like in the fear or whether you're like us who were The Fringe dwellers in. 00:14:10What's going on? This is nice. We all are agreeing that we don't want to participate in this Collective, you know, elaboration anymore. We we want to end suffering. We want to end, you know, the the notion of samsara where it's over and over and over again, and we're just perpetuating this like lower-density experience on Earth. We agree. We don't want to do that anymore. So therefore we're changing the game, the planet changing the game, where to get the game. The whole Cosmos is changing the game. So going back to your you, no idea of sometimes, we might find a Specs of the gym, yours, beautiful, that evil slipped backwards. Means what live 00:14:54Evil is live something in the version. So it's very interesting because the desist. 00:15:03The system that we live in is paradoxical. Okay. It's a, it's a gay man. And I don't mean it like Loosely, like, nobody can die and stuff like that, and it's not meaningful. I mean, there are certain elements of Design Within this Cosmic system that makes it paradoxical, so a lot of things and, and they know they're so, you know, the Illuminati, the families of nobility, the infiltrated Freemasons, they know this system. So, and it's part of esoterica. That's what are esoteric, symbols are. So in the system, in the area are inversions and that's one of them, evil is an inversion to live. So the gym yours is like going to reside in low-density negative energy. What is it due to negative energy separate sand in disintegrate. Positive energy comes together in a grows in its Collective. That's literally just the mechanics of energy, right? So if we look at something, 00:16:03We want to see as human beings. Will, that evil? Okay. What is it doing? Is it separating? Is it causing destruction? Okay. So that's the inversion of living. It's not causing gross. It's not allowing for further, unfoldment the expansion, which is life, right? So that's where we're now. We're like, okay, we experienced this design in polarities in the good to evil, the dark and the light, the black and white, the high in the low as above. So below, right? We've experienced that. Okay. So now and our next Evolution, now it's time to come into the fusion of these things and incorporate that Paradox, incorporate that. Okay. Listen, this stuff looks grim and dark, but guess what, we can't get lost in it. What is the, what is the good? That is the good, the higher potential, the expansion that is coming out of this. In one of the things that I can tell you is that people are waking up to pharmacy. 00:17:03Cool stuff in this craziness of illness versus healthy people and and saying, you know, what? Wait a second. Why is our society? Why is our world cultivated to make us sick? That doesn't make sense. We don't want to allow that anymore. That that's, that's ridiculous. Right? We have all these Technologies and you're going to tell me that your dad has paid $30,000 a month because of his illness that since Buster generic brand to the school system, you know, work system medical system. So they're breaking down and we're like, yes breakdown because people like you and I hopefully we step into our mission and many others to start to create new system. 00:17:53and, 00:17:55I posted today. I did a real from the live last night where I, I said society's, fuck. Because people some people walk on this Thin Line and they're so easily swayed. They see one thing and they're so easily swayed, right? They're easily manipulated from one little thing that they see on the meat. I say defund the media because we only see one side of the story and people are are convicted before innocent until proven guilty doesn't exist anymore. If they got you on the media, people are convicted even before they hit that courtroom, right? So then I forgot what you mentioned earlier, so, 00:18:36Oh, yes. Yes. 00:18:39I was looking into the Ossipee and Helena blavatsky and, and those type of doctors and you mentioned, the Freemasons, and the yin and yang, where it's the, it's the check for the black and the white. And you brought up an interesting point because you said, we have to find the, the goodness and everything that's going on. Even if it's, it's all evil. And I learned recently that wants some of the doctors, these individual, The Reptilian overlords, cuz that's what I like to think of them. The archons the, the negative energy, whatever they are. What if they are actual lizard, people, who knows, but that's what I refer to them as and it's always problem solution rent to repeat right and that's what the demiurge wants to keep us here for the Ouroboros, write the snake, the snake eating its own tail, and that's what I love about the gnostics that they didn't, which they were obliterated, pretty much by the 00:19:39I had a Catholic church because they taught the DVD. They took away, the broke or just going on right now with everything with the with the, with the way you live your life. It's all a brokered experience. Like, no, you have to go through us first in order to enjoy whatever it is that you want to enjoy. You have to go through the church first to to to achieve Divinity while they figured. I was like, no, we don't cuz like we are got the, we are the Delight being, you know, we were made in the image of God know so what what more is there to look for? Why do I have to pay you to be able to to what so, it's all a business and 00:20:17So, back to the, the Helena blavatsky thing, there's also because I feel that with Aleister Crowley and all these individuals date that the who knew about this. They take it and they preferred it, right. Just how the Knights Templar. They they they I'm pretty sure it was One Bad. Apple spoils the rest and I've heard that some of these individuals, they will 00:20:41They will promote and how do I say is do push that they want to be so evil that they achieve Divinity. Have you heard anything about that? They that they want to like I forgot how you worded it, but they want to 00:20:58Be so evil, that they're Divine, almost an old ancient concept that the dark ultimately service the light. 00:21:12Okay, so so let's break it down to the gym yours. If we take it to Sacred the notion of sacred geometry. Let's let's have that is a visual. And so you take sacred geometry. And you say where they would say, the first points, just the point is the existence of God or Source creation Creator. And from that point there, then was a line. 00:21:40And then that's how creation started to create so point in line and we can say this is feminine and masculine Energies. 00:21:50Feminine energy and it has nothing to do with like, you know, gender feminine energy, is the mechanics of energy being magnetic drawing to you, trying to you. So you won, you have feminine energy. When you're exercising that energy of drawing to you. That's your femininity. Okay, then the line would represent masculine energy and masculine energy pushes. The the is the action, the action of the energy going out. Okay, so magnetics and energetic and in reality. They work together there. What? They're, they're not one in the same that you different systems, but they are in collaboration in Creation with each other. That's why that's also one of our biggest divisive notion. How many times? Yeah, exactly. Do you hear the mainstream media and they're like, you screw the patriarchy and poor women and women are like how dare you I'm a victim and you're like 00:22:50Powers. That's an illusion. They've trapped you into believing an illusion that's not true. Women are incredibly powerful. Men are incredibly powerful and when the two come into collaboration their supersonic be okay. So in that sense, we have to look at the gym yours as that Breakaway creation. 00:23:13So, go backwards. It's still part of creation. It's just plain. Be inverted roll. Right? So Dua, Leti the system of Duality. So, one point said, I'm going to play the creation of the or I'm going to play the role of the lived apart and you're going to play the role of the evil part, which is the inverted mayor of what I am and they play the mirrors of each other. Does that make sense counter where I talk about? Saw tiny chinchillas Asians, it's all the same thing reiterated just in a different names. Quetzalcoatl, Jesus Christ, Buddha, Krishna. All these guys are all the same people and it's again all religions. If you really think I forgot who I was listening to. I think I might have been manly P hall was talking about this and I'm making a point to where everything is just reiterated over and over and over again. It's it's that Duality that you talking about evil. And then he also said that he was talking about something something sort. 00:24:13I got the perversion just because you're ethnically Chinese doesn't mean you're culturally Chinese but we we live in this Society to where it's like all your Chinese Cultural. You must be Chinese. Like no, I'm I'm American or you know what? I mean? Like these these these things that we're just, we're just like, we have these blinds on and that's all we see. And when you questioned the mainstream narrative or you bring up alternate ideas, how we're talking right now. You're looked at like at your fucking crazy, you know what I mean? 00:24:46Normal, so then, let's take it. Let's take it higher, this conversation higher. Let's move from the gym, yours, and let's go a little bit middle ground before we hit the normal 3D. So you have the mainstream media, but the mainstream media and social media, the internet. So I would I would you know, say they're one in the same write their propaganda piece has to write. They can be for your benefit where they can be totally MK Ultra your ass. If your life sucks them. However, who's really running the media, and the internet go? Deep deep deep. What is it? It's the whole entire inverted system of a, i 00:25:23AI is infiltrating all the systems, even the system of reptilians and the lizards, and the archons, and all that stuff, you know, and they're infiltrating even those creations and it's like, whoa, wait a second, you know, so we're not in a humongous like transmutation as I would say, I have some writings and some You Know spoken word about the stuff transportation of the cosmos. This is our transmutation of the cosmos and the thing is is that we've been here before and that's how we know how to navigate through this blueprint and then we know how to change the design with time and she with the new transmutations going to be. So it really is the AI. So when when we see things playing on TV or you know, the same narrative all this stuff, it's like yeah, of course, there's Talking Heads. I don't know if you subscribe to clones and double 00:26:23I happen to believe it's true. 00:26:34Spider-Man, watch the reality, right? It's so interesting. So it's the, it's the AI, literally, we know that it programmed us through our phones through what we write through, what we searched and then, guess what? The way. I understands things is to categorize everything and subcategorize everything over and over and over and over again. Okay, because guess what we can take the notion. Like I said, in ancient times, they were working off of fusion Collective Consciousness, right? And left brain paradoxical understanding, and philosophies. Okay. So now that we're like, in all these pieces, you know, you see, you know, this notion of like all these like 50,000 genders. I don't know, you know, and it's because it's part of that like categorisation of human being. That's not, I'm sorry, but that's not part of the natural organic unfolding system. That's an AI system to be able to to compartmentalize. 00:27:34Aldi's categorizes of things to be able to understand because that's the only. It doesn't have creative thought does not have creative. Thought. That's why when it does things like these false flags are like this real rotational of stuff that, you know, damage that we see it's kind of same thing. We already know how it's going to play. There's no creativity because it's who's behind it. It's yeah, it. That's a lot to unpack. And when you talk about the AI, and I've talked about this about the trans humanistic movement and I was a big, Elon Musk fan. But Elon Musk is pro transhumanism and he wants to become one with that neural link, right? He wants to. He wants to connect this quick quick, quick and 00:28:26What I tell people is pay attention to the symbols. The symbols are the language to the soul. It's not realistic programming that they're doing a bit but they have in the background and just a few weeks ago. I definitely was the CIA or the government. They they admitted to having a guy that's able to predict events days in advance is out 2 days, 3 days 4 months 5 months a year because right now we're building all these modern-day towers of Babel and fucking with things that we shouldn't be fucking with. And it's I feel it's to cause more separation within ourselves because 00:29:14I feel that back then. 00:29:17Everything was much more. How do you say that is? There is a magical and we've lost the sense of touch with an in Oneness with nature. And you, you mentioned at the beginning of the podcast at Mother Nature is having her own Ascension. And reality itself is not much more manageable. And that, honestly, I never really thought about it like, that, that that, as we move on has and I don't know, if you're familiar, has the age of Aquarius, already happened, or is it are we transitioning right now? With two that? I mean, we already in in more than the middle of reaching that and here's the thing. People are think that the age of Aquarius is one day going to appear and we're going to be like butterflies and rainbows and throwing them everywhere. But really that's not the concept. Those even those concepts are somewhat programs, you know, AI dysfunctional concept. The concept is this is 00:30:17Picking complete responsibility and access to you yourself as the human Earth body on this planet. And by doing that it's again. It's going. It's the basics. Like, how can I be responsible for myself for my actions for me, taking care of myself and it's a big inverted mirror in this whole covid scenario. Because what if people do they wanted to blame you for not being nasty. Want to blame you for not being vaccinated. They want to blame you for going outside. How dare you you're going to get me sick and it's like, where is the personal responsibility? The responsibilities going back to again, ancient times like you were saying, we are the gods. We are the one unfolding the destiny. We are the one creating the experience. So in a sense, we can't really blame so much the Illuminati or the infiltrated Masons or the lizard people cuz guess what we are them. We have allowed this to take place on our planet. 00:31:17I take responsibility, it's Alan. I think it was either David. I cry Alan Watts and said the 00:31:28The intention goes where the energy goes, or something like that. The intention flows or the energy to go, something like that. Tom brought it up yesterday and 00:31:38History doesn't repeat itself at often Rhymes and what you're talkin about. All this seems so familiar to me of blaming one group of people. Blaming society's problems on them. Are remind me of something that's already happened in history. But today's generation. They don't know how to read so they don't look back. They don't care about. No, I've had people tell me, what is it matter. I have to go tell me you'll just let them do whatever they want to do. They're going to win. Indiana go. Well, we don't understand. Is that as a collective, if you have enough people is like a religion or cult whatever it is. As a people, you have enough people thinking the same thing as you or them or whatever. It, maybe it comes true. It becomes true. And it's what you're talkin about the forming of reality and end in Holland, in The Matrix, such a great movie and I was talking to Tom and I said, 00:32:35I watch recently Fight Club and like, you know, these weird movies that just have these crazy Potts was that you're not expecting at all. And I recently saw one on Netflix. Thanks for the good old lizard guy Netflix. I forgot the name of it. So it's with Jason Momoa. It's I think it's called little girl. I don't know if you seen it and no matter how many times I watch Fight Club, write these weird crazy movies or the Matrix, especially Fight Club cuz at the end I'm always mine blown. I didn't know. It was him the whole time. It's like wow. And sometimes when people they're walking this Thin Line, how how everything's been as of lately, right? Walking on eggshells. I feel like people glitch out, right? Like they like, it is like an information overload on whatever it is. 00:33:30whatever their reality is cuz some people are just 00:33:34some people are NPC. Some people are just put here just to fill in and just and the observer effect as a real thing. That's why. 00:33:42I've gotten to the point where I don't even care anymore. I'm just, I'm just a living. I'm just doing my own thing. I be careful with. I'm careful with what I say and what I do in the type of energy that I put out there because there's, there's certain ways to go about it. And I've had ever since it happened. I've had family members wish death upon me because I I don't align with certain views and I tell him, I go. Why would you say that? Why would you sit in a send, you ate that because you've already spoke it into existence? You've already thought about it. So, and that's like me telling you, how you need to let your tires or bother. You don't change me in a fucking crash into a pole because you're going to lose track just like, hey, get your tires fixed and it's not good to have a ball type thing and it's like you're putting that out there and I had this this date come up. I don't know if the Mayans copied a lot of of what the Aztecs did the Aztec. 00:34:42The Real G's, they're the ones that that built that they even had. 00:34:47Late like that. Like the kabbalistic Tree of Life, where it sits this map to the cosmos, right? They supposedly build maps of the of the universe these people and 00:35:01Everybody knows that in 2012. The world was supposed to end, right? Twenty twelve dollars, a big thing of December 21st, 2012 that the world's going to end of his movies about it. It was all this shit about it when I am seeing September 21st 2022. Have you heard about that? 00:35:17No, I haven't heard about that date. However, I would say that if you're seeing these dates, look into it into the mirror image of things, so we had December 21st. 00:35:312012. So, if we flip that to the 2012, the mirror version of that would be 2021. 00:35:40Right. I want to be working, a lot of people think 2021 is the age where you have, we become we awakened because we're seeing the corruption and I and I have talked about this where 00:35:55The system is fucked. We saw what happened in March of 2020, Merida toilet paper. Then the supply chain is. It's so thin, so yeah, but what a great opportunity for everyone to get some bad days. That's much more healthier for your ass, into the fuck out. Because it's like, I remember when my son was first born and I about the hospital, giving us these bottles and envies disposable like nipples for the bottles. And I remember, when we got sent home, I had bought some. I bought some extra ones. We started running out. He was on formula. 00:36:36And he start running out of the little disposable nipples and all that stuff. 00:36:42And so we start calling the hospital. We go ahead, we're running out of these disposable nipples and bottles and stuff like that. What are we supposed to do? Can you guys sell the sum or whatever? And they're like, no, we can't buy. What the fuck are we supposed to know how? We going to feed our son? And the lady was like, bro, just put her in a regular bottle and I looked on my Fountain Lake. 00:37:01Why we think about that, right? Cuz you're so focused, right? You have these why there's no other solution which is what's happening right now. And that's just like using analogies to just relate to normal people. Cuz sometimes you'll be talking to somebody and know though, they freaked out, right? I mean today or is like, well, I'm going to have a normal conversation that me 5 minutes later. You know, what time is time is an illusion and it's like you talk to people on that way when they freak out and we can see this indoctrination of of of symbols and I were talking about you bring up a good point to where 00:37:37We are the lizards. 00:37:42Like a Carl Jung type of thing. We're taking the shadow of the self or what? What do you cuz I like to think that there are these these arch-nemesis of of society and these these hooded figures in the dark Alleyways that are at that actually want to do good because they feed off that negative energy in the lower vibrational and I've talked about the Saturn time Cube simulation hypothesis where everything is being controlled by Saturn Satan. Kronos, right. And we can relate that to, to even bafflement, right? We can, we can talk about that where where it's related to all these archetypes moloch. And it's the same, the same record regurgitation over and over again, throughout all of history, just with a different label for the different time of, of, of whatever it is, but I feel that they feed off and harvest, our energy. The Matrix. What were they use? 00:38:42Tina says batteries, right? And then everybody was put into, I forgot who it was. That said. 00:38:50When they offer him the steak and he's like, oh, you know, that's not real, right? He's at all. So I can taste real take. Why would rather have her? Who said? Anyways, I got rather have the fake cuz it tastes good and then then to know it's fake or freezing, but I digress. 00:39:07What were you going to say about to hear? I'd like to believe that. That's all true. Because if you can conceive it, and you can believe it, you can achieve it and it's happening cuz then where does it come from? Okay, that's on some Sub sub level. It's happening. Just like, for example, people saw, you know, a lot of death in covid. And so when people say, oh, you think it's a hoax and I said, that's too one-dimensional. That's to kindergarten. I don't think it's, I think it's so much more than you're giving a credit. So I believe that people are living in their own realities where there, whether it's part of their soul plan, their karmic retribution, whatever agreements, they made their seen it there. Super in the reality. It's real for them. Then there are some of us that we walk into a store without a mask and nobody even bats. Not it's like you're not even there. 00:40:07Okay, work work work, didn't get sick or anything like that. Okay. My point is everyone's living the reality in which they're projecting in their mind and in the energy so that reality on some level is happening. Now, think of the concept of multidimensionality. 00:40:25If you believe do you, if you believe in parallel realities parallel universes, it's like you dropped a stone in a pond and then you see that geometry of all the circles, right? There's one Circle II Circle, don't look at it like that. So there's all these like circles and I'm not, there you go. And then it's like, right? So the morning that it was stration, that imagery into multidimensionality and then, you know, still going above and below and and sides, 360, all that stuff is 00:41:00We could be led to believe there's a philosophy that yes, we are in this body. But this is not the only place that were anchored in. We can also be anchored in other potential places of our multidimensionality and that's about enough incident. So in this life where, you know, what people maybe some people would consider good or of the light or for Humanity, but who's to say that in another life in another multi-dimension, Airy aspects of ourselves. We are not part of that over Overlord system, which is why we understand it. So well, which is why we're able to to work through the illusion, out of it. Yin and yang balancing. Do you know there's just we can take this notion like so many ways. 00:41:49Yeah, I was reading a book or audiobook. It's called the astral plane, its inhabitants and the scenery. And in that book, they talked about how 00:42:02If you are a scientist in this lifetime, you know and in a past lifetime you might have started that Journey or you were another scientist right in this samsara or this or borrows and dissemination of them. Are you talking about the the the middle being the source in the one? Right? That's what the my play it. It's crazy that we that we still refer back to guys that were talking about shit that were at that, that had their own. Can you imagine the Library of Alexandria? It was just, if you really think about it. It was just a bunch of podcast booze and they were just all having their own podcast and their own conversations and a lot of the greatest Minds that came out of there. And then play, it'll be one of my favorites that bad, that you the philosophers who fucking talked about Atlantis. Write this guy was on a whole nother level. 00:42:58He talks about that about House Thoughts, Plato's theory of forms where the perfect form exists. In this other realm, in this other dimension, this higher Dimension. And even today, I was listening and and it was mainly P hall. Said, if you believe that 00:43:20Once you're dead, that's it, and that's where life stops your you know, material list or something like that. And if you're if you believe that we go on and in our Consciousness goes on after death, and you're an idealist and 90% of people, 90% of people think that 00:43:40There's something at the happens after Afterlife, right? After after you die. A lot of all these religions, they all talk about that shit and they did the ancient Egyptians. They they literally prepared just for the afterlife. That's all they did everything that they did was just towards living in the in their afterlife cuz they knew what was going to happen. And you brought up sacred geometry earlier where the Egyptians put sacred geometry and everything. Because they wanted, they they, they saw it as holy. They saw it as as it came from the source, right? Perfect. And then they wanted to put a little bit of the creator of the programmer. I'd like to call him and everything and all and everything that they built, they they would put signal Jammers cuz they wanted to incorporate that into their to elaborate on a on a point that I made earlier. We're, we're we're so focused on these false symbols, right? Because at the end of the day, that's all we've based. That's all we work off of and it's called. 00:44:40It's called memetic, occultism. What they're doing nowadays and what that is, is using propaganda to speak, to people, to their soul, to speak, to them on a deeper level and it, and it speaks of the person's soul and coincidentally, Play-Doh, and Play-Doh, the Republic talked about how they wanted to ban certain Arts, certain frequencies turn sound because they believed that there was talk to the soul, the person that would have waved at them. And if you really think about it, what's happening right now, they're limiting us from doing what we love the Arts from from going, to concerts listening to music. It's almost like they're trying to initiate the same thing to where they're limiting us because all these Arts, they talk to us, right? We feel good when we listen to music, you know, when we watch a movie, the actors, they, they speak to us. And it's like this weird thing where they're limiting us right now with that. So we don't, I don't know. 00:45:40Further the development of the Ascension or whatever it is. And like I said, I've got to the point where I for 00:45:48I don't even try to understand it because it's it's how you're saying. It goes deeper than just overseeing on the surface. It's not just a wall. It's just don't trust the science. The fucking Sciences even know where the fuck it stands and you want me to trust the science and I can show you and I can bring up things of, in the past. That the government, the people who want your best interest, right? The ones that are there. So concerned with your best interest in hand. I can show you things were those. Same people, they fucked society, and they did things against their own world, the same Nazi mentality of a Praying on your citizens and experimenting on them. 00:46:29Operation Paperclip. That same mentality came over here. They were pulling out lsdm people to water, the Tuskegee experiment, all these false flag of things that they do to justify psychological warfare 20 years in Afghanistan for what? 00:46:45Yeah, exactly. So so yeah, so going back to you like hurts and and sound and stuff. That's something that we do here is one of the medicines, the sound healing in binary beats. So to segue into what you're saying is that one? I would I wouldn't encourage everyone that since we we what you're saying is true and we know that you were being experimented on. We know that there is a transhumanism agenda going on. We know that humans were made to be sick and we're nowhere for many years. Reaching the supernatural human potentiality. That we are made to be. We know that. So, in this paradoxical system, we buy being angry and buy keep, you know, 00:47:37Talking about the fucked-up things that they're doing to us. We're going to perpetuate this energy and that's how they feed on us. So, I mean, that's okay. You don't, you don't have to think it but you know, we again that's what we create Separation by saying, we're the good guys or the bad guys. You're the lizards were the humans and it's like, you know, there is a notion of again. If ever were going to have that. Clear for real chance. Do you know mutation of the cosmos? We have to take responsibility for what maybe even if we don't understand it. And that's why we got to start learning the esoterica. We got to start learning about Quantum, healing quantum physics, Quantum reality. We have to learn about sacred geometry. We have to understand, you know, the metaphysics of multidimensionality, all these things are apart of us. That's human. But nobody wants to teach us that in school. They don't even teach us. 00:48:37Human again in the practicing of this inversion, to flip this whole system over is to incorporate what, you know, and she remember what the inversion is. So, yes, let me tell you, when I are used to live in Florida for many years and there, I studied a lot of my, you know, a vehicle and all that stuff. And one of the things that I learned, when I learned about, you know, child sacrifice and the Very disgusting things that they do with children and how rabid pedophilia is in our world. I literally did not want to get out of bed for like a week, cuz I was like, there is no hope. This is disgusting. This is 00:49:28What the fuck? You know, I mean, it's just like jaw dropping. What do you say? What do you do? Okay, so then when we know these things to be true and we know what's going on and why they use in the why they do them, then it's up to us. If we're working for Humanity if we're working, you know, for the greater good, the good of the all we have to find moves to counter. So how do we do that? You're doing it right. Now, you're having the show, your opening conversation for people to chime in in to listen and help and have extension expensive thinking and thought I have the portal which is The Healing Arts, lab and holistic Gallery. Other people are doing amazing things, you know, so it's about having that let's have the conversation to bring it to the table. Let's bring the light in the dark to the table. Like, if we're turning on the light and receiving all the Cockroaches spread everywhere cuz we need to know. We're okay, then we got understand it. Then we got a counter and be like, we're not sucked inside. He's not sucks. Cuz guess what? We're Society. We are and many other people and weird. 00:50:28I'm the friend that I'm asking for. I'm, it's me, it's me the whole time, you know, live the experience of living the dark. Then you'll have more of that. If you choose that, you don't want to have that anymore. Then you can also choose in the other way against personal responsibility. That's the ultimate power. That's what makes you got. No Creations, you know, and I think we've lost touch with that as well. We're always blaming others. What's that called gaslighting, right? It was hiding rejecting and that's what I 00:51:11I haven't ever since this started. I haven't my form of meditation, and my form of reset. I do a little bit of yoga, and I was doing consistently at least once or twice a month. I was floating Ryan sensory, deprivation, and I was helping me a lot right to be able to reset and I feel like ever since this started if I go cuz cuz the whole thing of being there is just you and in just your, your inner demons, right? I feel like with everything I've built up a bike. If I go right now, I'm just going to have like a hard time because it's scary. You don't, you know, like being able to accept responsibility for your choices and and your decision and it's so easy just to blame it on somebody else or blame society, or blame whoever it is, and 00:52:05Hey, you, you what part of Florida are you in? 00:52:09I was in Sarasota and then I lived on the far East Coast up in Titusville in Orlando right now. 00:52:23Yeah, I mean and you know what to it's like you have this great opportunity, have this great opportunity in this malleable creation to just totally like do do, do you want to do it? Do it, big, do it. Small to a creative do it? You know, however you want it and it is based on your belief system. Did you ever see the Dark Crystal? 00:52:51Do the animated like the puppet movie? The original one? Cuz there's one on Netflix to which is also really like that one. But I remember seeing the original one, but I don't run out of work right now. 00:53:09You at least remember the concept of the skeksis and then the mystics. Okay? At the end of The Dark Crystal, I invite you to go back and watch the ending at least a band when they've defeated the skeksis and they put one of the gal selling put the, you know, the crystal Into The Dark Crystal so it can explode and all the stuff and defeat them. We see that when they die their souls or a combination of Mystics and skeksis within the skeksis and the mystics. Does that make sense? So then that tells that's like, what were they?

Creating a Simple New ProductIs it the right time for you to create a new product? Sometimes you feel like you're ready for a fresh injection of energy to your business, you see a need your clients have, you want to provide a new way to work with you or perhaps you can't work with your clients in your usual way and creating a digital product your clients would find useful is a win-win for them AND you.In this episode, we look at four steps you might work through to create a new product.1 - Pay attention to what your clients genuinely NEED.Get curious. You might notice a particular theme or issue coming through in multiple sessions. You could pay attention to what your clients/audience respond to with more enthusiasm on social media, an article you write, a podcast interview or episode you do or a particular newsletter topic or theme that gets more opens or replies. See if you can figure out the core problem that is being highlighted that you can help with.2 - What tools do you have in your toolkit that can help solve the problem you identified?What processes, tools, techniques, ways of thinking etc would you use to solve the problem you identified? 3 - What is the best format to support your clients to get the results or change they want?It might be one or two hour online workshop, a series of very short videos, audios and workbooks, a short e-course where you go through a process, a package of sessions (if you don't want to go digital right now, or the problem you identified would currently be better served in a personalised way) or a kit - which was the best option for me.4 - Choose the name.It's tempting to choose a fun, clever name you like but you'll likely make things a lot easier for your clients AND you if you choose a title that is as clear as possible on what you get and the benefit to your clients. Making it about them and their needs rather than your own desire to be creative can make it a lot clearer for your clients. You know what they say: a confused mind doesn't buy. So make it clear. This can make your marketing easier too - you don't have to spend so much time explaining what exactly your product or the benefit actually IS!If you break down the name Launch Success Kit, it clearly tells you: it's designed to help you with your launch, it speaks to a desired outcome of success and it's a "kit" which gives you *some* idea of the format before you even read about what's included. My first idea was: Launch Alignment Kit. Even though *I* liked it, do YOU most want an "aligned" launch or a "successful" launch? Ultimately I AM helping you create alignment in your launch but what my clients actually WANT is a successful launch and the tools in the kit absolutely support that. You can read all about my new Launch Success Kit here: alignandattract.com/launch-success-kitFind the episode on Kerry's website at http://alignandattract.com/blog/28I'd love to hear about any new product ideas you get! Share with me on Instagram or Facebook. Subscribe to the podcast here: alignandattract.buzzsprout.comI mention using a keyword planner, there's one in google ad words (you don't need to be paying for ads to access it but this link may to work if you don't have an account): https://ads.google.com/aw/keywordplanner/home

In today's episode, co-host Brad Crowell joins Lesley Logan to talk about our last episode interview with happiness coach, Robert Mack. Rob's wisdom and life-perspective are contagious, encouraging, supportive, and tangible. Join us as we deconstruct the action items that Rob recommended in the last episode, and find out a little bit more about Brad & LL...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:How "being in the now" can change your happiness completelyWhen did LL and Brad start working together?Brad had a website building businessLesley already knew she was going to marry BradWe project managed our weddingWe forgot ONE THING at our wedding....SuicidePreventionLifeline.orgYou don't need to know the whole staircase to take the first stepHow you define yourself, giving yourself a titleThe power of journalingReferences/Links:Suicide Prevention Lifeline Rob Mack's websiteRob Mack's book, Happiness From the Inside Out: The Art and Science of Fulfillment The Artist's Way Morning Pages Journal: A Companion Volume to the Artist's Way If 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 business fitness 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 02:10Okay, here we go. Brad Crowell 02:12Are you excited? Lesley Logan 02:15I am! I am so excited. Okay, this is all part of it. Brad Crowell 02:18Hi Lesley Logan 02:19Leave it in. Brad Crowell 02:19We're leaving it in. Lesley Logan 02:21We're leaving it in. Hello, listeners. Welcome back to the Be It Till You See It interview recap where my co host in life, Brad, and I are going to dig into the profound conversation I have with Robb Mack in our last episode. If you haven't yet listened to that interview, feel free to pause this now and go back to listen to that one and then come back and join us. But what you can't see, everyone, is Brad telling me to slow down. Brad Crowell 02:43I'm actually, we are currently already at double time. You don't need to speed this up. Lesley Logan 02:49Well, you actually. So yeah, that's true. This is a podcast you can bring down to one-point-o. Anyways, thank you, Brad. I'm a fast talker, everyone. And that is one thing you'll learn about me. So first, Brad, we had an audience question to respond to, didn't we? Brad Crowell 03:07More space. More space. Yes. Yes. Yes. Lesley, we did have an audience question.  Lesley Logan 03:19Okay, well, what's the question? Oh, me. Brad Crowell 03:23Oh, me. Lesley Logan 03:24All right, everyone, this is real. Just so you know, we leave it all and welcome to working with us, actually, which leads me into this question, which is, right, when did we start working together? We got this question and a DM on the be_it_pod Instagram. And people wanted to know if (the person writing wanted to know) if it was before or after dating. Brad Crowell 03:45Before or after what? Lesley Logan 03:47Did we start working together before or after we started dating? Brad Crowell 03:51Did we start working together before or after we started dating… Lesley Logan 03:57Such a complicated question only because the window of us actually dating and not dating was quite long and maybe not a clear line. Then I broke my leg. And then that was after we were officially together. We still weren't working together though. Brad Crowell 04:14Yeah, but I built a website for you right out of the gate. Lesley Logan 04:17Right, but right out of the gate we got together because I broke my leg and then you made the website, so we were dating. We were officially dating. You did not build a website for me before you committed. Brad Crowell 04:27I'm pretty sure that wouldn't have happened. Lesley Logan 04:30Would never have happened. So even then you go to, so you build a website for me but that was not working with me. That was like showing off. Brad Crowell 04:39Um, it was kind of. It was kind of a little bit showing off. I think that's fair to say. Also, (Lesley: Thank you for watching) also, too, I knew it was something that I could do to win you over even more. So yeah, showing off. But it was something that I was already doing. I was building websites. (Lesley: Yeah) So it was a very, like normal thing for me to build another website. Lesley Logan 05:17Yeah. We have dogs, you all may hear a bark in the background, there's three of them. If you've got a dog, we'd love to know what your dog is like. I agree. I think you know, you already had a business in building websites because you were building websites for your band. So it wasn't like you learned how to build a website. It was something you already did. (Brad: Yeah) And I already knew I was going to marry you. So you building me a website was just a perk. You didn't know that. But I did. I think it was pretty organic you doing other websites stuff for me, building many websites before we got married, I think. But you and I didn't actually officially work together.. I think maybe the retreats were when we finally were doing more projects together. It's really hard. It was everything. This is the cool thing, y'all, we'll get into it as we talk about Rob's points, but like everything kind of led after the website then that led to something that led to my try at a membership. Brad Crowell 06:21I think the first time we worked together was our wedding. Lesley Logan 06:24Oh, you're right, we project managed the heck out of that wedding. Well Brad did, I just checked things off. Brad Crowell 06:33But that was the first time that we, we like, you know, tried to tackle a project as a team. Hey, yeah, buddy. August. That's definitely not gonna work. So, but I think we had a goal. And we essentially broke down the tasks. And we use the project management tool. And we, we fucking nailed it. (Lesley Logan: Oh yeah) It was such a cool wedding. Lesley Logan 07:06Y'all, we planned a wedding in four months in LA. And six weeks before the wedding, we even lost the venue. And we still like slayed. There's only one thing that we messed up at our own wedding. And that was because it was not in the project management tool, which was who was going to bring the wedding license to the wedding. But yeah, I think that was the first actual thing we worked on together. Brad Crowell 07:31I think and the thing was, it was actually really easy (Lesley: Yeah), to do that as a team. And so it was very organic when we finally or like tackling work projects as a team, even though, you know, I was kind of treating the stuff, except for the retreats or when you were traveling, like the any of the work stuff until I formally came on full-time, I was treating it like a client, (Lesley: Yeah) We only had a little bit of time, you know? And then eventually I got rid of all those clients. And that was just about when we started working together as a team. Lesley Logan 08:07Yeah, no, you're right. The wedding was definitely where we worked together as a team. And that was the first real step. It also made us realize how good we could do that. So to answer this amazing question of when did we start working together. Was it before or after dating? Was it after dating? It was when we were engaged. I think we got married in 2015. Brad Crowell 08:29Yes, we got married in 2015. Lesley Logan 08:33That's fascinating. Anyways, we never kind of remember when we got married, so we'll get there. Alright, so thank you for that question. You can send in your questions to the be_it_pod on Instagram. So alright, before we get into our next part, we just want to say… you may or you may not know, like maybe you're sitting there going LL like thank you for the podcast, but I don't even know how to make time for myself to be it and how to prioritize that. And I really feel like for me, there are times in my life I actually don't know the answer. Like, I don't know what I want to do. And the practice of showing up for myself is actually the most helpful way to do that because when you connect more to yourself then you can connect more to your goals to others to anything, right? So I want to offer you all a free class at OnlinePilatesClasses.com slash b e i t so OnlinePilatesClasses.com/beit. Get a free class from me. Take it as many times as you want. Notice how showing up for yourself for 30 minutes, I would love you to multiple times a week, but even once a week allows you to practice prioritizing yourself and your time in your life. All right! Brad Crowell 09:39Yeah. Awesome. Why don't we jump into kind of talking about the last pod's conversation with Rob Mack that you had. I really enjoyed the interview. If you haven't had a chance to hear it yet, feel free to pause this now jump back one episode take a listen to the great convo that Rob and Lesley had together. They talked about a whole host of things. But first Rob is an Ivy League educated positive psychology expert. He's a celebrated happiness coach. He's also an executive coach and an author. And I found the conversation really, actually, kind of shocking, because he came right out of the gate, talking about suicide. So we're going to talk just a little bit about suicide here. And we want to also tell you that if you are, have ever considered anything, when it comes to taking your own life, there is help available to you in the United States, and I want to say abroad because they have a 1-800 number, you can call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. And they are saying that we can all help prevent suicide. The Lifeline provides 24/7, free and confidential support for people in distress, prevention and crisis resources for you and for your loved ones. and best practices for professionals. They have a 1-800 number that you can call 1-800-273-8255, 1-800-273-8255. They also have chat support right on the site. And you can find that at suicidepreventionlifeline.org. So that said, when Rob was talking about his experience with considering suicide and it was right out of the gate. I was, I didn't really expect that I had no idea that, you know, as a happiness coach, that, that was something he was, that's where he was coming from. And well, I mean, you talked to him so… Lesley Logan 11:57Yeah, I totally agree with Brad. I mean, it is part of his story. And it is really what made him who he is today. So, I actually appreciate that he so willingly shares that story, because I think it's a topic that is often, people don't talk about, you know, and or they avoid talking about or they're ashamed of it, and he shares it in a way that really makes you realize that it can, it can be anybody and so please use that information should you need it or if a friend does. So our first my I want to go into a takeaway that I had because it's something that's really personal to me. In the interview, Rob talks about being okay with just seeing the first step of a staircase and not seeing the whole staircase. So he talks about moving to Miami and only just knowing that, like he's going to move to Miami and not really what's gonna happen next. And I love this because it's such a simple idea. It's like, Oh, yeah, let's just be okay with that first step. Just see the first step in a staircase. Take messy action. Y'all, I'm a ‘take messy action' kind of person. I have been practicing this. Like your mess is your message, everyone. I've been practicing messy action and just being okay with the first step. You should know something about me. When we watch The Crown, I will literally Google what happened in real life, just so I can watch the whole Crown, knowing what is going to happen. So for the record, this is not the easiest thing for me that I practice. But I couldn't agree more with him. I think it's so important that we don't get hung up on having to have every step of a staircase planned out to what we're going to be before we go, like, before we practice being it. And so, I don't know, I wanted to, I really wanted to bring that home because it is so simple and yet so hard. And people rarely do it. They're like, Okay, I have to have it all mapped out. And I don't know if this comes from like an American, like, pretty good High School, did you go to college, then you get this degree, then you did this thing. And like, I did all that stuff. And I never even got a job with the degree that I have. So knowing all the steps of the staircase has yet to help me. And I will say like this podcast, you know, we really had very few of the steps even thought through before we started it. My business, you know, I was blown away, like, okay, we're gonna do this right now and see what happens. Brad Crowell 14:14No, I think also there's a sense that, you know, you can't just wing it, right? You're not, you're not just like, (Lesley: No) trying to hope it into fruition, you know. There are steps, there are actions, there are, but there is this bigger picture that we are working from. We know where we want to go. Right? We know where the staircase goes to, (Lesley: But we don't know all the stairs) but we don't know all the stairs in the staircase, right? (Lesley: Yeah) So I think that as long as you have this bigger picture your vision for what you want for your life, then maybe you can only see two or three stairs ahead at a time and that's like with goal planning and methodically thinking ahead three, six months, whatever, you know, but you're still not seeing the grandiose. You're not seeing the entire staircase and all of the steps. Lesley Logan 15:11100%. Thank you. Brad's always here to summarize my long winded answers. And here's, I'm working on a course for y'all. I'm really excited about it. This part will be a free course where it's like, knowing the vision, knowing where the staircase ends up, where the top of the stairs is, and then actually like taking the action of the first step, because that's where clarity comes through. You got to take the action. So that really resonated with me. And if you find that very difficult, because you really want to know every step in your staircase, I promise you, it's so freeing to just know the first two, I know where the staircase ends and have fun taking a step and see what happens. Brad Crowell 15:46Yeah, I also think that there are very few, even in science, right? There's very few times in life where you know exactly every step before you're going to take them. (Lesley: Yeah) Right? You know, you're exploring, you're experimenting, you're trial and error, maybe you take a step up and realize that's the wrong step. And you take a step back. (Lesley: Yeah.) So you know, I think, I think for the Type A personalities out there, who know that they need to have everything in front of them before they even get started, you're actually doing yourself a disservice. Because you don't necessarily know you might get into something and then realize, I hate this. Lesley Logan 16:38Oh, yeah. And that's so cool. Because guess what, like, you can, you can go back down the steps and stuff. Or you can, you can find a new staircase like, or you can, or there's like, you can wind the staircase to the left, you know, which Rob talks about left turns. And that was really a fun part of the conversation. But anyways, we can talk about staircases for the rest of this episode. But Brad, I really, I really liked your takeaway. So I want to dive into it. Brad Crowell 17:01So after listening to the interview, the thing I took away was, I found really interesting is the idea of defining yourself. Right? And giving, you two were talking about giving yourself your own title. At first I was like, Man, that's kind of silly, you know. Cuz I come from the startup world, right? So when we're like a startup company of four, and it's like, well, I'm the CEO, and I'm the CEO, and the CFO, the CTO, and it's like, we were all four of us are doing all the work. Like, it seems ridiculous to be defining ourselves in that manner. Or, like, I'm sure you've gotten a business card from someone and you're like, right. There, the president of a company of one, like whatever. Right? Lesley Logan 17:48I definitely felt that way when I was the CEO of my own company, I was like, this is so lame. I'm the only person in it. Brad Crowell 17:56That's where my head went to immediately. But as you two were talking about it, I thought, you know, maybe defining yourself isn't necessarily like a job title defining yourself. Instead, it's a way… it is you. It's part of your elevator pitch to people, it's part of how you describe yourself in who you are, and what you are. And I thought, well, this is actually completely tantamount to like success. If you don't have a definition of yourself, you know, because you are your very first client. Okay, you're selling yourself first. And, you know, so for example, if you say, Well, I'm just a Pilates teacher. (Lesley: Yeah.) Right? Like, that's a tragic definition of yourself. “I'm just a Pilates teacher.” Right? Because like you just said, so small, but also you're setting yourself up – you've ceiling-ed yourself. Lesley Logan 19:03Yeah. Where on the staircase you can't climb anywhere. I really love that, Brad. You know, even you know, going back to the CEO, all that stuff. Recently, we changed the titles of ourselves, because we do have a team. That's more. It's not just me. (Brad: It's finally growing.) Yeah. (Brad: Yes) And when we changed it from me being the CEO to you being the CEO, even that definition switch changed how you show up in the business and how I show up in the business. (Brad: Oh, yeah.) And so, but he defined himself as a happiness coach, like, so. I mean, like, just right there, A – I want to know more. And then also, it really does help him filter like what he does, and what he, what he says yes to based on that. And so the definition of yourself is so powerful because it can literally uplift you and expand you or you could box yourself in and make yourself small. So I think I would, I would challenge people. I love the stigma. I would challenge you to tell someone who you are. Tell us, what's your definition? (Brad: Yeah) I'll listen. Brad Crowell 20:08Yeah. Tell us how you define yourself. And you can just DM the pod on Instagram. But, I found it really fun to think about your new definition of yourself, your new title as it were, which is CPO. Lesley Logan 20:31Oh, I know I was like…ooh. Brad Crowell 20:33What's a CPO? Lesley Logan 20:34Well, and that's something I didn't even know was an existence, y'all there. This is the thing. If you, first of all, if you don't define yourself, other people are gonna define you. So you may as well come up with your own, just side note. And then, but we were doing this whole thing with our coach one time, and she's like, “Yeah, Lesley, you are in charge of all the ideas and art. And so you're the CPO.” I was like, tell me more (Brad: product) I'm the product officer. I'm the Chief Product Officer. So Brad Crowell 21:03But that's, that's funny, but that's (Lesley; Oh she's a Pilates Officer) Yeah, how you define yourself is the Chief Pilates Officer of the company. And that's funny and fun. And you know, exciting. (Lesley: Yeah), you know, and yes, it still comes with responsibilities. But, you know, it's obviously our play on words – her CPO, she's the Chief Pilates officer. Lesley Logan 21:27Chief Pilates Officer, Chief Positivity Officer. I mean, it's a Chief Pod Officer right now. But, but I think, I really think the power of the words you say about yourself matter, because here's the thing, your brain and your body are listening all the time. So if you go around telling people like Rob is, “I'm a happiness coach” Boom. But you start seeing all the different ways you can coach people on happiness, you can be happy, like you can search for happiness. But if you come lower on talking about yourself, it's like, oh, I'm, I'm just a trainer, or I'm just, I'm just an assistant or I'm just, you know, working on this. I have a side hustle while I go to school. I'm just a student that word ‘just' is terrible. And also, you are limiting yourself. And so have I think have fun coming up with your title. (Brad: Yeah.) Isn't it Tom's the company where people can make their own job title up? Brad Crowell 22:27I want to say it can be tough. Lesley Logan 22:31It could be tough. Also, I do know that there are people who at Google, somebody made themself the chief, like the (Brad: Chief Happiness) Chief Happiness. Yeah. Happiness. Brad Crowell 22:40He was appointed. (Lesley: Yeah) Yes. Lesley Logan 22:43Yeah, Anyways, that's your homework. Okay. So now in every podcast, I like to ask our guests tips on how you can be it because, y'all, it's not just about inspiration, like you can get that anywhere, I want you to have transformation, I want you to really, truly like sort of see yourself in the thing that you are wanting to do you want this planet. And so, Rob actually, like went to town, he gave us so many. So you got to listen to all of them. But my favorite was journaling. And here's why. And we talked about this, I believe in his podcast, which is like, my therapist told me I needed a journal. And just so you know, Brad knows this. I have like 17 beautiful journals. And I don't write any of them. I buy them. Who, if you're listening, raise your hand right now but if you're driving, keep hands on the wheel. Who buys journals, because like their higher self is going to journal someday? That's me. And I keep them and I don't write anything in them. And so she's like, I want you to journal. A week later, when I came back for therapy. She's like, how's the journaling going on? I'm like, so I want to actually know what you mean by journaling. Is there a prompt I should be answering? Like, Hello. Recovering overachiever and perfectionist over on this end of the mic. So I do journal every single day. I do what's called morning pages. And there I'll talk about it a lot on this podcast because it's really, truly, it changed my world. You do it first thing in the morning. So I've had people tell me Okay, I do it in the afternoon but that's not morning pages, like, it specifically says morning. And the idea is that you brain dump for three pages on a legal pad and you never read them again. So if you are someone who wants to read your thoughts later on, this is not for you. But if you are someone who is like I hear you to journal, I don't know how to do it. You can take the LL route which is morning pages all the way. It's from the book the Artist Way so if you really need to know how it comes down, but I promise you having like getting your thoughts out of your head onto paper really does help clear the mind. Anyways Brad, what was your favorite takeaway? Brad Crowell 24:39I? So I love how tangible and physical the idea of journaling is. Mine was a little more esoteric. Lesley Logan 24:52That's good. Everyone's got a different kind of thing. So for the esoteric here you go, Brad's got one for you. Brad Crowell 24:58Rob said something that I thought was really ridiculous. And the more I thought about it, the more I thought, the more I like it. He said be the happiness that you're chasing. And I was like, come on, like, How does it even work? Right? Like you can't just be the happiness that you're chasing. And then I thought, well, that's really funny because it's perfectly applicable to our podcast of being it. Lesley Logan 25:33I love it. He just missed that. And it was like, basically what I'm doing. Brad Crowell 25:35Right? But I thought, how ridiculous to just do it, just be it, whatever. Right? (Lesley: Just be it) But then he took a second and he quantified it. And he said, he said, You can, you know, the happiest that you're chasing is obviously that quote unquote, happiness is in front of you. Right? Like, obviously, that's where you quote unquote, want to be someday, right. And he said, however, if you can be in the now, if you can focus on the present moment. And you can dwell on happiness in the present moment, then you can be the happiness that you are chasing. Right now. Lesley Logan 26:25So you have it. That made me think of two things. First, it makes me think of the quote, Be the change you want to see. Second, it makes me think of all that talk about being in the present. And a lot of people are always chasing the dream, chasing the thing. Like, Oh, well, when I lose weight, then I'll be happy. When I have this job, I'll be happy. When I have this significant other then I'll be happy. When I get that new lipstick, it's gonna change my life. Like, there's always these, like, there's always a next thing. And I agree, like, if you can actually be the happiest you wish to be in the future in your present moment. Then you're not actually chasing anything and instead – not only are you being it until you see it (what, what, thanks, Rob for that) – but I think you're just gonna end like you're gonna see all the things around you that are already there supporting you on that journey that you're gonna go on. Brad Crowell 27:27Yeah, I mean, I think that it's a fascinating idea. And I think that it's worth exploring in your own life. Lesley Logan 27:40I think I'm going to try and do that tomorrow. Brad Crowell 27:42Yeah. If you can, like, for example, just sitting here in our new podcast space. Lesley Logan 27:51I know, it's so pretty Brad Crowell 27:52Enjoying the vibe that we created in here. And this moment, you know, this this time. Imagine if this was our life moving forward, I would love it. (Lesley: Yeah) It would be amazing. It is amazing, Lesley Logan 28:11Right? Instead of us like going, Okay, how long is this gonna take? We gotta order that sushi before they close. Like we're actually being the happiness, being the thing in the moment. It really does make, I think it also helps you expand time, to be honest. Brad Crowell 28:26Yeah, we're getting metaphysical here. Lesley Logan 28:29Well. You know, Brad, I think that's a great takeaway. And I you know, what I love about you. There's many things, everyone, and you'll get to know them. But he is the most curious person. He asked. Like, if something is said in a podcast that he hears not just mine, but like others. And he is like, Huh, I don't agree with that, or that's interesting, or how does it even work? He goes down the rabbit hole of researching it and I learn so many things, whereas I may go, No, that's geez. Like, he puts a question mark on it. And like really goes through it. So it's really fun to, for that to, for you to be here. Because otherwise we'll only do the things that are tangible strategic, like, let's get into it. Brad Crowell 29:14I might say that I find that ironic, because usually our roles are very reversed in that sense. (Lesley: Yeah, but) I that I'm the action taker. Lesley Logan 29:23Y'all, welcome to being in the Chief Pilates pod officer room. The roles are reversed. Brad Crowell 29:28I love it. Lesley Logan 29:31Well, anyway, everyone, and anyone listening to this, just favor and let us know what your favorite takeaways of Rob's podcast interview were. You can screenshot this and post it in your stories and tag us. Also, if you have questions that you want to.. (Brad: Tag Rob, too) Tag Rob Mack, too. And if you have questions that you want us to answer, you can DM the be_it_pod, all that stuff, all the information is in the show notes below. I just want to say thank you so much, and I can't wait to hear how you use Rob's tips to change your life and Be It Till You See It and I will see you next time. Thank you. Brad Crowell 30:06Cheers.—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 on Instagram! I would love to know more about you. Share this episode with who ever you think needs to hear it.Help us help others to BE IT TILL YOU SEE IT. Have an awesome day!—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