Podcast appearances and mentions of aaron yes

Table of contentsNote: links take you to the corresponding section below; links to the original episode can be found there.* Laura Duffy solves housing, ethics, and more [00:01:16]* Arjun Panickssery solves books, hobbies, and blogging, but fails to solve the Sleeping Beauty problem because he's wrong on that one [00:10:47]* Nathan Barnard on how financial regulation can inform AI regulation [00:17:16]* Winston Oswald-Drummond on the tractability of reducing s-risk, ethics, and more [00:27:48]* Nathan Barnard (again!) on why general intelligence is basically fake [00:34:10]* Daniel Filan on why I'm wrong about ethics (+ Oppenheimer and what names mean in like a hardcore phil of language sense) [00:56:54]* Holly Elmore on AI pause, wild animal welfare, and some cool biology things I couldn't fully follow but maybe you can [01:04:00]* Max Alexander and I solve ethics, philosophy of mind, and cancel culture once and for all [01:24:43]* Sarah Woodhouse on discovering AI x-risk, Twitter, and more [01:30:56] * Pigeon Hour x Consistently Candid pod-crossover: I debate moral realism with Max Alexander and Sarah Hastings-Woodhouse [01:41:08]Intro [00:00:00]To wrap up the year of Pigeon Hour, the podcast, I put together some clips from each episode to create a best-of compilation. This was inspired by 80,000 Hours, a podcast that did the same with their episodes, and I thought it was pretty cool and tractable enough.It's important to note that the clips I chose range in length significantly. This does not represent the quality or amount of interesting content in the episode. Sometimes there was a natural place to break the episode into a five-minute chunk, and other times it wouldn't have made sense to take a five-minute chunk out of what really needed to be a 20-minute segment. I promise I'm not just saying that.So without further ado, please enjoy.#1: Laura Duffy solves housing, ethics, and more [00:01:16]In this first segment, Laura, Duffy, and I discuss the significance and interpretation of Aristotle's philosophical works in relation to modern ethics and virtue theory.AARON: Econ is like more interesting. I don't know. I don't even remember of all the things. I don't know, it seems like kind of cool. Philosophy. Probably would have majored in philosophy if signaling wasn't an issue. Actually, maybe I'm not sure if that's true. Okay. I didn't want to do the old stuff though, so I'm actually not sure. But if I could aristotle it's all wrong. Didn't you say you got a lot out of Nicomachi or however you pronounce that?LAURA: Nicomachian ethics guide to how you should live your life. About ethics as applied to your life because you can't be perfect. Utilitarians. There's no way to be that.AARON: But he wasn't even responding to utilitarianism. I'm sure it was a good work given the time, but like, there's like no other discipline in which we care. So people care so much about like, what people thought 2000 years ago because like the presumption, I think the justified presumption is that things have iterated and improved since then. And I think that's true. It's like not just a presumption.LAURA: Humans are still rather the same and what our needs are for living amongst each other in political society are kind of the same. I think America's founding is very influenced by what people thought 2000 years ago.AARON: Yeah, descriptively that's probably true. But I don't know, it seems like all the whole body of philosophers have they've already done the work of, like, compressing the good stuff. Like the entire academy since like, 1400 or whatever has like, compressed the good stuff and like, gotten rid of the bad stuff. Not in like a high fidelity way, but like a better than chance way. And so the stuff that remains if you just take the state of I don't know if you read the Oxford Handbook of whatever it is, like ethics or something, the takeaways you're going to get from that are just better than the takeaways you're going to get from a summary of the state of the knowledge in any prior year. At least. Unless something weird happened. And I don't know. I don't know if that makes sense.LAURA: I think we're talking about two different things, though. Okay. In terms of knowledge about logic or something or, I don't know, argumentation about trying to derive the correct moral theory or something, versus how should we think about our own lives. I don't see any reason as to why the framework of virtue theory is incorrect and just because it's old. There's many virtue theorists now who are like, oh yeah, they were really on to something and we need to adapt it for the times in which we live and the kind of societies we live in now. But it's still like there was a huge kernel of truth in at least the way of thinking that Aristotle put forth in terms of balancing the different virtues that you care about and trying to find. I think this is true. Right? Like take one virtue of his humor. You don't want to be on one extreme where you're just basically a meme your entire life. Everybody thinks you're funny, but that's just not very serious. But you don't want to be a boar and so you want to find somewhere in the middle where it's like you have a good sense of humor, but you can still function and be respected by other people.AARON: Yeah. Once again, I agree. Well, I don't agree with everything. I agree with a lot of what you just said. I think there was like two main points of either confusion or disagreement. And like, the first one is that I definitely think, no, Aristotle shouldn't be discounted or like his ideas or virtue ethics or anything like that shouldn't be discounted because they were canonical texts or something were written a long time ago. I guess it's just like a presumption that I have a pretty strong presumption that conditional on them being good, they would also be written about today. And so you don't actually need to go back to the founding texts and then in fact, you probably shouldn't because the good stuff will be explained better and not in weird it looks like weird terms. The terms are used differently and they're like translations from Aramaic or whatever. Probably not Aramaic, probably something else. And yeah, I'm not sure if you.LAURA: Agree with this because we have certain assumptions about what words like purpose mean now that we're probably a bit richer in the old conception of them like telos or happiness. Right. Udaimnia is much better concept and to read the original text and see how those different concepts work together is actually quite enriching compared to how do people use these words now. And it would take like I don't know, I think there just is a lot of value of looking at how these were originally conceived because popularizers of the works now or people who are seriously doing philosophy using these concepts. You just don't have the background knowledge that's necessary to understand them fully if you don't read the canonical text.AARON: Yeah, I think that would be true. If you are a native speaker. Do you know Greek? If you know Greek, this is like dumb because then you're just right.LAURA: I did take a quarter of it.AARON: Oh God. Oh my God. I don't know if that counts, but that's like more than anybody should ever take. No, I'm just kidding. That's very cool. No, because I was going to say if you're a native speaker of Greek and you have the connotations of the word eudaimonia and you were like living in the temper shuttle, I would say. Yeah, that's true actually. That's a lot of nuanced, connotation and context that definitely gets lost with translation. But once you take the jump of reading English translations of the texts, not you may as well but there's nothing super special. You're not getting any privileged knowledge from saying the word eudaimonia as opposed to just saying some other term as a reference to that concept or something. You're absorbing the connotation in the context via English, I guess, via the mind of literally the translators who have like.LAURA: Yeah, well see, I tried to learn virtue theory by any other route than reading Aristotle.AARON: Oh God.LAURA: I took a course specifically on Plato and Aristotle.AARON: Sorry, I'm not laughing at you. I'm just like the opposite type of philosophy person.LAURA: But keep going. Fair. But she had us read his physics before we read Nicomachi.AARON: Think he was wrong about all that.LAURA: Stuff, but it made you understand what he meant by his teleology theory so much better in a way that I could not get if I was reading some modern thing.AARON: I don't know, I feel like you probably could. No, sorry, that's not true. I don't think you could get what Aristotle the man truly believed as well via a modern text. But is that what you? Depends. If you're trying to be a scholar of Aristotle, maybe that's important. If you're trying to find the best or truest ethics and learn the lessons of how to live, that's like a different type of task. I don't think Aristotle the man should be all that privileged in that.LAURA: If all of the modern people who are talking about virtue theory are basically Aristotle, then I don't see the difference.AARON: Oh, yeah, I guess. Fair enough. And then I would say, like, oh, well, they should probably start. Is that in fact the state of the things in virtue theory? I don't even know.LAURA: I don't know either.#2 Arjun Panickssery solves books, hobbies, and blogging, but fails to solve the Sleeping Beauty problem because he's wrong on that one [00:10:47]All right, next, Arjun Panixery and I explore the effectiveness of reading books in retaining and incorporating knowledge, discussing the value of long form content and the impact of great literary works on understanding and shaping personal worldviews.ARJUN: Oh, you were in the book chat, though. The book rant group chat, right?AARON: Yeah, I think I might have just not read any of it. So do you want to fill me in on what I should have read?ARJUN: Yeah, it's group chat of a bunch of people where we were arguing about a bunch of claims related to books. One of them is that most people don't remember pretty much anything from books that they read, right? They read a book and then, like, a few months later, if you ask them about it, they'll just say one page's worth of information or maybe like, a few paragraphs. The other is that what is it exactly? It's that if you read a lot of books, it could be that you just incorporate the information that's important into your existing models and then just forget the information. So it's actually fine. Isn't this what you wrote in your blog post or whatever? I think that's why I added you to that.AARON: Oh, thank you. I'm sorry I'm such a bad group chat participant. Yeah, honestly, I wrote that a while ago. I don't fully remember exactly what it says, but at least one of the things that it said was and that I still basically stand by, is that it's basically just like it's increasing the salience of a set of ideas more so than just filling your brain with more facts. And I think this is probably true insofar as the facts support a set of common themes or ideas that are kind of like the intellectual core of it. It would be really hard. Okay, so this is not a book, but okay. I've talked about how much I love an 80,000 hours podcast, and I've listened to, I don't think every episode, but at least 100 of the episodes. And no, you're just, like, not going to definitely I've forgotten most of the actual almost all of the actual propositional pieces of information said, but you're just not going to convince me that it's completely not affecting either model of the world or stuff that I know or whatever. I mean, there are facts that I could list. I think maybe I should try.ARJUN: Sure.AARON: Yeah. So what's your take on book other long form?ARJUN: Oh, I don't know. I'm still quite confused or I think the impetus for the group chat's creation was actually Hanania's post where he wrote the case against most books or most was in parentheses or something. I mean, there's a lot of things going on in that post. He just goes off against a bunch of different categories of books that are sort of not closely related. Like, he goes off against great. I mean, this is not the exact take he gives, but it's something like the books that are considered great are considered great literature for some sort of contingent reason, not because they're the best at getting you information that you want.AARON: This is, like, another topic. But I'm, like, anti great books. In fact, I'm anti great usually just means old and famous. So insofar as that's what we mean by I'm like, I think this is a bad thing, or, like, I don't know, aristotle is basically wrong about everything and stuff like that.ARJUN: Right, yeah. Wait, we could return to this. I guess this could also be divided into its component categories. He spends more time, though, I think, attacking a certain kind of nonfiction book that he describes as the kind of book that somebody pitches to a publisher and basically expands a single essay's worth of content into with a bunch of anecdotes and stuff. He's like, most of these books are just not very useful to read, I guess. I agree with that.AARON: Yeah. Is there one that comes to mind as, like, an? Mean, I think of Malcolm Gladwell as, like, the kind of I haven't actually read any of his stuff in a while, but I did, I think, when I started reading nonfiction or with any sort of intent, I read. A bunch of his stuff or whatever and vaguely remember that this is basically what he like for better or.ARJUN: Um yeah, I guess so. But he's almost, like, trying to do it on purpose. This is the experience that you're getting by reading a Malcolm Gladwell book. It's like talib. Right? It's just him just ranting. I'm thinking, I guess, of books that are about something. So, like, if you have a book that's know negotiation or something, it'll be filled with a bunch of anecdotes that are of dubious usefulness. Or if you get a book that's just about some sort of topic, there'll be historical trivia that's irrelevant. Maybe I can think of an example.AARON: Yeah. So the last thing I tried to read, maybe I am but haven't in a couple of weeks or whatever, is like, the Derek Parfit biography. And part of this is motivated because I don't even like biographies in general for some reason, I don't know. But I don't know. He's, like, an important guy. Some of the anecdotes that I heard were shockingly close to home for me, or not close to home, but close to my brain or something. So I was like, okay, maybe I'll see if this guy's like the smarter version of Aaron Bergman. And it's not totally true.ARJUN: Sure, I haven't read the book, but I saw tweet threads about it, as one does, and I saw things that are obviously false. Right. It's the claims that he read, like, a certain number of pages while brushing his teeth. That's, like, anatomically impossible or whatever. Did you get to that part? Or I assumed no, I also saw.AARON: That tweet and this is not something that I do, but I don't know if it's anatomically impossible. Yeah, it takes a little bit of effort to figure out how to do that, I guess. I don't think that's necessarily false or whatever, but this is probably not the most important.ARJUN: Maybe it takes long time to brush his teeth.#3: Nathan Barnard on how financial regulation can inform AI regulation [00:17:16]In this next segment, Nathan Barnard and I dive into the complexities of AI regulation, including potential challenges and outcomes of governing AI in relation to economic growth and existential security. And we compare it to banking regulation as well.AARON: Yeah, I don't know. I just get gloomy for, I think justified reasons when people talk about, oh yeah, here's the nine step process that has to take place and then maybe there's like a 20% chance that we'll be able to regulate AI effectively. I'm being facetious or exaggerating, something like that, but not by a gigantic amount.NATHAN: I think this is pretty radically different to my mainline expectation.AARON: What's your mainline expectation?NATHAN: I suppose I expect like AI to come with an increasing importance past economy and to come up to really like a very large fraction of the economy before really crazy stuff starts happening and this world is going very anonymous. Anonymous, anonymous, anonymous. I know the word is it'd be very unusual if this extremely large sector economy which was impacted like a very large number of people's lives remains like broadly unregulated.AARON: It'll be regulated, but just maybe in a stupid way.NATHAN: Sure, yes, maybe in a stupid way. I suppose critically, do you expect the stupid way to be like too conservative or too like the specific question of AI accenture it's basically too conservative or too lenient or I just won't be able to interact with this.AARON: I guess generally too lenient, but also mostly on a different axis where just like I don't actually know enough. I don't feel like I've read learned about various governance proposals to have a good object level take on this. But my broad prior is that there are just a lot of ways to for anything. There's a lot of ways to regulate something poorly. And the reason insofar as anything isn't regulated poorly it's because of a lot of trial and error.NATHAN: Maybe.AARON: I mean, there's probably exceptions, right? I don't know. Tax Americana is like maybe we didn't just kept winning wars starting with World War II. I guess just like maybe like a counterexample or something like that.NATHAN: Yeah, I think I still mostly disagree with this. Oh, cool. Yeah. I suppose I see a much like broader spectrum between bad regulation and good regulation. I agree it's like very small amount. The space of optimal regulation is very small. But I think we have to hit that space for regulation to be helpful. Especially in this especially if you consider that if you sort of buy the AI extension safety risk then the downsides of it's not this quite fine balancing act between too much whether consumer protection and siphoning competition and cycling innovation too much. It's like trying to end this quite specific, very bad outcome which is maybe much worse than going somewhat slowering economic growth, at least somewhat particularly if we think we're going to get something. This is very explosive rates for economic growth really quite soon. And the cost of slowing down economic growth by weather even by quite a large percentage, very small compared to the cost of sort of an accidental catastrophe. I sort of think of Sony iconic growth as the main cost of main way regulation goes wrong currently.AARON: I think in an actual sense that is correct. There's the question of like okay, Congress in the states like it's better than nothing. I'm glad it's not anarchy in terms of like I'm glad we have a legislature.NATHAN: I'm also glad the United States.AARON: How reasons responsive is Congress? I don't think reasons responsive enough to make it so that the first big law that gets passed insofar as there is one or if there is one is on the pareto frontier trading off between economic growth and existential security. It's going to be way inside of that production frontier or whatever. It's going to suck on every action, maybe not every act but at least like some relevant actions.NATHAN: Yeah that doesn't seem like obviously true to me. I think Dodge Frank was quite a good law.AARON: That came after 2008, right?NATHAN: Yeah correct. Yeah there you go. No, I agree. I'm not especially confident about doing regulation before there's some quite bad before there's a quite bad warning shot and yes, if we're in world where we have no warning shots and we're just like blindsided by everyone getting turned into everyone getting stripped their Athens within 3 seconds, this is not good. Both in law we do have one of those shots and I think Glass Seagull is good law. Not good law is a technical term. I think Glass Steagall was a good piece of legislation. I think DoD Frank was a good piece of legislation. I think the 2008 Seamless Bill was good piece of legislation. I think the Troubled Assets Relief Program is a good piece of piece of legislation.AARON: I recognize these terms and I know some of them and others I do not know the contents of.NATHAN: Yeah so Glass Eagle was the financial regulation passed in 1933 after Great Depression. The Tropical Asset Relief Program was passed in I think 2008, moved 2009 to help recapitalize banks. Dodge Frank was the sort of landmark post financial cris piece of legislation passed in 2011. I think these are all good pieces of legislation now. I think like financial regulation is probably unusually good amongst US legislation. This is like a quite weak take, I guess. It's unusually.AARON: So. I don't actually know the pre depression financial history at all but I feel like the more relevant comparison to the 21st century era is what was the regulatory regime in 1925 or something? I just don't know.NATHAN: Yeah, I know a bit. I haven't read this stuff especially deeply and so I don't want to don't want to be so overcompensant here but sort of the core pieces which were sort of important for the sort of the Great Depression going very badly was yeah, no distinction between commercial banks and investment banks. Yes, such a bank could take much riskier. Much riskier. Things with like custom deposits than they could from 1933 until the Peel Glass Eagle. And combine that with no deposit insurance and if you sort of have the combination of banks being able to do quite risky things with depositors money and no deposit insurance, this is quite dangerously known. And glassy repeal.AARON: I'm an expert in the sense that I have the Wikipedia page up. Well, yeah, there was a bunch of things. Basically. There's the first bank of the United States. There's the second bank of the United States. There's the free banking era. There was the era of national banks. Yada, yada, yada. It looks like 19. Seven was there was some panic. I vaguely remember this from like, AP US history, like seven years ago or.NATHAN: Yes, I suppose in short, I sort of agree that the record of sort of non post Cris legislation is like, not very good, but I think record of post Cris legislation really, at least in the financial sector, really is quite good. I'm sure lots of people disagree with this, but this is my take.#4 Winston Oswald-Drummond on the tractability of reducing s-risk, ethics, and more [00:27:48]Up next, Winston Oswald Drummond and I talk about the effectiveness and impact of donating to various research organizations, such as suffering-focused S-risk organizations. We discuss tractability, expected value, and essentially where we should give our money.AARON: Okay, nice. Yeah. Where to go from here? I feel like largely we're on the same page, I feel like.WINSTON: Yeah. Is your disagreement mostly tractability? Then? Maybe we should get into the disagreement.AARON: Yeah. I don't even know if I've specified, but insofar as I have one, yes, it's trapped ability. This is the reason why I haven't donated very much to anywhere for money reasons. But insofar as I have, I have not donated to Clrcrs because I don't see a theory of change that connects the research currently being done to actually reducing s risks. And I feel like there must be something because there's a lot of extremely smart people at both of these orgs or whatever, and clearly they thought about this and maybe the answer is it's very general and the outcome is just so big in magnitude that anything kind.WINSTON: Of that is part of it, I think. Yeah, part of it is like an expected value thing and also it's just very neglected. So it's like you want some people working on this, I think, at least. Even if it's unlikely to work. Yeah, even that might be underselling it, though. I mean, I do think there's people at CRS and Clr, like talking to people at AI labs and some people in politics and these types of things. And hopefully the research is a way to know what to try to get done at these places. You want to have some concrete recommendations and I think obviously people have to also be willing to listen to you, but I think there is some work being done on that and research is partially just like a community building thing as well. It's a credible signal that you were smart and have thought about this, and so it gives people reason to listen to you and maybe that mostly pays off later on in the future.AARON: Yeah, that all sounds like reasonable. And I guess one thing is that I just don't there's definitely things I mean, first of all, I haven't really stayed up to date on what's going on, so I haven't even done I've done zero research for this podcast episode, for example. Very responsible and insofar as I've know things about these. Orgs. It's just based on what's on their website at some given time. So insofar as there's outreach going on, not like behind the scenes, but just not in a super public way, or I guess you could call that behind the scenes. I just don't have reason to, I guess, know about that. And I guess, yeah, I'm pretty comfortable. I don't even know if this is considered biting a bullet for the crowd that will be listening to this, if that's anybody but with just like yeah, saying a very small change for a very large magnitude, just, like, checks out. You can just do expected value reasoning and that's basically correct, like a correct way of thinking about ethics. But even I don't know how much you know specifically or, like, how much you're allowed want to reveal, but if there was a particular alignment agenda that I guess you in a broad sense, like the suffering focused research community thought was particularly promising and relative to other tractable, I guess, generic alignment recommendations. And you were doing research on that and trying to push that into the alignment mainstream, which is not very mainstream. And then with the hope that that jumps into the AI mainstream. Even if that's kind of a long chain of events. I think I would be a lot more enthusiastic about I don't know that type of agenda, because it feels like there's like a particular story you're telling where it cashes out in the end. You know what I mean?WINSTON: Yeah, I'm not the expert on this stuff, but I do think you just mean I think there's some things about influencing alignment and powerful AI for sure. Maybe not like a full on, like, this is our alignment proposal and it also handles Sris. But some things we could ask AI labs that are already building, like AGI, we could say, can you also implement these sort of, like, safeguards so if you failed alignment, you fail sort of gracefully and don't cause lots of suffering.AARON: Right?WINSTON: Yeah. Or maybe there are other things too, which also seem potentially more tractable. Even if you solve alignment in some sense, like aligning with whatever the human operator tells the AI to do, then you can also get the issue that malevolent actors can take control of the AI and then what they want also causes lots of suffering that type of alignment wouldn't. Yeah, and I guess I tend to be somewhat skeptical of coherent extrapolated volition and things like this, where the idea is sort of like it'll just figure out our values and do the right thing. So, yeah, there's some ways to push on this without having a full alignment plan, but I'm not sure if that counts as what you were saying.AARON: No, I guess it does. Yeah, it sounds like it does. And it could be that I'm just kind of mistaken about the degree to which that type of research and outreach is going on. That sounds like it's at least partially true.#5: Nathan Barnard (again!) on why general intelligence is basically fake [00:34:10]Up next, Nathan Barnard is back for his second episode. And we talked about the nature of general intelligence, its relationship with language and the implications of specialized brain functions on the understanding of human cognitive abilities.NATHAN: Yes. This like symbolic like symbolic, symbolic reasoning stuff. Yeah. So I think if I was, like, making the if I was, like, making the case for general intelligence being real, I wouldn't have symbolic reasoning, but I would have language stuff. I'd have this hierarchical structure thing, which.AARON: I would probably so I think of at least most uses of language and central examples as a type of symbolic reasoning because words mean things. They're like yeah. Pointers to objects or something like that.NATHAN: Yeah, I think it's like, pretty confidence isn't where this isn't a good enough description of general intelligence. So, for instance so if you bit in your brain called, I'm using a checklist, I don't fuck this up vernacular, I'm not making this cool. Lots of connects to use words like pointers as these arbitrary signs happens mostly in this area of the brain called Berkeley's area. But very famously, you can have Berkeley's epaxics who lose the ability to do language comprehension and use the ability to consistently use words as pointers, as signs to point to things, but still have perfect good spatial reasoning abilities. And so, conversely, people with brokers of fascia who fuck up, who have the broker's reason their brain fucks up will not be able to form fluent sentences and have some problems like unsigned syntax, and they'll still be able to have very good spatial reasoning. It could still, for instance, be like, good engineers. Would you like many problems which, like, cost engineering?AARON: Yeah, I totally buy that. I don't think language is the central thing. I think it's like an outgrowth of, like I don't know, there's like a simplified model I could make, which is like it's like an outgrowth of whatever general intelligence really is. But whatever the best spatial or graphical model is, I don't think language is cognition.NATHAN: Yes, this is a really big debate in psycholinguistics as to whether language is like an outgrowth of other abilities like the brain has, whether language whether there's very specialized language modules. Yeah, this is just like a very live debate in psycholinguistics moments. I actually do lean towards the reason I've been talking about this actually just going to explain this hierarchical structure thing? Yeah, I keep talking about it. So one theory for how you can comprehend new sentences, like, the dominant theory in linguistics, how you can comprehend new sentences, um, is you break them up into, like you break them up into, like, chunks, and you form these chunks together in this, like, tree structure. So something like, if you hear, like, a totally novel sentence like the pit bull mastiff flopped around deliciously or something, you can comprehend what the sentence means despite the fact you've never heard it. Theory behind this is you saw yes, this can be broken up into this tree structure, where the different, like, ah, like like bits of the sentence. So, like like the mastiff would be like, one bit, and then you have, like, another bit, which is like, the mastiff I can't remember I said rolled around, so that'd be like, another bit, and then you'd have connectors to our heart.AARON: Okay.NATHAN: So the massive rolling around one theory of one of the sort of distinctive things that humans have disabilities is like, this quite general ability to break things up into these these tree structures. This is controversial within psycholinguistics, but it's broadly an area which I broadly buy it because we do see harms to other areas of intelligence. You get much worse at, like, Ravens Progressive Matrices, for instance, when you have, like, an injury to brokers area, but, like, not worse at, like, tests like tests of space, of, like, spatial reasoning, for instance.AARON: So what is like, is there, like, a main alternative to, like, how humans.NATHAN: Understand language as far as this specificity of how we pass completely novel sentences, as far as where this is just like this is just like the the academic consensus. Okay.AARON: I mean, it sounds totally like right? I don't know.NATHAN: Yeah. But yeah, I suppose going back to saying, how far is language like an outgrowth of general intelligence? An outgrowth like general intelligence versus having much more specialized language modules? Yeah, I lean towards the latter, despite yeah, I still don't want to give too strong of a personal opinion here because I'm not a linguistic this is a podcast.AARON: You're allowed to give takes. No one's going to say this is like the academic we want takes.NATHAN: We want takes. Well, gone to my head is.AARON: I.NATHAN: Think language is not growth of other abilities. I think the main justification for this, I think, is that the loss of other abilities we see when you have damage to broker's area and verca's area.AARON: Okay, cool. So I think we basically agree on that. And also, I guess one thing to highlight is I think outgrowth can mean a couple of different things. I definitely think it's plausible. I haven't read about this. I think I did at some point, but not in a while. But outgrowth could mean temporarily or whatever. I think I'm kind of inclined to think it's not that straightforward. You could have coevolution where language per se encourages both its own development and the development of some general underlying trait or something.NATHAN: Yeah. Which seems likely.AARON: Okay, cool. So why don't humans have general intelligence?NATHAN: Right. Yeah. As I was sort of talking about previously.AARON: Okay.NATHAN: I think I think I'd like to use go back to like a high level like a high level argument is there appears to be very surprised, like, much higher levels of functional specialization in brains than you expect. You can lose much more specific abilities than you expect to be able to lose. You can lose specifically the ability a famous example is like facebindness, actually. You probably lose the ability to specifically recognize things which you're, like, an expert in.AARON: Who does it or who loses this ability.NATHAN: If you've damaged your fuse inform area, you'll lose the ability to recognize faces, but nothing else.AARON: Okay.NATHAN: And there's this general pattern that your brain is much more you can lose much more specific abilities than you expect. So, for instance, if you sort of have damage to your ventral, medial, prefrontal cortex, you can say the reasoning for why you shouldn't compulsively gamble but still compulsively gamble.AARON: For instance okay, I understand this not gambling per se, but like executive function stuff at a visceral level. Okay, keep going.NATHAN: Yeah. Some other nice examples of this. I think memory is quite intuitive. So there's like, a very famous patient called patient HM who had his hippocampus removed and so as a result, lost all declarative memory. So all memory of specific facts and things which happened in his life. He just couldn't remember any of these things, but still perfectly functioning otherwise. I think at a really high level, I think this functional specialization is probably the strongest piece of evidence against the general intelligence hypothesis. I think fundamentally, general intelligence hypothesis implies that, like, if you, like yeah, if you was, like, harm a piece of your brain, if you have some brain injury, you might like generically get worse at tasks you like, generically get worse at, like at like all task groups use general intelligence. But I think suggesting people, including general intelligence, like the ability to write, the ability to speak, maybe not speak, the ability to do math, you do have.AARON: This it's just not as easy to analyze in a Cogsy paper which IQ or whatever. So there is something where if somebody has a particular cubic centimeter of their brain taken out, that's really excellent evidence about what that cubic centimeter does or whatever, but that non spatial modification is just harder to study and analyze. I guess we'll give people drugs, right? Suppose that set aside the psychometric stuff. But suppose that general intelligence is mostly a thing or whatever and you actually can ratchet it up and down. This is probably just true, right? You can probably give somebody different doses of, like, various drugs. I don't know, like laughing gas, like like, yeah, like probably, probably weed. Like I don't know.NATHAN: So I think this just probably isn't true. Your working memory corrects quite strongly with G and having better working memory generic can make you much better at lots of tasks if you have like.AARON: Yeah.NATHAN: Sorry, but this is just like a specific ability. It's like just specifically your working memory, which is improved if you go memory to a drugs. Improved working memory. I think it's like a few things like memory attention, maybe something like decision making, which are all like extremely useful abilities and improve how well other cognitive abilities work. But they're all separate things. If you improved your attention abilities, your working memory, but you sort of had some brain injury, which sort of meant you sort of had lost ability to pass syntax, you would not get better at passing syntax. And you can also use things separately. You can also improve attention and improve working memory separately, which just it's not just this one dial which you can turn up.AARON: There's good reason to expect that we can't turn it up because evolution is already sort of like maximizing, given the relevant constraints. Right. So you would need to be looking just like injuries. Maybe there are studies where they try to increase people's, they try to add a cubic centimeter to someone's brain, but normally it's like the opposite. You start from some high baseline and then see what faculties you lose. Just to clarify, I guess.NATHAN: Yeah, sorry, I think I've lost the you still think there probably is some general intelligence ability to turn up?AARON: Honestly, I think I haven't thought about this nearly as much as you. I kind of don't know what I think at some level. If I could just write down all of the different components and there are like 74 of them and what I think of a general intelligence consists of does that make it I guess in some sense, yeah, that does make it less of an ontologically legit thing or something. I think I think the thing I want to get the motivating thing here is that with humans yet you can like we know humans range in IQ, and there's, like, setting aside a very tiny subset of people with severe brain injuries or development disorders or whatever. Almost everybody has some sort of symbolic reasoning that they can do to some degree. Whereas the smartest maybe I'm wrong about this, but as far as I know, the smartest squirrel is not going to be able to have something semantically represent something else. And that's what I intuitively want to appeal to, you know what I mean?NATHAN: Yeah, I know what you're guessing at. So I think there's like two interesting things here. So I think one is, could a squirrel do this? I'm guessing a squirrel couldn't do this, but a dog can, or like a dog probably can. A chimpanzee definitely can.AARON: Do what?NATHAN: Chimpanzees can definitely learn to associate arbitrary signs, things in the world with arbitrary signs.AARON: Yes, but maybe I'm just adding on epicentercles here, but I feel like correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that maybe I'm just wrong about this, but I would assume that Chicken Tees cannot use that sign in a domain that is qualitatively different from the ones they've been in. Right. So, like, a dog will know that a certain sign means sit or whatever, but maybe that's not a good I.NATHAN: Don'T know think this is basically not true.AARON: Okay.NATHAN: And we sort of know this from teaching.AARON: Teaching.NATHAN: There's like a famously cocoa de guerrilla. Also a bonobo whose name I can't remember were taught sign language. And the thing they were consistently bad at was, like, putting together sentences they could learn quite large vocabularies learning to associate by large, I mean in the hundreds of words, in the low hundreds of words which they could consistently use consistently use correctly.AARON: What do you mean by, like, in what sense? What is bonobo using?NATHAN: A very famous and quite controversial example is like, coco gorilla was like, saw a swan outside and signed water bird. That's like, a controversial example. But other things, I think, which are controversial here is like, the syntax part of putting water and bird together is the controversial part, but it's not the controversial part that she could see a swan and call that a bird.AARON: Yeah, I mean, this is kind of just making me think, okay, maybe the threshold for D is just like at the chimp level or something. We are like or whatever the most like that. Sure. If a species really can generate from a prefix and a suffix or whatever, a concept that they hadn't learned before.NATHAN: Yeah, this is a controversial this is like a controversial example of that the addition to is the controversial part. Yeah, I suppose maybe brings back to why I think this matters is will there be this threshold which AIS cross such that their reasoning after this is qualitatively different to their reasoning previously? And this is like two things. One, like a much faster increase in AI capabilities and two, alignment techniques which worked on systems which didn't have g will no longer work. Systems which do have g. Brings back to why I think this actually matters. But I think if we're sort of accepting it, I think elephants probably also if you think that if we're saying, like, g is like a level of chimpanzees, chimpanzees just, like, don't don't look like quantitatively different to, like, don't look like that qualitatively different to, like, other animals. Now, lots of other animals live in similar complex social groups. Lots of other animals use tools.AARON: Yeah, sure. For one thing, I don't think there's not going to be a discontinuity in the same way that there wasn't a discontinuity at any point between humans evolution from the first prokaryotic cells or whatever are eukaryotic one of those two or both, I guess. My train of thought. Yes, I know it's controversial, but let's just suppose that the sign language thing was legit with the waterbird and that's not like a random one off fluke or something. Then maybe this is just some sort of weird vestigial evolutionary accident that actually isn't very beneficial for chimpanzees and they just stumbled their way into and then it just enabled them to it enables evolution to bootstrap Shimp genomes into human genomes. Because at some the smartest or whatever actually, I don't know. Honestly, I don't have a great grasp of evolutionary biology or evolution at all. But, yeah, it could just be not that helpful for chimps and helpful for an extremely smart chimp that looks kind of different or something like that.NATHAN: Yeah. So I suppose just like the other thing she's going on here, I don't want to keep banging on about this, but you can lose the language. You can lose linguistic ability. And it's just, like, happens this happens in stroke victims, for instance. It's not that rare. Just, like, lose linguistic ability, but still have all the other abilities which we sort of think of as like, general intelligence, which I think would be including the general intelligence, like, hypothesis.AARON: I agree that's, like, evidence against it. I just don't think it's very strong evidence, partially because I think there is a real school of thought that says that language is fundamental. Like, language drives thought. Language is, like, primary to thought or something. And I don't buy that. If you did buy that, I think this would be, like, more damning evidence.#6 Daniel Filan on why I'm wrong about ethics (+ Oppenheimer and what names mean in like a hardcore phil of language sense) [00:56:54][Note: I forgot to record an intro segment here. Sorry!]AARON: Yeah. Yes. I'm also anti scam. Right, thank you. Okay, so I think that thing that we were talking about last time we talked, which is like the thing I think we actually both know stuff about instead of just like, repeating New York Times articles is my nuanced ethics takes and why you think about talk about that and then we can just also branch off from there.DANIEL: Yeah, we can talk about that.AARON: Maybe see where that did. I luckily I have a split screen up, so I can pull up things. Maybe this is kind of like egotistical or something to center my particular view, but you've definitely given me some of the better pushback or whatever that I haven't gotten that much feedback of any kind, I guess, but it's still interesting to hear your take. So basically my ethical position or the thing that I think is true is that which I think is not the default view. I think most people think this is wrong is that total utilitarianism does not imply that for some amount of suffering that could be created there exists some other extremely large arbitrarily, large amount of happiness that could also be created which would morally justify the former. Basically.DANIEL: So you think that even under total utilitarianism there can be big amounts of suffering such that there's no way to morally tip the calculus. However much pleasure you can create, it's just not going to outweigh the fact that you inflicted that much suffering on some people.AARON: Yeah, and I'd highlight the word inflicted if something's already there and you can't do anything about it, that's kind of neither here nor there as it pertains to your actions or something. So it's really about you increasing, you creating suffering that wouldn't have otherwise been created. Yeah. It's also been a couple of months since I've thought about this in extreme detail, although I thought about it quite a bit. Yeah.DANIEL: Maybe I should say my contrary view, I guess, when you say that, I don't know, does total utilitarianism imply something or not? I'm like, well, presumably it depends on what we mean by total utilitarianism. Right. So setting that aside, I think that thesis is probably false. I think that yeah. You can offset great amounts of suffering with great amounts of pleasure, even for arbitrary amounts of suffering.AARON: Okay. I do think that position is like the much more common and even, I'd say default view. Do you agree with that? It's sort of like the implicit position of people who are of self described total utilitarians who haven't thought a ton about this particular question.DANIEL: Yeah, I think it's probably the implicit default. I think it's the implicit default in ethical theory or something. I think that in practice, when you're being a utilitarian, I don't know, normally, if you're trying to be a utilitarian and you see yourself inflicting a large amount of suffering, I don't know. I do think there's some instinct to be like, is there any way we can get around this?AARON: Yeah, for sure. And to be clear, I don't think this would look like a thought experiment. I think what it looks like in practice and also I will throw in caveats as I see necessary, but I think what it looks like in practice is like, spreading either wild animals or humans or even sentient digital life through the universe. That's in a non as risky way, but that's still just maybe like, say, making the earth, making multiple copies of humanity or something like that. That would be an example that's probably not like an example of what an example of creating suffering would be. For example, just creating another duplicate of earth. Okay.DANIEL: Anything that would be like so much suffering that we shouldn't even the pleasures of earth outweighs.AARON: Not necessarily, which is kind of a cop out. But my inclination is that if you include wild animals, the answer is yes, that creating another earth especially. Yeah, but I'm much more committed to some amount. It's like some amount than this particular time and place in human industry is like that or whatever.DANIEL: Okay, can I get a feel of some other concrete cases to see?AARON: Yeah.DANIEL: So one example that's on my mind is, like, the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, right? So the standard case for this is, like, yeah, what? A hundred OD thousand people died? Like, quite terrible, quite awful. And a lot of them died, I guess a lot of them were sort of some people were sort of instantly vaporized, but a lot of people died in extremely painful ways. But the countercase is like, well, the alternative to that would have been like, an incredibly grueling land invasion of Japan, where many more people would have died or know regardless of what the actual alternatives were. If you think about the atomic bombings, do you think that's like the kind of infliction of suffering where there's just not an offsetting amount of pleasure that could make that okay?AARON: My intuition is no, that it is offsettable, but I would also emphasize that given the actual historical contingencies, the alternative, the implicit case for the bombing includes reducing suffering elsewhere rather than merely creating happiness. There can definitely be two bad choices that you have to make or something. And my claim doesn't really pertain to that, at least not directly.#7: Holly Elmore on AI pause, wild animal welfare, and some cool biology things I couldn't fully follow but maybe you can [01:04:00]Up next, Holly Elmore and I discuss the complexities and implications of AI development and open sourcing. We talk about protests and ethical considerations around her, um, uh, campaign to pause the development of frontier AI systems until, until we can tell that they're safe.AARON: So what's the plan? Do you have a plan? You don't have to have a plan. I don't have plans very much.HOLLY: Well, right now I'm hopeful about the UK AI summit. Pause AI and I have planned a multi city protest on the 21 October to encourage the UK AI Safety Summit to focus on safety first and to have as a topic arranging a pause or that of negotiation. There's a lot of a little bit upsetting advertising for that thing that's like, we need to keep up capabilities too. And I just think that's really a secondary objective. And that's how I wanted to be focused on safety. So I'm hopeful about the level of global coordination that we're already seeing. It's going so much faster than we thought. Already the UN Secretary General has been talking about this and there have been meetings about this. It's happened so much faster at the beginning of this year. Nobody thought we could talk about nobody was thinking we'd be talking about this as a mainstream topic. And then actually governments have been very receptive anyway. So right now I'm focused on other than just influencing opinion, the targets I'm focused on, or things like encouraging these international like, I have a protest on Friday, my first protest that I'm leading and kind of nervous that's against Meta. It's at the Meta building in San Francisco about their sharing of model weights. They call it open source. It's like not exactly open source, but I'm probably not going to repeat that message because it's pretty complicated to explain. I really love the pause message because it's just so hard to misinterpret and it conveys pretty clearly what we want very quickly. And you don't have a lot of bandwidth and advocacy. You write a lot of materials for a protest, but mostly what people see is the title.AARON: That's interesting because I sort of have the opposite sense. I agree that in terms of how many informational bits you're conveying in a particular phrase, pause AI is simpler, but in some sense it's not nearly as obvious. At least maybe I'm more of a tech brain person or whatever. But why that is good, as opposed to don't give extremely powerful thing to the worst people in the world. That's like a longer everyone.HOLLY: Maybe I'm just weird. I've gotten the feedback from open source ML people is the number one thing is like, it's too late, there's already super powerful models. There's nothing you can do to stop us, which sounds so villainous, I don't know if that's what they mean. Well, actually the number one message is you're stupid, you're not an ML engineer. Which like, okay, number two is like, it's too late, there's nothing you can do. There's all of these other and Meta is not even the most powerful generator of models that it share of open source models. I was like, okay, fine. And I don't know, I don't think that protesting too much is really the best in these situations. I just mostly kind of let that lie. I could give my theory of change on this and why I'm focusing on Meta. Meta is a large company I'm hoping to have influence on. There is a Meta building in San Francisco near where yeah, Meta is the biggest company that is doing this and I think there should be a norm against model weight sharing. I was hoping it would be something that other employees of other labs would be comfortable attending and that is a policy that is not shared across the labs. Obviously the biggest labs don't do it. So OpenAI is called OpenAI but very quickly decided not to do that. Yeah, I kind of wanted to start in a way that made it more clear than pause AI. Does that anybody's welcome something? I thought a one off issue like this that a lot of people could agree and form a coalition around would be good. A lot of people think that this is like a lot of the open source ML people think know this is like a secret. What I'm saying is secretly an argument for tyranny. I just want centralization of power. I just think that there are elites that are better qualified to run everything. It was even suggested I didn't mention China. It even suggested that I was racist because I didn't think that foreign people could make better AIS than Meta.AARON: I'm grimacing here. The intellectual disagreeableness, if that's an appropriate term or something like that. Good on you for standing up to some pretty bad arguments.HOLLY: Yeah, it's not like that worth it. I'm lucky that I truly am curious about what people think about stuff like that. I just find it really interesting. I spent way too much time understanding the alt. Right. For instance, I'm kind of like sure I'm on list somewhere because of the forums I was on just because I was interested and it is something that serves me well with my adversaries. I've enjoyed some conversations with people where I kind of like because my position on all this is that look, I need to be convinced and the public needs to be convinced that this is safe before we go ahead. So I kind of like not having to be the smart person making the arguments. I kind of like being like, can you explain like I'm five. I still don't get it. How does this work?AARON: Yeah, no, I was thinking actually not long ago about open source. Like the phrase has such a positive connotation and in a lot of contexts it really is good. I don't know. I'm glad that random tech I don't know, things from 2004 or whatever, like the reddit source code is like all right, seems cool that it's open source. I don't actually know if that was how that right. But yeah, I feel like maybe even just breaking down what the positive connotation comes from and why it's in people's self. This is really what I was thinking about, is like, why is it in people's self interest to open source things that they made and that might break apart the allure or sort of ethical halo that it has around it? And I was thinking it probably has something to do with, oh, this is like how if you're a tech person who makes some cool product, you could try to put a gate around it by keeping it closed source and maybe trying to get intellectual property or something. But probably you're extremely talented already, or pretty wealthy. Definitely can be hired in the future. And if you're not wealthy yet I don't mean to put things in just materialist terms, but basically it could easily be just like in a yeah, I think I'll probably take that bit out because I didn't mean to put it in strictly like monetary terms, but basically it just seems like pretty plausibly in an arbitrary tech person's self interest, broadly construed to, in fact, open source their thing, which is totally fine and normal.HOLLY: I think that's like 99 it's like a way of showing magnanimity showing, but.AARON: I don't make this sound so like, I think 99.9% of human behavior is like this. I'm not saying it's like, oh, it's some secret, terrible self interested thing, but just making it more mechanistic. Okay, it's like it's like a status thing. It's like an advertising thing. It's like, okay, you're not really in need of direct economic rewards, or sort of makes sense to play the long game in some sense, and this is totally normal and fine, but at the end of the day, there's reasons why it makes sense, why it's in people's self interest to open source.HOLLY: Literally, the culture of open source has been able to bully people into, like, oh, it's immoral to keep it for yourself. You have to release those. So it's just, like, set the norms in a lot of ways, I'm not the bully. Sounds bad, but I mean, it's just like there is a lot of pressure. It looks bad if something is closed source.AARON: Yeah, it's kind of weird that Meta I don't know, does Meta really think it's in their I don't know. Most economic take on this would be like, oh, they somehow think it's in their shareholders interest to open source.HOLLY: There are a lot of speculations on why they're doing this. One is that? Yeah, their models aren't as good as the top labs, but if it's open source, then open source quote, unquote then people will integrate it llama Two into their apps. Or People Will Use It And Become I don't know, it's a little weird because I don't know why using llama Two commits you to using llama Three or something, but it just ways for their models to get in in places where if you just had to pay for their models too, people would go for better ones. That's one thing. Another is, yeah, I guess these are too speculative. I don't want to be seen repeating them since I'm about to do this purchase. But there's speculation that it's in best interests in various ways to do this. I think it's possible also that just like so what happened with the release of Llama One is they were going to allow approved people to download the weights, but then within four days somebody had leaked Llama One on four chan and then they just were like, well, whatever, we'll just release the weights. And then they released Llama Two with the weights from the beginning. And it's not like 100% clear that they intended to do full open source or what they call Open source. And I keep saying it's not open source because this is like a little bit of a tricky point to make. So I'm not emphasizing it too much. So they say that they're open source, but they're not. The algorithms are not open source. There are open source ML models that have everything open sourced and I don't think that that's good. I think that's worse. So I don't want to criticize them for that. But they're saying it's open source because there's all this goodwill associated with open source. But actually what they're doing is releasing the product for free or like trade secrets even you could say like things that should be trade secrets. And yeah, they're telling people how to make it themselves. So it's like a little bit of a they're intentionally using this label that has a lot of positive connotations but probably according to Open Source Initiative, which makes the open Source license, it should be called something else or there should just be like a new category for LLMs being but I don't want things to be more open. It could easily sound like a rebuke that it should be more open to make that point. But I also don't want to call it Open source because I think Open source software should probably does deserve a lot of its positive connotation, but they're not releasing the part, that the software part because that would cut into their business. I think it would be much worse. I think they shouldn't do it. But I also am not clear on this because the Open Source ML critics say that everyone does have access to the same data set as Llama Two. But I don't know. Llama Two had 7 billion tokens and that's more than GPT Four. And I don't understand all of the details here. It's possible that the tokenization process was different or something and that's why there were more. But Meta didn't say what was in the longitude data set and usually there's some description given of what's in the data set that led some people to speculate that maybe they're using private data. They do have access to a lot of private data that shouldn't be. It's not just like the common crawl backup of the Internet. Everybody's basing their training on that and then maybe some works of literature they're not supposed to. There's like a data set there that is in question, but metas is bigger than bigger than I think well, sorry, I don't have a list in front of me. I'm not going to get stuff wrong, but it's bigger than kind of similar models and I thought that they have access to extra stuff that's not public. And it seems like people are asking if maybe that's part of the training set. But yeah, the ML people would have or the open source ML people that I've been talking to would have believed that anybody who's decent can just access all of the training sets that they've all used.AARON: Aside, I tried to download in case I'm guessing, I don't know, it depends how many people listen to this. But in one sense, for a competent ML engineer, I'm sure open source really does mean that. But then there's people like me. I don't know. I knew a little bit of R, I think. I feel like I caught on the very last boat where I could know just barely enough programming to try to learn more, I guess. Coming out of college, I don't know, a couple of months ago, I tried to do the thing where you download Llama too, but I tried it all and now I just have like it didn't work. I have like a bunch of empty folders and I forget got some error message or whatever. Then I tried to train my own tried to train my own model on my MacBook. It just printed. That's like the only thing that a language model would do because that was like the most common token in the training set. So anyway, I'm just like, sorry, this is not important whatsoever.HOLLY: Yeah, I feel like torn about this because I used to be a genomicist and I used to do computational biology and it was not machine learning, but I used a highly parallel GPU cluster. And so I know some stuff about it and part of me wants to mess around with it, but part of me feels like I shouldn't get seduced by this. I am kind of worried that this has happened in the AI safety community. It's always been people who are interested in from the beginning, it was people who are interested in singularity and then realized there was this problem. And so it's always been like people really interested in tech and wanting to be close to it. And I think we've been really influenced by our direction, has been really influenced by wanting to be where the action is with AI development. And I don't know that that was right.AARON: Not personal, but I guess individual level I'm not super worried about people like you and me losing the plot by learning more about ML on their personal.HOLLY: You know what I mean? But it does just feel sort of like I guess, yeah, this is maybe more of like a confession than, like a point. But it does feel a little bit like it's hard for me to enjoy in good conscience, like, the cool stuff.AARON: Okay. Yeah.HOLLY: I just see people be so attached to this as their identity. They really don't want to go in a direction of not pursuing tech because this is kind of their whole thing. And what would they do if we weren't working toward AI? This is a big fear that people express to me with they don't say it in so many words usually, but they say things like, well, I don't want AI to never get built about a pause. Which, by the way, just to clear up, my assumption is that a pause would be unless society ends for some other reason, that a pause would eventually be lifted. It couldn't be forever. But some people are worried that if you stop the momentum now, people are just so luddite in their insides that we would just never pick it up again. Or something like that. And, yeah, there's some identity stuff that's been expressed. Again, not in so many words to me about who will we be if we're just sort of like activists instead of working on.AARON: Maybe one thing that we might actually disagree on. It's kind of important is whether so I think we both agree that Aipause is better than the status quo, at least broadly, whatever. I know that can mean different things, but yeah, maybe I'm not super convinced, actually, that if I could just, like what am I trying to say? Maybe at least right now, if I could just imagine the world where open eye and Anthropic had a couple more years to do stuff and nobody else did, that would be better. I kind of think that they are reasonably responsible actors. And so I don't k

IntroAt the gracious invitation of AI Safety Twitter-fluencer Sarah Hastings-Woodhouse, I appeared on the very first episode of her new podcast “Consistently Candid” to debate moral realism (or something kinda like that, I guess; see below) with fellow philosophy nerd and EA Twitter aficionado Max Alexander, alongside Sarah as moderator and judge of sorts.What I believeIn spite of the name of the episode and the best of my knowledge/understanding a few days ago, it turns out my stance may not be ~genuine~ moral realism. Here's my basic meta-ethical take:* Descriptive statements that concern objective relative goodness or badness (e.g., "it is objectively for Sam to donate $20 than to buy an expensive meal that costs $20 more than a similar, less fancy meal”) can be and sometimes are true; but* Genuinely normative claims like “Sam should (!) donate $20 and should not buy that fancy meal” are never objectively true.Of course the label per se doesn't really matter. But for a bunch of reasons it still seems wise to figure out which label really does work best.Some definitionsStanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Moral realists are those who think that, in these respects, things should be taken at face value—moral claims do purport to report facts and are true if they get the facts right. Moreover, they hold, at least some moral claims actually are true. That much is the common and more or less defining ground of moral realism (although some accounts of moral realism see it as involving additional commitments, say to the independence of the moral facts from human thought and practice, or to those facts being objective in some specified way).Wikipedia:The robust model of moral realism commits moral realists to three theses:* The semantic thesis: The primary semantic role of moral predicates (such as "right" and "wrong") is to refer to moral properties (such as rightness and wrongness), so that moral statements (such as "honesty is good" and "slavery is unjust") purport to represent moral facts, and express propositions that are true or false (or approximately true, largely false, and so on).* The alethic thesis: Some moral propositions are in fact true.* The metaphysical thesis: Moral propositions are true when actions and other objects of moral assessment have the relevant moral properties (so that the relevant moral facts obtain), where these facts and properties are robust: their metaphysical status, whatever it is, is not relevantly different from that of (certain types of) ordinary non-moral facts and properties.And to settle the matter, here's what some LLM have to say.My prompt:Suppose a person believes the following:1: Descriptive statements that concern objective relative goodness or badness (e.g., "it is objectively for Sam to donate $20 than to buy an expensive meal that costs $20 more than a similar, less fancy meal”) can be and sometimes are true; but 2: Genuinely normative claims like “Sam should donate $20 and should not buy that fancy meal” are never objectively true.Is this person best categorized as a moral realist?ChatGPTGiven these two beliefs, the person's stance doesn't align completely with traditional moral realism, which typically asserts that there are objective truths about both moral facts (like the goodness or badness of actions) and moral duties (what one should or should not do). However, it also doesn't fully align with moral anti-realism, since the person believes in some form of objective truth regarding moral value.One possible categorization for this stance could be a form of "value realism" combined with "normative anti-realism" or "normative subjectivism." This would mean that the person believes in objective truths about what is better or worse (value realism) but thinks that what one ought to do (normative claims) is not a matter of objective truth but perhaps of subjective judgment or societal conventions.This position is quite sophisticated and might be best understood as a hybrid or intermediate position in the landscape of moral philosophy, rather than fitting neatly into the category of moral realism or its standard alternatives.Great, so much for trying to fit things into nice little buckets.Claude, fortunately, is more definitive:No, the view described is not best categorized as moral realism. Here's why:Moral realism is the view that there are objective moral facts or truths. A moral realist believes that some moral claims, including normative claims about what one should or shouldn't do, can be objectively and mind-independently true.The view in the example accepts that there can be objective truths about relative degrees of goodness or badness (claim 1). However, it denies that there are objective normative truths about what one should or shouldn't do (claim 2). By rejecting that genuine normative 'should/shouldn't' claims can be objectively true, the view denies a key commitment of moral realism - namely that moral claims can state objective normative facts. At best it allows for objective evaluative facts about goodness/badness, not prescriptive facts about obligations.So this view would be more accurately categorized as a form of moral anti-realism like non-cognitivism or error theory. It does not qualify as moral realism because of its rejection of the existence of objective normative truths that could make strong normative claims justified or true. The commitment to objective evaluative facts alone does not sufficiently qualify the view as realist in the metaethical sense.In summary, the view accepts objective "good/bad" facts but denies objective "should/shouldn't" facts. This combination puts it at odds with core commitments of moral realism, so it is better seen as an anti-realist view.I'm gonna disagree with Claude here, at least in that the bolded claim above (objective normative facts are a key part of moral realism) just seems…wrong? Like all the definitions could replace the term “moral fact” or “moral claim” with “normative fact” and “normative claim” but they do not!So I really don't have a great answer to which label works best. One of two ~human level chatbots giving me a definitive-sounding “anti-realism” answer is too much evidence for me, whose only formal philosophy training is an undergrad minor, to rule that one out. There are also good arguments, I think, for the “realist label,” as well as for “neither” (i.e., ‘secret third thing'). In fact all of these seem pretty similar in terms of argument convincingness/correctness. So, in sum,

Note: I can't seem to edit or remove the “transcript” tab. I recommend you ignore that and just look at the much higher quality, slightly cleaned up one below. Most importantly, follow Sarah on Twitter! Summary (Written by chatGPT, as you can probably tell)In this episode of Pigeon Hour host Aaron delves deep into the world of AI safety with his guest, Sarah Woodhouse. Sarah shares her unexpected journey from fearing job automation to becoming a recognized voice on AI safety Twitter. Her story starts with a simple Google search that led her down a rabbit hole of existential dread and unexpected fame on social media. As she narrates her path from lurker to influencer, Sarah reflects on the quirky dynamics of the AI safety community, her own existential crisis, and the serendipitous tweet that resonated with thousands.Aaron and Sarah's conversation takes unexpected turns, discussing everything from the peculiarities of EA rationalists to the surprisingly serious topic of shrimp welfare. They also explore the nuances of AI doom probabilities, the social dynamics of tech Twitter, and Sarah's unexpected viral fame as a tween. This episode is a rollercoaster of insights and anecdotes, perfect for anyone interested in the intersection of technology, society, and the unpredictable journey of internet fame.Topics discussedDiscussion on AI Safety and Personal Journeys:* Aaron and Sarah discuss her path to AI safety, triggered by concerns about job automation and the realization that AI could potentially replace her work.* Sarah's deep dive into AI safety started with a simple Google search, leading her to Geoffrey Hinton's alarming statements, and eventually to a broader exploration without finding reassuring consensus.* Sarah's Twitter engagement began with lurking, later evolving into active participation and gaining an audience, especially after a relatable tweet thread about an existential crisis.* Aaron remarks on the rarity of people like Sarah, who follow the AI safety rabbit hole to its depths, considering its obvious implications for various industries.AI Safety and Public Perception:* Sarah discusses her surprise at discovering the AI safety conversation happening mostly in niche circles, often with a tongue-in-cheek attitude that could seem dismissive of the serious implications of AI risks.* The discussion touches on the paradox of AI safety: it's a critically important topic, yet it often remains confined within certain intellectual circles, leading to a lack of broader public engagement and awareness.Cultural Differences and Personal Interests:* The conversation shifts to cultural differences between the UK and the US, particularly in terms of sincerity and communication styles.* Personal interests, such as theater and musicals (like "Glee"), are also discussed, revealing Sarah's background and hobbies.Effective Altruism (EA) and Rationalist Communities:* Sarah points out certain quirks of the EA and rationalist communities, such as their penchant for detailed analysis, hedging statements, and the use of probabilities in discussions.* The debate around the use of "P(Doom)" (probability of doom) in AI safety discussions is critiqued, highlighting how it can be both a serious analytical tool and a potentially alienating jargon for outsiders.Shrimp Welfare and Ethical Considerations:* A detailed discussion on shrimp welfare as an ethical consideration in effective altruism unfolds, examining the moral implications and effectiveness of focusing on animal welfare at a large scale.* Aaron defends his position on prioritizing shrimp welfare in charitable giving, based on the principles of importance, tractability, and neglectedness.Personal Decision-Making in Charitable Giving:* Strategies for personal charitable giving are explored, including setting a donation cutoff point to balance moral obligations with personal needs and aspirations.TranscriptAARON: Whatever you want. Okay. Yeah, I feel like you said this on Twitter. The obvious thing is, how did you learn about AI safety? But maybe you've already covered that. That's boring. First of all, do you want to talk about that? Because we don't have to.SARAH: I don't mind talking about that.AARON: But it's sort of your call, so whatever. I don't know. Maybe briefly, and then we can branch out?SARAH: I have a preference for people asking me things and me answering them rather than me setting the agenda. So don't ever feel bad about just asking me stuff because I prefer that.AARON: Okay, cool. But also, it feels like the kind of thing where, of course, we have AI. Everyone already knows that this is just like the voice version of these four tweets or whatever. But regardless. Yes. So, Sarah, as Pigeon Hour guest, what was your path through life to AI safety Twitter?SARAH: Well, I realized that a chatbot could very easily do my job and that my employers either hadn't noticed this or they had noticed, but they were just being polite about it and they didn't want to fire me because they're too nice. And I was like, I should find out what AI development is going to be like over the next few years so that I know if I should go and get good at some other stuff.SARAH: I just had a little innocent Google. And then within a few clicks, I'd completely doom pilled myself. I was like, we're all going to die. I think I found Geoffrey Hinton because he was on the news at the time, because he just quit his job at Google. And he was there saying things that sounded very uncertain, very alarming. And I was like, well, he's probably the pessimist, but I'm sure that there are loads of optimists to counteract that because that's how it usually goes. You find a doomer and then you find a bunch of more moderate people, and then there's some consensus in the middle that everything's basically fine.SARAH: I was like, if I just keep looking, I'll find the consensus because it's there. I'm sure it's there. So I just kept looking and looking for it. I looked for it for weeks. I just didn't find it. And then I was like, nobody knows what's going on. This seems really concerning. So then I started lurking on Twitter, and then I got familiar with all the different accounts, whatever. And then at some point, I was like, I'm going to start contributing to this conversation, but I didn't think that anybody would talk back to me. And then at some point, they started talking back to me and I was like, this is kind of weird.SARAH: And then at some point, I was having an existential crisis and I had a couple of glasses of wine or something, and I just decided to type this big, long thread. And then I went to bed. I woke up the next morning slightly grouchy and hungover. I checked my phone and there were all these people messaging me and all these people replying to my thread being like, this is so relatable. This really resonated with me. And I was like, what is going on?AARON: You were there on Twitter before that thread right? I'm pretty sure I was following you.SARAH: I think, yeah, I was there before, but no one ever really gave me any attention prior to that. I think I had a couple of tweets that blew up before that, but not to the same extent. And then after that, I think I was like, okay, so now I have an audience. When I say an audience, like, obviously a small one, but more of an audience than I've ever had before in my life. And I was like, how far can I take this?SARAH: I was a bit like, people obviously started following me because I'm freFreaking out about AI, but if I post an outfit, what's going to happen? How far can I push this posting, these fit checks? I started posting random stuff about things that were completely unrelated. I was like, oh, people are kind of here for this, too. Okay, this is weird. So now I'm just milking it for all its worth, and I really don't know why anybody's listening to me. I'm basically very confused about the whole thing.AARON: I mean, I think it's kind of weird from your perspective, or it's weird in general because there aren't that many people who just do that extremely logical thing at the beginning. I don't know, maybe it's not obvious to people in every industry or whatever that AI is potentially a big deal, but there's lots of truckers or whatever. Maybe they're not the best demographic or the most conducive demographic, like, getting on Twitter or whatever, but there's other jobs that it would make sense to look into that. It's kind of weird to me that only you followed the rabbit hole all the way down.SARAH: I know! This is what I…Because it's not that hard to complete the circle. It probably took me like a day, it took me like an afternoon to get from, I'm worried about job automation to I should stop saving for retirement. It didn't take me that long. Do you know what I mean? No one ever looks. I literally don't get it. I was talking to some people. I was talking to one of my coworkers about this the other day, and I think I came up in conversation. She was like, yeah, I'm a bit worried about AI because I heard on the radio that taxi drivers might be out of a job. That's bad. And I was like, yeah, that is bad. But do you know what else? She was like, what are the AI companies up to that we don't know about? And I was like, I mean, you can go on their website. You can just go on their website and read about how they think that their technology is an extinction risk. It's not like they're hiding. It's literally just on there and no one ever looks. It's just crazy.AARON: Yeah. Honestly, I don't even know if I was in your situation, if I would have done that. It's like, in some sense, I am surprised. It's very few people maybe like one, but at another level, it's more rationality than most humans have or something. Yeah. You regret going down that rabbit hole?SARAH: Yeah, kind of. Although I'm enjoying the Twitter thing and it's kind of fun, and it turns out there's endless comedic material that you can get out of impending doom. The whole thing is quite funny. It's not funny, but you can make it funny if you try hard enough. But, yeah, what was I going to say? I think maybe I was more primed for doom pilling than your average person because I already knew what EA was and I already knew, you know what I mean. That stuff was on my radar.AARON: That's interesting.SARAH: I think had it not been on my radar, I don't think I would have followed the pipeline all the way.AARON: Yeah. I don't know what browser you use, but it would be. And you should definitely not only do this if you actually think it would be cool or whatever, but this could be in your browser history from that day and that would be hilarious. You could remove anything you didn't want to show, but if it's like Google Chrome, they package everything into sessions. It's one browsing session and it'll have like 10,000 links.SARAH: Yeah, I think for non-sketchy reasons, I delete my Google history more regularly than that. I don't think I'd be able to find that. But I can remember the day and I can remember my anxiety levels just going up and up somewhere between 01:00 p.m. and 07:00 p.m. And by the evening I'm like, oh, my God.AARON: Oh, damn, that's wild.SARAH: It was really stressful.AARON: Yeah, I guess props for, I don't know if props…Is the right word, I guess, impressed? I'm actually somewhat surprised to hear that you said you regret it. I mean, that sucks though, I guess. I'm sorry.SARAH: If you could unknow this, would you?AARON: No, because I think it's worth maybe selfishly, but not overall because. Okay, yeah, I think that would plausibly be the selfish thing to do. Actually. No, actually, hold on. No, I actually don't think that's true. I actually think there's enough an individual can do selfishly such that it makes sense. Even the emotional turmoil.SARAH: It would depend how much you thought that you were going to personally move the needle by knowing about it. I personally don't think that I'm going to be able to do very much. I was going to tip the scales. I wouldn't selfishly unknow it and sacrifice the world. But me being not particularly informed or intelligent and not having any power, I feel like if I forgot that AI was going to end the world, it would not make much difference.AARON: You know what I mean? I agree that it's like, yes, it is unlikely for either of us to tip the scales, but.SARAH: Maybe you can't.AARON: No, actually, in terms of, yeah, I'm probably somewhat more technically knowledgeable just based on what I know about you. Maybe I'm wrong.SARAH: No, you're definitely right.AARON: It's sort of just like a probabilities thing. I do think that ‘doom' - that word - is too simplified, often too simple to capture what people really care about. But if you just want to say doom versus no doom or whatever, AI doom versus no AI doom. Maybe there's like a one in 100,000 chance that one of us tips the scales. And that's important. Maybe even, like, one in 10,000. Probably not. Probably not.SARAH: One in 10,000. Wow.AARON: But that's what people do. People vote, even though this is old 80k material I'm regurgitating because they basically want to make the case for why even if you're not. Or in some article they had from a while ago, they made a case for why doing things that are unlikely to counterfactually matter can still be amazingly good. And the classic example, just voting if you're in a tight race, say, in a swing state in the United States, and it could go either way. Yeah. It might be pretty unlikely that you are the single swing vote, but it could be one in 100,000. And that's not crazy.SARAH: It doesn't take very much effort to vote, though.AARON: Yeah, sure. But I think the core justification, also, the stakes are proportionally higher here, so maybe that accounts for some. But, yes, you're absolutely right. Definitely different amounts of effort.SARAH: Putting in any effort to saving the world from AI. I wouldn't say that. I wouldn't say that I'm sacrificing.AARON: I don't even know if I like. No. Maybe it doesn't feel like a sacrifice. Maybe it isn't. But I do think there's, like, a lot. There's at least something to be. I don't know if this really checks out, but I would, like, bet that it does, which is that more reasonably, at least calibrated. I wanted to say reasonably well informed. But really what it is is, like, some level of being informed and, like, some level of knowing what you don't know or whatever, and more just like, normal. Sorry. I hope normal is not like a bat. I'm saying not like tech Bros, I guess so more like non tech bros. People who are not coded as tech bros. Talking about this on a public platform just seems actually, in fact, pretty good.SARAH: As long as we like, literally just people that aren't men as well. No offense.AARON: Oh, no, totally. Yeah.SARAH: Where are all the women? There's a few.AARON: There's a few that are super. I don't know, like, leaders in some sense, like Ajeya Cotra and Katja Grace. But I think the last EA survey was a third. Or I could be butchering this or whatever. And maybe even within that category, there's some variation. I don't think it's 2%.SARAH: Okay. All right. Yeah.AARON: Like 15 or 20% which is still pretty low.SARAH: No, but that's actually better than I would have thought, I think.AARON: Also, Twitter is, of all the social media platforms, especially mail. I don't really know.SARAH: Um.AARON: I don't like Instagram, I think.SARAH: I wonder, it would be interesting to see whether or not that's much, if it's become more male dominated since Elon Musk took.AARON: It's not a huge difference, but who knows?SARAH: I don't know. I have no idea. I have no idea. We'll just be interesting to know.AARON: Okay. Wait. Also, there's no scheduled time. I'm very happy to keep talking or whatever, but as soon as you want to take a break or hop off, just like. Yeah.SARAH: Oh, yeah. I'm in no rush.AARON: Okay, well, I don't know. We've talked about the two obvious candidates. Do you have a take or something? Want to get out to the world? It's not about AI or obesity or just a story you want to share.SARAH: These are my two pet subjects. I don't know anything else.AARON: I don't believe you. I know you know about house plants.SARAH: I do. A secret, which you can't tell anyone, is that I actually only know about house plants that are hard to kill, and I'm actually not very good at taking care of them.AARON: Well, I'm glad it's house plants in that case, rather than pets. Whatever.SARAH: Yeah. I mean, I have killed some sea monkeys, too, but that was a long time ago.AARON: Yes. So did I, actually.SARAH: Did you? I feel like everyone has. Everyone's got a little sea monkey graveyard in their past.AARON: New cause area.SARAH: Are there more shrimp or more sea monkeys? That's the question.AARON: I don't even know what even. I mean, are they just plankton?SARAH: No, they're not plankton.AARON: I know what sea monkeys are.SARAH: There's definitely a lot of them because they're small and insignificant.AARON: Yeah, but I also think we don't. It depends if you're talking about in the world, which I guess probably like sea monkeys or farmed for food, which is basically like. I doubt these are farmed either for food or for anything.SARAH: Yeah, no, you're probably right.AARON: Or they probably are farmed a tiny bit for this niche little.SARAH: Or they're farmed to sell in aquariums for kids.AARON: Apparently. They are a kind of shrimp, but they were bred specifically to, I don't know, be tiny or something. I'm just skimming that, Wikipedia. Here.SARAH: Sea monkeys are tiny shrimp. That is crazy.AARON: Until we get answers, tell me your life story in whatever way you want. It doesn't have to be like. I mean, hopefully not. Don't straight up lie, but wherever you want to take that.SARAH: I'm not going to lie. I'm just trying to think of ways to make it spicier because it's so average. I don't know what to say about it.AARON: Well, it's probably not that average, right? I mean, it might be average among people you happen to know.SARAH: Do you have any more specific questions?AARON: Okay, no. Yeah, hold on. I have a meta point, which is like, I think the people who are they have a thing on the top of their mind, and if I give any sort of open ended question whatsoever, they'll take it there and immediately just start giving slinging hot takes. But thenOther people, I think, this category is very EA. People who aren't, especially my sister, they're like, “No, I have nothing to talk about. I don't believe that.” But they're not, I guess, as comfortable.SARAH: No, I mean, I have. Something needs to trigger them in me. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, I need an in.AARON: Well, okay, here's one. Is there anything you're like, “Maybe I'll cut this. This is kind of, like narcissistic. I don't know. But is there anything you want or curious to ask?” This does sound kind of weird. I don't know. But we can cut it if need be.SARAH: What does the looking glass in your Twitter name mean? Because I've seen a bunch of people have this, and I actually don't know what it means, but I was like, no.AARON: People ask this. I respond to a tweet that's like, “What does that like?” At least, I don't know, once every month or two. Or know basically, like Spencer Greenberg. I don't know if you're familiar with him. He's like a sort of.SARAH: I know the know.AARON: He literally just tweeted, like a couple years ago. Put this in your bio to show that you really care about finding the truth or whatever and are interested in good faith conversations. Are you familiar with the scout mindset?SARAH: Yeah.AARON: Julia Galef. Yeah. That's basically, like the short version.SARAH: Okay.AARON: I'm like, yeah, all right. And there's at least three of us who have both a magnifying glass. Yeah. And a pause thing, which is like, my tightest knit online community I guess.SARAH: I think I've followed all the pause people now. I just searched the emoji on Twitter, and I just followed everyone. Now I can't find. And I also noticed when I was doing this, that some people, if they've suspended their account or they're taking time off, then they put a pause in their thing. So I was, like, looking, and I was like, oh, these are, like, AI people. But then they were just, like, in their bio, they were, like, not tweeting until X date. This is a suspended account. And I was like, I see we have a messaging problem here. Nice. I don't know how common that actually.AARON: Was. I'm glad. That was, like, a very straightforward question. Educated the masses. Max Alexander said Glee. Is that, like, the show? You can also keep asking me questions, but again, this is like.SARAH: Wait, what did he say? Is that it? Did he just say glee? No.AARON: Not even a question mark. Just the word glee.SARAH: Oh, right. He just wants me to go off about Glee.AARON: Okay. Go off about. Wait, what kind of Glee are we? Vaguely. This is like a show or a movie or something.SARAH: Oh, my God. Have you not seen it?AARON: No. I mean, I vaguely remember, I think, watching some TV, but maybe, like, twelve years ago or something. I don't know.SARAH: I think it stopped airing in, like, maybe 2015?AARON: 16. So go off about it. I don't know what I. Yeah, I.SARAH: Don't know what to say about this.AARON: Well, why does Max think you might have a take about Glee?SARAH: I mean, I don't have a take about. Just see the thing. See? No, not even, like, I am just transparently extremely lame. And I really like cheesy. I'm like. I'm like a musical theater kid. Not even ironically. I just like show tunes. And Glee is just a show about a glee club at a high school where they sing show tunes and there's, like, petty drama, and people burst into song in the hallways, and I just think it's just the most glorious thing on Earth. That's it. There are no hot takes.AARON: Okay, well, that's cool. I don't have a lot to say, unfortunately, but.SARAH: No, that's totally fine. I feel like this is not a spicy topic for us to discuss. It's just a good time.AARON: Yeah.SARAH: Wait.AARON: Okay. Yeah. So I do listen to Hamilton on Spotify.SARAH: Okay.AARON: Yeah, that's about it.SARAH: I like Hamilton. I've seen it three times. Oh.AARON: Live or ever. Wow. Cool. Yeah, no, that's okay. Well, what do people get right or wrong about theater kids?SARAH: Oh, I don't know. I think all the stereotypes are true.AARON: I mean, that's generally true, but usually, it's either over moralized, there's like a descriptive thing that's true, but it's over moralized, or it's just exaggerated.SARAH: I mean, to put this in more context, I used to be in choir. I went every Sunday for twelve years. And then every summer we do a little summer school and we go away and put on a production. So we do a musical or something. So I have been. What have I been? I was in Guys and Dolls. I think I was just in the chorus for that. I was the reverend in Anything Goes. But he does unfortunately get kidnapped in like the first five minutes. So he's not a big presence. Oh, I've been Tweedle dumb in Alice in Wonderland. I could go on, but right now as I'm saying this, I'm looking at my notice board and I have two playbills from when I went to Broadway in April where I saw Funny Girl and Hadestown.SARAH: I went to New York.AARON: Oh, cool. Oh yeah. We can talk about when you're moving to the United States. However.SARAH: I'm not going to do that. Okay.AARON: I know. I'm joking. I mean, I don't know.SARAH: I don't think I'm going to do that. I don't know. It just seems like you guys have got a lot going on over there. It seems like things aren't quite right with you guys. Things aren't quite right with us either.AARON: No, I totally get this. I think it would be cool. But also I completely relate to not wanting to. I've lived within 10 miles of one. Not even 10 miles, 8 miles in one location. Obviously gone outside of that. But my entire life.SARAH: You've just always lived in DC.AARON: Yeah, either in DC or. Sorry. But right now in Maryland, it's like right next to DC on the Metro or at Georgia University, which is in the trying to think would I move to the UK. Like I could imagine situations that would make me move to the UK. But it would still be annoying. Kind of.SARAH: Yeah, I mean, I guess it's like they're two very similar places, but there are all these little cultural things which I feel like kind of trip you up.AARON: I don't to. Do you want to say what?SARAH: Like I think people, I just like, I don't know. I don't have that much experience because I've only been to America twice. But people seem a lot more sincere in a way that you don't really get that. Like people are just never really being upfront. And in America, I just got the impression that people just have less of a veneer up, which is probably a good thing. But it's really hard to navigate if you're not used to it or something. I don't know how to describe that.AARON: Yeah, I've definitely heard this at least. And yeah, I think it's for better and for worse.SARAH: Yeah, I think it's generally a good thing.AARON: Yeah.SARAH: But it's like there's this layer of cynicism or irony or something that is removed and then when it's not there, it's just everything feels weak. I can't describe it.AARON: This is definitely, I think, also like an EA rationalist thing. I feel like I'm pretty far on the spectrum. Towards the end of surgical niceties are fine, but I don't know, don't obscure what you really think unless it's a really good reason to or something. But it can definitely come across as being rude.SARAH: Yeah. No, but I think it's actually a good rule of thumb to obscure what you. It's good to try not to obscure what you think most of the time, probably.Ably, I don't know, but I would love to go over temporarily for like six months or something and just hang out for a bit. I think that'd be fun. I don't know if I would go back to New York again. Maybe. I like the bagels there.AARON: I should have a place. Oh yeah. Remember, I think we talked at some point. We can cut this out if you like. Don't if either of us doesn't want it in. But we discussed, oh yeah, I should be having a place. You can. I emailed the landlord like an hour before this. Hopefully, probably more than 50%. That is still an offer. Yeah, probably not for all six months, but I don't know.SARAH: I would not come and sleep on your sofa for six months. That would be definitely impolite and very weird.AARON: Yeah. I mean, my roommates would probably grumble.SARAH: Yeah. They would be like.AARON: Although I don't know. Who knows? I wouldn't be shocked if people were actually like, whatever somebody asked for as a question. This is what he said. I might also be interested in hearing how different backgrounds. Wait, sorry. This is not good grammar. Let me try to parse this. Not having a super hardcore EA AI rationalist background shape how you think or how you view AI as rationality?SARAH: Oh, that's a good question. I think it's more happening the other way around, the more I hang around in these circles. You guys are impacting how I think.AARON: It's definitely true for me as well.SARAH: Seeping into my brain and my language as well. I've started talking differently. I don't know. That's a good question, though. Yeah. One thing that I will say is that there are certain things that I find irritating about the EA way of style of doing things. I think one specific, I don't know, the kind of like hand ring about everything. And I know that this is kind of the point, right? But it's kind of like, you know, when someone's like, I want to take a stance on something, but then whenever they want to take a stance on something, they feel the need to write like a 10,000 word blog post where they're thinking about the second and order and third and fifth order effects of this thing. And maybe this thing that seems good is actually bad for this really convoluted reason. That's just so annoying.AARON: Yeah.SARAH: Also understand that maybe that is a good thing to do sometimes, but it just seems like, I don't know how anyone ever gets anywhere. It seems like everyone must be paralyzed by indecision all the time because they just can't commit to ever actually just saying anything.AARON: I think this kind of thing is really good if you're trying to give away a billion dollars. Oh yes, I do want the billion dollar grantor to be thinking through second and third order effects of how they give away their billion dollars. But also, no, I am super. The words on the tip of my tongue, not overwhelmed but intimidated when I go on the EA forum because the posts, none of them are like normal, like five paragraph essays. Some of them are like, I think one of them I looked up for fun because I was going to make a meme about it and still will. Probably was like 30,000 words or something. And even the short form posts, which really gets me kind of not even annoyed. I don't know, maybe kind of annoyed is that the short form posts, which is sort of the EA forum version of Twitter, are way too high quality, way too intimidating. And so maybe I should just suck it up and post stuff anyway more often. It just feels weird. I totally agree.SARAH: I was also talking to someone recently about how I lurked on the EA forum and less wrong for months and months and I couldn't figure out the upvoting system and I was like, am I being stupid or why are there four buttons? And I was like, well, eventually I had to ask someone because I couldn't figure it out. And then he explained it to me and I was like, that is just so unnecessary. Like, just do it.AARON: No, I do know what you mean.SARAH: I just tI think it's annoying. It pisses me off. I just feel like sometimes you don't need to add more things. Sometimes less is good. Yeah, that's my hot take. Nice things.AARON: Yeah, that's interesting.SARAH: But actually, a thing that I like that EA's do is the constant hedging and caveatting. I do find it kind of adorable. I love that because it's like you're having to constantly acknowledge that you probably didn't quite articulate what you really meant and that you're not quite making contact with reality when you're talking. So you have to clarify that you probably were imprecise when you said this thing. It's unnecessary, but it's kind of amazing.AARON: No, it's definitely. I am super guilty of this because I'll give an example in a second. I think I've been basically trained to try pretty hard, even in normal conversation with anybody, to just never say anything that's literally wrong. Or at least if I do caveat it.AARON: I was driving home, me and my parents and I, unless visited, our grandparents were driving back, and we were driving back past a cruise ship that was in a harbor. And my mom, who was driving at the time, said, “Oh, Aaron, can you see if there's anyone on there?” And I immediately responded like, “Well, there's probably at least one person.” Obviously, that's not what she meant. But that was my technical best guess. It's like, yes, there probably are people on there, even though I couldn't see anybody on the decks or in the rooms. Yeah, there's probably a maintenance guy. Felt kind of bad.SARAH: You can't technically exclude that there are, in fact, no people.AARON: Then I corrected myself. But I guess I've been trained into giving that as my first reaction.SARAH: Yeah, I love that. I think it's a waste of words, but I find it delightful.AARON: It does go too far. People should be more confident. I wish that, at least sometimes, people would say, “Epistemic status: Want to bet?” or “I am definitely right about this.” Too rarely do we hear, "I'm actually pretty confident here.SARAH: Another thing is, people are too liberal with using probabilities. The meaning of saying there is an X percent chance of something happening is getting watered down by people constantly saying things like, “I would put 30% on this claim.” Obviously, there's no rigorous method that's gone into determining why it's 30 and not 35. That's a problem and people shouldn't do that. But I kind of love it.AARON: I can defend that. People are saying upfront, “This is my best guess. But there's no rigorous methodology.” People should take their word for that. In some parts of society, it's seen as implying that a numeric probability came from a rigorous model. But if you say, “This is my best guess, but it's not formed from anything,” people should take their word for that and not refuse to accept them at face value.SARAH: But why do you have to put a number on it?AARON: It depends on what you're talking about. Sometimes probabilities are relevant and if you don't use numbers, it's easy to misinterpret. People would say, “It seems quite likely,” but what does that mean? One person might think “quite reasonably likely” means 70%, the other person thinks it means 30%. Even though it's weird to use a single number, it's less confusing.SARAH: To be fair, I get that. I've disagreed with people about what the word “unlikely” means. Someone's pulled out a scale that the government uses, or intelligence services use to determine what “unlikely” means. But everyone interprets those words differently. I see what you're saying. But then again, I think people in AI safety talking about P Doom was making people take us less seriously, especially because people's probabilities are so vibey.AARON: Some people are, but I take Paul Cristiano's word seriously.SARAH: He's a 50/50 kind of guy.AARON: Yeah, I take that pretty seriously.Obviously, it's not as simple as him having a perfect understanding of the world, even after another 10,000 hours of investigation. But it's definitely not just vibes, either.SARAH: No, I came off wrong there. I don't mean that everyone's understanding is just vibes.AARON: Yeah.SARAH: If you were looking at it from the outside, it would be really difficult to distinguish between the ones that are vibes and the ones that are rigorous, unless you carefully parsed all of it and evaluated everyone's background, or looked at the model yourself. If you're one step removed, it looks like people just spitting out random, arbitrary numbers everywhere.AARON: Yeah. There's also the question of whether P doom is too weird or silly, or if it could be easily dismissed as such.SARAH: Exactly, the moment anyone unfamiliar with this discussion sees it, they're almost definitely going to dismiss it. They won't see it as something they need to engage with.AARON: That's a very fair point. Aside from the social aspect, it's also a large oversimplification. There's a spectrum of outcomes that we lump into doom and not doom. While this binary approach can be useful at times, it's probably overdone.SARAH: Yeah, because when some people say doom, they mean everyone dies, while others mean everyone dies plus everything is terrible. And no one specifies what they mean. It is silly. But, I also find it kind of funny and I kind of love it.AARON: I'm glad there's something like that. So it's not perfect. The more straightforward thing would be to say P existential risk from AI comes to pass. That's the long version, whatever.SARAH: If I was in charge, I would probably make people stop using PDOOm. I think it's better to say it the long way around. But obviously I'm not in charge. And I think it's funny and kind of cute, so I'll keep using it.AARON: Maybe I'm willing to go along and try to start a new norm. Not spend my whole life on it, but say, I think this is bad for X, Y, and Z reasons. I'll use this other phrase instead and clarify when people ask.SARAH: You're going to need Twitter premium because you're going to need a lot more characters.AARON: I think there's a shorthand which is like PX risk or P AiX risk.SARAH: Maybe it's just the word doom that's a bit stupid.AARON: Yeah, that's a term out of the Bay Area rationalists.SARAH: But then I also think it kind of makes the whole thing seem less serious. People should be indignant to hear that this meme is being used to trade probabilities about the likelihood that they're going to die and their families are going to die. This has been an in-joke in this weird niche circle for years and they didn't know about it. I'm not saying that in a way to morally condemn people, but if you explain this to people…People just go to dinner parties in Silicon Valley and talk about this weird meme thing, and what they really mean is the ODs know everyone's going to prematurely die. People should be outraged by that, I think.AARON: I disagree that it's a joke. It is a funny phrase, but the actual thing is people really do stand by their belief.SARAH: No, I totally agree with that part. I'm not saying that people are not being serious when they give their numbers, but I feel like there's something. I don't know how to put this in words. There's something outrageous about the fact that for outsiders, this conversation has been happening for years and people have been using this tongue-in-cheek phrase to describe it, and 99.9% of people don't know that's happening. I'm not articulating this very well.AARON: I see what you're saying. I don't actually think it's like. I don't know a lot of jargon.SARAH: But when I first found out about this, I was outraged.AARON: I honestly just don't share that intuition. But that's really good.SARAH: No, I don't know how to describe this.AARON: I think I was just a little bit indignant, perhaps.SARAH: Yeah, I was indignant about it. I was like, you guys have been at social events making small talk by discussing the probability of human extinction all this time, and I didn't even know. I was like, oh, that's really messed up, guys.AARON: I feel like I'm standing by the rational tier because, it was always on. No one was stopping you from going on less wrong or whatever. It wasn't behind closed.SARAH: Yeah, but no one ever told me about it.AARON: Yeah, that's like a failure of outreach, I suppose.SARAH: Yeah. I think maybe I'm talking more about. Maybe the people that I'm mad at is the people who are actually working on capabilities and using this kind of jargon. Maybe I'm mad at those people. They're fine.AARON: Do we have more questions? I think we might have more questions. We have one more. Okay, sorry, but keep going.SARAH: No, I'm going to stop making that point now because I don't really know what I'm trying to say and I don't want to be controversial.AARON: Controversy is good for views. Not necessarily for you. No, thank you for that. Yes, that was a good point. I think it was. Maybe it was wrong. I think it seems right.SARAH: It was probably wrong.Shrimp Welfare: A Serious DiscussionAARON: I don't know what she thinks about shrimp welfare. Oh, yeah. I think it's a general question, but let's start with that. What do you think about shrimp? Well, today.SARAH: Okay. Is this an actual cause area or is this a joke about how if you extrapolate utilitarianism to its natural conclusion, you would really care about shrimp?AARON: No, there's a charity called the Shrimp Welfare Initiative or project. I think it's Shrimp Welfare Initiative. I can actually have a rant here about how it's a meme that people find amusing. It is a serious thing, but I think people like the meme more than they're willing to transfer their donations in light of it. This is kind of wrong and at least distasteful.No, but there's an actual, if you Google, Shrimp Welfare Project. Yeah, it's definitely a thing, but it's only a couple of years old. And it's also kind of a meme because it does work in both ways. It sort of shows how we're weird, but in the sense that we are willing to care about things that are very different from us. Not like we're threatening other people. That's not a good description.SARAH: Is the extreme version of this position that we should put more resources into improving the lives of shrimp than into improving the lives of people just because there are so many more shrimp? Are there people that actually believe that?AARON: Well, I believe some version of that, but it really depends on who the ‘we' is there.SARAH: Should humanity be putting more resources?AARON: No one believes that as far as I know.SARAH: Okay. Right. So what is the most extreme manifestation of the shrimp welfare position?AARON: Well, I feel like my position is kind of extreme, and I'm happy to discuss it. It's easier than speculating about what the more extreme ones are. I don't think any of them are that extreme, I guess, from my perspective, because I think I'm right.SARAH: Okay, so what do you believe?AARON: I think that most people who have already decided to donate, say $20, if they are considering where to donate it and they are better morally, it would be better if they gave it to the shrimp welfare project than if they gave it to any of the commonly cited EA organizations.SARAH: Malaria nets or whatever.AARON: Yes. I think $20 of malaria nets versus $20 of shrimp. I can easily imagine a world where it would go the other way. But given the actual situation, the $20 of shrimp is much better.SARAH: Okay. Is it just purely because there's just more shrimp? How do we know how much shrimp suffering there is in the world?AARON: No, this is an excellent question. The numbers are a key factor, but no, it's not as simple. I definitely don't think one shrimp is worth one human.SARAH: I'm assuming that it's based on the fact that there are so many more shrimp than there are people that I don't know how many shrimp there are.AARON: Yeah, that's important, but at some level, it's just the margin. What I think is that when you're donating money, you should give to wherever it does the most good, whatever that means, whatever you think that means. But let's just leave it at that. The most good is morally best at the margin, which means you're not donating where you think the world should or how you think the world should expend its trillion dollar wealth. All you're doing is adding $20 at this current level, given the actual world. And so part of it is what you just said, and also including some new research from Rethink Priorities.Measuring suffering in reasonable ranges is extremely hard to do. But I believe it's difficult to do a better job than raising priorities on that, given what I've seen. I can provide some links. There are a few things to consider here: numbers, times, and the enormity of suffering. I think there are a couple of key elements, including tractability.Are you familiar with the three-pronged concept people sometimes discuss, which encompasses tractability, and neglectedness?SARAH: Okay.AARON: Importance is essentially what we just mentioned. Huge numbers and plausible amounts of suffering. When you try to do the comparison, it seems like they're a significant concern. Tractability is another factor. I think the best estimates suggest that a one-dollar donation could save around 10,000 shrimp from a very painful death.SARAH: In that sense…AARON: You could imagine that even if there were a hundred times more shrimp than there actually are, we have direct control over how they live and die because we're farming them. The industry is not dominated by wealthy players in the United States. Many individual farmers in developing nations, if educated and provided with a more humane way of killing the shrimp, would use it. There's a lot of potential for improvement here. This is partly due to the last prong, neglectedness, which is really my focus.SARAH: You're saying no one cares about the shrimp.AARON: I'm frustrated that it's not taken seriously enough. One of the reasons why the marginal cost-effectiveness is so high is because large amounts of money are donated to well-approved organizations. But individual donors often overlook this. They ignore their marginal impact. If you want to see even a 1% shift towards shrimp welfare, the thing to do is to donate to shrimp welfare. Not donate $19 to human welfare and one dollar to shrimp welfare, which is perhaps what they think the overall portfolio should be.SARAH: Interesting. I don't have a good reason why you're wrong. It seems like you're probably right.AARON: Let me put the website in the chat. This isn't a fair comparison since it's something I know more about.SARAH: Okay.AARON: On the topic of obesity, neither of us were more informed than the other. But I could have just made stuff up or said something logically fallacious.SARAH: You could have told me that there were like 50 times the number of shrimp in the world than there really are. And I would have been like, sure, seems right.AARON: Yeah. And I don't know, if I…If I were in your position, I would say, “Oh, yeah, that sounds right.” But maybe there are other people who have looked into this way more than me that disagree, and I can get into why I think it's less true than you'd expect in some sense.SARAH: I just wonder if there's like… This is like a deeply non-EA thing to say. So I don't know, maybe I shouldn't say it, but are there not any moral reasons? Is there not any good moral philosophy behind just caring more about your own species than other species? If you're sorry, but that's probably not right, is it? There's probably no way to actually morally justify that, but it seems like it feels intuitively wrong. If you've got $20 to be donating 19 of them to shrimp and one to children with malaria, that feels like there should be something wrong with that, but I can't tell you what it is.AARON: Yeah, no, there is something wrong, which is that you should donate all 20 because they're acting on the margin, for one thing. I do think that doesn't check out morally, but I think basically me and everybody I know in terms of real life or whatever, I do just care way more about humans. I don't know, for at least the people that it's hard to formalize or specify what you mean by caring about or something. But, yeah, I think you can definitely basically just be a normal human who basically cares a lot about other humans. And still that's not like, negated by changing your $20 donation or whatever. Especially because there's nothing else that I do for shrimp. I think you should be like a kind person or something. I'm like an honest person, I think. Yeah, people should be nice to other humans. I mean, you should be nice in the sense of not beating them. But if you see a pigeon on the street, you don't need to say hi or whatever, give it a pet, because. I don't know. But yeah, you should be basically like, nice.SARAH: You don't stop to say hi to every pigeon that you see on the way to anywhere.AARON: I do, but I know most normal people don't.SARAH: This is why I'm so late to everything, because I have to do it. I have to stop for every single one. No exceptions.AARON: Yeah. Or how I think about it is sort of like a little bit of compartmentalization, which I think is like… Which is just sort of like a way to function normally and also sort of do what you think really checks out at the end of the day, just like, okay, 99% of the time I'm going to just be like a normal person who doesn't care about shrimp. Maybe I'll refrain from eating them. But actually, even that is like, I could totally see a person just still eating them and then doing this. But then during the 1% of the time where you're deciding how to give money away and none of those, the beneficiaries are going to be totally out of sight either way. This is like a neutral point, I guess, but it's still worth saying, yeah, then you can be like a hardcore effective altruist or whatever and then give your money to the shrimp people.SARAH: Do you have this set up as like a recurring donation?AARON: Oh, no. Everybody should call me out as a hypocrite because I haven't donated much money, but I'm trying to figure out actually, given that I haven't had a stable income ever. And maybe, hopefully I will soon, actually. But even then, it's still a part-time thing. I haven't been able to do sort of standard 10% or more thing, and I'm trying to figure out what the best thing to do or how to balance, I guess, not luxury, not like consumption on things that I… Well, to some extent, yeah. Maybe I'm just selfish by sometimes getting an Uber. That's totally true. I think I'm just a hypocrite in that respect. But mostly I think the trade-off is between saving, investing, and giving. Beast of the money that I have saved up and past things. So this is all sort of a defense of why I don't have a recurring donation going on.SARAH: I'm not asking you to defend yourself because I do not do that either.AARON: I think if I was making enough money that I could give away $10,000 a year and plan on doing that indefinitely, I would be unlikely to set up a recurring donation. What I would really want to do is once or twice a year, really try to prioritize deciding on how to give it away rather than making it the default. This has a real cost for charities. If you set up a recurring donation, they have more certainty in some sense of their future cash flow. But that's only good to do if you're really confident that you're going to want to keep giving there in the future. I could learn new information that says something else is better. So I don't think I would do that.SARAH: Now I'm just thinking about how many shrimp did you say it was per dollar?AARON: Don't quote me. I didn't say an actual thing.SARAH: It was like some big number. Right. Because I just feel like that's such a brainworm. Imagine if you let that actually get in your head and then every time you spend some unnecessary amount of money on something you don't really need, you think about how many shrimp you just killed by getting an Uber or buying lunch out. That is so stressful. I think I'm going to try not to think about that.AARON: I don't mean to belittle this. This is like a core, I think you're new to EA type of thinking. It's super natural and also troubling when you first come upon it. Do you want me to talk about how I, or other people deal with that or take action?SARAH: Yeah, tell me how to get the shrimp off my conscience.AARON: Well, for one thing, you don't want to totally do that. But I think the main thing is that the salience of things like this just decreases over time. I would be very surprised if, even if you're still very engaged in the EA adjacent communities or EA itself in five years, that it would be as emotionally potent. Brains make things less important over time. But I think the thing to do is basically to compartmentalize in a sort of weird sense. Decide how much you're willing to donate. And it might be hard to do that, but that is sort of a process. Then you have that chunk of money and you try to give it away the best you can under whatever you think the best ethics are. But then on the daily, you have this other set pot of money. You just are a normal person. You spend it as you wish. You don't think about it unless you try not to. And maybe if you notice that you might even have leftover money, then you can donate the rest of it. But I really do think picking how much to give should sort of be its own project. And then you have a pile of money you can be a hardcore EA about.SARAH: So you pick a cut off point and then you don't agonize over anything over and above that.AARON: Yeah. And then people, I mean, the hard part is that if somebody says their cut off point is like 1% of their income and they're making like $200,000, I don't know. Maybe their cut off point should be higher. So there is a debate. It depends on that person's specific situation. Maybe if they have a kid or some super expensive disease, it's a different story. If you're just a random guy making $200,000, I think you should give more.SARAH: Maybe you should be giving away enough to feel the pinch. Well, not even that. I don't think I'm going to do that. This is something that I do actually want to do at some point, but I need to think about it more and maybe get a better job.AARON: Another thing is, if you're wanting to earn to give as a path to impact, you could think and strive pretty hard. Maybe talk to people and choose your education or professional development opportunities carefully to see if you can get a better paying job. That's just much more important than changing how much you give from 10% to 11% or something. You should have this macro level optimization. How can I have more money to spend? Let me spend, like, I don't know, depends what life stage you are, but if you had just graduated college or maybe say you're a junior in college or something. It could make sense to spend a good amount of time figuring out what that path might look like.AARON: I'm a huge hypocrite because I definitely haven't done all this nearly as much as I should, but I still endorse it.SARAH: Yeah, I think it's fine to say what you endorse doing in an ideal world, even if you're not doing that, that's fine.AARON: For anybody listening, I tweeted a while ago, asking if anyone has resources on how to think about giving away wealth. I'm not very wealthy but have some amount of savings. It's more than I really need. At the same time, maybe I should be investing it because EA orgs don't feel like, or they think they can't invest it because there's potentially a lot of blowback if they make poor investments, even though it would be higher expected value.There's also the question of, okay, having some amount of savings allows me to take higher, potentially somewhat higher risk, but higher value opportunities because I have a cushion. But I'm very confused about how to give away what I should do here. People should DM me on Twitter or anywhere they have ideas.SARAH: I think you should calculate how much you need to cover your very basic needs. Maybe you should work out, say, if you were working 40 hours a week in a minimum wage job, like how much would you make then? And then you should keep that for yourself. And then the rest should definitely all go to the shrimp. Every single penny. All of it.AARON: This is pretty plausible. Just to make it more complicated, there's also the thing that I feel like my estimates or my best guesses of the best charities to give to over time has changed. And so there's like two competing forces. One is that I might get wiser and more knowledgeable as time goes on. The other one is that in general, giving now is better than giving later. All else equal, because I think for a couple of reasons, the main one just being that the charities don't know that you're going to give later.AARON: So it's like they can plan for the future much better if they get money now. And also there's just higher leverage opportunities or higher value per dollar opportunities now in general than there will be later for a couple of reasons I don't really need to. This is what makes it really complicated. So I've donated in the past to places that I don't think, or I don't think even at the time were the best to. So then there's a question of like, okay, how long do I save this money? Do I sit on it for months until I'm pretty confident, like a year.AARON: I do think that probably over the course of zero to five years or something, becoming more confident or changing your mind is like the stronger effect than how much good you give to the, or how much better it is for the charities to give now instead of later. But also that's weird because you're never committing at all.Sometimes you might decide to give it away, and maybe you won't. Maybe at that time you're like, “Oh, that's what I want. A car, I have a house, whatever.” It's less salient or something. Maybe something bad happened with EA and you no longer identify that way. Yeah, there's a lot of really thorny considerations. Sorry, I'm talking way too much.SARAH: Long, are you factoring AI timelines into this?AARON: That makes it even more sketchy. But that could also go both ways. On one hand, you have the fact that if you don't give away your money now and you die with it, it's never going to do any good. The other thing is that it might be that especially high leverage opportunities come in the future or something potentially you need, I don't know, whatever I can imagine I could make something up about. OpenPhil needs as much money as it can get to do X, Y and Z. It's really important right now, but I won't know that until a few years down the line. So just like everything else, it doesn't neatly wash out.SARAH: What do you think the AGI is going to do to the shrimp? I reckon it's probably pretty neat, like one shrimp per paperclip. Maybe you could get more. I wonder what the sort of shrimp to paperclip conversion rate is.AARON: Has anyone looked into that morally? I think like one to zero. I don't think in terms of money. You could definitely price that. I have no idea.SARAH: I don't know. Maybe I'm not taking this as seriously as I should be because I'm.AARON: No, I mean, humor is good. When people are giving away money or deciding what to do, they should be serious. But joking and humor is good. Sorry, go ahead.SARAH: No, you go ahead.AARON: I had a half-baked idea. At EA Global, they should have a comedy show where people roast everybody, but it's a fundraiser. You have to pay to get 100 people to attend. They have a bidding contest to get into the comedy show. That was my original idea. Or they could just have a normal comedy show. I think that'd be cool.SARAH: Actually, I think that's a good idea because you guys are funny. There is a lot of wit on this side of Twitter. I'm impressed.AARON: I agree.SARAH: So I think that's a very good idea.AARON: Okay. Dear Events team: hire Aaron Bergman, professional comedian.SARAH: You can just give them your Twitter as a source for how funny you are, and that clearly qualifies you to set this up. I love it.AARON: This is not important or related to anything, but I used to be a good juggler for entertainment purposes. I have this video. Maybe I should make sure the world can see it. It's like a talent show. So maybe I can do that instead.SARAH: Juggling. You definitely should make sure the world has access to this footage.AARON: It had more views than I expected. It wasn't five views. It was 90 or something, which is still nothing.SARAH: I can tell you a secret right now if you want. That relates to Max asking in the chat about glee.AARON: Yes.SARAH: This bit will also have to edit out, but me having a public meltdown over AI was the second time that I've ever blown up on the Internet. The first time being. I can't believe I'm telling you this. I think I'm delirious right now. Were you ever in any fandoms, as a teenager?AARON: No.SARAH: Okay. Were you ever on Tumblr?AARON: No. I sort of know what the cultural vibes were. I sort of know what you're referring to. There are people who like Harry Potter stuff and bands, like Kpop stuff like that.SARAH: So people would make these fan videos where they'd take clips from TV shows and then they edit them together to music. Sometimes people would edit the clips to make it look like something had happened in the plot of the show that hadn't actually happened. For example, say, what if X character had died? And then you edit the clips together to try and make it look like they've died. And you put a sad song, how to save a life by the fray or something, over the top. And then you put it on YouTube.AARON: Sorry, tell me what…"Hat I should search or just send the link here. I'm sending my link.SARAH: Oh, no, this doesn't exist anymore. It does not exist anymore. Right? So, say if you're, like, eleven or twelve years old and you do this, and you don't even have a mechanism to download videos because you don't know how to do technology. Instead, you take your little iPod touch and you just play a YouTube video on your screen, and you literally just film the screen with your iPod touch, and that's how you're getting the clips. It's kind of shaky because you're holding the camera anyway.SARAH: Then you edit together on the iMovie app of your iPod touch, and then you put it on the Internet, and then you just forget about it. You forget about it. Two years later, you're like, oh, I wonder what happened to that YouTube account? And you log in and this little video that you've made with edited clips that you've filmed off the screen of your laptop to ‘How To Save Life' by The Fray with clips from Glee in it, has nearly half a million views.AARON: Nice. Love it.SARAH: Embarrassing because this is like, two years later. And then all the comments were like, oh, my God, this was so moving. This made me cry. And then obviously, some of them were hating and being like, do you not even know how to download video clips? Like, what? And then you're so embarrassed.AARON: I could totally seem it. Creative, but only a reasonable solution. Yeah.SARAH: So that's my story of how I went viral when I was like, twelve.AARON: It must have been kind of overwhelming.SARAH: Yeah, it was a bit. And you can tell that my time, it's like 20 to eleven at night, and now I'm starting to really go off on one and talk about weird things.AARON: Like an hour. So, yeah, we can wrap up. And I always say this, but it's actually true. Which is that low standard, like, low stakes or low threshold. Low bar for doing that in recording some of the time.SARAH: Yeah, probably. We'll have to get rid of the part about how I went viral on YouTube when I was twelve. I'll sleep on that.AARON: Don't worry. I'll send the transcription at some point soon.SARAH: Yeah, cool.AARON: Okay, lovely. Thank you for staying up late into the night for this.SARAH: It's not that late into the night. I'm just like, lame and go to bed early.AARON: Okay, cool. Yeah, I know. Yeah, for sure. All right, bye. Get full access to Aaron's Blog at www.aaronbergman.net/subscribe

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Are you aware of how much money you would need to protect and potentially replace all of the assets in the properties you manage? Join Jason as he chats with Aaron Lombardo from North Star Reserves about what a reserve study is, and how having one completed can benefit your property management business. You'll Learn... [01:21] Who is Aaron from North Star Reserves? [05:09] What is a Reserve Study? [16:30] What is the Difference Between a Reserve Study and an Inspection? [20:14] A New Concept: the “LIL Effect” [33:50] How to Stop Your Clients from Micromanaging You Tweetables “Property's easy to manage. People are tough to manage.” “Retaining a client, you're continually selling them on why they should be with you. It involves trust.” “One thing that property managers incur too much is blame.” “Each property is a business and it needs to be able to be maintained.” Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive TalkRoute Referral Link Transcript [00:00:00] Aaron: what the reserve study really does is creates kind of an internal bank of their own funds and we help them manage a threshold so they can have a zero base threshold where they're just managing just enough in contributions to maintain those assets over long term or they can increase that threshold so that there's a nest egg if you will, a buffer or padding [00:00:21] Jason Hull: Welcome DoorGrow Hackers to the # DoorGrowShow. So if you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, make a difference, increase revenue, help others, impact lives, and you're interested in growing in business and life, and you're open to doing things a bit differently then you are a DoorGrow Hacker. DoorGrow Hackers love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges and freedom that property management brings. Many in real estate think you're crazy for doing it. You think they're crazy for not bebecause you realize that property management is the ultimate, high trust gateway to real estate deals, relationships, and residual income. At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management business owners and their businesses. We want to transform the industry, eliminate the bs, build awareness, change perception, expand the market, and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. I'm your host property management growth expert, Jason Hull, the founder and CEO of DoorGrow. Now let's get into the show. [00:01:21] Aaron: I went in and got my undergrad, my bachelor's in psychology. So I majored in family and marriage therapy and kind of the end of that I realized I didn't want to be in psych. I love it. I love people, but I migrated very quickly into the construction industry. And I worked for the third largest builder in the country and managed multimillion dollar budgets as far as from the building side and construction. Was recruited by the largest builder in the state of Utah and spent quite a bit of time with them working through kind of their ranks, managing, again, oversight on millions of dollars in purchasing materials, actually building the structures from the ground up. That experience led me into the general manager position with them on their custom home division quietly running this custom home division. They were really a track builder and they had all sorts of, different styles, designs and levels of building from commercial to residential, and they had this quiet custom home division that was really exciting. It allowed me to really apply my psych trade into sales, dealing really with high-end buyers and executors buying properties and interacting with those properties as investments and so forth. [00:02:33] And ultimately that kind of landed quite a bit of interaction with building the actual communities themselves, HOAs, working with those HOAs. And then I had an opportunity to really jump ship and partner with a friend of mine in rental management. The short version is that he had a deal to buy a pump company fell out from underneath him after he'd literally moved across the country. And he kind of started by default just managing a rental property, a family's rental property. Anyway, long story short is he needed somebody to come along and help out with that, both on the HOA management and just generally the business. So, We ran this business, we expanded it over two states, Idaho and Utah. In the end, we separated. He took the rental management, I took HOA management. We both have grown those. I really enjoyed the HOA management side of it. It provided a lot of opportunities to interact with property managers as their competitors, but also with the boards. And so it was really by forced majeure that I had to take a deep dive into kind of the rental management, interacting again with real estate, which is where maybe my education wasn't, but my passion certainly was. And then I had an opportunity to buy this little mom and pop reserve study company out of Emmett, Idaho, and this was just a retiring couple that I had actually used their services several times in the rental and hoa management industry. And I just loved the idea of getting back into the budgets, but it afforded me the opportunity as well to get into the field doing site inspections for these properties while managing these budgets. [00:04:08] And so I did, we sold the HOA management company. We bought this little mom and pop. We've grown it to eight states, and then we consult in several others. We're in multiple markets within, kind of these states and subsets of these states, destination stops and so forth. And I'll tell you what a reserve study is here in just a second, which is why I'm here with you, I suppose, Jason, but we do, reserve studies and site inspections for golf courses and country clubs high rises. We do commercial properties and strip malls. We do a lot of homeowners associations that have clubhouses and buildings that they have to maintain in streets. We've done some really cool townships where we've done entire, small cities or small towns, airports And and then water treatment facilities. So we, we feel like we've got a real, broad gamut of these things. These properties of different sorts. Some are owned, by a governing body like an hoa, and some are owned by real estate investors or owners that are looking to track their costs. And that's where the reserve study comes in itself. [00:05:09] Jason: Got it. Cool. So tell us what is a reserve study? [00:05:14] Aaron: Right. The magic question. So a reserve study is really just a 30 year outlay of all income and expenses and using that contribution is what we call it, a contribution of that revenue to reserves or savings to maintain and repair all their physical assets over the course of 30 years. So it takes in a lot of aspects of that, right? You have the revenue that comes in and we call that the contribution. And it's just a piece of maybe the property's total revenue and then that contribution will fund the future maturation of all of those assets from the replacement of the roof to the maintenance of the plaster in the pool ceiling on the streets, et cetera, et cetera. And so it really takes, the full gamut. It includes inflation and the cost of inflation that compounds over time. It includes the useful life is what we call it in the industry for each individual item, right? Not everything wears the same and not everything wears the same in different. Locations. Our California clients have properties, in Spokane and in Spokane. It's just a harsher climate. And so their properties weather different, and if they don't take that into account and really understand the nuances of that it catches them off guard because of the weathering that occurs in a different, in different places. [00:06:29] Jason: Right. Just like cars in winter areas with the salted roads, the undercarriage gets rusted out. California no issue with that. So, That's right. At least not in SoCal. All right. So, cool. All right, I get that. So how do you go about doing these reserve studies and how does this relate to property management? I really haven't heard of any property managers doing this. I'm sure some do or should be. So tell us about that. [00:06:58] Aaron: Well, so the truth of it is there's not a lot of well, let me rephrase that, a lot of property managers do that if they're, if they have oversight in an HOA or some sort of governing body. We break our service down into two pieces. There's the actual physical creation of the reserve study, and then there's the consulting on how to use the reserve study, our other kind of group of clients, aside from just HOA property managers. Are, owners and business owners. So, typically when we're working with a property manager on a rental property or a multi-unit property, it's usually the owner or, sometimes it's the CFO or CEO that's looking at this property from a strictly, revenue generation standpoint. And they're looking at their total expense load and we build that expense load. So it comes in two parts. The first part is really just the physical creation of the reserve study that involves a site inspection. So we perform a physical site inspection where we comb through every piece of this property. Let's use a high-rise as an example. A high-rise might have everything from a generator tucked into the parking garage to, common area, boiler units that are serving all of the rental units above, and the roof and the windows, and all of the pieces. [00:08:07] In a typical high-rise, there might be 80 to a hundred components. That all have a varying degree of cost. Some of them need to be touched or maintained on an annual basis, and some of them you don't need to really worry about but every 30 or 40 years and those, long-term items usually have a significant cost that we're trying to help our owners avoid loans on. [00:08:29] Right. They can essentially, Jason, what the reserve study really does is creates kind of an internal bank of their own funds and we help them manage a threshold so they can have a zero base threshold where they're just managing just enough in contributions to maintain those assets over long term or they can increase that threshold so that there's a nest egg, if you will, a buffer or padding that allows, far more flexibility on how to use those funds for the improvement of those physical assets. [00:09:02] So the first part of that is just performing the site inspection, converting those physical assets into usable data, right? So we'll document every aspect of, the pool as an example, right down to the pool pumps. Pool pumps and pool plaster and the pool deck and the pool cover. I mean, there's a dozen components that maintain what we would, you and I would just call a pool, right? Yeah, there's a dozen components that would maintain that. We break those down, they all get a useful life. We convert that into data that has a useful life, a term for its expiration, and then a cost associated with that. In the process of that, we're contacting vendors, usually local vendors to that state or maybe that destination stop that town and city. So that we're finding out the local pricing and we plug that in commensurate to, their actual costs. And then we produce what we call a reserve study. [00:09:55] And it's a lengthy report. It'd be a hundred page report. Half of that is usually a very detailed page over page breakdown of every component, what we discovered, what our actual site inspection uncovered. And oftentimes we uncover problems that they don't, and sometimes that their management or their maintenance men don't see. Their maintenance men have a tendency to look at certain high visual items where we're in the process of discovering from a construction standpoint. What are the forthcoming or future problems that they might incur? A great but terrible example, and this has brought the whole industry kind of forefront. Everybody at this point has heard about the Florida condo that literally fell, and it was a horrible tragedy. You've heard of that? [00:10:38] Jason: I didn't hear that. [00:10:39] Aaron: You didn't hear about that? All right. [00:10:41] Jason: No. So when I was in Mexico and there was a hotel, or like a condo building next to one of the resorts we stayed at, and it won all these awards for design, but it like started sinking and collapsing. [00:10:52] Aaron: Oh yeah that's a different one. So, so this Florida compound really a preventable tragedy and a terrible tragedy. So this had a pool on an upper deck. So it was like a parking garage and imagined large concrete with rebar columns underneath upholding that pool and the structure above it. And over the course of probably decades, there was corrosion from the pool. Now pool chemicals are just brutal on everything that they touch right, even the concrete. And over time they noticed some corroding that had leaked into cracks and fissures in the concrete and had corroded, the rebar, which is kind of the structural integrity of the columns themselves. Long story short is they didn't have the funds or reserves, right. They didn't have the savings, just interchangeable word with reserves. They didn't have the reserves to fund repairs. And after decades of that type of corrosion, the columns gave way and the whole pool inside of the structure gave. And once the structure started to give, it was a cascading effect. And multiple stories of this condo complex fell and killed people, and it was just a horrible, preventable-- [00:12:05] Jason: wow. [00:12:06] Aaron: --Problem. Now that's about as dramatic as these circumstances get mind you. Right. Most of the time what we see is we see, gutters, for example, that are leaking off into the the wall and we know the cues and the primers that are kind of indicating that there's probably a leak behind the stucco itself. Right. Stucco's a permeable material. Yeah. But if it gets beyond the paper, behind the stucco, then you have wall issues and we see that. Pretty often where rain gutters are not skirting all of the snow, ice, and rain away from the building. So all of that's preventable If number one, there's funds to do it and if number two, there's eyes that can pick it up. So we help discover both of those. We help outline, highlight those potential problems and sometimes those problems in live. And then we help ensure that they have a plan of how and when those funds will occur in order to maintain and replace and repair all of those assets. [00:13:07] Ultimately the purpose of any property is to maintain and increase the value of that property, right? No investor wants to get in... [00:13:15] Jason: yeah. [00:13:15] Aaron: ...and not come out on the back end, however many years that might be, and not earn a profit at some level or another, either from the sale of the property or for the ongoing rental of the property. And that can only occur if you're maintaining the property in a condition that it can do so, in my opinion, in optimal condition. [00:13:33] Jason: So one of the things that comes to mind, so my wife and I like taking trips to Mexico and we've gone to some resorts in Mexico that have been around a long time, like decades. Yeah. And we didn't realize it because the rooms seemed new, the paint, but we saw maintenance people on this building. All day long, every day there were just people doing the grounds, doing painting, like everything. And it looked great. And then we just took a trip to Puerto Rico and we stayed at this modern kind of new sort of looking resort. I don't know how long it's been around, but it's already has rust coming down the white sides of the building from the top. They had some nets to capture, I don't know, maybe bird stuff or, I have no idea. Yeah. But they were torn and the room was mildewey and like, it just wasn't what it looked like in the pictures. It was just starting to show some wear and tear, and we were just kind of like, why don't they maintain it? Which was interesting. [00:14:27] Aaron: Well, and this is the second piece of what we do, the consulting piece of this because we have conversations like this all the time. 'Well, I've got this property that behaves very differently than this property. Right? And how do we appropriate these funds commensurate to the type of building?' It really is dependent on the purpose. Like people, not any property is really identical. They're not used the same way. They're not used the same frequency. Yeah. They're not in the same climate zone, et cetera, et cetera. And I think of a similar building that you just described in Montana. So we did recently did a site inspection on this architecturally really fascinating building. And they kind of jammed it into the corner of two main intersections. Okay. And the whole building architecturally is steel. It's intentionally rusting, and it's intentionally that way to keep the maintenance low. That steel on the outside will outlive all of us. And so the maintenance won't be going into the exterior of this building. It was designed for a very low maintenance exterior. Now, the interior finishes are different. The interior, it's got this high end deck and you've got this neat garden area and, you get into the inside, it's got this, really nice elevator and all of these things require a high level of maintenance in order to keep functionality optimal for that particular property. [00:15:42] We do some properties for investors that really intentionally just want to strip out and, for lack of a better term, it sounds bad the way I say it, but, we treat it a little bit differently. They want to strip out every dollar that they can because it's just not a high valued property to them, wherever it might be or however they might be using it. In which case we can put together a plan that. Creates basically what we call a baseline funding. It's a zero funding. It's just setting aside just enough to fund the needed maintenance to meet those financial goals. Again, being very intentional, right? I think most investors and executors fail when you have multiple properties and they start using funds from other properties to carry another or they're not intentional about the monies they're setting aside for maintenance. [00:16:29] Jason: So let me ask a question. So I recently bought a house. I'm here in it right now. Right? And it's over a decade old and we had a home inspection and most people connected to real estate are very familiar with a home inspection. How does a reserve study differ from a home inspection, maybe on like a single family residential property? [00:16:51] Aaron: Yeah, I'll be real candid with you, Jason. I think that the home inspection is very similar. Matter of fact, I have seen some really great home inspections where they will outline potential problems, right? That's the difference between maybe a typical inspector and a home inspector. An inspector might come in and they're going to say, 'okay, these are the things you need to do. These are the things that are really obvious.' A home inspector has a tendency like we do, to really get their hands dirty. They're looking for the little primers, the little cues that indicate that you have a leaking water heater, that the roof shingles are coming up on the ends and, stuff like that. And so I've been really impressed with some home inspections. The only real difference is taking that home inspection and converting it into datas, dollars, and timelines. So that's the difference. So when bought your home, you get a home inspection and it's left to you, buyer, to say, 'okay, well how do I feel about the fact that there's this, that and the other?' And you have to figure out a way to now negotiate that home inspection with your seller on what it means to you. What's the financial, consequence of that home inspection? We take it a pretty major step, but one step further where we say, 'okay, how long is that problem going to endure? When does it need to be replaced? And how much is it going to cost?' And then we build a report that actually puts numbers, dollars, and timelines to that. There's no more guesswork. The math now has a voice. [00:18:17] Jason: Got it. Got it. Okay, cool. Now I can see how this would be useful for rental properties, which are not just a home to live in, but they are a long-term investment and they're basically, each property is a business and it needs to be able to be maintained. It needs to run well, especially if their goal is to have it accrue in value over time, or for it to be making them a certain amount of money each month. Et cetera. So, okay. [00:18:47] Aaron: Now there's two pieces of that though, right? All right, so you've got, I mentioned in the beginning that you've got this kind of physical aspect the site inspection and then the data, and the vast majority, mind you, we don't shy away from data, but we also know how to read it. So when we produce a report, it's usually a lot to digest. And the second piece of that is, well, now what do we do with this data? How do I actually use this data and apply, and this kind of gets into the human element. So this is where it speaks to my psych degree, my salesmanship, if you will, which I just really love people. I think as much as we love properties and I do people, it's really what makes everything work. So now you've got to know, well, how do we take this data? And apply it to a property and in some cases apply it to manage the owner themselves. I'm not a hundred percent clear on your audience, for example. But if we just take a property manager that's managing to an investor, and I've been, in this circumstance, I've been that property manager managing to a CEO of a home builder that had multiple properties we were managing and they have certain expectations and sometimes those expectations are based on their feel, their gut feel. [00:19:59] And it was always better to manage that executor, that owner, that CEO with actual math, with the actual numbers where I can push back without it being a gut feel on my end. So I have what I call the LIL effect, like coin that myself, LIL, like little, the little effect. So one thing that property managers incur too much is blame. When there's stressors, when there's misunderstanding, when maybe the profitability is not there. Yeah. Property managers inadvertently end up being the scapegoat for owners that have left the management to the property, but shouldn't be leaving maybe the profitability to the property manager. Right? So we have what we call the LIL effect. So, and the LIL effect simply is the first L is listen more to your clients. You'd be shocked Jason. How often as a vendor... so I'm usually brought in as kind of a vendor to augment what the property manager might be doing for the owner. And you'd be surprised how many times the vendor or the owner may call and want some specific details that the property manager, doesn't know or is fine deferring to us because we do some consulting. [00:21:14] And then they open up about all sorts of problems and complaints and I'm constantly on the defence. I want to focus on the data and, not necessarily the complaints, but I'm a fly on the wall all the time. And one of the biggest complaints is that they're I think is that they're just not being heard enough. So property managers do a great job managing properties, but sometimes there's a pivot point that they miss with their owners, their clients, their executors. And so the first L is just listening more to the client. The 'I' that we have in the LIL effect is Intention, so being very intentional about building trust. I know a lot of property managers that are really good in the industry because they just, are honest and they just naturally build trust. But if they're not intentional, they leave so much of that trust on the table and they can build a lot of trust by being intentional. So the first L is for listening more to your clients. The 'I' is for intentionally building trust. In fact, an interesting story to go along with that. When I worked for a builder I was told at the very outset that there was an architect, very difficult to work with. We'll call him Brian. And Brian was impossible. [00:22:26] Brian did things his way and he was just difficult to work with. He was the head architect, so everything had to run through him, and if you couldn't get it through him, you couldn't get it done. And I had to get stuff done through him as a fairly new employee with this builder. And I determined right in the beginning that I would figure out a way to earn his trust. And I decided early on that I would just believe everything Brian told me. I would just take it at face value, trust, the fact that he knew what he was doing. Now everybody knew that he was emotionally driven, right? And a fascinating thing came out of this, Jason, I learned over the course of, less than a year, took some time, but I learned over the course o of that year that number one, I earned Brian's trust by hearing him out, asking questions strategically, and being very intentional about building that trust. The other thing that actually was quite fascinating to me is that I learned to really respect Brian. I gained a relationship with him and I could get things done through Brian that nobody else could, simply because I'd been intentional and at the time it was kind of accidental intention. Yeah. And it was a phenomenal relationship that he and I had. He was pretty rough around the edges, had his way, but I had, I could bend his ear, unlike most people could because I'd spent a significant amount of time building that trust. [00:23:48] Jason: That's interesting. I had a job working at HP and there were two of us on a team. We managed this software called Concentra, which was this workflow for all of their PDFs and documents for all their computers, printers, at everything to move through to make sure that there was some sort of quality. And it, it went through legal and it went through everything else. And so there were us two nerds and our boss was in, we were in Boise and our boss was in Texas. And I noticed he didn't trust us. He was always like trying to micromanage us and distrustful of us, and so I just started setting-- we used an instant message tool to communicate most of the time, so I just started changing my status. I'm like, how can I make him feel safer and trust me? So I had the intention. To build trust. And so, and the way I did that is I just communicated through my messenger status, showing what I was working on all the time, so he didn't have to ask me and say, 'Hey, did you guys doing stuff? Or what are you doing?' It just said, 'I'm working on this and I'm working on that'. And I would just update it throughout the day. He started to trust me and then he started to ask me about my coworker, what's he doing? Is he getting stuff done? I thought that was really funny. Yeah. Like acting like he'd-- this guy like didn't even know our names though. He like, eventually he just couldn't even remember our names, which is sad. [00:25:02] Aaron: But that level of transparency, solves all so many problems before they occur. [00:25:07] Jason: Yeah. So I like that. Yeah. Property managers need to listen more to their clients and they need to focus on the intention of building trust because really, I tell my clients sales and deals happen at the speed of trust. Yeah. In order to get clients, but keeping clients. Same thing, retaining a client, you're continually selling them on why they should be with you. It involves trust. Yeah. Trust goes, they go. [00:25:33] Aaron: It does. And it really is about being intentional, right? Because again, I know property managers who are quite good at it, but they're, there's a difference with being intentional. Yeah. Being strategic. [00:25:44] Jason: Yeah. because if their intention is just to do their job, that's not going to necessarily create trust. But if their intention is to create trust, then they're far more likely to do it. Yeah. This is interesting too becausewe have a tool we use with our clients so they can get more out of their day and we call it DoorGrow's Daily Planning. We have this daily planning exercise, and the goal is to map out, part of the daily planning exercise is to figure out what are all the appointments you have for the day, and then what intention do you have for each of those? Because we find just by having an intention and being clear on what your intention is with a particular outcome, you're far more likely to get the result ironically. So, if your intention is to go into a conversation and win, or create a win-win or to benefit them or whatever, you're far more likely if you're clear on that intention, then you just go into it and go, 'well, I have a meeting.' Right. Yeah. So, yeah. [00:26:36] Aaron: Well, I couldn't agree with you more. It's so we've got listen more to the clients, right? So to finish the LIL effect, intentionally build trust. And the last one, Is really one of the most undervalued, and that's, listen to your trades. And I'm not talking about just hearing them out, I'm talking about like understanding, understanding their perspective. You'd be shocked how many, so I talk to trades a lot. [00:27:00] Jason: Define trades. Are you talking about vendors that'll do work on property? [00:27:03] Aaron: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Your concrete guys, your maintenance guy. The, these are invaluable people that, sometimes I think property managers don't reach out to these trades. At the level they could because they see a guy that, you know, just for lack of a better term, just eats concrete for breakfast. He knows concrete. He loves concrete, he's really good at it, and they want him to solve a problem concrete related. But I can't tell you how many times I've talked to vendors, I'm usually gathering price and I can speak their language and I know all things construction from the ground up. So I can get into those conversations and as I do that, I've been shocked. At how many things they keep close to the chest because they've learned, and this goes back to kind of the psych days learned helplessness. They've learned that nobody really wants their opinion. They just want them to solve a problem. 'Solve this concrete problem, fix this tree,' whatever it might be. And so they have learned over the years to just keep those things close to the chest. But what they have close to the chest is often little golden nuggets of understanding of both property and profitability. They have ideas on how to turn a property more profitable in their little, bucket of trade, right? They're concrete or they're trees and, property managers are leaving some profits on the table, in my opinion, because they're not getting those vendors, not building the trust with those vendors to glean the little pieces and it goes back to, I forget the name of the book, 1% Better, where if you're gathering 1% better and you talk to 15 different, vendors and they all can provide you, you know even half a percent profitability better, suddenly you have a property that's 7% more profitable. That's incredible. [00:28:46] Jason: Yeah. That's interesting. The last place I was in, we were renting and it wasn't managed by a property manager and the owner took two weeks to replace water heater because he was just being super anal and trying to figure out the best one. Basically a problem property managers can solve for people. And one of the plumbers came out and. He like was badmouthing the owner saying that he was being cheap and then he like, but the level of detail this guy was because I was just curious in asking questions because that's just my nature. He was telling me like, 'these type of water heaters, they last this long, this other one's going to go out soon. And if we put in one like this, I recommend it be this capacity because it's going to last this much longer or do this' like the level of detail he knew about water heaters. Brands of water heaters and how much, putting the right one in and what it could save you in the long term and doing the long term. I was like really impressed. Yeah, so this rings very true to me. Everybody that is really an expert in their craft. And this guy ran his company, so we were lucky that he was the one that came out, I guess. The level of expertise that some of these vendors or trades, or not sure they call them tradies, yeah. That they have is really yeah, it, I can see how it could be a huge asset. [00:30:04] Aaron: Huge asset. So that's the LIL effect. They really are a huge asset. So you've got, listen more to your clients, the intentional of building trust, and listening to your trades and vendors and anyway, that LIL effect will produce positive consequences every day of the week. There's really no negative and it's kind of rare that you can apply a strategy and not have, some downside of it. But it's pretty easy to apply. Maybe a more listening and intentional ear. Yeah. Something that we're noticing, that kind of goes along with this, and I think everybody's probably feeling this at this point. I've been waiting for everybody to feel like the pinch of what's going on, right. So, one thing that we're trying to do here for our business is just constantly be on the pivot where, well, what are our clients feeling? Yeah. What are they experiencing? What are their hardships and challenges? What other problems can we solve? And we've been doing that since inception, but I've been waiting since kind of some of the overall damage from where it started with Covid. When is this downstream damage going to really start affecting just masses, right? And profitability and properties and so forth? And over the last four to six months we're seeing more of it. And on our end, we're ready for that pivot. And what that pivot looks like is when people are pinched financially and emotionally. And additionally, right now politically, when people feel pinched in corner like this, yeah they have a tendency to retreat into corners, right? It's the old adage, that we retreat into our shell. And as people do that, unfortunately trades and property managers, when they're feeling kind of this trifecta of pinch, they have a lack of control. This goes back to the psychology. They have a lack of control. So what do people do when they're losing control of one thing? They go and gain control of another, right? [00:31:51] Jason: Yeah. They start micromanaging other stuff. [00:31:54] Aaron: Yes. And asking all the wrong questions in that micromanagement, right? And so they start micromanaging, they start trying to regain control. And I see sometimes property managers pushing back because again, the client's asking the wrong group of questions, seeking for some semblance of balance of control. And as they push back, then they're usually again scapegoated into some failure, some misunderstanding, some reason that the client needs to retake or re grab control. Yeah. And when they're insecure and out of control, we often coach our clients to tell them, 'look, let them. Give them a moment. They don't want to drive the car. They don't really want to drive the car. Yeah. They want to know that they can drive the car.' Right. And so clients come, they feel uncomfortable, they want to regain control. And so we'll tell our property managers many times, ' let them sit in the driver's seat. It's like taking a teen, and you remember the old driving the cars, they had a brake pedal in the passenger seat where the instructor could sit and slam on the brakes and-- [00:33:04] Jason: Yeah. [00:33:04] Aaron: --Scare the teen right out of his gourd. I mean, that's how I learned to drive from a instructor. But it's kind of-- [00:33:10] Jason: sounds like a mean instructor. [00:33:12] It's sometimes though it's like that the property [00:33:14] Aaron: manager would be wise to step aside for a moment and let them get in. Actually a lot like you did with, telegraphing. Almost over transparency. This is what I'm doing, this is what I'm doing. Let them see how you're driving. Let them see every turn you're making. And eventually they get to a point where they're like, yeah, he's driving fine. I don't, they don't want to drive. And property managers hold that close to the chest. I can't let them get in. I can't let them, do X, Y, and Z because that's my job. That's my responsibility. And they guard that tenaciously and that actually leads to more distrust in the moment than trust. [00:33:48] Yeah, I actually [00:33:49] Jason: teach. And I've had a podcast episode on this subject before, but I actually teach clients that the one thing that people want to buy from a property manager is not property management. What they want to buy is safety and certainty. Yeah. They want to buy peace of mind. That's really what you're selling as a property manager. And so if you're not using LIL and that framework, And you're not going to get those positive consequences. And if you're not making them feel safe, you're actually going to have a higher operational cost in your business because you're going to have a whole bunch of owners that are micromanaging you because yes, if they don't feel safe, they're going to create safety. Yes. In the form of leading and micromanaging you. And if the only positive way to push back on that is to let them know that you know what you're doing to showcase the expertise and let them know that you are better at this than them. Yes. Based on proven history and results. Yes. [00:34:44] Aaron: I, that is such a great point, Jason. Matter of fact, that's really, really kind of the key, if they'll filter everything through what you just said, if they'll filter everything through this idea. Building that trust and managing that relationship that way and not the property. The property's easy to manage. People are tough to manage. True. And if you'll manage to those, like you said, those, those expectations with their end goal then you can manage the property kind of on, on the side. In fact, it's interesting. I would also say that anytime, That they see Anytime that, our clients see micromanagement from their clientele, that should be the first cue that they're on their way out. Yeah. You know that they're, they don't trust you, that they're not trusting and that eight, eight out of 10 times 80% of the time, I would say that when you have an owner or property manager or an executive body that's frustrated or micromanaging they don't know it yet sometimes, but they're already beginning the process of finding somebody who they feel that can do a better job and they never do. [00:35:50] They only find somebody to solve a problem for a minute. But the problem is really, like you said, trust, expectation, those relationships, because the property is not the challenge. [00:36:01] Jason: Yeah. I mean, there might be one counter to this. So one thing that's I think is really interesting is we'll have clients in our coaching program and sometimes they're just like grumpy and they complain about everything and they're frustrated, but they stay. And then sometimes they're really happy and they're getting great results and then they leave. And so what we've learned to pay attention to, In the realm of client success is that it's not even necessarily connected to whether or not they are happy or you're getting them great results or not. Which is really weird, but client retention is based on whether or not they still see a future with you or not. And that there's a future plan. And so as long as they have a future goal, a future roadmap, they might be miserable as they do all of it, but they'll still stick with you because they see a future that includes you, and so they'll stay with you, but it's very easy for them to start creating a new future the second they start not having a good experience with you, they start to imagine, man, it might be better with somebody else. Yeah. [00:37:00] Aaron: And with that, you can't discount the 80 20 rule either, right? There's a, there's the law of averages and statistically speaking, it's been proven, a thousand times that. 20% of your clientele is going to be 80% of your time expenditure. Right. [00:37:13] Jason: Which is why you should probably fire 20% of your clients. [00:37:17] Aaron: I knew you were going to say that. I set you up, Jason. I knew you were going to say that. I the truth is I've actually watched property managers do that very thing and they just end up with the different 20%. Right? Right. Yeah. So better, the better way to do it is if you're going to fire, because I don't think. I don't think the idea is lost. I think you got to look at profitability and Yeah. Which ones are really not making you money, right? And those are the ones to let go because you're going to end up with the same 20% of kind of high maintenance clientele. And if they're profitable, then maintain it. And if they're not, then call it and get to the 20% of higher profitability clients. Right. That's again, coming back to intention. [00:37:58] Jason: I would agree related, if you're focused just on the currency of cash, but if you're focused on the currency of like your peace of mind and time and other things, then it might not be worth it. [00:38:10] Aaron: Some. That's a great point. That's so true. [00:38:12] Jason: So it might not be worth it because it really, the goal of a business isn't just money. The goal of a business is to give us more freedom, more fulfillment as a business owner, more of a sense of contribution and more support. That's why we build a business, why we build a team. And so some owners are stealing that from people, and I think a lot of times it's easily solved by just setting really good boundaries, expectations. And like you were talking about communication. Yeah. And that most owners, when they're micromanaging like that, they just want to know you're actually holding the steering wheel. That's it. As soon as they recognize that, they're like, oh, okay, I'm fine. And so a lot of times it's just a matter of being stronger towards them. Like some of my clients, I teach them to say, 'No, Mr. Owner, we're not going to do that and here's why.' And then suddenly that owner disarms. But a lot of times if they say, okay, I'll do that for you, the owner then goes, 'oh, I now need to lead them through everything to get the results that I want.' [00:39:08] Aaron: Yeah. Yeah. So that's great. [00:39:12] Jason: Interesting stuff. All right, so, now a lot a lot of my clients are managing small multi-family units, single family residential, maybe some condos. There might be some association management. When does it make sense to reach out to North Star? [00:39:28] Aaron: When they want to use and empower the actual math is what I call it, when they want to use and empower the actual revenue versus expense load for decision making processes. Okay. It's really, there's a balance between the revenue and the expense load, and in almost all cases, the expense load is higher. So when I call it a balance, it's not like it's an equal balance. The expense load over time is higher when you factor in the revenue with profitability, et cetera. So how do we empower the math to make decisions based on the actual dollars and cents and not just aesthetics? [00:40:08] Jason: Okay, so let's take an example. Should they reach out to North Star if they have an owner that they can tell is not doing things mathematically effectively so that they can actually leverage your data in insight to say to this owner, you're being an idiot. You need to do it this way. Is that a good case example. [00:40:28] Aaron: It's a great example. In fact, in downtown Boise there's a highrise, I won't mention it. And very nice, very, kind of high end highrise. And the property manager called us, this is actually just a couple years ago, but I still play this one out because it changed everything. And they were ready to spend $50,000 just on a furniture rehab. And long story short is the furniture was already nice. I mean, high end from the lobby to the rooftop. And in the end we ran through reserve study, helped them see that a $50,000 was not only not in the budget, but a gross overspend. They still spent 15 grand, but that other 35 went to a future roof project that they were not only not prepared for, but didn't have properly funded. So the answer is yes, to I would say anytime that a property manager wants to help mitigate or remove the emotion from the pushback that they might get with their owners or executive body and using the math to make those financial decisions, that's an appropriate time to call North Star. Another great aspect of having a reserve study and having the proper financial is creating continuity. So once you start that decision making process, owners and property managers get really good at creating continuity for that decision making process, and that reduces the time expenditure on a property that reduces the discussion, meeting time, expenditure with their owners. And so we call it continuity. In fact, we have a continuity program, which is really a consulting program that we use the existing study to take them through a year long process of decision making and preparation where we are basically on retainer by the course of the year to interact and help create that continuity. Directly, it's actually always designed for the property manager. So that's create continuity for the property manager to use the financials to manage those long-term decisions. [00:42:20] Jason: So I imagine another use case would be they're about to take on a rough property and I get questions like this, should I take it on? Yeah. I mean, often the answer is no. But if the owner is amenable to like fixing it up, making the changes necessary, but a lot of times there's a lot of emotion in it for them. Yeah. And so if they can connect them to the math and to reality through something like working with North Star then, and they're willing to do this, then they could end up being a good client and it could be a good scenario. [00:42:51] Aaron: That's correct. And we resist all things boiler plate, right? We like to tailor it to the real circumstance. We do use some boiler plate numbers to help owners get to a basic understanding of profitability and whether or not to buy a property. More often than not, Jason the questions usually: I want to make an improvement on an existing property, and should I? What's the downstream cost and the downstream cost of maintaining that improvement? Yeah. Right. We want to resurface the streets and, or we want to we want to add in a bar to this, to this, mini restaurant or a bar area. And so you, we've got to look at, where the cost expenditure is and the long-term maintenance of that improvement. [00:43:33] Jason: I would imagine that property managers, if they've even done a few of these situations or scenarios with you, learn an immense amount of insight and knowledge just by through association with what you're doing. [00:43:48] Aaron: Yes. In fact, that's, I didn't start this business doing the consulting side of this. I started with just, reserve studies, right? We just produce a reserve study, we produce the math, and it's my nature to kind of help people through that. And I don't push back on people with meeting and the time expense of meeting. [00:44:05] I help them through it. But that has evolved over years into really a full consulting program because you're exactly right, property managers when they really know how to use it They need less of my expertise on the reserve study and more of my expertise on using the reserve study to manage again, people right, to manage expectations of people, to manage tough conversations with people. Property managers have more longevity in managing a property. I find when one, they have that trust, and two, they do have some profitability because you're right, it is about those people. But their investors want to see good financials. And when the property manager can focus on intentional trust while at the same time producing transparent and profitable financials, I mean, I don't know why anybody would want to leave a property manager that is performing at that level. [00:45:00] Jason: Yeah. So I think the next question somebody would have is, this has to be really expensive. Would it make sense? Like say I get an investor and he's got like, a hundred unit building, or I get a different investor and he's got a hundred single family units and I'm going to bring in this portfolio. Is this something that. Is financially going to make sense? Is there a way for this property manager to convince the owner to do this, and for the property manager to be able to afford to do this in a way that it's going to make them money? [00:45:32] Aaron: Yeah. In a very rare circumstance, has it not really and I'm just being very candid, in a very rare circumstance, has it not financially made sense. In fact, in 2019, and it just happened to be a good timing in late 2019, we created what we call a virtual site inspection for those properties were financially, they just don't maybe have the volume of assets to merit a 30 year full reserve study in the consulting. Yeah. And and so we do a virtual site inspection, which is a little bit more boiler plate, but we'll go on. As long as I have satellite images, I'll do a virtual site inspection from satellite imagery. I can usually get some really great street view images and I can build a reserve study without ever leaving the office. We have staff here and I've got one guy and that's all he does. He just looks at those virtual studies. He builds these virtual studies so we don't ever have to mobilize. We did that because that got the price, the mobilization costs down and therefore it got the price of the reserve study commensurate to producing well, just a profitable report, so it didn't make sense. Yeah, it's not cheap to to, again, to be candid with you, there's a lot that goes into it. Sure. On a high rise, we might have, 80 hours into a full study with the site inspection and all the data gathering. So it's generally not cheap. And so we do try to find balance in that. [00:46:49] Jason: Got it. Well, this is interesting. I think we've gotten a lot of info from you. I appreciate you being here on the show. [00:46:57] For those that are curious or interested in maybe doing their first, reserve study or in connecting with you, how can they get ahold of north Star Reserve? [00:47:10] Aaron: Well, for your customers and clients, Jason, I'd give my personal information out. So they can contact me directly at aaron@northstarreserves.com. [00:47:21] aaron@northstarreserves.com, all spelled out northstarreserves.com is our website. They can call our office at (208) 365-0977 and we'd be happy to help out, put a quote. I don't charge for any upfront consulting. We'll take anybody through their property, their needs just to make sense and vet out whether or not it even makes sense. And I I feel that's just ought to be industry standard, and help people make sure it makes sense in the first place. Right. [00:47:52] Jason: Awesome. Well then hopefully everybody reaches out. Right? I appreciate you. All right, awesome. Well, we appreciate you being on the show, Aaron. This was really insightful and yeah, I'm really, I'm going to be curious to see how this could help benefit some of our clients as well. So thanks for coming on. [00:48:09] Aaron: Yeah, thank you. Appreciate you, Jason. All right, so check out northstarreserves.com. Now, if you are a property management entrepreneur and you are wanting to grow your business, add doors, reach out to DoorGrow. We can help you do this if you're wanting to scale your operations, you just feel like you're banging your head against the wall. You're frustrated. You're trying to deal with all these different tools and software and trying to figure out what's the best way to scale my business. And to make a business that's infinitely scalable? You're going to need a lot of systems. And we've developed what we call the Super System. So you're going to need a people system for hiring and vetting candidates. You're going to need a system for operations in an operating system for planning that motivates your team instead of it's top down pushing your team all the time. We have DoorGrow OS. We have DoorGrow Hiring. You're going to need a system for documenting processes. We have DoorGrow Flow, which is a flow chart based software for mapping out processes and having your team run processes through. So if you're wanting to grow your property management and you're wanting to scale it, you're wanting to get a really good coaching for your operator or operations person. You're wanting to get really good coaching for your BDM or your salesperson to grow and scale and add doors. We are the best at this, so reach out to my team. We have a plethora of coaches and resources. [00:49:32] We've been doing this for over a decade. We love growing and scaling property management companies, and we know that we can help you. If you're willing to just do what we tell you to do, so reach out to DoorGrow. We would love to help you out. And if you want to test just something, test your website, go to DoorGrow.com/quiz test your property management website and see how effective it is. Usually this is enough to get people to wake up and go, 'Hey, I've got some leaks in my business people.' So most of you have leaky websites that you've gotten from people that are not DoorGrow, and your website is leaking you leads, deals, and money every single week. You could potentially be getting twice as many leads in deals if you're scoring an A on this DoorGrow Quiz. But most are scoring a D, C, or sometimes an F, right? So take this quiz, check it out, DoorGrow.com/quiz and grade your website. And that's it for today. Until next time to our mutual growth. Bye everyone. [00:50:30] Jason Hull: You just listened to the #DoorGrowShow. We are building a community of the savviest property management entrepreneurs on the planet in the DoorGrowClub. Join your fellow DoorGrow Hackers at doorgrowclub.com. Listen, everyone is doing the same stuff. SEO, PPC, pay-per-lead content, social direct mail, and they still struggle to grow! [00:50:57] At DoorGrow, we solve your biggest challenge: getting deals and growing your business. Find out more at doorgrow.com. Find any show notes or links from today's episode on our blog doorgrow.com, and to get notified of future events and news subscribe to our newsletter at doorgrow.com/subscribe. Until next time, take what you learn and start DoorGrow Hacking your business and your life.

All of us on some level, desire a transformation in our marriage. Whether that transformation is a small change or a complete overhaul, We want to experience more joy, more peace, more love and more purpose. The truth is….we are always going through some form of transformation, for there is no such thing as staying the same. The question is, are we transforming into what God desires or something else?--This episode is brought to you by our faithful patron team, who have chosen to help financially support this show monthly. Here is a shout-out to some of our most recent patrons. Nicole MitchellDawn GKimberly SKatharine CCandice GRegena JWe thank you so much for choosing to partner with us in blessing 10's of thousands of couples with free daily prayer emails and this weekly podcast.If you have been blessed by the free marriage after god content, wed love to invite you to join our patron team. Please visit marriageaftergod.com/patron TRANSCRIPTAaron:Hey, we're Aaron and Jennifer Smith, your host of the Marriage After God Podcast. All of us on some level desire a transformation in our marriage. Whether the transformation is a small change or a complete overhaul, we want to experience more joy, more peace, more love, and more purpose. Jennifer:The truth is, we are always going through some form of transformation, for there is no such thing as staying the same. The question is, are we transforming into what God desires, or something else? Aaron:This episode is brought to you by our faithful patron team who have chosen to help financially support this show. Here's a shout to some of the most recent patrons: Nicole M, Don G, Kimberly S, Katherine C, Candace, G, and Regina J. We thank you so much for choosing to partner with us in blessing tens of thousands of couples, with free daily prayer emails, and this weekly podcast.If you've been blessed by this free Marriage After God content, we'd love to invite you to join our patron team. Please visit Marriageaftergod.com/patron. Jennifer:Well, this has been a whole month now of the podcast. Aaron:We're doing it. Jennifer:It's awesome. Aaron:We are doing it. Jennifer:Welcome to 2023. How's January been for you? Aaron:Well, it feels like we've been doing better because we're better as in, we've talked about, we're getting into routines. The routines look different than they used to, but we're getting some routines and I like it. Jennifer:Yeah, sometimes you just got to reset. Sometimes life forces you to reset. Aaron:Yeah, hence 2020, 2021, 2022. Jennifer:Every year there's been new reset. Yeah, so what's been happening lately since last week? Aaron:Well, just before ... Jennifer:Oh, yeah, I was going to say that. Aaron:Yeah. I walk in, and I wanted to Jennifer look at the notes and she's like, "What notes?" I'm like, "Oh my goodness. Was one of the kids in here?" Jennifer:There was just two sentences and a bunch of gibberish. Aaron:Garbly. Yeah. Jennifer:Did you say garbly? Aaron:Garbly goop. It was, all the notes were deleted, literally. Jennifer:Who was the culprit? That's what I want to know. Aaron:I'm wondering what else happened in our room. Luckily, I was able to restore the notes so we weren't out of luck, but something that is awesome that happened this week is I got to start Jiu-Jitsu. Jennifer:Nice. The kids have been doing it for a year. Did you know that? Aaron:It's been a whole year? Jennifer:I know. Crazy. Went by fast. Aaron:They're getting really good and I was getting jealous, and I'm like, "I got to get good at Jiu-Jitsu so that I can wrestle with them and them not win me every time." I started this week and I think you're a little jealous, because I think you want to start too. Jennifer:I've been wanting to start for seven months. I feel like out of everyone in the family, Mom gets to make those kind of choices last because everyone's got to be okay if I'm going to step out of the house. Aaron:It is true. We need you a lot. Jennifer:Timing was off, but who knows? Aaron:I think we might try it this week though together, on a date night or something. Jennifer:I think we're going to try it on a date night. Aaron:We should do it. Jennifer:It's just a fundamentals class, so there it'll be easy for me, I think. Not easy, but I'm not going to do what you're doing. Aaron:Straightforward. Yeah. To be honest, it was one of the most rewarding and intense workouts I've had in a very long time. I walk out drenched, soaking. It's disgusting. I'm so wet. I was getting in the van and I had to look for something to sit on so I wouldn't get the seat all wet. Jennifer:That's gross. Aaron:It was really gross, and I'm also really sore. To be honest, I felt really good after the first class. I was like, "Dang, I'm not that bad. I did awesome." Then the second class, I realized everyone was probably being really nice to me because I'm not good at all. That was awesome, actually. Jennifer:Does that make you want to go back? Aaron:Yeah. It was still a lot of fun. No one was mean about it. Everyone's so nice and they want, everyone wants to get good together. Yeah, it just made me excited. Jennifer:That's good for this episode. Get good together. That's what we should call it. Aaron:Get good together. Yeah, it was a lot of fun. I'm looking forward to growing in it. Jennifer:Cool. Well, something that's been interesting for me was a little bit unexpected, just because we've had conversations about it, but ... Aaron:Privately. Jennifer:The kids started praying for me crazy ... Aaron:Out of nowhere. Jennifer:... that I would have another baby, and it really warms my heart. Aaron and I have talked about this in the past. We're like, we look at Edith, she's two, almost three, and she's been our baby for so long that it's like ... Aaron:Is this the longest gap we've had so far? Yeah. Jennifer:WI think to myself, okay, well if this is all the kids that we have, I'm totally content and happy with where our family is at. Then there's this piece of my heart that I'm like, but if I did have another, that'd be awesome. Aaron:Our hands are always open in that sense. We want God's will. At the same time, we're praying and asking God to bring us along with them. Our kids started praying for it. Jennifer:Every day. Aaron:At Bible time, I'm like, "Who would anyone like to pray?" First prayer, God give mommy a baby. Then Elliot just came up randomly, me and you were talking this morning, just about the day, and I can't remember what we were talking about. He just comes over and puts his hands on both of us and looks at us and starts praying for a baby. We're like, okay, I guess you guys want a baby. Jennifer:That's just been going on a week. Aaron:We will see if you guys get an announcement at some point this year about a baby. Jennifer:Stick around if you want to hear it announced on the podcast. Aaron:You will hear about it if that happens. Jennifer:We shall see. Aaron:For this topic, transforming your marriage, it's hard to say that. Transforming. Jennifer:No, it's get better together, or what'd you say? Aaron:Yeah, let's do this together. Get better together. Transforming your marriage together. We wanted to bring up some ideas, and we actually have seven of them for you. What inspired this idea for you, Jennifer? You kind of wrote down some of these ideas that we've been building off of. Jennifer:Yeah. Well, the initial just idea of, hey, let's talk about transformation for a minute. Marriage came because of a conversation that we had back in December. I was having a hard time dealing with desiring change and wanting change, and being frustrated over things not changing, Aaron:Which also has been the theme for this whole month. Jennifer:Yeah, yeah. I remember calling you, and we were having a conversation about, well, I was letting my emotions out and you, you're being a good listener. Then you said, "Let's transform together. Let's be transformed together," or something like that. Aaron:Yeah. Well, because you felt like you couldn't. I don't know how to do this. I can't do this. That's why we've been talking about this in various aspects throughout this month, but we all feel that way. That's why I shared it. I feel like there's things in my life that I can't break out of either, that I can't change. Then I was just saying, "Well, we have to be transformed."That's the only way we have true change in our life is if there's a transformation. We can't be the same person but act differently. We can't be the same in the same place and yet be in a different place. We have to change. We have to move. Jennifer:I think the tension of the agony in all of our lives when it comes to transformation is we're on one side where we desire the change, because we're frustrated over the results and things happening because of where we're at ... Aaron:The consequences of where we're at. Jennifer:We also know that to get to the other side of change, it just requires a lot. Aaron:It's painful. Jennifer:It's painful, and it's hard to make those changes and those habits, and redefining rhythms and routines, and things that will help make all of that happen. Aaron:I think an encouragement also about transformation, because it's easy to say, we got to be transformed. It's like, well, yeah. How? I think the first step, and it's something that we've been trying to reiterate, is that first of all, we can change. If there's areas in our lives that we don't like, or that we know God wants change in us, we have the ability to, because God's putting his spirit. He's put his spirit in us. It's not impossible, and they feel that way, but the reality is we, are being transformed.Like we said in the beginning of this episode, all of us are being transformed into something. Either we're being lazy or we're being lax, and we're being transformed into something that we don't want because we're just letting it happen, or we're following God, we're putting our eyes on him. We're seeking first his kingdom. We're letting his spirit work in us. We're not fighting it, and we're being transformed into his likeness. Jennifer:The lie is that we're stuck. Aaron:The lie is that we can't change the lies is that there, that we are what we are. Jennifer:We're here in our heads. We'll never change. That's what I was getting stuck in, is like, no, I'm never going to change. You see yourself one way, and it gets really hard to see yourself in a new way. Aaron:Yeah. Believing that we can, like you said, but then also believing what God says and believing that he has something for us. Jennifer:The reason why we wanted to bring this up to you today for those listening is because we kind of had this conversation going on in our marriage, and we know that we're not the only ones who have struggled with desiring change in marriage, or in parenting, or in life, in so many different areas of life. We want to encourage you guys, if you're in that place of desiring change and transformation, we hope that today encourages you.Maybe what we share, not every single bit of it will stick with you or be something that you feel like you need to work on, but I'm sure there's at least one or two. Aaron:Well, and the point is, there's this saying that it says, how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. Well, if you think about the whole thing, you're like, it can. The goal is taking that next step, just moving forward, asking God, saying, "God, help me get to the whatever the next footprint is." Jennifer:Yeah. Aaron:Not trying to look at the goal a thousand miles away and saying, "I can never get there." Just realize there's a journey that we're all on. We hope you feel the grace and the mercy that God's been showing us is that it's okay that we're on this journey, and that we sometimes don't know what we're doing. Transformation and change feels hard because it is, actually. We all can do it because we have Christ. Jennifer:We're going to share seven ways that you can transform your marriage with your spouse. Some of these are practical, some of them are just good old fashioned truth from the Bible. We hope that these stick with you guys and encourage you toward that change you've been yearning for. Aaron:A lot of these things are things that we ourselves have recognized helped us or will help us as we have been trying to implement them more. It's not like we've just came up with these for you. This is things that work for us too. Jennifer:Our experience. Aaron:This first one, I've mentioned it so many times in other episodes, but it works so well for you, Jennifer, but it also works really well for me. Jennifer:For us. Aaron:For us. Jennifer:We get to see it together. Aaron:What is it? It's write it out. It's very practical. The idea is write it out. This first one ... Jennifer:Not ride, write it out. Aaron:Not ride it out. That is a good tip, actually. Just get through. No, write it out, W-R-I-T-E. There's something really powerful about writing things down. Jennifer:We've kind of been doing it all week with the growth spurt, if people have been following along. Aaron:We got our own cards out. The fact that I wrote it down and put it on the refrigerator ... Jennifer:Makes you think about it every day. Aaron:I see it, and I realize I'm like, oh man, I'm not following through with that thing that I said I'm going to do. I'm looking at the clock right now actually. The thing I wrote down was I'm going to be in bed by nine, and I did it last night just about. Jennifer:You're not supposed to talk about it yet. Aaron:Sorry. Jennifer:That's the notes on there for later. Aaron:Yeah. Okay. Jennifer:You guys have to listen to the rest of the episode today to hear more. Yeah, I'm going to cut you off. Aaron:The idea behind this is meet together to write down some goals you have for your marriage. Jennifer:Sometimes we don't even know what it is that we want to change into or be transformed in unless we get it out of our hearts, get it out of our heads and see it on a piece of paper. You go, "Oh yeah, that's what it is. That's what I want." Aaron:These actually, they could be large goals, but something things that are practical, especially when you start talking together, you start realizing like, oh, there's some disparaging thing. Well, you have this goal and I have this goal. How can we meet in the middle? How can we figure that out? What's awesome about that is you figure that out. Jennifer:Compromising. Aaron:Yeah, compromising. Then also finding out, well, what are some large goals we have that we can write down and shoot for that might take years? What are some short term or smaller goals that we can start focusing on now? Jennifer:It sounds like more though, that's more for a couple who wants to dream together. If this whole episode is about transforming your marriage, we're talking more relational goals here. Aaron:Relationship, home life, spiritual walk goals. Goals. You can also break them up, goals for your walk with God, maybe individually and together; goals for your marriage. What do you want your marriage to look like? What do you want to represent? What do you want people to say about your marriage? What do you want to show to your kids in your marriage?Then the next one would be goals for your family. What do you want your family to look like? Represent? How do you want it to operate? For us, we've talked about this. We used to do bible time very consistently every day. A goal for us would be like, "Hey, let's get back to that consistency of doing Bible time every day throughout the week." Jennifer:Then asking each other, "What's the best time to do that?" That's where that compromise comes in of like, okay, well, for me, it'd be this time and let's work that out. I also want to just add right here that my encouragement would be, don't go list 25 ways you want your marriage to improve.Pick one or two, because you want something that you can work towards and feel good about when you're actually feeling the success of it, when you're feeling the change coming and you're making those decisions. If you overwhelm yourself with a lofty list, then your mind and heart's going to freak out because it's going to be hard. Aaron:Yeah. Some of the ways, I just want to mention one more thing. When we write these things down, you kind of said a second ago, it gets things that we may not know how to verbalize them in the moment, or they're things that just have dwelled in our hearts. Maybe those things have turned into anxiety or frustration or bitterness, because we don't see them happening, but they're also never being voiced in a real tangible way.It gives it a place to live. It makes it from this internal secret thing to a real life thing that can be looked at, evaluated, calculated, remembered, and even held accountable to, because it exists. Jennifer:Also just to add to that list, a repetition of seeing it helps you remember about it. There's so many things that we've talked about, and then it's like, once we've talked about it's gone and you forget so easily. Yet if you write it down and you see it constantly, in that repetition, you're forming that memory in your brain to be on it. Aaron:A couple of things this does for you in your marriage. If you guys plan a night to sit down, maybe it's at a date night, which is often when Jennifer and I do it, or after the kids go to bed, or in the morning after breakfast. I don't know, whatever works for you guys. You guys start getting into a habit of planning things together. Hey, we're going to do this together now. It's like, it's not just, oh, let's hang out and talk. It's a let's be specific and focused. It also gives you an opportunity to figure out life together.Now, you're building this bond of like, hey, let's talk about things that are important to us and what that looks like. The third thing is it brings accountability. Like we said, Bible time. Jennifer, you look at me, you're like, "Hey, remember we decided we're going to do bible time?" Jennifer:Oh yeah. Aaron:I'm like, "Yes." Then I stop what I'm doing because she knows that's the moment that we would do it. I sit down. Now we can help each other because we made that agreement together. We wrote these things down together. Now that bond and that commitment is all really good stuff that happens in your marriage. Jennifer:Let me ask this question, if that's all really good, especially if you're on the same page and there's unity and oneness toward working towards some of these things. Let's say you are listening right now, but Aaron, I'm posing this to you. If you're as a listener and you're thinking, okay, well me and my spouse, we're not quite there yet, and I don't know if we'll be able to have that conversation. Is it something you could do individually, separate? Aaron:Well, if ... Jennifer:For a time while the Lord's working on both of you. Aaron:Yah, maybe there's a relationship where it's not as tight and maybe that wouldn't be this season right now, they're not going to be sitting down and writing goals together. Yeah, absolutely. Again, we believe in the Holy Spirit. We believe in what God tells us. A wife or husband, if you're the one wanting to do this, I would say start, your planning and goal setting should be a regular prayer for your spouse.Lord, help me to grow in my love for them. Lord, help them transform into the man or the woman that you have made them to be. Seeing look more like these prayer goals for your spouse who maybe not be on the same page with you to be drawn into it more. Jennifer:That's good. Aaron:Yeah. Jennifer:All right. This next one, we're on number two. We're only on number two. Number two, how to transform your marriage. We're going to take it back to Sunday school. Okay, guys. It's because, if we're honest, we don't always operate this way. Aaron:No. We want others to, but we don't. Jennifer:Okay. Number two is the golden rule. Aaron:Yeah. If we can incorporate the golden rule into our marriage, into our life, oh, man. It would literally would change everything. Jennifer:You're saying. Intentionally do it like it. Well, because we do probably generally think about this at some point, but maybe not. I don't know. Aaron:The golden rule. If you don't know it, Matthew seven 12, Jesus says, "So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them for this is the law and prophets." Jennifer:Okay, so question. Do you operate in this with me? Aaron:I would say I try to on a regular basis, but I would say the times that I don't is not good. Jennifer:Yeah. That's kind of where I land. We need to be better at this. Okay. Aaron:Often, the way my kids put it, because the way they hear this is I'm going to do to them as they do to me. I'm like, "That's not what it says." Often that's what we do. We do. You did this, so I'm going to do it. Jennifer:We just mirror everybody. Aaron:Instead of breaking that cycle and saying, "Oh, I'm not going to do that thing because I wouldn't want it done to me." If we just applied this rule more regularly, if we looked at our life and said, "I'm going to commit, Lord, you helping me to do unto my wife as I would wish her to do unto me," man, it would change everything. If I treated you the way I wanted to be treated, if I don't want you to be harsh to me, then I should be gentle to you, right?I'm going to treat you. I want you to be gentle. I'm going to be gentle. If I wouldn't want you to lie to me, which I don't know anyone who would want someone to lie to them, then I shouldn't lie to you even about little things. It keeps going. If I'm going to want to be pursued by you ... Jennifer:You were going to see by someone else. Aaron:I know. I don't know why I was going to say that. If I want to be pursued by you, then I should pursue you. Jennifer:Yeah. Aaron:If I want to be encouraged, then I should be encouraging. I should encourage you as much as I would want to be encouraged by you. The point is, whether or not you do it to me, that's what I would want, so I should treat you that way. Jennifer:Galatians five 13 through 14 says, "For you're called to freedom brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love, serve one another, for the whole law is fulfilled in one word. You shall love your neighbor as yourself." Aaron:If we love each other the way we want to be loved, if I love you as myself, which in marriage you are myself, that's what the Bible teaches, we're one. I'm actually fulfilling the law and it continues on, and it says, "I would never steal from you if I love you. I would never lie to you if I love you. I would never murder you if I love you." You don't break the law. When you love someone, you're actually fulfilling all of the law in it.If we treat each other, golden rule, the way we want to be treated, there'll be so much more joy and peace and power and forgiveness in all the things that we want because we're doing it. Even if only one person's doing it, you're getting 50% more of it than you were before. Jennifer:Right. All right, moving on to number three. Should we say it together? Aaron:Okay. One, two, three. Jennifer:If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. Aaron:If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. That's really funny, because it's been our whole life here, right? Jennifer:Yeah. I'm sure everybody. Aaron:My parents always saying that. We always said something not nice. Jennifer:Even still, there's times we want to speak our minds. Aaron:Often, we get angry, we're hurt, and we think that gives us the right to say angry and hurtful things to our spouse. Maybe some of you don't, but we have when we feel justified. Jennifer:I was going to say, because the things that I don't mean to hurt you or be mean, I think I'm just stating the obvious or observing something, or saying something that's true. The way that I'm saying it or ... Aaron:Well, it's the heart and the intention and then the purpose behind it is what's not nice. I was saying critiques are good, this note I put here. When they're brought constructively, so like you said ... Jennifer:Well, not in the middle of an argument. Aaron:Well, and with the purpose of constructive criticism and love, and like you said, not in the middle of I'm mad at you, and therefore, boom. Jennifer:Right. Here's another one. Aaron:We've done it and we do it. If we can practice holding our tongues, meaning being quiet, not saying the thing that comes to our top of our mind when we're in the middle of a heated argument, or we're hurt or frustrated, is so much more fruitful than just letting it out. Jennifer:This is a really big one for making transformation happen in your marriage, because you listed a practical and an action, where it is how you treat each other, but the tongue, you hear that over and over and over again. The things that you say to your spouse, they are not easily forgotten, and they bring up ... Aaron:Especially if your spouse repeats them often, because that could happen. Becoming an echo chamber, here's things that I'm going to continue to say. Sometimes it comes from a heart of I just want, and you've said this, I have to say something because I feel like if I don't, they're not going to change. They won't ... Jennifer:You won't know. Yeah. Aaron:... Deceive that thing. Jennifer:Yeah. All I'm saying is even though it's a small part of our body, our tongues are so powerful. What's that proverb where it talks about the tongue brings life or death? It builds up a home or tears it down. Aaron:He who loves it, eats it, eats up its fruit or something like that. Jennifer:Yeah. We should have put that note in here, but seriously, we could have a great day. We could be treating each other well. We could be hitting our goals, but if we don't practice self-control with our tongues, or thinking before we speak ... Aaron:Well, and to be honest, silence is often better than saying the thing that you want to say. Jennifer:Not the silent treatment, that's different. Aaron:Not the silent treatment. Yeah. Not saying silent as a weapon, but holding your tongue as a form of love. Jennifer:Being slow to speak love. Aaron:Yes, slow to speak and quick to listen is what the Bible says. There's a verse that should put some fear in us about how we talk to each other. It's in Galatians five 15. It's actually the continuation of verse you just read. It says, "But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another."This idea of are we walking in the flesh so much with each other, the way we communicate with each other, the way we talk to each other, and we're not loving our neighbors ourself, we're not loving our spouse as we love ourself, we're not doing unto others as we'd have them do unto us, that it turns into this biting and devouring of one another. Jennifer:Like a cycle of just going back and forth. Aaron:I feel like we've brought this up before, but when we are talking this way, even in an argument, we're chipping away at ourselves, because we're one. We're chipping away our teammanship, our unity, our oneness, and our love. Being quiet is so much better than letting it out. Okay, number four. Stop being easily offended. Jennifer:This was a huge one for us. We started out this list by telling you guys this list was based off of our own experience and what we walk through. Aaron:Things that we're actually trying to walk through, yeah. Jennifer:When we came to this realization that, "Hey, we're actually being really easily offended. We need to stop doing this," it was a game changer. Aaron:Really was. This is actually one of the attributes of love. Love is patient, love is kind, and then it says, "Love is not irritable or resentful." Irritable means easily frustrated, easily offended, like bothered. It's like this. It's an oversensitivity. Jennifer:You walk past me, and you've done something that I disagree with or it's frustrating, or you do something differently than how I would do it, and I just respond. I just snap. Aaron:You snap. Yeah. Jennifer:I huff under my breath and I'm just irritated by you. Aaron:A good way of looking at this is when we make people feel like they have to walk on eggshells, that old idiom that says like, oh, I have to tippy toe. If I just slightly crack that little egg over there, you're going to like freak out on me. Jennifer:Another way this happens is by, if one of us wants to share something, and we say it the wrong way, or our intention is well, and we feel like it needs to be said, but the other person is just easily offended, they can't even hear what's being said, because they're just resistant to hearing. That's happened before. Aaron:I think we become easily offended when we get stuck in a place of loving ourselves more than we love our spouse. Jennifer:That's good. Yeah. Aaron:What that means is I love myself so much that I don't want you to step on my toe, or hurt my feelings, or say something that's going to bother me, or do something that I'm embarrassed by, or anything that's going to make me feel uncomfortable or inconvenienced or you name it. Jennifer:Yeah. The question in the head goes, why aren't you doing X or Y or Z? Aaron:For me. Jennifer:For me, yeah. Aaron:You did this thing against me, and now I am feeling this way, or it comes from a place of insecurity. You're ashamed or guilty, or you feel a certain way about yourself. We take that out on our spouse. We make them want them to be at fault for how we feel. Jennifer:Like projecting our feelings. Aaron:Yeah. There could be so many other reasons for this. We're not psychologists, but ... Jennifer:I could say one thing. When you're not abiding in the word and you're not walking with Christ, our flesh gets irritated. Aaron:Easily, yeah. Jennifer:Bothered. We get selfish. We get all kinds of pride. That's just another way. Sorry, go ahead. Aaron:No, but if we truly love, we will not be irritable or resentful. Always having it out for our spouse, like, "Oh, they always are this way with me." A good place to start with this is again, going back to that, writing it down, maybe having, writing down, "Hey, we're going to work on not being easily offended," and then reminding each other in those moments of a quick irritation, a quick offense.Why'd you do that? Why'd you say that to me? Reminding each other that we're working on it? "Hey, remember, we're working on not being easily offended?" Jennifer:Yeah. Aaron:If I bothered you, let's talk about it, but let's not be easily offended, and then going back and forth. I think that's a really good place to start. Jennifer:I just want to add, if you're listening right now and there's been tension in your marriage for any reason, start here. Make this one your number one. Aaron:That's good. Jennifer:Yep. Aaron:Number five. This is going to be a hard one for some people and a really good one for some people: more romance and more sex. Jennifer:Okay, Aaron. Aaron:Okay. I could have said more intimacy. That's what I originally wrote. Then I wanted to be more specific because the wife's going to see intimacy one way and the husband's going to see it another way. Really ... Jennifer:I think we all get it though. Aaron:We need both romance and sex. We need the blessing of what both of those bring to our marriage, both the physical and the emotional. That's kind of how I categorize this. Romance is more of the emotional intimacy, that connection, and then the physical is that sex. It's the physical connection where two are becoming one and the bodies are connecting. They're both necessary, both needed, and we shouldn't do one and not the other. Jennifer:Yeah. Anytime we've intentionally focused on this area of our life and just made it kind of a focus for us, it's blessed us. It's helped us. Aaron:Always. Yeah. Jennifer:It's made our relationship feel more full. We feel more unified. We feel more connected. We feel more interested in each other. Don't you feel like that? Aaron:Well, the desire grows the more we work on these areas, the more we want them in our life. I don't know if you've noticed, but the order I put these in is for a reason. They're writing it down. You could take each one of these things and start putting these down as relational goals. Jennifer:That's good. Aaron:Then they're visible. The doing into others, so treating your spouse the way you'd want to be treated. If I want my wife to be more physical and more in interested in me in that way, then I'm going to do things that would be loving to her, massages and other types of physical intimacy that she appreciates and desires. Jennifer:I see. Not being easily offended has to be taken care of before you jump into this next one. Aaron:Exactly. Jennifer:Got it. You should have corrected me when I said you should make number three, your number one. I didn't know you put these in order like that. Aaron:Well, I did because this is actually an area where being easily offended always gets in the way. If we have easy offenses ... Jennifer:Makes it so much harder to get there. Aaron:If I'm desiring one thing, and you can't give that to me for whatever reason, you're tired, long day, sore, painful, whatever, and I'm easily offended by that, rather than loving you and being patient and it messes things up and vice versa. Yeah, I did put these in an order because they matter on some sense to work on each one of these areas in little ways. They will all benefit each other. Romance, I just wanted to pull out some ideas for this section that the ... Jennifer:You're going to give them ideas? Aaron:Emotional intimacy. It's this feeling of excitement and mystery associated with love. That's the definition, in search of romance. It's a quality or a feeling of mystery, excitement, a remoteness from everyday life. Jennifer:I like that. It's cool. Aaron:It doesn't have to be this big extravagant thing. How can you just make the moment with your spouse special? Jennifer:Special. Yeah. Aaron:Different. Take them away from that ordinary just for a moment. That could be a going on a walk. It could be bringing something home that's like, "Hey, I thought about you today." That's an excitement. You actually like that when I, like a simple thing, I call you up and I say, "Do you want an iced tea?" Jennifer:I love it. That's awesome. Aaron:You're like, "Oh," awesome because that's out of the ordinary. I'm not always grabbing an iced tea, but you felt thought of. Then you get a special treat out of it. It kind of breaks up the day. Jennifer:I do love that so much, and it makes me feel so good to feel thought of in a special way that you know me, that you know what I would like, and it just affirms my heart and my love, and makes me feel like you're thinking of me, which is good. It's good for us to recognize those times that our spouse goes out of the box. Aaron:Goes out of their way to ... Jennifer:Go out of their way to ... Aaron:To try these things. Try be more romantic and exciting and different. Jennifer:When they do it to affirm them and use your words and say, "I really appreciated that," or, "I really love that." The more we affirm each other in those ways of being that we want to see more of, they'll continue to happen. Aaron:Yeah. Jordan Peterson as a quote says, "Don't ever punish behavior you want repeated." Even if I don't follow through with or do something in the way that you might want, there's been times I've brought you iced tea that you don't like, because you have a taste for certain types of teas, but I didn't know that. Then I learned it. You could have taken the opportunity to punish me for and be like, "This is what you got me. I hate this." Jennifer:Oh, got you. Aaron:You could be like, "What? This was so thoughtful. Just for future, this isn't my favorite tea, but I'm so happy that you did that for me." Jennifer:I think that's what I did. Aaron:That's what you did. I thought, oh, thank you. I didn't know that, because I actually didn't. Now when I get you tea or do something, I think, oh, where would she like me to get tea? Jennifer:That's awesome. Aaron:It also has taught me to ask you for future, "Hey, where's your favorite place to get this?" Jennifer:It's like a get to know me. Don't be afraid to ask questions. Aaron:Don't punish those behaviors you want repeated, even if it doesn't happen the way you want, the way you expect, but affirm it and encourage it, so that it happens more from your spouse on both sides. Jennifer:I like that you kind of broke romance and physical intimacy into separate kind of categories here, because romance is so much more of that connectedness and ... Aaron:That emotional connection. Jennifer:It's so important. It's an important part of marriage, but so is physical intimacy. I think it's really important for us to remember that our spouses need us. It's weird that I put that in the plural, just ... Aaron:Our spouses. Jennifer:Our spouse needs us and we have needs. Being there for one another and being willing to make the effort and put our hearts and our minds toward that is ... Aaron:Oh, we're talking about the physical side now. Jennifer:Yeah, yeah. In the physical, just as much as the romance are connected side of things. Aaron:Yeah. I wanted to bring up on the physical side of things, because I know that this is a huge area of struggle in a lot of marriages. It was a huge one for us for many years. It's only been in the last handful of years that it's been getting so much better. We've been growing and getting excited about these things and praying about it more. First and foremost, it's a powerful gift. Physical intimacy, sex is a powerful gift from God given to husbands and wives. It really is.We have to change our minds about that. Talking about transformation, we need our minds changed for true transformation to happen. If we can change our mind that sex is a good thing, because I know many people see sex as a bad thing, or a hurtful thing, or something that they don't enjoy. Jennifer:Stressful thing. Aaron:Yeah. It can be all of those things. If we start reminding ourselves and thinking, no, this is a good thing. This is a gift, that'll change a lot of things. Also, it's a command. First Corinthians seven, three, the husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. On both sides, it doesn't just say the wife to her husband only, as if every situation is always, the husband needs it more than the wife, because that's not true. There's some situations where it's totally different with the wife and the husband, but it says to both.In other places, it says that her body is not her own. It is yours. Your body is not your own, it is hers. Just reiterating this, the power and the truth behind your oneness. You are one body and you cannot control it and use it and as a weapon. Not only is it a gift, but it's also a command. There's some actual really awesome benefits to sex.If you didn't know this, it helps relieve stress and anxiety. I know sex might gift some people anxiety, and I pray for you that you would, like we said, have a transformation in your mind about this. It does biologically relieve stress and anxiety. The hormones that get released in your body do that. Jennifer:It also helps your immune system. Aaron:It does. Those same hormones that help with relieving stress and anxiety helps boost your immune system. Also, when you have less cortisol in your body, that's the stress hormone, you get sick less because cortisol can actually make you, it weakens your immune system. It helps your immune system. It also brings pleasure and excitement. That's just such a good thing. Jennifer:Joy, yeah. Aaron:We need that in our marriage. We need that connection and that pleasure more. Most importantly, sex reinforces closeness and oneness. Jennifer:Yeah. Speaking of oneness, you brought up earlier, just briefly not using sex as a tool or a weapon, and then you kind of just kept on going. I just want to go back to that really quick. I think sometimes, we don't even realize when we are withholding our bodies from each other because of being easily offended, or thinking that they're not thinking of us. Aaron:Well, they haven't given me what I want yet. Jennifer:There is a list of things that could possibly motivate someone to kind of close themselves off and be guarded. When you say weaponize, and you say using your body as a tool, that's what you're talking about, right? Yeah. Aaron:If you use it in a negative way, it becomes a weapon. Jennifer:It also becomes a roadblock to moving forward, to experience reconciliation and connectedness. Aaron:This is not the kind of transformation we want when we do this, but when we are more free with each other and open with each other in this way. It's good. Now, that doesn't mean that there shouldn't be any times that you're like, "Hey, can we forego tonight?" Jennifer:Yeah. Aaron:Again, that goes back to the communication, and that goes back to goal setting together and also ... Jennifer:Considering one another. Aaron:Yeah, considering one another, treating each other as we'd like to be treated. Again, there's an order. Okay. Jennifer:What's next in your order, Aaron? Aaron:Invest in your marriage. Okay. I think this sounds obvious, but ... Jennifer:How much money do you have to ... Aaron:Exactly. Well, just having it's almost like if you were to invest in your education, invest in this business, taking one of the most important things in your entire life, and are we ... Jennifer:You're elevating it. Aaron:Are we investing in it? Jennifer:You're saying this is a priority. This is what I'm going to put my effort and my energy and my resources and everything I've got towards, because this matters. Aaron:Investment means I'm going to spend time and money and energy. I'm going to invest. When you invest in your marriage, you're going to get some of the greatest returns you can ever think of. Jennifer:Generational. Aaron:Yeah. You're going to get returns for a long time with your children, because they're going to look back on your marriage and be like, "Wow, my parents, they invested in each other. They loved each other. They weren't perfect, but man, they tried hard." Jennifer:Because of that kind of example, when they get married, they will have the same fortitude and excitement around investing in their marriage. Aaron:At least that's the goal, right? Jennifer:Yeah. Aaron:I want my kids to have the same desire. Jennifer:What are some ways we can invest? Aaron:Something we did a long time ago when we were going through some of our hardships, actually, wasn't it right at that end point of things changing for us? Jennifer:Yeah. Aaron:We went to a marriage retreat, and there's marriage retreats all over the country. Jennifer:We went to Family Lives Weekend to Remember ... Aaron:Which are awesome. Jennifer:It was actually really cool, because we kind of rededicated our marriage, and our purpose, and everything that we had been walking through just submitted it to God and said, "We're going to keep going." Aaron:You could try Weekend to Remember. That's a family life event. That's a good one. There might be one going on at your church and you don't even know about it. Just look at if you have a pamphlet or a website, or you can Google it. There's a lot of, we'd suggest a Christian marriage retreat, but marriage retreats, that's one really good way to invest in your marriage. What's another one? Jennifer:Reading books together or individually, and just kind of sifting through the notes. Aaron:Talking about them. Jennifer:Talking about them, but there are a lot of marriage books out there. Aaron:Yeah. Do we know any marriage books specifically? Jennifer:No, actually. Marriage After God is one that I would recommend. We have a couple of marriage books if you want to look on our store. Aaron:A few more than a couple, but ... Jennifer:Some devotionals, some prayer books that you guys could do together, which is awesome. Aaron:You can go to shop.marriageaftergod.com to look at everything we have to offer. Jennifer:There's a lot of other good books too, Meeting a Marriage, See Through Marriage, by [inaudible 00:41:35]. Aaron:Sacred Marriage was a really good one. Jennifer:By Gary Thomas. Aaron:Get into books. If you're like me, I like audiobooks. I can consume them quicker, I can also retain them better. Jennifer:I am not an audio person. I have to have the tangible, I can't even do digital. I have to have the book that I can curl the pages back. Aaron:I know. I love something to read too, but also this creates another thing to talk about and to share with each other in growing your marriage, so you're not just investing in what you're consuming, but also what you're discussing with each other. Gives you things to talk about also, which is really good. Regularly planned date nights. Jennifer:Or even double date nights. Go out with another couple, and you'll notice you guys can start talking about marriage. All of a sudden, you don't feel so alone in some of the things you're wrestling in, because ... Aaron:I think we've brought this up in 80 episodes, talking about date night. We say it so often because it's something that we dedicated it to several years ago, how many? Maybe five or six years ago? Jennifer:It was after we had Wyatt, Oliver Wyatt. Aaron:We realized there was a while that had gone by and we're like, "Man, when's the last time we went on a date with each other?" We just put it on the calendar every week, and we figure out a babysitter, and we planned it. Now, that didn't mean we went every week, but just the fact that it was on the calendar, again, the fact that we wrote it down, meant it happened way more often than it would've if we didn't.Investing in that way. Since this is under investing in your marriage, we've talked about in the past that it doesn't have to be something where you go out or spend money. I would say make this an intentional investment of I want to go do something special, even if it's not every time. Jennifer:Catch each other by surprise. Aaron:Yeah. Set a reservation at a restaurant you guys don't go to often. Go throw axes at your local ax throwing place if you have one. Jennifer:Get fast food and go do an activity like some, I don't know, ride bikes or something. Aaron:Invest in a way that's different than normal, if you can. Maybe you have to save for it a little bit, and that's okay. That actually makes it more special. Jennifer:Another way that you can invest in your marriage is find out if your church has a marriage group. Something that really, really affected our marriage in a positive way was the church. Aaron:Probably, I think we often attributed it to saving our marriage. Jennifer:Yeah. We were going to a church back in, I think this is our third year of marriage? We were in California, and they had a marriage group. You came to me and you were like, "Hey, we're going to go. It's on Wednesday night." Aaron:It was terrifying. Jennifer:You need to be there. You need to show up. That was a really dark time for me, and I was resistant toward going and didn't want to do it, but you encouraged us and said, "This is what we need to try." We showed up, and it was scary. There was a lot of people there. When we sat at the table and we started hearing the marriage stories coming up, it was actually really beautiful. Aaron:Yeah. Jennifer:Very eye-opening and it had a lot of purpose. You just got to do it. If your church has one, go for it. Aaron:If they don't have one ... Jennifer:Go find one. Aaron:... You should ask them to start one. Jennifer:Yeah. Aaron:You never know. There might be 20 other couples that have asked, and they'll finally be like, "Oh, we should start a marriage ministry." Jennifer:Number seven is, is this the last one? Aaron:This is the last one. Jennifer:See your spouse and yourself through Christ's eyes. I mentioned this in a previous episode, I think one or two back. It's really important that we are able to do this. The only way we can do it is if we know Christ. Aaron:Yeah. It also, again, this changes everything. Going back to what you talked about earlier also of what if there's a couple that aren't on the same page? Maybe one's not a believer. Maybe they're going through some really hard things and it's hard to connect. When we can look at our spouse through Christ and say, "Wow, okay, Lord," like we talked about, I think an episode or two ago about them having a brotherly love, a sisterly love, of seeing them in that way. Maybe it doesn't feel like they're my spouse right now because of this or that, because of this pain, because of that hurt.Man, I'm going to try and see them the way Christ does. I'm going to try and love them the way Christ loves them, and stop looking at them from an earthly fleshly point of view of all of the things that you did wrong. Jennifer:Critical. Aaron:All of the things that need to change. Jennifer:I feel like when you look through Christ's eyes, there's like this lens of grace that you could just see not who they are in their sin, but who they are because of the blood of Christ, and what he's done, and become a a new creation in him, and to hope for transformation in their life. Aaron:Yeah. Here's what it says in two Corinthians five 16 through 19. It says, "From now on, therefore we regard no one according to the flesh." This is essentially what we're talking about here. Let's stop regarding each other according to flesh, and let's start regarding each other according to the Spirit, according to what Christ did and who Christ is. Then it says, "Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold the new has come."All this is from God, who through Christ, reconciled us to himself, and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. That is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Instead of seeing only the flesh, only the sin and the mistakes, and the shortcomings, and the frustrations, and the hurts, we see the one who Christ died for. We see the one Christ shed his blood for. We see the one Christ as reconciling to the Father through his life, death, and resurrection. Jennifer:In our, it's 16 years, right? Aaron:Yeah. Jennifer:16 years of marriage. Aaron:We just had that. Jennifer:There have been many times that we've had to intentionally see each other through Christ's eyes, because it's not something we tend to do on a daily basis, although we should, right? Aaron:Yeah. It's usually in those really hard times that we're like, ugh. Jennifer:Then everything just kind of falls flat on the floor and you're like, "Well, grace." That's what he is given to us. Aaron:In our testimony that you share in the Unbuild Wife book, that's essentially what happened. We were on the verge of just being done, calling it quits. I felt the Lord telling me, "Are you going to forgive your wife? Are you going to love her as I did?" He just reminded me of who he is.It made it impossible for me to, because I was either going to say, "No, I'm not going to look at her like that, and I'm over it," or I was going to say, "No, Lord, I love you and I'm going to try and see her that way." Jennifer:Yeah. Some of you listening right now, I just want to encourage you, you may be in a place where you need to pray and ask God to give you those eyes to see through Christ's lens. You might need to pray for that because ... Aaron:We have to. Jennifer:We have to. Aaron:I would say, because I can't do it without him. Jennifer:Yeah. We can't do it in our flesh. Yeah, all of us listening right now, we need to do that. Then I just wanted to ... we kind of summed up all the important stuff, right? Aaron:Yeah. Jennifer:I can move on. Aaron:You can. Jennifer:You guys know if you've been listening for a long time, I bring up memes from time to time, and I get stuck on social media in that way. I love those transformation videos where they show you the reel of pictures, where it's like, "This is who I was, but this is who I am." Aaron:Yeah, they're really powerful. Jennifer:A really huge weight change. That's what I'm thinking of right now is just like ... Aaron:Well, we've even seen ones of people that are being changed because of Christ, and they had how they were before, this party, and then all of a sudden, they're totally different. You're like, "Whoa." Jennifer:Yeah. The ones that I'm thinking of specifically are the weight ones and just how dramatic it is. They'll usually show bits and pieces of what it took to get there. Aaron:The progress. Jennifer:The progress, the working out. It just moves me, because I think you don't just get to be transformed. You have to be willing to put in the work. I just wanted to remind all of us that change can happen in us, like you mentioned earlier, through being passive and allowing influences in our life that change us, but we're not going to say that's for the positive. Aaron:Rarely. Jennifer:Rarely it is. Aaron:Accidentally change for the positive. Jennifer:Yeah. The powerful transformation that we are all eager to see in our lives and in our marriages comes from putting in the time, putting in the work, putting in the energy. It's being selfless, it's being sacrificial. It requires much, just like someone going through a weight loss journey and having to do muscle toning. You know that they did everything that they possibly could to get there. Aaron:Yeah. Well, the Lord puts it this way. We got to put to death our flesh. That's essentially what this process is putting behind us our flesh, and designing to walk in his spirit. The things that we brought up in this episode were hopefully just some practical things, but some things that we can actually do and try to do. We hope you enjoyed those. This is the last episode of this month. Jennifer:The last week of the month, where we're talking about this specific growth spurt. Is that what you're going to say? Aaron:Yes. Jennifer:This section of the podcast, we want to encourage you guys to take time to invest, like Aaron mentioned earlier ... Aaron:Write down. Jennifer:... In a personal way. Basically, this one covers everything. No. The goal here is to build trust with your spouse by doing what you say you will. Whatever commitments you've made, we want you to stick to them so that this is our encouragement. The way that we are encouraging that is by taking a post-it note, or a sheet of paper, or a three by five card, and just start with one.If you have more on there, that's great, but you still got a week left to do this. If you want to keep doing this past January, keep doing it. It's just one way that you can experience a maturity and transformation in your marriage. Aaron:Mine is, like I said ... Jennifer:Oh, yeah, we were going to talk about it. Aaron:... Mine's supposed to be in bed by nine. Jennifer:Look, the effort was there, and I just want to let it ... Aaron:It was on the refrigerator, and I even mentioned because we thought this was only going to take us 30 minutes to record. We're wrong. It's 10:19, and so I'm going to forgive myself today, and I'm going to try and be in bed by nine tomorrow. Jennifer:You've been doing great. I put on mine affirm the kids, and it's because as a mom and homeschooling, they're in the home all the time. They're with me all the time. I do a lot of correction and critique, and helping them in their life. Aaron:Yeah, mature. Jennifer:Figuring what mature and what's right and stuff. I just wanted to make sure that I was affirming them. It's like, I don't know. I don't know how things have been, so I just wanted to make sure that I was doing that. I put on mine, affirm the kids, and so I've been doing that. It's actually been really beautiful. I love seeing their eyes light up. It just feels good. Aaron:All right. I'm going to pray. Dear Lord, thank you for the change we have already experienced in marriage. We pray we would continue to see positive transformation on our relationship. We pray for more love, more peace, and more joy. Please help us to be intentional in the way we choose to interact in marriage every day. Holy Spirit, we ask you to help us to not be easily offended by each other. Show us areas of our marriage we can invest in and put the time and energy into making what we have even better.Please help us to see each other as you see us, and help us to hope for the change we desire to see. Thank you for our marriage, and thank you for the opportunities you've given us to make changes in our lives. We pray our marriages continue to mature and that it honors you. In Jesus' name, amen.    

Aaron Chapman is a veteran in the finance industry with 25 years of experience helping clients better understand, source, and finance cash-flow positive investment properties. He advises over 100 clients a month in the acquisition and financing of their investment properties and primary residences. Aaron is ranked in the top 1% of mortgage loan processors in the country, in an industry of over 300,000 licensed loan originators, closing in excess of 100 transactions per month. In today's episode Aaron gives us his take on the current interest rate and inflationary environment, where he sees things going, and his thoughts on what investors should be doing in a time like this. Episode link: https://www.aaronbchapman.com/ https://apps.apple.com/uy/app/qjo-investment-tool/id1533823468 --- Transcript Before we jump into the episode, here's a quick disclaimer about our content. The Remote Real Estate Investor Podcast is for informational purposes only, and is not intended as investment advice. The views, opinions and strategies of both the hosts and the guests are their own and should not be considered as guidance from Roofstock. Make sure to always run your own numbers, make your own independent decisions and seek investment advice from licensed professionals.   Michael: What's going on everyone? Welcome to another episode of the remote real estate investor. I'm Michael Albaum and today I'm joined by Aaron Chapman, who's a lender, investor, bearded man and entrepreneur as well as an author and he's going to be talking to us about inflation and using long term debt as your battle ax against it. So let's get into it.   Aaron Chapman, what's going on, man? Thanks for taking the time to come hang out with me. I appreciate it.   Aaron: What's happening brother thanks for the invite. I think I kind of pushed my way in a little bit but I just   Michael: Invite, forced invite.   Aaron: Let's put that way.   Michael: Ya, no happy to happy to and it's been a minute since since we saw each other over think Realty in Tampa. How you bee?   Aaron: Been very good man. Think Realty in Tampa seems like so long ago, because I've been to Tampa two times since then. Miami a couple of times. Literally, I don't get to see very much of anything. But seats 3d of American Airlines is what it seems like.   Michael: And that's pretty close up to the front of that first class?   Aaron: It's always first it's what I've discovered in my career, it used to be you know, you got to you got to hang on to your capital is really kind of dumb to spend money unnecessarily. But then I got to thinking. So like I said first a few times, and I sat next to some amazing people. So it's not about the seat. It's about the person next to you. And more often than not, it's often enough, let's put that I sat next to some people, just some amazing conversations that end up doing business with some people when they didn't want to talk to me. And then it wasn't long, they were talking to me. And then they're giving me pointers, one guy who was like one of the executives over at the Business Journal. And I was finally DC next year, he's telling me all the cool places to go in DC. And now I've seen him pop up online. And I'll check in with him to see what's going on just a really cool guy that I recognized him by couldn't place who he was, until I got in talking. And then I found figured out who he was. So it's just, that's the kind of person that I ended up sitting with. And it's more the conversation than anything.   Michael: What a different way of thinking about things like so many people see the price of the ticket. They're like, Oh, I don't want to pay that or like the experience. But you're you're approaching with a whole different lens. I love it, man.   Aaron: Well, it's kind of how I approach going out for an expensive dinner paying a big tip, things like that. It's like, we know what's happening with the dollar right? It's not doing a whole lot sitting in our bank account. And believe me, I agree with holding on to cash, I believe I agree with investing wisely. But I also agree with taking that capital and putting it someplace where you're building relationships and building up somebody else. And so there's times when somebody does a great job, man throwing $100 tip on a on $100 Dinner is not an uncommon thing in my world. And that's not me beating my chest. It's that person earned it and what's that 100 bucks going to do in my world? My wife will ---- it away on somebody Amazon, right? So it's really not going to, it's not going to enhance our lives that much. But you'd be amazed at what it does to that person. And you walk back in there to that place you think that person forgot you? Well, they definitely don't forget me with the braids.   Michael: I was gonna say yeah, with a look like that. Yeah,   Aaron: Yeah, that's remembered. But then they remember that. And then it's there's this, I talked about the economy of gratitude a lot, and that autonomy kicks in. And they will do more and go above and beyond. Of course, now you're kind of stuck to $100   Michael: That's the minimum, yeah, the bar has been set.   Aaron: So you got to be careful of how often you do go back or when you go back, you'd be amazed at the interaction you have with this person. It's a life changing experience. Because our like our lives are changed by the people that we interact with. And not necessarily what what we what we grow in it or what we amass in it is the relationships that we have.   Michael: I love it. I love it. Let's give people the quick and dirty of who you are and where you come from and what is it you're doing in real estate and then we'll jump into kind of the meat what I wanted to cover today.   Aaron: Very cool. So the quick and dirty is not so quick and but it's kind of dirty. So the interesting thing I was sitting in an event happen to be in Tampa, we were just talking about Tampa. This was years ago and one of the main speakers there talked about the lending industry that being a loan officer and he said the reason people become a loan officers because they can't get a job doing anything else. And it rang really, really true to me because that was my story. You go back to you know, I grew up on a cattle ranch in high school and from there to work in the oil fields in Wyoming drove truck ran heavy equipment, found myself in the mines in northern New Mexico in the late 90s. And they started to shut down the project and so I got laid off and I thought no big deal. I'll find a job easy and I had a wife and kid back in Arizona and I was up in northern New Mexico I go back and forth, went back and I couldn't find a job for nothing. I tried like crazy everything I applied for I got this this statement of being overqualified. I kept getting turned down.   And things were getting dire at that point, I needed to make something happen. And as I left to go apply for a $10 an hour truck driving job to me, it was like the worst thing I could possibly do, but it was gonna put, bring money so I can at least feed my family. My wife as I left gave me a coupon for free diapers. So I drove over to this place, I applied the general manager turned me down again said I was overqualified. So I'm 23 years old, I feel broken, and walking down to my truck up coming from the type one of those job site type trailers go down the stairs. Get on my truck, said a quick prayer. I was really just I was trying to hold back the tears started up my truck and I started pointing myself to this grocery store. Well, as I'm headed to the grocery store, my gas light comes on in my truck. I had never ran that thing long enough to find out how long ago on a gas light. So I quickly found a store that had a groat a gas station on the corner. I pulled up that pump, got my debit card out, I said a quick prayer, prayer, I swiped it and I got declined.   So I rifle through my truck looking for a lost dollar, found a few coins, I closed it lock the door, I started walking that grocery store pocket parking lot. And as I'm looking around, you know, I would find something on the ground look, make sure nobody's looking, reach out quickly pick it up, put in my pocket. This went on for what seemed like a couple hours. And then I got enough change that I thought would give me a couple gallons of gas. Luckily, it was 97 were Yeah, 1997 I think gallon, a gallon, a gallon gas, like 89 cents. So I went and exchanged my change, which was a couple hours of my life for two gallons of gas, went into the grocery store with my coupon, found those diapers hurried up and went to the checkout counter. I don't know if you've ever been this position, but nothing feels worse to, in my opinion, to have one item and your coupon for that one item. Right. And now it was just another just another crappy feeling to the day. So I got my stuff put in the bag, and I'm screaming either as fast as I can. And somebody recognized me.   He called me over and I didn't want to talk to anybody. But he asked me how things were. And I told him what I just told you. He goes, Let's go to dinner. I'm like, Dude, I can't afford dinner. And I hated saying that. He was no, no, no, I got a gift certificate to Red Lobster. I'll take you your wife out. So we went to Red Lobster a couple of nights later. And that's where he told me about the mortgage industry. He explained to me what happened in it? And I'm like, Dude, how can I do this? I know nothing about that. I think there's numbers involved, and I cheated my butt off to get that C in high school. If it wasn't for the fact that could pick a lock, I would not have graduated.   So I went in, I cut a foot off of my hair, I shaved. My mom bought me some business likes clothes, and I wouldn't do an interview. And they started me as a telemarketer in 1997. So that's how I got going. So going from a telemarketer to working actually some of my own leads to building this up and going through the crash and all kinds of stuff. And there's a bunch of stories in there. To now, you know, I was just called by an outfit by modex. And they recognize me I think is the number six guy in the United States. For transactions closed. I was number one guy in Arizona, I didn't even realize that I didn't really pay attention to the statistics, there's 1.6 million people in United States that do what I do. And from what I can tell, I'm ranked number six for how many deals I closed last year. So it's kind of an interesting dynamic to consider that swing.   Michael: Yeah, I'll say, Well, you know, congratulations on how you've come clearly a long way. That's really exciting.   Aaron: Well, thank you. And there is campfire story after a campfire story of of the different things we'll probably talk about this in the series of stuff we talking about the beatings that a person takes to become successful. And you don't what's really interesting is people say, How do you get there? How do you how do you achieve success? Mike, I'll let you know when I do. Because you just don't feel like it all the time. It's a consistent grind. You're always trying to be ahead of the head of everybody else. And once you achieve something, it's way harder to keep it.   Michael: Yeah, I think people think it's like this just flat curve, you know, flat line once you've achieved something, but really, it's very sinusoidal. It's up and down and valleys and troughs. And you're like, man, some days suck. And some days are great, but the like, I think it's about the end destination right? Where you're trying to get to   Aaron: 100%. So I look at it like Everest, right? You get up there. And I don't know, if you've ever really paid attention. Maybe you've climbed the same for all I know, but how long a person sits on top of Everest, it's a matter of minutes, and they're getting back down because that sucker will kill you. You know, and so it's it's just like any other achievement, we get the second you sit back and you relax and put your feet up. It's gonna kill you. You need to keep moving, you got to get down, you got to get to the next Everest. And it can be debilitating to think that we're constantly hunting the next goal. The next goal, the next goal, instead of just finding the happiness, you know, and you our viewers know who Larry Yatch is he says, you know, success is a optimized daily experience consistently achievable, right, something to that effect there are and so and it's sustainable over time. Yeah. I gotta find that optimized daily experience. Here's what I got to do. I don't think I've achieved finding that yet.   Michael: I'm right there with you, man. We're in the hunt together.   Aaron: Yes. And we'll keep hunting and maybe we'll keep communicating about one of these days. You're like, Dude, I found it.   Michael: Yes. let me show you. So, let's shift gears here a little bit and talk about a topic that I think is on everyone's mind. And that's inflation. And you're working in the mortgage industry for a long time, you've seen a lot of ups and downs, sideways lifts, REITs give us a little bit of insight into why is inflation being talked about so much? And what do we as investors need to be cognizant of, and either using it or being abused by it.   Aaron: So inflation is definitely an interesting animal. And it's talked about a lot, everybody is talking about this constantly. And what I point a lot of people to just even understand inflation is go to a place called Shadowstats.com. When you go to shadow stats, you're gonna go to, and I always encourage everybody to get log into it get to pay for the 100 bucks for the year, whatever, you're gonna go over to alternate data, you're gonna scroll down to inflation, you're going to find this chart, and what this chart has, it's going to be going to show you from 19, from the early 1980s, up until now, and it's going to have two different lines, a blue line and a red line. And they're going to be, they're going to be diverging at some point, they're gonna stay together at one point, they're gonna go down to when they show inflation started work its way down, and then they start to kind of break apart. And what you're watching there is the federal funds rate itself, or not the federal funds rate, but the CPI that the Fed tends to track, and it's what they have changed the index to contain. Right?   So you're familiar with the Dow and the NYSC. And the and the NASDAQ, right? s&p, right, the s&p, none of them have the exact same value Correct. They're all different because they have things in them. Well, if you didn't get into, if you look at the the CPI, the Consumer Price Index, they will stack certain things in there that they can manipulate with monetary policy. And that's what they'll go off of. And you can see in this chart, that it's going to show that that that red line is skipping across the bottom right around their 2% Mark quite a bit, and then it spikes up to about eight and a half 9%, which is where we've been at recently. But if you look at the real rate of inflation, which is the shadow statline, it's going to be pushing up closer to 17. Why is that?   Well, because back in the 80s, they took everything into account, what is the person really literally spending money on to on their day to day life, and they're going to track it so they can see how much their life is changing year over year as far as their expenses. But then they wait a minute, it's getting out of hand, because what we do to pass the law for will increase their their benefits or their social security and the retirement benefits to the rate of inflation. Well, we need to keep this to 2%. Right. So we don't want to raise that really, really quick. That's where you start seeing this particular manipulation? Well, if we're looking at 17%, people should really, really, really be concerned about what's happening with their dollar, because what's the dollar value doing with inflation?   Michael: Decreasing.   Aaron: Decreasing, right? It doesn't spend as far. So what I like to do is talk about this in the sense that it's always been that way. And when we're talking about real estate investing, you know, the, in my opinion, where a person does best when it comes to real estate investing is leveraging the property, you know, the way to leverage the properties, get some sort of financing instrument on it, if you're gonna get financing on it, you want to get it for as long as you possibly can. Because at that point, the longer you take a pay, the less you actually pay, because the dollar you're paying it with is worth less and less and less every year.   So I know in today's higher rate environment, we're talking about inflation is pushing interest rates up. And if you look back at the history of inflation, last time, we saw inflation of this, this magnitude, you'll see in some charts that will show the history of inflation, and how it's somewhere right around 20%. But then you can see the history of the interest rates and the interest rates were closer to the same 17-18% for a 30 year fixed. Well, if we're where we are, as far as inflation is concerned, actually inflation was right around this 13 to 15%, where we are today. And then we're talking to interest rates at 19%. Well, the federal funds rate achieved over 20% at that timeframe. We're not there right now. So explain to people is the gap that we have there as a gift.   Right now we're seeing somewhere in the sevens for 30 year fixed interest rates. And that's, you know, we're talking about this in October, the 2022. Do I expect it to get higher that I really do because of all the uncertainty within the market. But if you've locked it in and that interest rate for 30 years, and inflation stays consistently higher than that, you're never even going to pay back what you borrowed. In fact, I have an app to prove that, you know, people want to go to just go to my website, shoot me a message, I'll get you the app. And you can download this thing on your phone. And you can calculate your amortization table and then see what inflation did and how you paid less than what you borrowed over a 30 year window even though you're paying higher interest in what you hoped.   Michael: We have to come back to that point because that's so counterintuitive and the exact opposite of what everyone tells you. When you look at the sum total you paid over a mortgage. But before we get there, I want to ask is it appropriate to look purely at The rate of inflation against interest rates? Or do we also have to take into account just the pure purchase price that we're seeing today? Or is it become irrelevant?   Aaron: I think they're all a factor. Because sometimes when you're let's look back at interest rates go backwards a year, right? Interest rates were in the threes and fours were people buying investment properties. Unbelievable, we'd never actually seen that, and never thought that I would ever see that. But what's happened to the prices of houses, what what you're doing is you're opening up where they were, they say the affordability index had a right how that worked in and more people could afford houses. Well, the more people that could afford houses, the more people bidding on those houses, right, the more of those houses got bid up beyond their real value, price does not equal value in an environment like that people are just willing to pay an enormous amount of money.   Well, because of that, all that affordability, it was so so called built into it because of lower interest rate was getting eroded by the fact that pushing the price so high. So now we're at this really interesting point where the prices are still fairly high compared to, to the, I'd say the real value of real estate because of what people are willing to pay. But our interest rates have increased to not quite to the highest it could and it's really not as high as the national as the average has been since 1971. But it's going to slow that down, I think an equilibrium equilibrium is going to kick in here at some point. And you might see those prices start to decrease a bit. And then of course, it's going to make a little bit more sense. So there's going to be people sitting on the side and waiting and watching. But then again, are they going to increase or decrease that much this begs the other question, were five point I think 5.2 million units short to fulfill the needs of that for housing United States. And then you're we're already short on that. We don't have as many building permits happening. We don't have the supply chain we used to, and now we have how many houses just got wiped out in Florida, you start compounding all this out, man. I'm telling people if you're in a contract, you probably want to stay in that thing. Because if you're backing out of a contract, because you don't like the price, you don't like the rates. Expect, just imagine what you're gonna like and a year from now, I don't think it's gonna get prettier.   Michael: Yeah. Yeah, that's really interesting perspective. Let's come back to what you said before about, when you look at the total amount you've paid. Over time, it actually ends up being less than the original amount you borrowed because of inflation. Walk us through that again,   Aaron: Gladly. And you're probably have to say that a lot to our conversation. Let's go back. You start with a topic. And now I go 100 different ways, because my mind is one, obviously, beautiful mind. There's a dude in here.. just just see it. So you've got. So when you think about our inflation, right, now, let's just take the BS metric that the feds throwing out there eight point, I think we're at 8.63%, if I remember correctly, right. So 8.3%, that means the dollar is losing 8.3% of its value every year. So if you take 8.3%, I'm gonna get my calculator out here on my phone. And we're going to divide that by 12. That means we're losing .691 percent of the value every single month. Is that not alarming .619% of the value every single month. So that's pretty well. So what I have here, and I'm just going to launch my launch my my app here, and anybody can get it is to QJO investment tool, you can go right to the app store and get the QJO investment tool. They may bleep me out here, guys, but it stands for the quit ------- off investment tool, because I think that's all a person does when they're so worried about interest rates.    So if we're doing say, a 20%, down on a $200,000 property, and you're putting, let's say it's a seven half percent interest rate, you're gonna have a payment of a principal and interest of $1,118.74. Not real bad, right? But now you're gonna pay over that period of time on that interest, you're gonna pay $402,747.56, right? 402K. You got a $200,000 house, you put 20% down, that's $160,000 loan. Right? And then you're going to pay $400,000 In principal and interest people like there's no way in hell, I'm going to do that. But when you recalculate, every time you make a payment, that payment is worth what did we say? Point six 9%? Less? So I'll write $6.90 per dollar. Last, is that right? Or is that? No, that's not quite right. It's eight, it'd be eight cents per dollar per year. So it's point 06 cents per mile. Right? Right. But when you per dollar when you recalculate that every time for 360 months, the actual inflation adjusted payment over 360 months is $152,466. That's less than what you borrowed and that's based on 8% inflation, just 8%   Because you think about that the dollar you're borrowing is seven and a half percent. You're paying a Back at an 8% decline, right now it's bigger than it's 8.3 8.4%. In fact, if you want to look at shadow stats, if you look all the way back, when you look how they track it, it's been over 8% since 2012. So in reality, you're never paying back what you borrowed because you're paying less them what they're getting in the form of interest. You're paying, you're literally getting paid to hold their money. And what's really, really cool about this is where it gets awesome. Because of inflation, we get to raise rents, how much are rents going up year over year right now in the United States?   Michael: Like seven to 10%.   Aaron: Last time I saw it was 12. Right? When you average it all out? Dang. Yeah. To a fact,   Michael: I haven't looked for a while. Clearly,   Aaron: Property manager in Kansas City. I had him check it out. They ran their books, they figured they said there was like 14.2, we looked at the last year, Mike, wow, this is crazy. I'm looking at what my kids are paying right there. They're in these apartments, and they're bumping up two to $300 every year. To me, it's kind of immoral. Now I get there's costs go up, taxes go up, upkeep goes up, because you got you got supply chain issues, right? You've got workers, the man ain't fixing anything over there really fast. So it's not like I think that they're, they're hurting themselves. From what I'm hearing, right? They're staying in my house now. And again, because of the darn AC has out for a couple of days.   Those kinds of things. So when you think about that, what's going on in that type of environment, they're raising it like that? Well, let's see what I always tell people, we get to raise rents, even at just 5%. That's every time you raise rents, that's a compound on the previous year's rent, and then you compound it again and compounded again. So as you're compounding the increase in your income, you're compounding the decrease in what the lender makes, because they don't get to raise the payment because of inflation.   So eventually, it may suck for the first 2-3-4 years because of your start rate. And because of all that, and you know, people always like to use cash on cash return is their metric. I think it's a BS metric. Guys, that's not that's not ratio, focus. There's other places to focus, we'll talk about it. But when you start adding that up, and really, really working out the math on it over time, you start killing it at about years 5-6-7 And just compounds huge. Those who don't want to be able to hang for the first three to four years of the ones going to be off on the sidelines. And they're the ones going to say that real estate's not the place to be because of interest rates will they're the they're the the people in the crowd. They're the ones that are the spectators, that people on the field, know where it's supposed to be at and they understand it. And those are the ones going to take opportunity.   Michael: Love it. Aaron, let me ask you this, the Fed has tried to maintain inflation at around two to 3% annually. Right now we're up in that eight plus range. And so we did the math behind if inflation stays there for the duration of the 30 years that you're holding that loan. But if they get things under control, and it drops back down at 3%. I mean, did all of that benefit just get eroded?   Aaron: Well, we also have to look at what they're dropping by 3% They're dropping their index by 3%. And that's dropping the real rate of inflation by India by 3%. So I don't see that as being eroded because you look back at you know, go back to shadow stats, start looking at what they were they calculate real rate of inflation. We've been over 8% Since what since 2012. You have a consistent increase in inflation, it's going consistently up cost of living has not gotten cheaper. Now, I don't know when you were born, but in 19 in the 1980s I could jump on my, it was the late 80s I could jump on my skateboard my mom gave me $1 Literally $1 Bill, I could go down to the corner store, get a gallon of milk, buy some candy for me and bring change to her. how possible is that right now?   Michael: Um no, can't even buy the candy for the dollar right now? No, I just bought a KitKat for a buck. 75 Check it out. That's ridiculous. Dude, it's this dark chocolate and mint. KitKat I'm like such a sucker for dark chocolate. It was amazing. But yeah, Buck 75.   Aaron: Well, it's probably probably an extra 10 cents for the blend, right? But, but again, kefir dollar 75. So that's what I'm saying a gallon of milk and I could get into it. It wasn't like the big jumbo candy bar, nut it was something. And I brought that change. But that was possible in like 1986, I think is when that was okay. It feels like a little while ago, but it shouldn't have changed that much. But it did. So if you look back at that's not a 2% inflation increase. That's common. That's some serious increase, especially the price of milk today. Right. So we started looking at that the Fed has never really kept it under 2% control.   The other thing is, is our inflation today, I don't know if we're really know the full outcome of what's going to happen with what they did with those printed dollars. They have put $8.9 trillion into the markets that they never were in before. If you look at their holdings with respect to mortgage backed securities and treasuries, $8.9 trillion. Then we have they backed off by point zero 2 trillion. And now we have interest rates more than double what happens when they back off by half. Right? So when you start thinking about what they did, and what we're that we're the the amount of money that's in circulation, there's got to be some really massive moves here to get this under control and One of the things that really kind of stands out to me and if you heard this conversation were Powell, the chairman of the Fed was speaking. One of the things he said, I don't remember the exact words. He says one thing we've learned about inflation is we know very little about inflation. That's alarming.   Michael: Yeah, big time.   Aaron: And that was said within the last 45 days, I think 45 to 60 days. So what I am taking by that is inflation. There's this big loaded oil tanker, right, and it's headed towards ground right now. And they didn't get off the throttle early enough with all the stuff they're doing. Now. They're dropping all these anchors, they're hooking up tugboats. They're doing everything think everything they can, but it's too, it's too late. It's going to run aground. And what that happens when it runs aground, I don't know. But it's going to be pretty ugly. And so that's why I tell everybody I'm dealing with, you need to control what you can control for as long as you can control it. And the one thing we can control right now is a 30 year fixed loan. An ARM, Are these things they call, what did they call this thing be all in one loans, it's an adjustable rate, just a single adjustable rate, kind of a credit line? Yeah, great concept. But we have no idea how it's going to react in an environment like this. So for me, it's like whatever you can do to maintain it and keep control of it. And then when you know, we know for a fact that sense right now to close on this 30 year fixed and pay the points and get the rate.   But what I do know is you're not going to pay it back, you're gonna pay less than what you borrowed. When you go with what the bank say, let's go with a five year or seven year, you have to do something with that loan, at some point. What did you just become a new client for the banks, that's what they want. That's what they say in the background, sell the arm because you're insuring your business for the future, the business for who the loan originator, not the person buying houses to rent out and to maintain a business, you are now become somebody's servant, you become a business, somebody else's future, you're a commodity. And I try and tell her but don't become somebody else's commodity control it for as long as you can. Only pull refinances, you can pull the money back out and reinvest into other things. Other than that, let that sucker sit there as long as you can run that out and let somebody else pay the freight.   Michael: Yeah, that makes a ton of sense. Aaron, I know you deal exclusively in residential mortgages. But can you give any insight into why the commercial markets only have 5- 7-10 year options on their mortgages, as opposed to the 30? year fixed? I mean, I have seen a 30 year fixed, but it's not the Colt 45, like it is in the residential space?   Aaron: Yes, you're right. It's it's very, very uncommon. Well, because most your commercial mortgages have to be made up by by investor capital or by banks, right. And so banks are going to take depositor capital, and they're going to create this or they're going to create their own type of security. And they're going to be able to get investors come into most investors don't want to let their money sit for 30 years. Most people don't know that when you're letting your money sit for 30 years in an inflationary environment, you're not getting your money, right, we all expect a certain rate of return on if you do any sort of hard money lending. Or if you've ever done anything to that effect, or fix and flips, you're going to calculate your return on investment annually. And I searched for a 12 plus. Right. And I don't know if you listen to Warren Buffett, Warren Buffett was talking about where, you know, some lady came to him. And, you know, she was trying to figure out how to how to invest her money, and it was a lot of money to her, but not to him. And he said, we have any credit cards? And she goes well, yeah. And he goes, we'll pay that off first. Because why would I do that? I'm not making any money. He goes, What are you paying your interest? 18 20% Because I can't make 18%. So I was I don't know how to do that. So get rid of the debt, you know, then I can show you how to make at least 12 to 13. So that's what we all are wanting is get that 12 13%.   You're not going to make that in a 30 year fixed, you just aren't. So what we've had we've we've created a way to kind of subsidized by the system. And we've got this Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. And what they did was they created the mortgage backed securities, luminary did that for anybody who watched the The Big Short. And if you haven't actually watch it. I know this is a family family show. So don't let the kids in there when you watch it, but it explains the history of the mortgage back series security, where it came from. And now what you have is now a tradable piece of paper that people keep just trading around. That's where its value is. Its value is in its trade ability in its liquid tradability as well as the fact that it the performance of the note people making the payments on time. That's what makes that's a valuable piece of paper, not to sit and hold it for 30 years. It's not valuable at all, you're losing money on that paper.   So that's why I think in the commercial world because they have not had this initiative from the from the government say we need to create housing or we need to create people's businesses, right. They didn't have that initiative. They had the initiative when you create housing, when you give people opportunity to live in a home when you give them the best opportunity and mortgage financing. So they created a 30 year fixed and a 30 year fixed has caught hold and become kind of the gold standard is now the the the Qualified Mortgage, if you will, when you get into anything else. So those where you're not really a qualified loan, you don't have safe harbor from the government or do anything outside of that. So that's about my best guess is you can't get anybody to want to put money up for that long for so cheap and lose it, and just and not make a return is really what it boils down to. They probably just rather own the building.   Michael: Yep. Yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense. Aaron, one final question before you before I let you out of here 15 year fixed versus 30 year fixed, you'll often see a pretty big spread on the interest rate. Does it ever make sense?   Aaron: We're not seeing as big a spread now as we used to. But here's where I look, it used to be a bigger spread. It's not real big right now, if there is a spread at all. So and one, two reasons we're not seeing as big a spread as we used to, we have a lot of uncertainty in the labor market right now. And as a result, that uncertainty lenders like I don't know, if I want to saddle somebody with a bigger payment, when they may have a an issue with their income in the near future. And if they do have an issue with their income, what is their ability to pay this higher payment versus a 30 year fixed, so we're gonna price it in a way that kind of leads them back to good old fashioned 30 year fixed, because our value in our portfolio is them being able to make their payment. So then when you do compare them side by side, even if it's a lower payment, you can use my, you can't use my calculator, I don't have that feature in this, we will in a future iteration, by run the numbers, when you're paying off a 15 year fixed, even at a three eighths of a percent lower interest rate or even a half, I have found you actually pay more in actual dollars. The reason being you're paying those dollars while they're worth more, rather than stretching out over time when they're worth less, because in 15 years, they're going to be worth a hell of a lot less than they are within the first 15 years.   So those who pay that off quick like that, yeah, feels good. You're getting equity in your house and all that kind of stuff. I'm of the mindset pay the 30 year fixed stretch as far as I can take the extra money I would have paid for 15 and reinvested somewhere else. And as a result of being able to do that multiple different properties and compound it that way I'll generate a lot more wealth. Because when you have when you have a home and I tell people if you're gonna buy real estate investments and get those those single families, duplex, triplex, fourplex, you have two jobs, right, you have to pick the right people to work with on the real estate side. And on the lending side to understand what you're trying to do and will guide you not try and lead you to make them money but lead you to make you money, and then pick the right asset to buy the stays reasonably rent it for the entire time you own it, you can raise rents, if you have that, who pays off the mortgage?   Michael: The tenants,   Aaron: the tenant, so if the tenant pays it off, and it's easy to do the math, guys just take 100,000, let's say it's 100? Well, you have to say it's an 80,000, or only about 100,000, our house with 20%, down, you got an $80,000 loan, you divide that up by 30, which is how many years are taken to pay it off, you'll find that it pays off. They're all they're basically giving you $2,666.67 per year, they're giving that to you, right, and that's what you're paying off the mortgage with? Well, you divide that into your investment, which is the money you invested 20,000 plus a 6000 in closing costs as 26,000 your investments grown by 10.25%, every year, do the math, you figure it out yourself. If they're paying it off, you did your job. And that's all you made was done paying off the loan, you made no more cash flow, you put no more out of your pocket, that's 10.25%, predictable, you still have the tax benefits, you still have the appreciation on the home.   So that's before all, all cash flow. So what I tell everybody is let that drag out, it doesn't matter what you do, if you do it on a 15 year note, you're more than likely have to go to your pocket, you're more than likely have to try and maintain that in other ways. And if you're out of a tenant for a month or two, that's really going to hurt your pocket, stretch that thing out. If you really feel like you want to get it paid off 10 years you can all in 15 years, you can always pay a 30 like a 15 You can never pay a 15 like a 30.   Michael: Yeah, it's very I always tell people to there you have the optionality with 30 year and that you don't have the 15. Arron: Options or everything. You know, that's all people want is to be able to make a decision for themselves. But when you pitch and you back yourself in the corner, and you're not allowed to decide for yourself, that's when you're frustrated, that's when you get angry, leave yourself out. It's a good business move to leave yourself out. The other thing of it is going back to the to the arms these other stuff, man, we're going off of hope. And hope is not a good business strategy. You need to go off of what you know and stick with what you know and control for long as you possibly can.   Michael: Love it. And this is an awesome place to put us pause until our next conversation. Until then, where can people find out more about you reach out to you if they have questions or want to reach out to you for your services?   Aaron: Best Places go to AaronChapman.com If you can't find me there because sometimes there are some some browsers don't like it you have to type in Aaron B chapman.com. Just type in Aaron Chapman a Google if you find a bearded redneck lender you found him.   Michael: Right on. Right on. Well, hey, thanks a lot, man for hanging out with me and walking us through this really kind of tumultuous time appreciate you. And we'll definitely be chatting again soon.   Aaron: It was my pleasure brother. And again, thanks for letting me under to poke some holes in in people's heads out there.   Michael: All right, everyone. That was our episode A big thank you to Aaron for coming on and dropping some really interesting Insights for us on where we're headed in the market. As always, if you enjoyed the episode, feel free to leave us a rating or review and we look forward to seeing the next one. Happy investing

Subscribe to Reactionary Minds: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google Podcasts | YouTubeReactionary Minds is a project of The UnPopulist. Hosted by Aaron Ross Powell. Produced by Landry Ayres.The following is a transcript of Reactionary Minds’ interview with Virginia Postrel, author of many books, including The Future and Its Enemies. The transcript has been lightly edited for flow and clarity.Aaron Ross Powell: I’m Aaron Ross Powell, and this is Reactionary Minds, a project of The UnPopulist. We’re used to thinking about politics as a battle between left and right, progressive and conservative. But those sides can be somewhat protean, with their positions, preferences and policies shifting in ways that make it difficult to analyze the political landscape clearly.My guest today has a different way of framing politics—one she first set out 24 years ago, and one which looks more and more prescient with every passing day. Virginia Postrel is the author of many books, including The Future and Its Enemies. Her latest is the Fabric of Civilization. The core of Postrel’s framework for understanding politics isn’t left versus right, but dynamism versus stasis.Aaron Ross Powell: What does it mean to be a “stasist,” to use your term?Virginia Postrel: What I say in The Future and Its Enemies when I’m just laying out the basic distinctions is that dynamists, which is people like me, have a central value of learning. We can talk about that later, but the contrast is important, and stasists come in a couple of varieties, but their central value is stability or control.Then I divide them into what I call reactionaries, which are the people who are more into keeping things literally the same, not necessarily the status quo. It could be going back to some imagined past or creating some utopia, but the idea of a stable society. Then technocrats, who are much more common in liberal democratic societies, who say, well, we want progress—we want things to change—but it’s got to look exactly like this. Very much an early 20th-century idea of control and planning the future, so that progress becomes something not that evolves, but that is dictated.Aaron: When you say early 20th century and the rise of the technocratic position, is that because something new happened in the 20th century, or is it because prior to the 20th century, stasis won out because we weren’t moving very quickly anyway?Virginia: That’s a very good question—not one that I really thought about when I was writing this book many years ago. But I think what happened was the rise of large business enterprises, railroads and huge manufacturing corporations, vertically integrated enterprises where you had to have a range of control to operate the business. That all happened really beginning of the 19th century, where you had these much larger organizations than had existed before.They were very successful, and people developed new and genuinely innovative and efficient ways of doing things. And that led to an idea that if you can do this at U.S. Steel or General Motors, you should be able to do it for the whole society— that, in fact, because they were run by the profit motive, these enterprises maybe were a little inefficient and wasteful and duplicative (competition was seen as wasteful and duplicative). And so that you could do something about that [inefficiency] if you could plan the society in general. There are many forms of this in the early 20th century.Obviously, you have the full-blown state socialism, state ownership of the means of production, with extreme versions in places like the Soviet Union. But there were also much more democracy-friendly versions associated with Thorstein Veblen, who’s famous for The Theory of the Leisure Class, but who also wrote a book whose title escapes me at the moment where he contrasted the good engineers with the bad financiers. The idea was that if you could just set engineering principles loose on society, you could have a much more efficient and productive society. That idea was in the air, and it came out of real business innovation that just got applied in ways that didn’t work.One of the things that’s interesting about the history of liberalism is that before Friedrich Hayek’s writing on “the use of knowledge in society” and the whole socialist calculation debate—and I don't want to get into the weeds of that—what was wrong with that theory of control wasn’t obvious. A lot of people who were basically liberal became very attracted to socialism because it seemed like a way of improving the lot of people and extending the liberal contract in certain ways.The idea that it was replacing local knowledge and even the knowledge of individual preferences with some necessarily dictatorial—even if it was being done in a democratic way—process was not obvious in 1900. It was not well articulated. I think there were people who understood it intuitively, but it had not really been fully grasped.Aaron: That raises an interesting distinction, I think, within stasism, as opposed to dynamism. What you’ve just described is an awfully let’s call it ideological or philosophical argument for stasis. You had these arguments about the way a firm runs, and we can analogize that out, and we can manage progress and so on. That’s like an intellectual approach. But a lot of stasis seems to be more of almost an aesthetic approach. So you get people like Wendell Berry—or Josh Hawley in some of his earlier, pre-political career writings is almost making an argument that the ideal America is one that always and forever looks like a Thomas Kinkade painting. Or that modern architecture is bad and what we really need is the return of the aesthetics of the Catholic church to rule us. Are these distinct things, or do they bleed together?Virginia: They are distinct things, and historically they’re distinct things because they’re very different reactions to what’s called the second industrial revolution. That is the rise of these really large enterprises, railroads being that quintessential one. In the 19th century, you also have the arts-and-crafts movement around William Morris. You have the rise of neo-Gothic architecture, which is initially a very ideologically freighted thing. It is a rejection of industrialism.The irony is that it then just—I write about this in The Substance of Style— becomes a style. Therefore, you get to a point where you have Blair Hall at Princeton University built and named for a railroad magnate in the neo-Gothic style because it associates the university with the great universities of Britain. It takes on a different meaning over time, but there is definitely in reaction to industrialism not only this kind of technocratic argument, which also takes a Marxist form; there is a medievalist argument, as well, that we are losing handcraft. We’re losing beauty. The cities are ugly. They’re crowded—of course, cities were always crowded—but [there’s] coal smoke and factories, and it is a ugly transition in many ways. Therefore, we should go back to a pastoral, hierarchical, often Catholic ideal. That is a reactionary stasis, which is very prominent in a lot of the great literature of the period—not so much in novels, but in poetry. Yes, they are two distinct, very old—at this point we’re talking 150 years; I guess that’s not old by human history, but certainly old by American history—ideals, and they take different forms.The American ideal is different from the European ideal, the reactionary ideal. Also, one thing that’s different is while there is this Wendell Berry, farmer, slightly medievalist view, there is also in the U.S. a wilderness ideal. In Europe, the cultivated landscape is always, or almost always, the ideal, whereas in the U.S., you also have a notion that untouched by human hands is ideal. That’s less common on the right than on, I don't know, I hesitate to call [it] exactly the left, but in the environmental movement.Aaron: That raises my next question, which is, Does this technocratic versus reactionary (or traditionalist or natural) by and large map onto a left-right spectrum? It certainly seems like technocrats are the left and the center left, generally speaking, and the people calling for a return to the old ways tend to be on the right.Virginia: Well, part of the point of The Future and Its Enemies is that these things do not really map onto the left and the right. They cross those divisions. It’s just that what people want is somewhat different, and so conservative technocrats might be more inclined to regulate land use so that you have single-family suburban homes or regulate immigration in a technocratic way, so that you give priority to people who have a lot of college degrees and professional skills, because they’re going to be—a Brahman from India is better than a peasant from Guatemala, because we can anticipate that.I’m just using those as examples. I describe technocracy as an ideological ideal in the early 20th century, because there was an intellectual movement there, but I don’t think it is primarily ideological. I think, for many people, it is common sense. It is common sense that somebody ought to be in charge, and people ought to make rules, and we ought to control things. And if this is dangerous, we should prohibit it, and if it’s good, we should subsidize it. This is the norm in our politics, and that wasn’t new in the 20th century.Things were subsidized and prohibited forever, but it got this patina of efficiency and rationality and modernity in the early 20th century. It took on an ideological air, but it is the norm in our politics. That’s one reason I spend a lot of time in the book talking about it. But really what interests me is [that] I think of it as the norm: That it’s what most of our political discussions are, but both reactionaries and dynamists, therefore, have to make alliances with technocrats in order to get the world they want. They’re the polar opposites, but the question is—in some ways, the technocrats decide who wins.Aaron: How totalizing are these two—are the dynamic versus the static viewpoint? Because there are lots of vectors for change. There’s technological change; there’s social; there’s political. Like we right now refer to, say, the Trumpist movement as “conservative,” but populism is on the one hand, very stasist in culture shifting too quickly—I-don't-like-it-make-it-stop!—but it’s very politically radical in terms of [saying] the systems that we have in place need to be torn down and replaced.Virginia: I describe them as if they’re these silos, but that’s just a model; that’s not reality. That’s the map, not the landscape. First of all, most people have elements of all of these things in their thinking, in their intuitions, in their politics; as you say, it takes multiple dimensions. Somebody may think that we should, even within, say, economic regulation—somebody may think that we should let people build houses more freely, but the FDA should regulate really tightly, something like that.Talking about the radical institutional aspects of populists of various types brings up the issue of rules, which is one of the things that’s the trickiest to understand and to grapple with. How do you think about rules? Let’s say you want this kind of dynamism. You want this kind of learning, bottom-up order without design, trial and error, correction, economic progress, or social learning. What sort of rules give you that? There’s very much this idea that you need nested rules, and you need certain rules that are fundamental and don’t change very often.You could call that the constitutional order, and those need to be fairly simple, and they need to be broadly applicable, and they need to allow things like recombinations and people using their own knowledge to make decisions and plans. And there’s a chapter about that, which I then, in a completely different context, reinvented in The Substance of Style; honest to God, I did it from the bottom up. I didn’t refer, because it was all about neighborhoods, where [it’s a] fact that people care about what houses look like, but on the other hand, they care about their neighbor’s house, and they will pay money to live in a planned community—but on the other hand, people want freedom, and how do you think about that?One of the issues is that you need to be able to move when rules are very prescriptive; there need to be ways to exit. What you’re seeing in this populist upsurge is a notion that the rules that we think of as not changing very much—that stable institutions, the liberal institutions that govern societies—are barriers to what populists want, and so, therefore, they need to be taken down.That does become a radical move. One of the misperceptions that was in lots of reviews of the book was the idea that dynamism equals change, and that I’m saying all change is good. First of all, even in the process of dynamism—that is, bottom-up change—not all change is good. It’s an experimental process. Sometimes you do things—whether it’s you start a company or you change your living arrangements—and it’s a bad idea. It doesn’t work, and that’s why we need criticism and competition, and that’s part of the process.Aaron: Then the goal is we want a dynamic society because it produces all of these. The book is full of all the wonderful benefits that come out of a dynamic society. But at the same time, the people who are fans of stasis—yes, a lot of them take it way too far in a reactionary direction—but. … There is something fundamentally true to the notion of wanting things to be somewhat stable and familiar. I just three weeks ago moved my whole family from Washington, D.C., to Colorado.We all know moving is incredibly stressful, and it’s not just because of all the logistics you have to deal with. Uprooting yourself is deeply stressful, and [it] takes a long time to get re-established. More people move in a dynamic society than in the past, but the world around us is changing too, in a way that feels like the same stress that I have with moving. People want [to feel] like, “My life is settled and is going to look roughly tomorrow the way it did today.” There is something very human and understandable about that. How do you get the effects of dynamism without everyone constantly feeling like they’re being uprooted?Virginia: This is a really good question, a really hard question. Part of it goes back to this idea of nested rules and also nested commitments. One of the important aspects of dynamist rules is that they allow for commitments—that you can make contracts of various kinds (to use that term), but it could also be marriage; it could be, I'm going to live in this town, and I'm going to be involved in civic institutions and volunteer institutions, and I'm going to put down roots here.That said, one of the difficult things is that one person’s stability is an intrusion on another person’s plans often. For example, I write a lot about housing, and there’s some about housing in the book, but there’s not as much as I would probably put there if I were writing it today. One thing that we see in Los Angeles, where I live, is there are a lot of veto players whenever you want to build anything, and they are people who want their neighborhood to stay the same.One result of that is that people who have grown up in Los Angeles, the children of people who lived here, cannot live here anymore because it’s too expensive. That's this kind of, I want stability [laughs]—oh, but wait a minute; I’d also like to see my grandchildren, but now they live in Texas because they couldn’t afford to live here. There’s often trade-offs with issues of trying to make stability, but human life inherently changes. Generations come and go; we grow older; people have children, et cetera.There is a certain amount of change that always is going to happen, but there is a highly nonideological issue which comes up, in fact, in my most recent book, The Fabric of Civilization, in the context of the original Luddites. The original Luddites were not ideologues [chuckles]; they were not stasists who wanted to keep medieval ways because they liked what the Middle Ages represented to their intellect.They were hand weavers who had prospered from the invention of mechanical spinning, which gave them ample supplies of thread. So they had prospered because of the technological and economic upheavals of a generation earlier, and now they were losing their jobs to power looms, and so they were mad. They were stressed. At that time, losing your job was not like losing your job in 21st century America; losing your job meant your children might starve.There was a reason to be upset. They engaged in both nonviolent civic activity, petitioning Parliament and that sort of thing—and also violent riots and smashing looms and that sort of thing. The government said, “No, you don’t get to choose.” There was a technocratic aspect of that, which is, they said, "Look, this is going to be good for society. It’s going to create new jobs and new industries. It’s going to make Britain more prosperous against its rivals.” All of these kinds of things. And so power looms went ahead, and some of the Luddites got deported to Australia (the more violent ones).That is really important in the history of economic prosperity, and the people who were the children and grandchildren and great-great-great-grandchildren of those people are far better off in basically every respect than their ancestors, but it was a true, genuine, painful transition. I don’t know what my prescription would’ve been back then other than let this go forward. In a richer society, there are things that can be done with redistribution to ease those transitions.Another thing that I think we don't emphasize nearly enough in the U.S. today is the traditional American thing of moving to different parts of the country. There's considerable evidence that people are more locked into place than they used to be, and that makes certain things more difficult. Particularly, if you are somebody who is living in Detroit, say, it might be better if you could move to Colorado or North Carolina, but you don't have the money, because moving is not just disruptive; it's expensive to do so.There may be other barriers like licensing regulations or that sort of thing, but the main barrier, aside from the psychological barrier, is the financial one. I think that that's the sort of thing you need to think about from a policy point of view. But you're right. People like change; they like the benefits of change; but only up to a point.Aaron: There's another side to it, too, I think. As I was re-reading the book in prep for our conversation, I kept thinking there's a moral imperative of dynamism when you think about it in a social context, because the story you just told is an economic and a production one. The disruption that can come from changes in economics—and we see this all the time like a lot of the reactionary movement right now is—but we're losing the old lifestyle of working in the factory in the small town and supporting your family at a middle-class level on one salary. That's gone away.That's an economic story, but I think a lot of what we're seeing today from illiberal sides is about social change. The anti-trans backlash is in a lot of respects about this: “My conceptions of gender and gender roles are that there are people who are setting those aside, living in ways that are contrary to them, but we also see the traditional family is under attack.”It's not under attack in the sense of someone is coming and trying to just tear apart my traditional family, but that there are people who are living in nontraditional ways, and it makes me uncomfortable. In that case, it seems harder to justify the stasist worldview from a moral standpoint, because what you're saying is often that people who were traditionally marginalized or oppressed are now able to get outside of—are now centered in a way that they didn't used to be, are gaining privilege in a way that they didn't used to be, have status in a way that they didn't used to have.Or are able to express themselves and author their own identities in ways that they weren’t, and I don't like that; that makes me uncomfortable. We need to shut it down; we need to punish corporations that are too “woke” in what they're expressing or what they're putting in movies and television. That one seems harder to say yes, you've got a point [to], because telling other people they can't have dynamic self-identities isn't the kind of thing that we should necessarily correct for or compromise with.Virginia: Yes and no. The way you put it, sure, but it's also the case that a lot of these fights are between two sides each of which wants to force the other one to adopt its worldview and to pay obeisance to its worldview. So that it's not just that I have to tolerate someone who has [another worldview], whether they believe that everyone who doesn't believe in Jesus will go to hell, or whether they believe that someone with male genitalia can be considered a woman.Those are two worldviews that you can live with in a society, where people hold those views, and we just tolerate them, and it's like, I don't care if you believe Mercury is in retrograde and makes your computer go crazy. I think it's stupid, but okay, sure what the hell. We can treat them like that, or we can have fights where everybody has to get on the same page. And a lot of what we're negotiating now is what is it where everybody has to be on the same page.These are the great fights that led to liberalism in the first place—[these] were the religious wars, where there was an assumption that unless everybody agreed on that [question], unless everybody in the society was of the same faith, the society would not be strong. Obviously, this is potted history, but they kept fighting over that until they were exhausted and said, “Let's have liberalism instead.” That's oversimplifying much. A lot of these fights today are about, How do you accommodate when people have radically different worldviews, live in the same society, have to know about each other's worldviews?One of the differences today versus when I was growing up in the Bible Belt is that everybody sees everything. The people I went to college with at Princeton for the most part—I was raised a liberal Presbyterian, but the assumptions I made about the people around me—I might as well have been from Mars. I could understand Renaissance literature, because it's steeped in a religious society, in a way that most of the people that I went to school with couldn't, because they had never been in a place where everybody was religious—and really religious, not just nominally.Also, that affects jokes and stuff. Supposedly, my freshman roommate got mad, she told somebody, because I had said she was going to hell. Considering I didn't believe in hell, that was impossible, but I must have made some joke that anybody who knew me in high school would've understood. Anyway, this is a long way of saying that I think that you are right, and this goes to the issue of commitments and being able to carve out your own life. Some of these fights are about that.One of the things that happened since I wrote the Future and Its Enemies is [gay marriage]. When I wrote the Future and Its Enemies, I was for gay marriage, but that was way ahead of the curve. It advanced partly because of this desire to have a commitment. I see this as a constant negotiation, and I also see the economic ideals as not being completely disconnected from it.People talk about the good old days: Let's go back to the good old days, when you could work in a factory and have a union job and raise a family on one income and all of that. Well, first of all, I'm from South Carolina, and that wasn't the case then. Even if you were white, people were poor. Yes, you could do that—you could raise a family on one income—if you were an engineer, but not if you worked in a textile mill. You would have both parents working in a textile mill and probably the teenage kids as well—and that's, again, if you were white. If you were Black, you were even worse off. So there is a kind of centering, as you say, of a particular not only ethnically narrow experience, but also even regionally narrow experience in that kind of nostalgia. I think that remembering who's left out is an important part. It goes to this issue of the knowledge problem—of the idea that dynamism allows people to operate on their local knowledge. It allows people who might not be included in the big, top-down view to force themselves to be included, because they just go through life and do their thing.Aaron: I think part of that is not necessarily stasists, or not necessarily stasists versus dynamism or change, but about pace of change. This is the point that you made about we're all aware of what each other is doing in a way that we didn't used to be. There always are subcultures; a subculture adopts a handful of things and then innovates on them very quickly and becomes weird and pops up. Suddenly everyone's goth for a little while, and goth is very different. And this shows up in fashion frequently, or in me trying to keep up with my middle schoolers slang or so on. With the social media stuff in particular, we end up in these situations where you don't even think that your subculture is a subculture anymore. You think it is the dominant culture because you've cultivated your Twitter following, and everyone you know online knows to talk this way, or that these terms are passé or shouldn't be used anymore or whatever. Then you assume that's what everyone knows and everyone talks about. I don't even know that, in a lot of cases, it is you saying, “I want to force my subculture’s views on everyone else”; it's more just you assume that that's what all of the views are.Virginia: It's like my joke about you're going to hell. I assume that you know how I mean it—oh, wait a minute, you don't, because you don't come from that subculture. It used to be that these subcultures were [overlooked]. The mainstream media—The New York Times, Time Magazine—did not know, and even Gallup polling did not know, there was such a thing as “born-again Christians” until Jimmy Carter. And they were a huge percentage of the population. It's just that they weren't the people who worked at The New York Times; they weren't the people who lived in New York, for the most part.Partly because I have this weird background of having lived in a lot of different parts of the country, I'm more aware of how many subcultures there are, and my Facebook friends come from all of them, pretty much. I think you're absolutely right that part of what happens is people assume that their norms are universal, or should be universal, and that therefore people who violate them are bad people.And there are rewards for making those assumptions. There are rewards in terms of attention. There are rewards in terms of, “You go, girl,” or whatever, and that has been corrosive. I think that it's not new in human history, but as you say, there has been an acceleration of it, and the idea that you could know about these horrible other people who think differently from you is more likely. You don't just know about them, you probably get a distorted picture of them, because it's being filtered through people who are spinning it or selectively representing it in a way that maximizes not only its strangeness, but its “evil.”Aaron: Yes. I think we also, too, don't necessarily appreciate the pace at which things change and become accepted in our subcultures. You mentioned you wrote this book—this book was published in 1998, I think it was.Virginia: Yes. Right. So I was writing it in like 1996, '97.Aaron: I was in high school in the 90s. Thinking about gay marriage—you mentioned gay marriage—how dramatic the change on acceptance of gay relationships and gay marriage has been: When I was in high school, Ellen coming out on her sitcom was, like, We're going to have a gay character on television! This was national news; everyone was talking about it. Whereas now, 30 years later, it's just like, so what, there's a gay character.It happens very quickly, and this makes me think how much of this is about—and going back to the rules, too—ambiguity versus clarity; that people want to know how things are, and how they're going to be. And a lot of rapid change is not constant. It's not uniform. It is experimentation and competing views and figuring out which is the right one, or which is the acceptable one.All of that messiness means that things are ambiguous, and that what we want is clarity. We want to know, okay, this is the rule that I'm going to have to follow tomorrow. This is what's going to be acceptable. I'm not going to get called out for this. I'm willing to change, but I want to know what it's going to be. That dynamism is inherently ambiguous.Virginia: Well, I think that is part of it. I think people do want to be able to make their own plans and structure their own lives in a way that it is going to work for them. I would argue that you're better off in a world where people aren't constantly making new rules, from their plans, to run your plans. That's one of the big Dynamist ideas. But you were talking about people wanting clarity. One of the things that I've written about over the years is clothing sizes and problems of fit. Bear with me; this is relevant. People tend to think that it would be better if there were specific clothing sizes—that if you knew that every size eight dress was for a 35-inch bust and a 28-inch waist (I'm making these up) and 40-inch hips, or something like that, that would be great, because everything would be the same. You would know exactly what you were getting. It would actually be terrible. In the ‘40s, the catalog companies actually went to the government and said, Could you please establish some standard sizes? And they did. But almost as soon as they were established, different brands started not complying with them, because it wasn't required; it wasn't a regulation. The reason is that people's bodies come in different proportions—even two people who are the same height and weight. One will have longer legs, one will have shorter arms, one will have a bigger waist, the other will have bigger hips, et cetera. What happens is that brands develop their own fit models and their own sizes. The lack of clarity actually makes it more possible for people to find what fits. I think that is an analogy to one aspect of dynamism—that is, the fact that there isn't a single model that everyone must comply with makes it more likely that people can structure their own lives in meaningful ways. Now that said, this goes back to this issue of nested rules. Hammering down on people because they express views that were perfectly normal 10 minutes ago, or worse yet, because they use a term in a nonpejorative way (they think), and suddenly, it's turned out that it's now pejorative: This is not good. This is a kind of treating as fundamental rules things that should be flexible and adjustable and tolerant. There is this idea of tolerance when we talk about tolerance as a liberal value, a liberal virtue, but there's also mechanical tolerances. I think a society needs that kind of tolerance as well. That allows for a certain amount of differentiation and pliability; that allows things to work, and it allows people not to be constantly punished. Zero tolerance is a bad idea. Anytime people are having zero tolerance, you're almost always going to be running into trouble.Aaron: You published this book 24 years ago. As I said at the beginning, I think the framework and the thesis that you articulated in it is really powerful and helpful for understanding things. But the political landscape and the cultural landscape looks rather different now than it did in the ’90s. Looking at the threats to dynamism that we see today and the rise of illiberalism, what are the lessons that we should draw from the stasist-versus-dynamist framework for countering those threats, or at least understanding them in a way that may prove helpful to ameliorating them?Virginia: Well, there are different forms of illiberalism around the world, and there are different reasons that people back them. One of the things that is striking in the rise of Trump in the U.S. is that one component of the people who voted for him—I don't know whether this would be true if he runs again, because the whole January 6 thing alters it somewhat—were frustrated dynamists. They were people who are really sick of technocracy; they're really sick of being told what they can and cannot do. They're really sick of the fact that it's hard to build things—that it's hard to create, especially with atoms, rather than bits. Peter Thiel might be a a high-profile example, but there are lots of just little guys who own plumbing companies or whatever who are in that category. The notion that you need to knock over the table to effect change: I think some of that comes from this idea that technocracy has tied down ordinary people like Gulliver and the Lilliputians.I think one thing that needs to happen—again, I don't know that this applies in Hungary, but certainly I think it's applicable in the U.S.—is that technocrats need to get their act together, at least some of them, and need to get a little more dynamism in their heads. You're seeing some of this among intellectuals like Ezra Klein and Matt Yglesias on the center-left, and you definitely see it in the issues around housing. That's one thing, because dynamists can't do it alone, and we need allies; we need to peel off technocrats who will support us, many of whom are liberals or think of themselves as liberals, in the sense that they're not illiberal. As far as the people who really want to go back to the Middle Ages, part of this is that you need to tell different stories—and this is hard. Culture is hard. This is not a libertarian show, but one of the things that I say to libertarians and also to conservatives is that they always talk about culture the way leftists talk about markets: as if there's one giant lever. If I could just get my hands on that lever and pull, I could make everything the way I want it. That's a fallacy in markets, and it's a fallacy in culture as well. Whether you like it or not, it's a dynamic process. I hadn't really thought about this, but in a way, The Fabric of Civilization, my latest book, which is the story of world history through the story of textiles, says the world is always changing. Even in the periods where it changes slowly, it changes. There are always people who are pushing against the established order, whether it's economic or cultural or whatever.Another thing that it says quite explicitly in the discussion of traditional clothing—and if somebody goes to my Substack, you can see that I posted this—is that people don't generally want to make a choice between tradition/identity and modernity/progress: They want both. Given control over their lives, they will find ways to incorporate both, to hold onto what they value in terms of their identity and tradition, and to get the benefits of modernity and liberalism.I think many people who really like change don't fully appreciate that. It was definitely not appreciated at the beginning of the 20th century and the technocratic move that we talked about earlier, but the example I use is the way indigenous women in Guatemala dress. Now, they can buy jeans and t-shirts just like everybody else, but they choose to dress in traditional garments—except they're not really traditional. They've changed in a lot of different ways. The daily blouse is made in a factory. It's made out of polyester. It's not woven on a handloom, but it still looks Maya because that identity is important. I think there is a universalizing element of liberalism that wants everyone to be a rootless cosmopolitan. Even those of us who basically are rootless cosmopolitans aren't really. We actually do have roots. I am very dedicated to living in Los Angeles. I really am from the South; whether I like it or not, it shaped me in certain ways. I have certain ties.Liberalism needs to understand that that's how people are—that they care about where they come from. They care about things that are passed down in their families. They care about their community ties, and that is perfectly compatible with liberalism and dynamism. But the manifestations of that will change. This is why the great social success story of the past 25 years—this is from a liberal, social point of view—is the story of gay marriage, because it says, yes, gay people are different in certain ways, but they are embedded in families. They want to be embedded in families—not every single one—but in the sense that most people want to be embedded in families. The mere fact that you have a sexual orientation toward the same sex does not mean that you want to leave that all behind; it means you want to have Thanksgiving, and you want to get married, and you want to have kids. And all of that which is part of normal human life since time immemorial can take a slightly different turn and still be compatible with these very ancient, conservative institutions, which, by the way, have taken a zillion different forms over human history.Aaron: Thank you for listening to Reactionary Minds, a project of The UnPopulist. If you want to learn more about the rise of a liberalism and the need to defend a free society, check out theunpopulist.substack.com.Bonus Material: Virginia Postrel, The Future and its EnemiesVirginia Postrel, “Continuity and Change: The case of Maya trajes.” This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theunpopulist.substack.com

Subscribe to Reactionary Minds: Apple Podcasts | SpotifyWelcome to the inaugural episode of Reactionary Minds, a podcast from The UnPopulist that I’ll be hosting every month. This is a show about why some people reject liberalism and what the rest of us can do about it. This first episode is all about introducing the problem Reactionary Minds exists to address. In it, Shikha Dalmia, the editor of The UnPopulist and fellow at the Mercatus Center's Program on Pluralism and Civil Exchange, discusses the biggest challenge of our times: The resurgent threat of populist authoritarianism here and abroad. Every regime has its pathologies and populist demagoguery is the pathology of democracies. The “liberal” in liberal democracies is supposed to keep this genie in the bottle, but now that it is out, can we put it back in?This transcript has been lightly edited and condensed for clarityAaron Ross Powell: Welcome to the show.Shikha Dalmia: Thanks for having me, Aaron.Aaron: What is populism?Shikha: It's a good question, and as you've noticed, the name of my newsletter is The UnPopulist, and its addressed at the authoritarian currents we are seeing around the world. Then the question arises why am I calling it The UnPopulist and not the anti-authoritarian or something like that? Partly, because it's cuter, but the more serious reason is that the kind of illiberalism and the kind of authoritarianism we are seeing around the world has what is essentially a populist element.Now there's a lot of confusion around the word populism, and there is actually a great deal of effort on the left to try and take back this word which it thinks has been unfairly characterized in the last six years with the rise of the Trump era and the MAGA era. I, in some ways, feel for some of the left-wing writers, like Thomas Frank who's a public intellectual and an author and something of a Bernie Sanders progressive. He wrote a book not too long ago defending the term populism because he sees populism as essentially a movement of the people. Roger Cohen, a New York Times columnist, similarly wrote in 2018, shortly after Trump, where he also was lamenting the fact that the term populism has acquired this negative connotation.Now, I actually feel for some of these liberals because, as you and I know, we are still grieving the loss of the term liberal. However, I think they fundamentally misunderstand what populism really means and why it has a bad connotation.To some extent, it's a semantic issue, you can give any phenomenon any name, but populism, for the longest time has had a bad odor. They [Frank et al] see populism as essentially a popular movement that is supposed to do the most good for the most people, and those most people are not the rich people. They are generally lower or middle-income people who are the vast majority of the population.But that's not what populism really is. It's not a popular movement. A populist movement, if you read the literature on it, which admittedly is murky, it's about pitting the “real” people against some other entity, and that entity is the elites. The elites are considered to be these corrupt oligarchs, and the people are supposed to be something pure, representing something good.There is instantly this division between the elite, which controls “the establishment,” and the pure people whose interests are being avoided. Now, even that exactly doesn't capture the problem with the term populism. The term populism gets its bad odor from the fact that it's not just that the real people are trying to get their way and have their preferred policies enacted, it is more that they want to flatten certain elements of liberalism, the deliberative process, the representative process, because they believe it's been captured by some bad people, by The Establishment which is not representing them.It's an effort to flatten certain institutions of liberalism, not improve them, not reform them, but simply to either side step them or do an end-run around them, or even just get rid of them so that the real people can have their will.Now, obviously, the real people can't govern. There are too many of them, somebody has to govern for them. So in some senses populist and authoritarian seem like anti-poles. But inevitably they come together because whenever you have a populist movement some authoritarian figure or demagogue arises who will say they're representing the people. And we saw very clearly with Trump, we the people became me the people…they are not representing the people, they are the people. Populism inevitably goes hand-in-hand with a certain kind of authoritarianism, and so therefore, the term unpopulist and therefore why populism is something to be worried about.Aaron: I think that's one of the interesting things about watching the rise of populism in the U.S over the last five or six or seven years, has been that it's framed as an anti-elite movement and “drain the swamp” is an anti-elite thing. We're constantly hearing about these coastal cities where these out-of-touch elites who don't understand the real people are. The real Americans in this context really just means rural working class whites. But then you look at their leadership and it is fantastically wealthy, though we don't know quite how wealthy [in Trump’s case], because his finances are a little sketchy, but a fantastically wealthy businessman.Then in Congress the figureheads for this movement, or at least people trying to claim that mantle, tend to be Ivy league law school educated, pretenders to the common-man identity. You're right, it is this odd thing what begins as a movement framing itself as of the people turns into a personality cult that's no longer about the people's identity, it’s about the people building their identity through fealty to this strong-man leader, which is then how it can very quickly turn into an authoritarian movement, because either that leader's power when he has to do something is seen as absolute, because he's the embodiment of our hopes and dreams and cultural identity, or when that leader's position is threatened, as we saw when Trump lost the election, it can morph quickly into violence in defense of that leader's status. Not so much the working class or the common man status, but defending that leader from perceived failure.Shikha: That's right. Now, populism can be of both the left wing and the right wing varieties, and we have seen them throughout history. Latin America has had populism of every strain. In every instance it has led to the cult of the personality, but there are two things in populism. There is a cult of personality, which is the leader, and then there is a cult of the people too. There is a certain deification of the people that they are true owners of the society, their will needs to be respected.The two, the cult of the leader and the cult of the people, build on each other, they both deify each other. Whether it is Hugo Chavez, whether it is Bolsonaro right now. The Bolsonaro is interesting and he's losing some of his popularity, but Trump is a classic phenomenon of a cult leader, of a demagogue who is leading in the name of the real people, and then the real people deify him. He really was a deity in certain MAGA circles, and he in turn deifies them in his rallies.If you watched some of his rallies, which I tried to avoid as much as possible, but he was constantly flattering the people there. It was, "You people are great, and you are being ignored." Yes, there is this mutual cult of the leader and the cult of the people that goes hand-in-hand in a populist movement.Nomenclature and TaxonomyAaron: I want to stay for a moment on our terms and taxonomies, because the purpose of this show, ultimately, is not just to critique illiberal and populist ideas, but to try to understand them, to try to understand where these people are coming from, what the philosophies and personality traits and historical perspectives that inform them because it's hard to challenge ideas without understanding them deeply and, to the extent you can, fairly.We've talked about what populism is, but this show is not called the authoritarian mind, it's not called the populist mind, it is called Reactionary Minds. Where does the term reactionary fit into all this?Shikha: Aaron, this is your show! You and I both talked about why we like Reactionary Minds. I'll give you my side and perhaps you can say something about why you like it. The textbook definition of reactionary is a person or a sensibility that is opposed to economic or political liberalization of any kind. Usually, it goes along with a certain conservative mentality.I think there's another element to the reactionary sensibility, and that is, it is also anti-ideas, and it's anti-intellectual. The reason is ideas and intellectual theories can lead to change. They require a certain amount of openness to the world and to knowledge, and those can be intensely threatening to existing cultural orders. In that sense, reactionary minds, I think, is a good way to describe the show because you and I are both quite troubled and perturbed by the last six years.Things are happening in America that we never thought would be possible. We think that there needs to be some kind of a response to this, but we can't really fight these ideologies unless we understand them. We do want to understand the reactionary movement that's brewing in America on its own terms. That's the reason I like the term reactionary minds.Aaron: Yes, I agree with all that. What I would add is, I think that you can make the case that political ideology, moral ideology, and so on is, to some extent, downstream of personality, that we tend to have different personal and personality preferences, and then we sometimes look around for theories or intellectual edifices that provide structure to them or support them or don't really challenge them.In that regard, reactionary it is a personality type that says I am turned off by, sometimes threatened by diversity, by change, by things being different than the way that I'm used to, or people who aren't like me being more prominent than they used to be, or higher status than they used to be, or the way we talk about language is changing and that bugs me, and I don't like these kids asking me to use different pronouns or different terminology. There is this set-in-my-ways-ness that drives a lot of this.It's not an accident that Trump when he was first running for president, he led with anti-immigration, with a xenophobic perspective and a nationalism that was the corollary of that, because for a lot of his most faithful followers, it's “America is looking different than either the way I was used to it being, or the way that I imagined it being, or the way that I would like it to look demographic.”On the far fringes of the populace, we get the Great Replacement Theory about they're trying to change the demographics of the country to make it less white than it used to be. There is this very “I don't like difference” and then reacting strongly against that, then that feeds into political preferences, which is, "I'm going to vote for the person who will stop the change, whether that's preventing immigrants who don't look and talk like me from coming into the country, or will elevate the status of the people who have the same preferences I do against the people with the diverse preferences that I dislike."That's another thing that I want to dig into on the show is the way that there is such a thing, I think, as a populist or an authoritarian or reactionary psychology as well. There are ideas that inform it, but there's also just beliefs and values and attitudes and they end up mixing together into this very toxic political outcome. That was the attraction to me of the reactionary minds, because it gets both the notion that this is an ideological perspective, but also that this is just an attitudinal perspective.Shikha: Right. That's very well stated, Aaron. I would, however, push back just slightly in that we do want to make a distinction between the conservative mind and the reactionary mind. Bill Buckley's very famous statement when he launched the National Review was he wants to stand athwart history screaming or yelling stop. There is a way in which, even though I am not a conservative, never have been, never will be, I can understand the urge to be careful about change and reform, and to be a little deliberative. You don't want to simply throw out existing social arrangements just because some fad has taken hold of the land.There is a way in which the conservatives, even though I'm not a conservative, they can be incrementalists, but not completely opposed to reform. Reactionaries, I think, is conservatism on steroids in that sense. Reactionaries simply don't want change because they don't like change. Usually, reactionariness is a phenomenon that's associated with conservatism, but to the extent that it's not just any change that reactionaries are opposed to, it's actually liberalism that they are opposed to. To the extent its liberalization they are opposed to, they can even come from the progressive side.Like communists when China liberalized its economy, there were reactionaries in China who wanted the communist order to hold and they didn't want liberalization. In that sense, I like the term reactionary because potentially, it will even capture the leftist reactionaries.Leftist ExcessesAaron: I think that often manifests in the contemporary American left as an intolerance of difference. That is, it's not the same as the intolerance of difference that we see from the right, which is obviously very much there, but rather, the left thinks we have advanced, we have liberalized, so certain behaviors that used to be socially unacceptable are now considered normal, or certain underprivileged groups that used to be underprivileged are now considered no different than everyone else.That liberalization is good. That's the kind of liberalization we want, but there is a tendency among some people on the left to then to be incredibly intolerant not of difference in the political realm. It's one thing to say yes, we should — people who want to re-criminalize gay marriage or gay relationships that's bad, but it's people who themselves in their own lives are not affirmatively supportive of these things need to be stamped out, need to be punished.This often can manifest in the lefts wanting to punish businesses that weren't supportive of gay weddings, baking cakes for gay weddings. The small conservative baker says, "That's against my conscience. I don't want to bake a cake for your wedding." In a genuinely liberal society the answer to that is, "Okay." Like, "I will go somewhere else and get a cake from somewhere else and no harm, no foul."The liberalism that manifests on the left is like, "No." It's not enough that you are just saying, "Hey, I don't want to participate." You have to participate and embrace, or we are going to, in this case, try to use the state to punish you, to destroy your business, to find you, to drive you out, because you're not one of us. That ends up with this ratcheting up of the reactionariness because then what that says to the people who are more culturally conservative is, "I need to dig in even deeper because if the culture drifts in a more liberal direction, that's even more ground for me to be punished often with state force. I need to fight even harder because  I won't be tolerated.Shikha: That's exactly the dynamic we are in right now. The problem with the left is that it's too impatient and, to some extent, one can understand its impatience. I think systemic injustices are prevalent, systemic racism is a thing! We all do need to grapple with legacies of slavery, Jim Crow, all of that is correct. But the left doesn't want to do the real hard work of changing hearts and minds. It wants to grab power nodes and exercise and push on them to engineer change.It's not just the levers of the state that they are using, it's also the levers of corporate power and what have you. Not all of [these tactics] are illicit. Some of them are perfectly acceptable. Certain kinds of boycotts against views clearly beyond the pale are probably acceptable. But they have lost the capacity of making distinctions between good-natured fear of what they are asking for — and a reactionary fear, I guess.It's this lack of calibration and this lack of finesse in their techniques, which is a big problem. This, in some ways, is driving a more reactionary attitude on the part of the conservatives, bringing out their worst tendencies.But I actually don't want to simply blame the left . I think the conservatives always wanted — there was a certain kind of conservative mind that was always uncomfortable with certain social changes, gay marriage, what have you. They've also been looking for a pretext to dig in. I think to some extent, the left is giving them a pretext [by its excesses]. It's not a reason, it's a pretext for their reactionariness. It's hard to untangle all of this, I admit, but all these currents are right now with us.Aaron: At their core they're all ultimately a rejection of genuine liberalism, which is if nothing else, it is a belief in a social tolerance and social pluralism. If we're going to live together in a big society, commonly governed, we have to get along with each other. The way that you get along with each other given our diversity of viewpoints and values and preferences and backgrounds and so on is to tolerate difference. To say: "I'm going to let you live the way that you want to live and I'm going to live the way that I want to live. Even if I'm not celebrating the choices that you make, I'm accepting them as part of this liberal consensus."So much of what we're seeing now seems to be a rejection of that liberal consensus of saying, "No, it's not just that I think I am right in… All of us think we're right in our own preferences and values or we wouldn't hold them. It's not just that, it's saying, Therefore, anyone who differs from my preferences and values is wrong and is wrong to an extent that they are dangerous or a threat or impure, or in some other way, need to be, whether it's with the state or other mechanisms, need to be shut down, excluded, punished so that we can have a higher degree of uniformity that happens to align with my preferences.Shikha: When Obama became president he was against gay marriage. He was against all kinds of pro-gay policies, and then, of course, during the course of his presidency he changed his mind. I wonder if there is any room for Obama in the current left. Room for evolution of thinking.Now I think Obama was always there and he was holding back for strategic reasons, which turned out to actually be not bad reasons. You can see the growing intolerance of the left in that it's not just being censorious against the right, but it's also being censorious toward its own. That’s why, in a way, I'm a little less worried about the left, because the left, in its demand for purity and consistency, in a way is becoming less united and is at that stage of devouring its own.The left is now generating healthy pushback. I actually think if Trump had not arrived on the horizon, there was so much concern within the left about the left that right now we would be in a much better position with respect to the left. But with Trump arriving on the scene, I feel myself pivoting. I think there is no bigger threat in this country than the right because it has become so completely not just reactionary, but authoritarian and illiberal in 30 different ways that I've had to drop my attention on the left and now right is the big problem.Before Trump arrived, I remember Vox, very much a progressive publication, had published a piece by a liberal professor saying something to the effect, "My liberal students terrify me." This piece went on to say that conservative students his class, this was a professor who's in a liberal arts college, who said the conservative students in his class will push back, might not like his ideas, but are still willing to discuss them. Liberal students were not willing to do that.Now what we are seeing on the other hand is that the right is no longer simply pushing back against what were legitimately called left-wing excesses. It wants to just crush them. Now you are seeing bills banning the teaching of critical race theory. That's where the reactionariness comes in. This is no longer now about calibrating the pace of the change, it's not about that. Now we are only going to impose our vision from like 200 years ago. Now it’s in a completely different orbit.The Roots of Modern Day Right-Wing PopulistsAaron: We talked about Trumpism as exemplary of the kind of populism that we are concerned about, but is Trump the major figure, or who are the other figures that are important to understand when looking at the lay of the land on American populism, left or right, the main, I guess, influencers, as the kids say?Shikha: Well, populism in America, depending upon how you use the term, has a long history. The first populist movement was the People's Party in 1890, which was a third party. It was this agrarian movement and labor movement against the industrialization that was happening. In the building of the railroads, lots of people were dispossessed; traditional livelihoods were lost. That is generally regarded as the first populist movement in this country. It got co-opted by the Democratic Party, which became the labor union party. The People's Party put it's a lot behind William Bryan Jennings. When he lost the election that year, it spelled the end of that party, but it got co-opted by Democrats.You've seen certain other populist movements arguably whether George Wallace, he was a populist phenomenon, very much appealing to the same kinds of anxieties that Trump now appeals to. In between, you had The Tea Party movement, you also had the Occupy Wall Street movement.The difference is that the Tea Party, I think, was the beginning of the turn towards MAGAism. Although interestingly, the Tea Party movement was very much pitching itself as this constitutional movement. It wanted to return to the Founders. It wanted to limit the scope of the government, all of which went out of the window when Trump came along.I think Trump is not sui generis. Partly, the Tea Party is behind him but partly, I think we had the phenomenon of right-wing radio with the advent of Rush Limbaugh who started pushing all kinds of populist tropes. He was a nativist. He was anti-left. The preoccupation with the leftist enemy is a huge, huge part of the right, right now. I think that's the single biggest motivating force. Even the anti-immigration and the anti-immigrant animus is not quite as powerful a force as the fear and anger and the hatred of the left, actually.I think Rush Limbaugh started stoking that, and then you had a whole slew of copycats on the right. That paved the way for Trump. The right was primed for a populist takeover, and then Trump came along with his MAGA message and at that stage, all the right wanted to do was use the levers of the state to smash the left and impose its vision of a insular, insulated, closed America polity.Aaron: This isn't new, even with Trump, even with Rush Limbaugh, this is what we watched in the '50s and '60s with anti-communism, was the Soviet Union was a legitimate threat, although maybe in retrospect, not as big of a threat as we thought it was at the time. There were communists in the country, although they weren't going to win out. America was not going to turn communist, but they did exist, and communism was very bad.The American right used that as a way to exert the power of the federal government to punish particularly culturally left people or people who were calling for liberalization of the positions of Blacks or gays or women and so on. That the urge to define an enemy and then use a potentially an inflated threat of that enemy — or mischaracterizations of that enemy or strawman version of that enemy — to justify a reactionary turn is very strong.A moment ago we were talking about Trump and you said had Trump not come along the left would have fractured more than it did. What's interesting about Trump is that he unified both the right and the left into these deeply tribally opposed camps. For decades, the conservative movement was split between — there was the base that looked very much like Trumpism does now. The conservative right’s reactionary base has been around as long as there has been a right. But you had the elites, the Bill Buckley types or the Ronald Reagan or the Paul Ryan who controlled the GOP and pushed it in a more, if not liberal, at least more liberal-adjacent on its best days direction.That went away with Trump and suddenly the elites all either swore fealty, or at least shut up about their criticisms of the really reactionary right. And then on the left, you had exactly that, that the left, those fault lines went away because we had a unified enemy. Trump won't be around forever, and so there's a sense in which that potentially gives a way out when that enemy has gone away.There are other people like what DeSantis is doing in Florida right now, he's clearly trying to tee himself up as the inheritor of the Trump mantel. But it's questionable whether any of the people trying to do that have Trump's — I'm going to call it — charisma, but a lot of people think of it as such, but Trump's showmanship. There's something about him and his celebrity and all of that that made him successful in the way that someone who had just spouted the same views probably would not have been. Is there cause for hope there that if the populist leader goes away, then the sides will become more pluralistic than they are now?MAGA’s Ugly Progeny: Integralists and NationalistsShikha: It's a good question. No, I'm actually not optimistic about that. Look, what Trump did was he didn't really unite the Republican Party, what he did was he united a certain element within the Republican Party, and the rest of those who didn't agree with him were either purged — Paul Ryan didn't last a year after Trump came on the scene — or became persona non grata within the party.That's actually a classic populist move. It's not just that they don't respect parliamentary institutions and they don't respect the opposition, they actually turn their own party into an embodiment of themselves, and you've seen that with Trump. It's literally classic populism. In that sense, I think he's been hugely damaging to the Republican Party in a way that I'm not sure the Republican Party can recover from it for a very long time. Or at least I think it has to be in the political wilderness for a very long time. It has to be punished at the polls repeatedly before it will give up this populist formula.I think even though there may not be a charismatic figure like Trump, and the reason I was laughing when you said charismatic, because I know to you and me, he's just so utterly not charismatic. It's hard for us to see his appeal, but there'll be other populists who will try and copy him. They may not be successful, but their very presence is going to be damaging. That's one.The bigger danger of Trump is not Trump but Trumpism. Trumpism is essentially an illiberal mindset that doesn't respect the checks on executive power. It gives various factions within the conservative right, therefore, the permission to use the levers of the state to promote their own vision. You've written about this, the integralist movement. Why is that emerging now? The national conservative movement, why is that emerging now?He's actually fractured whatever little uneasy fusion/consensus there was in the right and allowed these illiberal monster children of MAGAism now to assert themselves. I actually think things are going to get much worse before they get better.Aaron: Let's turn briefly to the integralist movement and the national conservatism movement which somehow overlap but are distinct in other ways because they represent an interesting move on the part of the conservative elite to try to take on the energy of Trump's populism, but intellectualize it too because, Trumpism is basically all id.There's not an intellectual philosophical through-line there, but the national conservatives and the integralist are saying, "No, there is a philosophical case against liberalism, that liberalism has failed for reasons inherent to it, and that we need to embrace non-liberal, well thought out philosophical positions." If Trump is spouting id, the integralists and the national conservatives have legitimately thoughtful and often interesting thinkers articulating these views in ways that are I think they're wrong and I think they're often dangerously wrong, but they're not stupid and they're worth wrestling with.It is interesting watching these very elites. These are law professors and philosophy professors and theologians trying to take this energy and reapply the intellectual veneer that used to exist with Buckley, the National Review but was shed under Trump.Shikha: The difference between Buckley and the [Adrian] Vermeules of the day is that Buckley was still trying to promote a certain conservatism within a broadly liberal framework and a broadly liberal understanding. He agreed that checks and balances were a good thing, checks on executive power were a good thing. All of that is now out of the window with these new movements.Discontents with liberalism are always there because liberalism is an uneasy equilibrium between all kinds of different interests that don't comfortably fit together. Minorities are not happy with liberalism because liberalism doesn't give them the levers of power to instantly correct all the injustices against them. They are always unhappy. Of course, the majority is unhappy because, especially in a liberal democratic society, if pure majoritarian rule were to exist, it would get its way far more frequently.Everybody is always unhappy with liberalism. But there has always been this understanding there that life on the other side of liberalism is nasty, brutish, and short, so we better stick with liberalism. That consensus that liberalism may be wanting, but there is no other real alternative, that understanding is completely gone because some people have come to believe, thanks to Trump's assault on liberalism, that they can have the whole cake.The integralists, and you wrote great stuff about this — integralists, as you've pointed out, are a really weird movement because they're Catholics, they are actually a minority, and integralists within Catholicism are a really small minority, so why would you want to give up liberalism? The answer is that they think that any conservative state will give them more of what they want than they'll get from a liberal state.Ultimately, even a reactionary like Trump will give them more than anybody else will. Hence they have turned on liberalism because they feel they're getting less out of it. Every faction within conservatism I think is making a similar bet. You have national conservatism, which is a very, very diverse movement. You have Yoram Hazony who's an Israeli intellectual, who's the godfather of this movement, weirdly enough. You also have standard nationalists who just feel like there should be more flag-waving in the United States. You have somebody like Rich Lowry, who was actually [initially] a Never Trumper, and now feels that there needs to be some kind of America First-ism in America. He's flirting with something like blood and soil nationalism based on geography and ancestry. That will rule me out as a robust American citizen, I'm not sure about you. Geography it means Americans need to love the landscape of this country. The Shenandoah Valley is something that every American should do a pilgrimage to. It's all goofy stuff. They all feel whatever was missing in the liberal arrangement in America now they feel it's up for grabs, and they're all trying to make a bid for it very quickly to get what they can.Aaron: In the time that we have left, I want to turn to the future of this podcast. This is the inaugural episode of Reactionary Minds, we plan to do a lot more of these. Our goals, why we created this show, and what we're hoping to get out of it. I can start on this one. I touched on this a bit earlier, but I think my goal is this rise of liberalism is really troubling. As someone who has dedicated his career to advancing a quite radical conception of individual and economic liberty and individual autonomy and self-authorship, this is a direct assault on the values that not only I hold, but I think are the ones that lead to the best world for everyone.This has always been with us, but it has ramped up considerably. We're seeing some of it on the left, we are seeing one of the two major parties, more or less, entirely overtaken by it. We have seen it embodied in a president, we are seeing an increasing number of intellectuals come out in support of it in one form or another. This is a real threat. The value of a show like this is in trying to understand where that's all coming from, and what it is the people who hold these views actually want, why they want it? What are the ideas that are leading them to it or providing support for it?I don't want this to be a superficial understanding or a dismissive or they're all just evil kind of way because that's easy and ultimately uninteresting. My goal is to really try to understand them on their own terms and then to critique it from the perspective of the value of radical liberty.Shikha: That's exactly right, Aaron. That's why I'm excited that you are doing this. I think this is going to be a great podcast. As you've said, the plan is to understand this illiberalism and its appeal at every level, psychological, social, political. I'm sure you will be having guests that address all of it. Marxism makes this distinction between theory and praxis. You and I, we both have a penchant for an intellectual understanding of things. We like to understand things at a theoretical level, it's almost an end in itself. But in this case, we cannot fight this phenomenon without actually understanding it. [On the praxis side], The UnPopulist is not going to shy away calling the right reactionary and taking on specific political figures who are behaving in an illiberal fashion. It’s not going to shy away from taking sides. We know what we are opposing. But to me the theory of Reactionary Minds is going to inform the praxis of The UnPopulist. So there is a yin and yang here that I’m super excited about. I really look forward to this. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theunpopulist.substack.com

Welcome back to Artbeat Radio! You're listening to our 100th episode! We started in 2012, posting about one episode a year. In September of 2020, quarantine inspired us to find a way to interact more with our greater community. Unable to go on community outings or leave our homes, we decided it was time to post on a weekly basis to maintain our connection. Listen in as we share our favorite moments, our hopes for the future, and interview one another on our accomplishments!  Thanks for listening and tune in next time! For more information about our organization, please visit our website www.ableartswork.org  Audio Transcription: (Please listen on Podomatic or Spotify to view the full transcript) *Intro music by Artbeat Radio staff*  Music, stories, and more! You're listening to Artbeat Radio, a program of Able ARTS Work. Stephanie: Hello and welcome to Artbeat Radio! My name is Stephanie! This is our 100th podcast episode. Wow, that is crazy. Our 100th episode! Looks like we made it! Thank you for listening to our podcast. Hope you like the episode. Alison: Okay, now I remember there was one time when we were doing something and it didn't turn out right and somebody dropped a box. I don't know what was in the box but somebody accidentally dropped a box and then in class somebody got the words backwards. Like they accidentally screwed up the words and that was my favorite part. Brian: Well, I loved Katie Jo also. Interviewed her about her country music and she actually performed for us live. My favorite was interviewing the guy who played Spiderman. He was really interesting. Eric: Guess what folx, the interview with spiderman will be available as of next week! Brian: Stephanie. Stephanie: Yes? Brian: What podcast did you enjoy? Stephanie: I liked “Summer Sounds” because it was really upbeat and it was really nice and I also like that I have my professional headphones. I would like, in the future, to meet my goal, which is to be a person on the radio but talk about my play, which is going to be awesome. Hey Renee. Renee: Yes? Stephanie: What's your favorite part of the podcast? Renee: I loved interviewing Spider-man, Ricky because we have a lot in common and are the same age. Brian: Yeah, I really enjoyed the interview with Ricky Mena, who played Spiderman. Stephanie: I think the interview with Julianna and Matthew was my favorite. And I just like podcast because I just like it. I like it because I get to produce the episode about my play. That's why. My goal is to be on a radio station and be the head podcast talker and to talk about my musical and my jewelry business. And that's going to be fun. Go podcast class! Brian: What I love about working with KLBP a lot is getting my voice heard. Getting my thoughts across. To have some of my thoughts that I have not illustrated before and that's very important to me. It's a terrific radio station to air what we've learned. Tim: Well, I like the guests that we have and then talking about our program and sharing all our details. I enjoyed interviewing our staff and then others from- different staff from different sites and music instructors. I like the most about it how we come together as one. Alison: This is our 100th episode! Well, what do you think of it? Stephanie: I think that it's amazing so far. Alison: I didn't think we'd go this far. Stephanie: I know right? Brian: Aaron, what do you think about the 100th podcast episode? Aaron: I like it. Brian: Did you think that we would make it this far? Aaron: Yes. Brian: It's a real honor to interview you, Aaron. Stephanie? Stephanie: Yes, Brian? Brian: What do you think of the 100th episode? Stephanie: I think it's cool. Brian: Did you think that we would make it this far? Stephanie: No! That's crazy, Brian! Brian: Yeah! Stephanie: Wow. Brian: I'm-I'm with you. I can't imagine that we're up to the 100th. Stephanie: We gotta' keep going. It'll be 101! Brian: Yeah! *laughs* and maybe 102, 3, 4, 5 and so on. *laughter* Stephanie: How do you like this class? Brian: I love it. So much so that I took it last semester and I'm taking it this semester. I can't remember if I took it the semester before. Stephanie: Yeah. Brian: How do you like this podcast? Stephanie: I think it's great! I like- I like my first- I like my classes this year. They're fun! Renee: How long have you been on the podcast, Stephanie? Stephanie: Um...not very long but I think I like it. How long have you been in podcast? Renee: I'm not sure. I just started *laughs* Stephanie: Just started? Renee: Yeah. Stephanie: I wanna keep working on podcast! Renee: Me too! Stephanie: Sorry, I'm just stoked! I'm so sorry *laughter* Artbeat Radio was created in 2012 at the TAP II location in Gardena California. Brian: Here's a clip of our first podcast!  *Dead Man's Bones cover plays softly behind voices* Alison: This was made in 2012. This was the first podcast of Artbeat Radio. it was posted on October 18th 2012. *Dead Man's Bones cover plays louder* *Song fades out* Stephanie: I thought it was awesome. The way that it was presented and the way that they were singing. Brian: I liked it! Alison: It was beautiful. I think the song was great considering it was our first one. Brian: Hope you enjoyed our 100th episode! Have a wonderful day and thank you for listening to our podcast.  Stephanie: Thank you! Renee: Thank you for listening and thank you for coming. Have a beautiful and wonderful day. Brian: Here's to 100 more episodes! Thank you very much ladies and germs. *laughter* Renee: Gentlemen! Stephanie: That's so funny, Brian! Renee: I like that Brian: Thank you! Renee: “germs” that's so funny! I like that *laughter* *Outro music by Artbeat Radio staff*  We hope you enjoyed this episode of Artbeat Radio. For more information, please go to our website. Ableartswork.org. Thanks for listening and tune in next time!  

Todd Riccio, Realtor and longtime Investor from California, discusses how he became interested in the Memphis real estate market and offers his experiences over the years of real estate investing and management of rental properties here in Memphis, TN. Find out more about this real estate investing podcast at: https://epmrealestate.com/podcast/california-based-realtor--investor-on-investment-real-estate--property-management-in-memphis-tn   Aaron: Today on the podcast, we have Todd Riccio. He is a longtime investor with Enterprise Property Management and EPM Real Estate, and we're going to talk a little bit about how he has become interested in the Memphis real estate market and maybe even tips and bits of wisdom that Todd has had over the years investing here in Memphis. Todd, you have been an investor with Enterprise Property Management for six years. Is that right? Todd: Yeah, six years.  Aaron: It's been a fast six years, right? Like, you really got in at a great time. Todd: I remember flying out to you, man. Well, I flew out to you and said, look, my goal is to get 40 to 50 properties. I want to get at least one to two a year, and you said right now, when we spoke, you said it's the equivalent of California's 2009, and six years later, you are pretty accurate, man. You know what I mean?  Aaron: Yeah. Todd: Because the prices have gone up and the properties that I first bought on Ross Road and stuff like that, that was like $105,000, probably like 250 right now. Just real estate agent out here in California. Obviously, prices make it extremely hard for me to build a portfolio out here. When the average house in Memphis, that would be 120,000, out there would probably be about 700,000 out here. So I knew that kind of branching outside of California would be the best option for me to accomplish my goals of having a portfolio that brings me $50,000, $60,000 a month when I get older. That's the goal right there. That's my 401K. That's my pension. That's my retirement, all these properties. Aaron: Do you remember what brought your attention to Memphis originally? Like what caused you to look over in our direction? Todd: I always did a bunch of research. I was going to seminars. I'm always looking for passive income, and Memphis was at that time one of the cities that would always pop up in different websites of best cities to buy rental properties, and Memphis popped up. Boise popped up, Indianapolis popped up, and Fort Lauderdale popped up. I think Scottsdale popped up, but Memphis was one that always consistently kind of popped up to me. Personally, I don't like the Panhandle States. I don't like Florida. Every time you turn on the news, Florida is getting a Hurricane. They're getting flooded. All this other stuff. There's Hurricanes. There's tornadoes. So Memphis was super stable. I remember when I spoke to you, you said, look, Memphis is pretty much an established metropolis. It's gone through its growth stage, and it's pulled backstage. You got Amazon headquarters there. You got Nike, it's growing. They're putting money back into the community. You got the Amazon fulfillment center. You got Shelby Farms. You got all this stuff. So it was kind of one of those cities that have already been established. It's not like an up-and-coming one, and I just felt comfortable. I felt comfortable with you guys. I felt comfortable because I actually flew out and me flying out and checking out the different neighborhoods is just one more piece of info gathering and due diligence, and ever since then, I'm comfortable with the knowledge, and I kind of think that that's kind of one of the things that I respect you on is there's times where I've said, hey, Aaron, what about this area, and you're like, look, I don't even think we could get a roofer out there because the neighborhood is not the best or anything like that, and you need that as an investor because it's not just about numbers, oh, this is a quadplex or a fourplex at this price, and the return is good. You need someone that's boots on the ground. That's, like, you probably want to like, from what you're looking for Todd, this isn't the neighborhood that you would express to me that you wanted or anything like that. I appreciate that info, and I think I'm comfortable after the first couple of them to get in my kind of system now, my numbers and my algorithms and everything, you know what I'm looking for and stuff like that. So it just seems to be working, and if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Aaron: Yeah, well, one of the things about working with you that I wish that other investors and other clients of mine would adopt is you do have a very decisive approach to investment real estate. You understand exactly what it is that you're looking for. I think that you had a really good start to your run. We bought some single-level homes in established neighborhoods that were built in the 90s, I believe, and you and I discussed this. We discussed in Memphis, what generation or what age of construction is really good for investments in an ongoing manner here, and so you and I talked about how, like we here in Memphis, if you live in Memphis, if you've lived in Memphis for a long time, if you do real estate in Memphis, especially, we have a term out here that we use called new construction or newer construction, and so what does that mean to us? Well, new construction basically means anything to me, at least, anything that's the late 80s or newer, and why is that different? Well, it's different because the technologies that we're putting into houses as we were building them back then are more durable. We're not dealing with poisonous building materials such as asbestos or lead. We're not dealing with shoddy electrical lines, like aluminum wiring that you found a lot in the 80s or late 70s all the way up into the early 80s. You're not dealing with things like I don't know… Todd: Asbestos. Aaron: Right, as asbestos. There's a type of plumbing material that the Dow Oil company produced. I think it's called polybutyrol or something like that, which is known to burst. It's like early Pex, and so if anybody knows what PEX is, we improved. We improved code and zoning, and these areas of newer construction are also in neighborhoods that are still highly desired by owner-occupants. And so Memphis being a wonderful town for investment, you can still get in and buy just like you have an investment property, which is right next door to someone who was on their property for anywhere from ten to 30 years, and you want to live next door or an own investment property next door to that guy you don't want to buy in neighborhoods that are all investment properties. You might as well buy a condominium or an apartment if you want to do something like that. But you've been very smart. You're like, where is the value? Right. So I've really appreciated you for that, and then the other thing that I love working with you on is you and I will often get in and we'll talk about a property and it'll get down to $10,000 or $20,000 difference in the price of the negotiation, especially in the last two years. You'll tell me, you'll say, Aaron, I feel like this is overpriced by 20 grand. What do you think, and I'll be like, yeah, I think it is. Your ability to walk away from a contract that's being negotiated and just say, you know what? I didn't like, what I saw, that the deck or the roof looks weird or that skylight looks like it's going to need repair. It's always going to be a problem. I'm just going to walk away. But we know that buyers can use that inspection as an excuse to walk away from something where they don't feel like now that they know the house better, they don't feel like they're getting a good deal, and you're very fast to point that out and say, you know what? I'm just going to pull the plug and walk away, and I love that about you. It's really good. Todd: Yeah, and the thing is, I'm on property number six and all other five of them that I've gone into contract. I've closed on because I'm also, like, a realist too of, like, look, at the end of the day, it's one-time fixes and stuff like that. But I think also having experience with the five other properties becoming more and more anticipatory of, like, I know that I'm going to get a letter from you guys saying, like, hey, the fence is shot or this that and the other thing and being in this industry, being in the real estate industry for so long, too, I'm all about preventative stuff and pro-activeness and stuff. So very rarely do I ever cancel. But this one I think I was like, look, it's probably like 15K, 16K, 17K to get it even rent ready, and after talking to a couple of agents, they think that it might slow down in November. I don't know if that's true or not, but around Thanksgiving time because I'm always hungry, too to get a minimum of one to two a year. So I'm still on the prowl of getting it. But it has to make sense as well, and the thing is, I've narrowed it down to a single story because me and water after being in this industry, water does not do well with houses and having a second floor. I just get nervous about water leaks through the ceiling and stuff. So single-story brick house for the maintenance, two-car garage, because I just value storage and stuff like that a usable yard, all that stuff where I'm sure other properties would do just as good. But this is just what I feel comfortable with, because you and I always have that conversation I'm like, look, Aaron, I know the rental market is very active right now, and properties are renting pretty quick, but I want the properties that no matter what the rental market is, if it's slow, if it's fast, if it's quick, what properties are going to be in the top 10% to rent out? I don't want the black sheep. I don't want the white elephant. I don't want the ones where in the time where the rental market is good, it gets rented out. But then when it's not good, we're sitting there and stuff like that. So I'm going to pay a little bit extra to be like, look, it's cool to have the two-car garage and storage when it's snowing and stuff like that. It's cool to have the brick and single-story because that's desirable and stuff like that. It's cool to have a yard because they barbecue and have their kids play outside and stuff. So that's also something that I value, as well as your opinion of this is going to be a very active one, no matter what the rental market is as opposed to on the lower end of it when the rental market does slow down. Aaron: Which it's funny that you should bring that up. So earlier, Todd, you had briefly touched on the fact that there will eventually be a slowdown in the rental market, and I know that your philosophy is obviously to make sure that you have just operable properties that aren't going to require. They don't require a lot from the renter. For instance, in order to move into their relatively simple, relatively basic layouts. There are all kinds of very specific preferences that you have that I think really head off these larger maintenance costs. That's really smart, and I agree with you. I want to go back and talk about storage for a second, at least a one-car garage man. For years you and I have talked about we'll look at a property. You'll say this one came up, the money looks good, and every single property that you send me has at least a one-car garage, which is very, very smart. In Memphis, Memphis is a very typical city of a million people more or less, and so in an urban setting or even a suburban setting that has urban tendencies or an urban demographic, you're going to have foot traffic, you're going to have petty crime, and so having an open carport in a city like Memphis is not a good idea. You know, like in Memphis, you need a garage for the door that shuts, and so you can keep your outside stuff outside, but also in an enclosed area that's secured. So another point that I would make to any investor that's looking to purchase property in Memphis is this if the house that you're looking for or if the house that you find that doesn't have a garage is $10,000, $15,000, or $20,000 cheaper than the house with a garage by the house with a garage. From a rental standpoint, it will always stand out to the renter. We have a great house on the market right now. It's a three-bedroom, two-bath. It's less than ten years old. It has a beautiful brick and French country facade. It was one of the last French country houses that were built here, and it has no covered parking and that it has no garage, obviously, and that poor house is just sitting out there and nobody wants it because they can't like, where are you going to store your stuff? Todd: Yeah, I kind of base it, even though California and Memphis are different markets, price point-wise. Human psychology, I think, is the same, and I think that after hearing clients out here, garages are huge because even if you're not going to park your car in there, people always have more stuff than they have room and stuff. So it's just having the options. I remember when I first started looking six years ago. There were some properties in central Memphis that have the laundry area outside in the carport area, and I'm like, Look, I don't want that either, because I relate that to the equivalent of houses out here having laundry in the garage, and sometimes when I hear people going when I'm showing buyers around like, oh, I don't want to go to the garage for laundry. I want it in the house. I just associate that with the same thing with Memphis, like, who wants to go out when it's snowing to get clean underwear from your dryer when it's 20 degrees out and stuff like that. So I just basically take my knowledge here and say what's the most desirable and the most desirable is going to be a two-car garage. Its single story is going to cater to not only the younger people that want to, but it's also going to cater to older people that don't want to climb stairs or anything like that. So single story. It's cool because it caters to more people having a yard to just stretch your legs out and stuff and not feel crammed to have kids play around and stuff and then again, the brick facade where there's not wood rot and damage and termites and all that stuff. So I just basically take whatever my knowledge is here and just transferred over to the Memphis properties, because again, at the end of the day, people want the same stuff just as people don't want to go in the garage in California. I'm sure people don't want to go out in the cold in Memphis and stuff, and so we can have an indoor laundry and they could park their car in the garage and walk-in their house with direct access and stuff like that. All that stuff is going to be desirable in my mind for the long term. Aaron: So there was a time when you and I were looking at these possible purchases, and we found several you would find, especially back in 2015 or so, and you would find four or five comparable in a certain area, and you would say, I'm looking at all of these. Which one of these do you think would be the most reliable? You know, which one of these do you feel like is going to bring the highest rent and obviously be the most attractive on the market, and we used to thumb through a Rolodex of houses that were possible purchases. I know that those purchases have probably become limited as you look in the Memphis marketplace right now. Can you kind of compare markets? Let's even say from 2019 to now, like, what is the difference to an investor when you're looking at the marketplace now versus two years ago? Todd: Well, I mean, the one thing that two years ago, I think that the good properties and stuff like that from what I saw two years ago, something would go like maybe 5000 over the asking. So if it's listed at like, 149, because up till last year, it seemed like $150,000 was like the ceiling of what these properties could yield that would fit what I'm looking for. But over the past couple of years, it seemed like 150 now is kind of the minimum, and it's kind of surpassed that. So I saw the prices increase. But another thing I've seen is whereas two years ago where if a property was like 149, it would sell for 156 or 155 and go 50. 00, 60. 00 over, and stuff like that where I just wrote an offer on another property and the highest offer with multiple offers was $30,000 over the asking price, and that just blew my mind because I was like, Are you kidding me? That's 20% over the asking price and stuff like that. So that's something that is new to me that I've seen is buyers in the Memphis market are aggressively going over asking, whereas a couple of years ago, they might go over asking, but it would be five, six grand, seven grand, maybe eight, nine grand, but not 30 grand. That was just unheard of or anything. So that's the one thing I've seen. But given that my background is real estate, I also have strategies that I could separate myself to where I can call the shots. For instance, when I wrote the offer, I was like, look, remove the appraisal contingency. I get it. I understand the terms, and I was like, put an escalation clause in which says I'll pay 33,000 over the highest verifiable offer and stuff like that, and that's where the listing agent came back and said, hey, we haven't offered 30,000 over the asking price, and I said, I'm out, you know what I mean? But it gave me the opportunity to know what I needed to be at as opposed to the listing agent. Just saying, oh, you didn't get it. We chose someone else. So there's different strategies that I use here that I use there that really stand out to the seller. And that escalation clause is great, because why not have a seller get 3000 more dollars with no appraisal contingency and stuff like that? So, again, if I could separate myself and write a more aggressive offer, I'm in the know of the risk and rewards and stuff like that. But it's all little strategies here and there that at least put you in the running to see if you want it at that price.  Aaron: Well, do you put a cap on your escalation clause? Todd: I don't because I could just walk away, like when the person said we had 30,000 over the asking price. I'm like, I'm out. But the thing is, I've seen when you put a cap, they know exactly where you're at, and so they know exactly where your cap is, and you could tell it. Say, I put offer 150 with a 3000 escalation up to 160 if someone comes in at 162, I'll never hear about it. So it's like, I'd rather not put a cap, and if an offer comes in at 161, they might say, hey, we had an offer of 161. You want to come in at 164. So I don't want to lose the house over two or three grand or anything like that. But when you put a cap in, you're kind of putting a ceiling on your place. So I would rather have no ceiling, and that also makes it difficult for the listing agent to know exactly where you're at because if you put a cap on it, the listing agent knows exactly what you're willing to come up to. If you put no cap, he's kind of flying blind to what he's advising the other buyer's agents of where my offers are. Aaron: So how are you financing your deals right now? Todd: I'm financing it with my own cash, 25% down. So $150,000 property probably takes about 30 GS, probably 35 with closing costs and stuff like that. So 35 grand gets another property. Aaron: So you got, I assume, a line of credit, or are you doing individual mortgages on each property, individual mortgages. So having said that and I know you're probably going conventional and not FHA, and so you don't have to deal with all of the federal requirements for houses to close. And then you've got repair addendums, and you've got all these other things that you have to deal with an FHA loan that you don't have to deal with conventional. So now we know you're fantasy game does appraisal matter to you? Todd: It does to a certain point. I think that I'm experienced enough to look at a property, look at what's sold around it, and kind of have a pretty good idea of where this thing is going to appraise that. So like the one that I was just talking about earlier, the one that came in 30,000 over. I'm out of that one. But if they came in 5000 over 6000 over and stuff like that, I'm not too concerned about it. I mean, even if it doesn't appraise by a couple of $1,000, I understand you have to pay to play and stuff like that, and at the end of the day, if it costs me a couple of thousand extra Bucks out of pocket, it's not a scarcity mindset. It's an abundance mindset, and I already know that I'm going to make the money back tenfold with just having another property because my main thing is keeping my momentum going and keep growing the portfolio and pushing myself to keep adding to and keep adding to it. I think I'm a good mix between looking at the numbers and being number conscious and stuff, but then also understanding that this is a good property. It's a good property. It's in a good area. If I have to pay an extra two, three, $4,000 to get it. It's the name of the game. I already know that I'll make it back and stuff like that in the next month with all the other incomes I have coming in and stuff, and it gets me one property closer to my goal of financial freedom and stuff. So it's just taking the abundance mindset and not the scarcity mindset because if you're dealing with the scarcity mindset and anything in life, you're always going to be hesitant and pulling the trigger and stuff, and it's just one of those things were being in this industry has really helped me out making these decisions and stuff, because again, I deal with a bunch of buyers out here where they find the property of their dreams, and they're scared to do a couple of thousand bucks, but they're paying 3,000 bucks a month in rent and it's like, look, just bite the bullet and just take a leap of faith and stuff like that. So if it matches everything and it's single-story with a two-car garage and it's upgraded because then I also look at okay, say, I don't get a house as upgraded. Is this what's the cost of the rent-ready one and that's like the other one I canceled on earlier this year. It's like by the time the fence around the whole perimeter was done cutting back the bushes, getting the wood trim of the deck repair, and stuff like that, as opposed to getting a property that's completely upgraded and spending an extra three or four or $5,000 because it didn't appraise but not really putting any money into because it's completely upgraded. I can quickly do the pros and cons and the risk and reward of that. Aaron: And the one that we were talking about may have only been a month ago. I'm not sure. Todd: Yeah, it was in September. Aaron: Yes, it was Southeast Memphis is where we were looking, and that house had zero updates. It was really disappointing, and you were really smart to pull out of that one. I mean, just updating a home in $2019. You're looking at $10,000-$15,000. We've got delays now we've got supply chain interruptions. I don't think we've necessarily seen the effects of the Hurricanes in the New Orleans area affect us as badly as we thought was going to happen. But we had a Hurricane come through about a month ago and it hit the Glidden paint factory. Hopefully, I can say that on-air and not have any issues. But the Glidden paint factory basically had stockpiled paint, as they always do, and the base paint and primer and things like that. But basically, the Hurricane flooded the entire factory, and they said, look, we can ship out what we've got and we can ship the base solution out to other refineries and paint makers so that they can finish the base product and move that out. But they were talking about a 30 to 45-day retrofit, and so we were going to have paint shortages and all of the lows and all the Home Depot and all these stores, my painters, a lot of my painters. They just stockpiled paint. They just said we're a Glidden company. We're going to buy up this paint and we're going to make sure that we have some in case there's a shortage so that they could continue to work through the winter. So anyway, that's just a random thing that's happening here in the south. We know what you like and we know what you've purchased. How do you foresee the changes in the marketplace if we take the whole foreclosure opportunity out of there, and I think that's something that you and I really need to investigate at a different time. But what are you looking at now? Because we know what was on the market. That was really great. That was rehabbed before. We know what's currently on the market, which really is not upgraded without a huge premium, and to ask and we know that you're not going to overpay and I respect that. I'm not going to overpay either. I'm not going to do it. I'll pay above a little bit for the joy of owning it and operating it and say, okay, I've got my one or my two for this year, but I'm not going to waste 50 grand just for the opportunity cost. That's not a good opportunity cost. Did you buy one this year already? Do we have one under your belt? Todd: Not this year. I'm going to be aggressively looking around November. November and the last two years. I've closed in December of that year. So like last year I closed December 31, and then I think the year before that I closed right around Thanksgiving and stuff like that. So I'm going to be aggressively looking in the next two or three weeks to be looking again, picking up my one for the year and then continuing to just push and push and push and even exploring the multi-units with you and stuff like that. So just always be open to pulling the trigger if the right property comes along. Aaron: That's cool. Just so that, you know, Glenn has got a couple in the bag right now. That just came across today, like in the last 2 hours, and they're both Cordova. Todd: Yeah, for sure, man. Aaron: Yeah, and that's exciting because we don't get Cordova a lot anymore. But these two, they're slightly distressed, just marginally. I would say 2% distressed, and that two to 4%, and of the value of the house itself, I would say, is cosmetic. So that's cool, and that's just proof right there to anybody listening. There's always an opportunity out there. If you're willing to have a conversation, right, you've got to be open to having conversations with people. You cannot do this on your own. When you listen to Todd and me talk right now, you're listening to two Realtors, and so earlier in our conversation, Todd was talking about how not trusting your realtor can get you into a lot of trouble. Realtors go through a lot of education. We go through a lot of continuing education. Being the principal broker of enterprise, property management, and EPM real estate, I have to take so much more education than even my agents. I have to constantly be paying attention to the news that comes down from our local state real estate Association and from the National Association of Realtors, and really know what's going on. Your realtor is being paid a Commission for their performance. Todd is a performer. There's no question, and he looks for a similar performance with us. Even though our markets are completely different. He asks me very high-end questions, high-level questions that he is asked as a realtor every day. He wants to know as the buyer, what am I getting myself into? What's my risk here? What do you think about this? What's your opinion? What would your experience suggest would be the proper course of action at this time? And then he relies on the information, my feedback, and my insight in order to make his decision, and I love the fact that he faces a lot of his decisions based on what I convey to him, not just his gut. So that's just so, so important. Listen to your realtor. There's a reason why you've hired them. So anyway, just to sort of ask you a couple of questions just to kind of wrap up where we are, and it's been a great conversation with you. Your fingers are on the pulse of what's happening in California, and I think California is kind of a leader in what happens in real estate. Really in the rest of the United States. You guys are sort of on the top end of fluctuations in the national real estate market. What happens in California often informs, the rest of the country as to where the real estate market is headed. You got some weird stuff going on over there like you were talking about earlier, very inventive insightful, imaginative solutions to real estate transactions, lots of technology, the rest of the country, though, like, if you stay away from the coasts, we still deal with hands-on. Right. Like, we want to go to the property, Glenn that we were talking about before. A lot of my agents will meet the neighbors. My wife, who just became an agent, by the way, four months ago, was at a property two days ago, and she was with the buyer who had flown in from New Jersey, and they were looking through the property and who would come out except for the neighbor. Right. So they met the neighbor and they got to ask those questions, right? Like, really important questions. What's your experience here? What would you do differently? What do you think about this property that you're next door to, or do you think they're asking too much? What would you do with this as a rental if you were to own it? Is it going to bother you to have a rental next door? What are your expectations of the community and of the tenant that leases here, and so a lot of that's going on? So back to my question again, when you consider your own business next year, and you also consider your investment business, what are the changes that you see happening in 2022 that you are aware of that you're going to be maybe shifting gears a little bit in order to respond to, and then how does that affect your investment outlook for 2022? Todd: I just think that there are so many moving parts right now that's all the statistical previous historical data. I think it goes out the window. We have a pandemic going on. You have inflation talk. You have the stock market talk, interest rate talk, Treasury bond talk, jobless talk. You got the borders that are going crazy around the country. You got other countries that are going crazy. So it's one of those things where I just put my head down. I just put my head down and do everything I can and just do better than the year before that and not really sway. I always think of Warren Buffett, where he said, when everyone scared, you go head first and stuff like that and that's kind of what I've been doing even in the stock market right now, like, all the stock of inflation and this that and the other thing I've just been continuing to buy and just continuing to buy and continuing to buy stock and properties I feel like are going to be in the future very productive and stuff like that. I'm getting into electric vehicle materials, raw materials. I'm getting into cannabis stocks. I'm getting into Carnival Cruise Line and United Airlines and Royal Caribbean and cell phone towers because of the 5G with electric cars and stuff. So it's just basically doing you and not really letting outside factors get in the way because there's times where I've seen time and time again people that I spoke to in my career five years ago, six years ago, two years ago, like, oh, the market is still going to dip. So I'm waiting here and they're trying to time the market, and they said that four years ago, I remember I spoke to a tenant four years ago and I was like, look, man, get in, and he was so Gung-Ho that he was getting a good deal on his rental, whereas just say the market value is like $2,000. He was getting charged, like, 1600, and he felt like he was winning the Lotto because he wasn't paying market rent, and that hindered him to buy a property because he was looking at the perfect property and this and the other thing and that didn't come along, and then all of a sudden, another year goes on and that and then nothing came, and then another year. Before you know it, if you would have bought four years ago, he would have had, like, 200 grand equity in this property and stuff like that, and you fast forward, and he's still been renting, no tax write-offs. So a lot of people look at outside factors of the market is going to dip in this, and the other thing. I just go with my plan, and my plan is at the end of the day, I want to have 50 properties by the time I retire, and if you really look at real estate, it might go down. You know what I mean? Look at 2009 when everyone thought the world was going to end in California, and then you fast forward to 2020 and they're above water again, and all the people that held onto their house and was okay with the 30 years the fixed rate at that number, paid and paid and paid and now have equity and now are above water, and the world didn't end, and all the people that short sell their house and gave up on it and thought that it didn't make sense to pay a mortgage on an $800,000 house when it's only 600 and they ruined their credit and they paid for rentals and this and the other thing and they're letting outside factors screw them up. It impacts you so much. So I have a big ideology of, like, make a goal and just whatever the factors are just making an educated decision and stuff like that. But I'm not slowing down whatsoever, because I already know that even if I buy a property that's 180 or 190 in Memphis and it goes down a little bit by the time I retire and stuff, I'm not looking at it to sell it. I'm looking at it as investment, passive income. I want to have about 50,000 a month when I retire, coming into me from all my rental incomes and stuff like that. If rent is going to go up over the next 20 years and I'm cool with this payment, and it makes sense now, then I do it. I don't try to time stuff. It's just it's one of those things where there's so many factors with Covid numbers, China defaults of Evergreen, you got the chip shortage, you got inflation, you got interest rates. There's so many factors that you could pick one and be like, this is really going to happen. But if I just do me, I've done that all the time and I lead with what my goals are, and it seems to work out because, at the end of the day, I don't let fear get in the way. I just say, you know, what if I pay this and it goes down because I also have that talk with my buyers and they're like, well, what if the market goes down 30K? I'm like, well, let me ask you this. If you buy a house and it goes up 30K, you're going to sell it and they're like, no, don't sell it. If it goes down 30K, I'm like, you understand that if you're cool with the monthly payment, you're fine. Right? It's like a stock. You could buy Tesla stock or go Bitcoin. Even Bitcoin was 40K, 45k. It went down to, I think last week 30K, and now this week, it's at 65K. So did the people really lose 10K or did they really gain 20K or are they still cool with what they got and only makers or lose money when they sell it and stuff like that? And when I'm buying these properties, I'm not looking to flip these things. I'm looking at my future 50-year-old self, and when I'm 50 and it's 2040 or 2041. I really going to care that I spent 170 on a property that the next year was 160, or am I going to be happy that I got 50 properties and stuff like that and they're all paying for each other and stuff. So it's always coming from a place of abundance and not scarcity, and the people that I've seen live their life on scarcity are the people that don't live a good life. I'll tell you that. Aaron: I think you're right. I think that there are a lot of people that make decisions out of fear, and I was reading an article about whether or not we have a balanced economy or an imbalanced economy, and this article that I read gave a lot of different ideas as to whether or not it was an economy that was based on greed or fear, which are the animal spirits which drive the stock market. Basically, it stated that there was more greed than there was fear, which is a good thing. It's a market that's a little out of balance. It's a little look to the positively expecting that things will be even better, and there's a lot of risks that people are taking out there. But at the same time, there's a lot of cash that people have right now, and we've seen that in California real estate, for sure. As I've said previously, that rip effect has gone all the way down to places like Memphis, Tennessee, Indianapolis, Cedar Rapids, other cities that are very popular for real estate investment. I definitely agree with you. Real estate, to me, is a buy-and-hold venture. I think a lot of people watch HDTV and they think I could flip this house. They watch Chip and Joanna Gaines or The Property Brothers or several new shows out there. I obviously don't watch IGTV because I don't know the name of the new shows, but they've got these new shows out there that are like people that are out there flipping houses and they're making money. My favorite shows are the shows where they do show people that lose money, and then they ask them at the end of the episode, they say, does this change your faith in the market or because you lost money on this deal? Some people get their shirts handed to them and they lose that $30,000 or that $40,000 on a venture that was supposed to make them $100,000, whatever because they tried for the fast money, right? I really appreciate your perspective on real estate, and I will say this one last thing. We have had so many houses sell out of the enterprise property management portfolio over the last two years. I would say it's at least 200 houses that have left in my management portfolio. That is a lot for a property manager to lose in two years. Simultaneously, we have had at least 300 houses come on over the last two years. So there are more people getting in similar to you, Todd, than there are people getting out. That's a big deal. I hope our listeners are hearing that I really appreciate you and your perspective on investment, real estate, and your partnership with all of this, and I am looking forward to working with you as the leaves change color and as they fall, things get cold around here. People do not want to buy so much. I think there's going to be an opportunity here this winter, this fall and winter, and then into next year. It's going to be great. So I really appreciate you coming on with us and sort of sharing some of your energy about investment real estate and how you've applied that here in Memphis. We're grateful to you as an investor and as a friend. Todd: Yeah, man, I appreciate all the insight that you give and it's invaluable, too, because again, the big picture is to have this for my retirement and stuff like that, and you really are the last line of pulling the trigger and stuff like that. Even down to a potential tenant where one of your staff was like, hey, Todd, we got these people and I said, hey, if Aaron's cool with it, I am and you came back and you're like, I'm not really comfortable with this. I value all that because again, what your ideal client is completely different than what California ideal client is, and so I could go and kind of base it on what the ideal California landlord is looking for, and it's going to be different than the Memphis landlord, and so I really value your guys ‘opinion and just the raw truth of it and stuff like that. So, that's all stuff that I appreciate you doing, and I think that we got a good system going on. I'm looking forward to many more purchases. Aaron: I'm grateful for that. Thank you for that. Interestingly. We're seeing the quality of the local Memphis and Southern tenant coming up, which is unbelievable. It's a really good sign of the local economy and the local demographics doing better. They're more successful in their own business ventures and with their education. You had mentioned major corporations which have relocated to Memphis and are now employing more people. That, of course, is going to continue. You and I didn't even have a chance to talk about the Ford F-150 Lightning plant that's coming into the Memphis area. It's a really cool concept. We could talk about it later. Basically, Ford had a plant here in Memphis that built Model T's and Model A's and all kinds of Ford vehicles here in the Memphis area all the way up until 1951. I think they sold at that time, and then now here we are, 70 years later, 75 years later, they're breaking ground. I believe next year on the Ford F-150 Lightning platform, which is all-electric.  Todd: Nice.  Aaron: This is just outside of Memphis, and so it's going to mean lots of great jobs and new housing, housing developments, and stuff like that. So anyway, we're going to walk through that together and see what kind of opportunities are out there. But thanks again for coming on, and I appreciate your insight as well. It's always very informative and helps me to even educate other investors as to how to do things based on your knowledge and your experience. So thanks for coming on.  Todd: Thank you for having me.

* Email Madness! * Email from Scott: Yes to dragon biographies, but also maybe Horrors? * Email from Graham: Windling party is still going! Yes to more dragon stuff! * Email from Leamon: Praise for paths and his growth into the Windmaster. * Email from Lee: Spell Matrix item legend point cost and rank restrictions? * Possibility of paths for Lightbearers, Bodyguard, other secret societies, or the like? * Expansive scenario to illustrate using different perceptive abilities (Perception/Awareness, Astral Sight, Danger Sense, etc.). * Email from Jesse: Yes to dragons. Inclination and ability to release Little Treasures? * Email from Insaniac: Choice paralysis! * Gamemastering Advice Toolbox * Plan scenes, not stories. * Balancing efficiency of prep and player character freedom of action. * Session Zero and setting expectations. * Improvisation and recommendation of book “Improv for Gamers” from Evil Hat. * Knowing your players and what they are likely to do, or how to nudge them (when necessary). * Provide multiple clues, think of multiple ways an obstacle or problem might be dealt with. * Opponent motivations and evil. * Know when to break the rules! * Interweaving storylines. * Email from Relative Dimension Joe: Drakes and Namegiver forms? * Email from Aaron: Yes, more dragon stuff! * Episodes on Horrors or Thera as opposition? * Declaration phase of combat? And some Initiative discussion. Email: edsgpodcast@gmail.com Twitter: @EDSGPodcast Josh on Twitter: @LoreMerchant Dan on Twitter: @boice_voice Get product information, developer blogs, and more at www.fasagames.com FASA Games on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/fasagamesinc FASA Games Discord Channel: https://discord.gg/uuVwS9u Earthdawn Guild Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/earthdawnguild Earthdawn West Marches: https://discord.gg/hhHDtXW

Aaron Mondry is a journalist and salad maven. PAUSING WITH AARON MONDRY. To offer your own advice, call Zak @ 844-935-BEST TRANSCRIPT: ZAK: It's Food Friday. And today, we're gonna discuss a long held, deeply felt belief of mine. You don't need to buy salad dressing. AARON: I take 2 parts oil, 1 part vinegar and put them in a glass jar. A reused jam jar is a great option. And I shake it up. That's the really, really basic blueprint for a salad dressing. But there's lots of ways you can vary it and mix it up and make it interesting and cater it to a slaw, some greens, Asian radishes. Whatever you want. But that's just the basic blueprint. It's so easy. ZAK: Yeah, I love it. What's the vinaigrette that you make the most frequently. AARON: I'd say I do 2 parts olive oil, 1 part lemon juice, fresh squeezed, of course. Finely mice some garlic. Maybe finely mince a shallot or an onion. Just a little bit. Salt. Pepper. G-d just that is so delicious. It's so good. But you can add a teaspoon of mustard, a little bit of yogurt. If you want to get fancy you can add some black garlic if you have any. It takes 5 maybe 10 minutes. It tastes fantastic. It lasts in the fridge forever and it tastes better than any store-bough dressing you can get your hands on. I guarantee it. ZAK: Yeah. I agree. Before I started making my own dressings my fridge would have like a collection of store-bought dressings that would never get finished. And they would just be all coagulate-y and this frees you from that burden. AARON: Yes. Frees up fridge space and impresses friends, strangely. They're like where'd you get this dressing. Oh, I just made it. Really!? ZAK: Yeah, I feel like you just have to do it once and then you'll be doing it yourself. AARON: Yeah. ZAK: You person at home who hasn't made their own dressing yet. AARON: Yeah you. Why haven't you? ZAK: So you do lemon juice and balsamic vinegar? AARON: I'll typically just do lemon juice but there are tons of great vinegar options including balsamic vinegar, rice wine vinegar, red wine vinegar, sherry. They all have their own unique taste obviously but I just like lemon juice the best, I think. ZAK: Our house dressing of late has been olive oil, balsamic vinegar, honey and horseradish mustard. AARON: That sounds really yummy. And thank you for mentioning honey cause it is good to add a little sweetener too cause it can be really sharp without it so some honey or maple syrup will balance it really nicely. ZAK: Yeah. The shaking is also very satisfying I find. AARON: Yeah. Sometimes I'll just take a salad dressing out of the fridge and just shake it and not use it and just put it back. ZAK: Is that true? AARON: No, it's not true. Laughter. But the shaking is satisfying.

FULL SHOW NOTES[INTRO music]0:00:12.0 Aaron: Episode 27: Plan the work, work the plan.0:00:16.2 INTRO: Welcome to the SaaS Venture podcast, sharing the adventure of leading and growing a bootstrap SaaS company. Here are the experiences, challenges, wins, and losses shared in each episode from Aaron Weiche of Leadferno and Darren Shaw of Whitespark. Let's go.[music]0:00:42.3 Aaron: Welcome to the SaaS venture podcast. I'm Aaron.0:00:45.7 Darren: And I'm Darren.0:00:47.7 Aaron: Darren, I wanted to start today with a little bit of an inspirational quote for us in our planning topic. Are you ready? 0:00:55.7 Darren: I'm ready. Let's hear it.0:00:57.0 Aaron: So Eleanor Roosevelt said, "It takes as much energy to wish as it does to plan."0:01:05.1 Darren: It's a solid quote.0:01:07.4 Aaron: I like the positivity of wishing and day-dreaming without the work involved, [chuckle] but I get where she's going.0:01:15.2 Darren: Just take your wishes. They're all running around in your brain. Just write them on paper and you're starting to plan.0:01:21.0 Aaron: There you go. One other note. We are also using video recording for this episode. We're gonna test this out and see. When we watch it back we'll [0:01:33.2] ____ if we're cringy or it's just not something that we want or if it's a good second medium for us to distribute our talks.0:01:44.1 Darren: I think our subscribers are gonna go through the roof. You're so handsome. You're gonna have [chuckle] so many people being like, "Well, I wanna see more of that Aaron Weiche."0:01:54.1 Aaron: I'm pretty sure there's not enough of a filter to combat that to make that come true, but it sounds good. All right, well, hey, it's been almost two months since we recorded an episode. I'm definitely to blame on that. I've been super heads down with some things, which we'll talk about my side of planning work and working the plan, but how have things been? Are there any changes in your life in the last two months during the pandemic? 0:02:22.8 Darren: No. Pandemic-wise, it's all the same over here. Nothing really has changed. No one's gotten vaccinated in my immediate family yet, so it's all same stuff here. Busy with work. You're definitely not all to blame. I have been heads down on a bunch of stuff as well, and so I haven't sparked a podcast conversation, but yeah, what's new at Whitespark? Let's see. We launched actually a really big update to our Local Rank Tracker. It's not the kind of thing that has much impact customer-facing, but we've rebuilt the whole thing in our standard tech stack. It used to be on Angular, and now we've switched our front-end JavaScript framework to View, which has many positive impacts for us. We're able to iterate on it much faster. The software is more organized, and so it really opens us up to quicker feature releases on our Rank Tracker, so I'm excited about that.0:03:25.8 Aaron: Nice.0:03:26.8 Darren: We are finally about to pull the trigger on our new account system that I've talked about on the podcast many times, but it's actually happening. And I'm not even gonna say two weeks. It's actually happening in five days on Tuesday. Tuesday is the day that we're gonna pull the trigger, and actually on that day, we've decided we're going to raise the prices of our premier SaaS software, the Local Citation Finder. We're doing a big price increase on that, that I've been talking you a lot about, Aaron. I'm excited about that. I think there's great potential there. I feel like it's long overdue. We've had the same price of that software since we launched it 10 years ago. I've never increased prices, so it's long overdue. I feel like we're just gonna flip the switch and be just all of a sudden, we're making a lot more money, which we should've done a long time ago. So I'm excited about that. And we've got a big new feature to launch. I've talked about this before, I think, on the podcast, which is our citation auditing component that's gonna be integrated into our Local Citation Finder. So that's next on our agenda. That we're gonna be diving deep into that. It's mostly done, but pushing towards launch on that as well, so that's what's new in my world. How is Leadferno going? .0:04:42.9 Aaron: Yeah, well, one, it's great to be public with Leadferno. I think that's the biggest thing in announcing this. Just Monday of this week, I mentioned to you when we were talking before, hitting record earlier today is having this time between leaving GatherUp and just helping wrap up some things there and whatever else and diving head deep into Leadferno, but not really having it in a place where I wanted to promote or talk about it. That was definitely hard. So it was like... In my planning, it's like I had this plan on how I wanted to announce. I wanted to have the marketing website ready, and I wanted to have it to a pretty like, I don't know, full-blown or at a pretty solid part, to be able to build content around and screenshots and specific features. And early in the product and planning, there's a lot of that that you still don't even know how it's gonna end up or come true. You don't have visuals for it, things like that. So that was definitely one part of figuring out how do I make the most out of announcing what it is and driving people to something that actually does a good job of explaining it and all those pieces. So yeah, that was just a huge shift this week in being able to say like, "Here it is. Here's what it's called. Here's the link to it." And be able to socially do that in my professional profiles and my personal profiles. That was awesome.0:06:26.3 Darren: Yeah, I was excited to see the tweet from you and see that you've gone public with it. It's like, "This is the thing. You can check it out now. This is what's coming." So that must be a huge relief and just feel good to get it out there.0:06:41.5 Aaron: Yeah, I was kind of laughing. It checks the boxes on that social high or that dopamine hit you get when your LinkedIn posts and all the congratulations and the comments and the likes and retweets on Twitter and everything else. It's like this fever pitch. I kind of laughed at myself 'cause it's like, "I want that. I need that. I need word to spread on Leadferno and what it is and what it does." But I also felt like one of my teenagers where I'm worried about how many likes are on my TikTok video and things like that. It's like, I was like, "Oh, geez. Don't get caught up in this." But yeah, Monday was definitely just a rush all day long of people reaching out, people I forgot I had in my LinkedIn network where it's like you build these networks of, I don't even know, thousands of people, and then you get something and then you're like, "Oh, who's that? Where did I meet them at?" You go back and recall all of that so.0:07:40.7 Darren: Well, I think you coined the phrase, "LinkedIn is slow Twitter."[chuckle]0:07:46.9 Aaron: Yes. I'm glad you remember that. It totally is.0:07:50.7 Darren: Yeah, it makes some sense. You post something on LinkedIn, it continues to gather likes and comments for weeks, whereas something on Twitter, it disappears within half an hour.0:08:00.9 Aaron: Yeah. No, you're absolutely right. The Twitter steam settled down within 24 hours, and you're exactly like, "I'm still getting messages three days later on everything related to LinkedIn and whatever else." So people can check LinkedIn once a week and feel like they really haven't missed out on too much, where if you're really into Twitter, you're on it every few hours at least, so...0:08:27.2 Darren: Yeah, well, congratulations on going public with your new software, and you got some pilots running too. I'm excited about that. How are those running? 0:08:38.1 Aaron: Yeah, so far so good. I have five pilots up and running. It was definitely hard on me. You have this incomplete product. You know all the things that you want it to do. The vision's there, but you're also rolling out this like, "Hey, it does one-fifth of what it's going to do it in three or four months. Is that good enough for you?" [chuckle]0:09:01.5 Darren: Yeah, you probably get a lot of feedback too where people are like, "Oh, this is great. Can it do this? Can it do that?" And you're like, "Soon, coming. Yeah, we're working on it." [chuckle]0:09:11.3 Aaron: Yeah, so it's great when you get the requests that are in your product road map because that just affirms that the things you thought or what you know to be like feature parity, things like that, are true, but the other part, though, some of the feedback, there's been a handful of things. There's definitely one thing or all the early ones, so it's like, we built it and it's a desktop app only right now and it will be when we launch and then we'll be building our mobile apps right after launch. So with that, really the biggest thing, every time I was doing a demo for a potential pilot user and as they got on it, all had to do with notifications. And it was kind of interesting where it's like, "Yeah, we kinda knew that we built in... We had notifications on our road map, so we fast tracked doing your operating system notifications." You get the little alert that says, "Allow or Block." You allow it. That way, if you just have the window open, you're in a different tab, different browser, whatever else, you're gonna get that notification. But I've learned it's not enough. People have become so dependent on their phone telling them things, so what we're actually looking at doing now is building an SMS notification to fill the gap before we get to apps, so...0:10:35.9 Darren: That's good.0:10:36.5 Aaron: Yeah, yeah. So you'd just be able to drop your own mobile number and your user profile, and it'll just say, "Hey, you have a new lead from Leadferno." That will hopefully be that stop gap until we get an app that has push notifications, and you get your annoying red bubble that you don't want the numbers to go up on.0:10:56.7 Darren: That's perfect. And then at the very least the business owner gets a heads up that there's a new lead, and they can just jump in there and respond to it right away.0:11:03.3 Aaron: Yeah. Absolutely. Other than that, I've been doing Mechanical Turk notifications. I log in to all the pilot accounts, and I see if they have leads in there. And then I send them an email, "You have leads. Do you wanna go in there?" Like, "Oh, we forgot to log in." Working a new piece of software into somebody's routine can be hard and difficult, but yeah, that was one really interesting thing, it was like, "Okay, I just didn't realize how important the notifications were." And that sounds almost silly, but it's like...0:11:37.0 Darren: Makes sense.0:11:38.4 Aaron: My head is around 50 features into V1, but if you don't have this one, then we really... It's just not gonna work for us. We're worried about not meeting customer expectations. We wanna be able to move freely away from our desktop computer. We wanna know these things. So that was definitely a really big win, and then we've just had some other just small things as they're using it like, "Hey, if this expanded when I was typing in, it would be helpful," things like that. So.0:12:10.0 Darren: Can you access the application through a mobile browser? Is it responsive enough that it's functional? 0:12:17.2 Aaron: So we've chosen not to build it responsive, just because we're gonna go straight to mobile apps. The thing that we just didn't feel like a responsive was gonna give us a big enough win for the effort, just for what we talked about, the push notification, just some of the snappiness that you get out of a native app over a responsive site. So we just kinda chose instead of duplicating efforts for something that would maybe get used very little when you have the app as an option, like we're just gonna skip it. And right now, I would love there to be a responsive web design version of it. But six months from now I'll be like, "We have mobile apps. Don't worry about it." So then I won't care, so...0:13:05.4 Darren: Totally. I was only thinking of it as like a temporary stop gap until you actually have mobile versions.0:13:10.7 Aaron: Yeah. And we just looked at it, "Why spend time on that right now when we could just build more features into the core product itself," so...0:13:17.5 Darren: Absolutely. Makes sense. Yeah. Wow, good. It's going well, it sounds like. I know somebody who's running a pilot and they're like, "Man, this thing works too well. I can't keep up with all the leads," So that was great feedback to hear.0:13:31.9 Aaron: Yeah, no, the theory of exposing and marketing that you will text with customers definitely seems to be doing what we thought in opening more conversations. The barrier to starting a conversation for people is so low on text. You're just completely fine texting randomly a new business where having to take the time to make a call and will I get a voicemail or will I get a person or will I get a call tree? Am I gonna ask the right... All of those things is just so much lower, so... Yeah, from what we've seen in our pilots across a very diverse group of business types, and they're all seeing just an increase in conversation starting. It's also just been really interesting, which gets me excited. It's like, "All right, we have these five testers, and we have dozens of conversations happening in a week, but already seeing the differences in how people communicate." And the businesses is what I'm talking about, how the length and their process. Some are using it and immediately jumping into different communication medium. Others are solving it all right in the text conversation. It really gets me excited for the future of like, "Wow, the things that we'll learn as we compile all these conversations for a business to expose what do people care about? What are they asking the most?" Things like that really get me jazzed.0:15:03.8 Darren: Yeah, you think about the sentiment analysis you can do on all that incoming content, that's really interesting.0:15:09.9 Aaron: Yeah, no, totally, for sure. So when I look at that, that gets me excited for planning past the V1. It's like everything right now, I can script for you the next three months to six months, pretty much like almost every move we know we have to make. There's gonna be more things like the notifications that come into play that will be like, "All right, we need to do this, or people are gonna be not happy or frustrated." So we need to solve that, but the fact that there's just so much that has to be in the coming time frame, is just like, holy cow.0:15:53.5 Darren: Yeah, totally. That's almost the way it is with every product. There's just a non-stop stream of things that you can do to make it better. It's a good industry to be in. Speaking of all that stuff and planning that stuff, you wanna get into the topic of the day, planning.0:16:13.8 Aaron: Yeah, absolutely. As it relates to me, this is the first time I had to do planning around a launch of a product. Done plenty of feature launches and things like that, and I already kind of touched a little bit on just planning how to announce it and what was there and what was needed and things like that. But in this too, it was just thinking through like, "Okay, you get the site. You have those elements there. What do you need of those elements? Created some motion graphics for the site, what are all the things that we can round out?" And then after that, it's like, "Okay, putting the site out there, what's kind of our plan? What do we want to have happen? What's the conversion that we want out of it?" So it was mapping out like, "All right, we want people to say, Yeah, send me notifications. We're launching in June, but we'd like to every two or three weeks, send out an email and say, Hey, here's something new that we've just added to it. Here's how things are shaping up. Here's a couple ideas." Like just kind of build that fever pitch so that hopefully there's some people feeling like, "The minute that you will take my money, I will give you my money." That's the hope for sure.0:17:30.9 Darren: You want people to land up at your door with bags of cash.0:17:34.0 Aaron: Yeah, exactly. The next part is we introduced some calls to action for early access. So people who are early adopters who wanna put it to use, we wanna find out who they are and tell us a little bit about you so we can see like, "All right, based on where the product is, would you be a good fit to be a tester? Is it in a business type or a process we haven't served yet where we could learn from it? Will you be a heavy user of features that we already have instead of, Oh, the feature that would really benefit you is one of the last we're gonna build. So I'm not gonna bring you in now and get you frustrated." So that as kind of a pre-launch goal. And then the other one is we're gonna do a partner program with this product. This will probably be one of the most fundamental decisions that I find really interesting, so I decided with Leadferno not to do a white label product, which we had at GatherUp. And a couple of the reasons behind that, the beauty of a white label product is we had a large customer base that are digital marketing agencies and marketers and SEOs, and they resell it. They put their logo on it. They can claim it as their own, and then they can mark it up however they want.0:18:57.0 Aaron: We charge them $50 a month, and they can sell for $100, $200, $300, whatever they want. So those are the pros on it. The cons that I always found that won't be surprising is, one, you're not maintaining double the product, but 25-50%, you're double maintaining a product because how settings work, and how things are accessed, how you name features, you have to keep your brand out of everything, then you have to build materials for your white label people that they can grab and convert to theirs. There's just a whole lot of pieces to it that definitely make it a challenge. And for a lot, it can be worth it. Like for GatherUp, it was definitely worth it for us. We had 400-500 agencies when I left that were reselling our product, and some doing extremely well with it. But I just chose with this one, I wanted to take the route of building a partner program where what our partners, what they have to do is just refer their customers to sign up. They get the benefit of, "Hey, here's a great tool." If we're a web designer, we built you a beautiful site, but let's convert customers to contacting you. That's the ultimate goal.0:20:17.6 Aaron: If we do local search or SEO, we're a digital marketer, we wanna convert that traffic. So this is a great conversion tool. It will allow them... They'll have access so they can see into all of those accounts and see what's happening and grab data and reporting and site conversations so that they can add that to what they're doing on a retainer basis and reporting for that customer. And then also we'll kick them back a percentage of reoccurring revenue. So the downfall is I can't take a $50 product and mark it up to $300, which some have done, but the win is all I have to do is tell them to go look at this. We'll sell them. We'll support them. We'll do all those things. 'Cause the one thing that was probably the most frustrating with a white label product is you build new features, you do all these things, and your resellers just don't know or don't care or don't really have an idea. They don't support the customers as well. It's like you win on the sales side, but you can really lose on the customer experience side.0:21:26.0 Darren: Sure, yeah, actually, I've got two questions about this partner program 'cause it's something that we've been looking at a Whitespark because we currently have some referral partners that send us leads and we don't have a good system. We're currently tracking it manually. Stuff gets lost. It's like someone sends us an email and then we gotta go in and be like, "Oh, make sure that we're giving credit for this person for this referral." And so we've been looking at software solutions, and the more I look at them the more I think, "Wow, they're expensive, and we could easily build our own." So the first question is, are you gonna build your own or are you gonna use some third-party system for managing the referral program? And the second question is, I'm wondering what kind of kick back you're planning to give? 0:22:08.8 Aaron: Yep. So the first one, I'm having a hard enough time building one product. I am not building another product. So [chuckle] I'm gonna use... There's a couple out there. I've watched more than a few Facebook group conversations on things like this. The one that I probably see mentioned the most that I'm probably gonna do the deepest dive in is FirstPromoter. I think based on our needs and what I've read, that's one that I definitely want to investigate. I need to investigate further. I know another founder, Josh Ho. He has a product called Referral Rock. I need to see if that's kind of built the same way as FirstPromoter. I just... I know Josh through online conversations, but I haven't dove into his product as deeply. So I'm gonna find a product that fits the need for us to be able to do that so we can just focus on our core product.0:23:08.5 Darren: Yeah, so I was thinking about this, and it's like, I looked at one called PartnerStack, which Unbounce uses, and it looks really slick, it looks great. But it's $15,000 at the lowest end to $40,000 per year for the high end, and I'm like, "What? That's really expensive." and I don't get the value proposition there because when I think about what my needs are, I need to go into my account system, press a button that says Add New Referral, put in their name, their PayPal email, and it's gonna generate a referral link for them. I give them that link, and then all I have to do is on our website is track the URL parameter, set a cookie, and then on checkout, look for the cookie and record a transaction in our account system if anyone comes through on that cookie. It's actually pretty straight forward, and our team could build it, they're telling me in like... It's a week-ish to build this functionality into our account system.0:24:08.8 Darren: So when I think of it from that perspective, then it's like, "Why wouldn't we just build our own and just have it internally." And then you have to have a page for the referral partner and be able to look how many people came, clicked through on my link, how many people converted, and what is the timeline, what are my kickbacks, what is my next check gonna be. You just need a system like that, so it seems pretty straight forward. And I don't know if it justifies the expense of a third-party tool.0:24:35.3 Aaron: Yeah, my inclination would be I'd do more searching. The pricing on that sounds really steep. Like FirstPromoter, I think is in the $100-a-month range. I think they have some plan variants, but also everything you're describing there and just in building software, like your first blush is like, "Oh yeah, it's just these five things," but then it's like, "Oh, yeah, but these five and these five and these five," and then pretty much then it's a runaway train and I don't know. I'm just hesitant on those. I'm like, "Let's find someone who all they care about is this and let's plug into them, right? They're already plugged into Stripe. They already create the landing pages. They already have all these elements." So like I said, I have enough to do [chuckle] where I'm like, "I'll outsource." If we look at it and like, "Oh, we're only using these three things," then I at least have the experience of using something else and saying, "We could build this better, easier, simpler, that just meets our needs and eliminate that cost," then I'd at least know I'd rather start using something that's there.0:25:45.4 Darren: Sure.0:25:46.5 Aaron: And then head the other route.0:25:47.9 Darren: Yeah, I'll do a little bit more investigating of those two that you mentioned.0:25:51.4 Aaron: Yeah, and then after that, your second question on percentage, I think we'll probably be falling between a 10-15%. This was part of the other thing. Our product most likely, and we're still working completely finalizing, but I would say we're gonna fall between $150 to a $250-a-month product. And in my experience with a lot of agencies, especially the ones that really like the uptake on this product, selling price points is really hard for them. So I looked at it. If we did a white label and say we even discounted the product to, let's say, $100 a month, we could afford to do that for them. They would, because it's already at three figures, I feel like they would price it at $125 anyway. They'd get the same $20 back than if we just did everything else, because they'd be afraid to push those margins higher. Now, some of the really good sales agencies and successful ones like, no, they would probably... They could push it a lot higher and not have a problem with it, but that's just some of the things that I noticed that GatherUp is overwhelmingly a ton of them, just their own price sensitivity and sales.0:27:06.5 Aaron: They're good at their work. They like to do the strategical and tactical things, but selling for a lot of those agencies was really hard. So that's why, I just wanna do it like you make the introduction. We'll make it all happen. You get access. You get data, and you get revenue from it. So I'm hoping that like I said this could be a fatal flaw in my plan. I might be building a white label version of our product six months from now. So...0:27:33.0 Darren: Sure. Yeah, no. I think it sounds like a really good plan to me. I feel the same. Like I'm thinking about our future developments and where we're going, and I don't think we'll ever have a fully white labeled version for many of the challenges that you've already described. It's just so much more to maintain when you do that. I remember white labeling GatherUp and then noticing that the source code references your product. Even some of the class names of your CSS had to be updated, so just so many hassles.0:28:03.4 Aaron: Yeah. No, there is. There is a lot of it that you really have to have in mind when you do it. And it's like when I would talk with our team when we're launching features or things like that. Especially as the brand grew, you worked more like branding things into what you named it and how you created it. And there's just so much where I always looked at... One of our top-three threats all the time was exposing our white label resellers. Like hands down, that was the one thing where I was just always like, "Oh, nothing would be worse than me having 20 emails or 50 emails or 200 emails saying like, You just exposed me as a GatherUp reseller, and I charge four times more than you charge because I'm layering it with a service where like, Oh, what... I'm glad a few times we'd have something small, whatever, and quickly stomp it out or it was only a handful accounts, but that's scary stuff.0:29:03.8 Darren: Yeah. Totally. Well, I like that you're just avoiding that all together, go referral system instead of white label.0:29:09.5 Aaron: Yeah, well, we'll find out. Like I said, that plan might be a bad one. The jury's out on that. We'll see where that one goes. That's one of those, right, where it's like, "I definitely... I feel this way, but I understand this. And it was super successful before, but I don't know, we'll see where I land on that."0:29:31.2 Darren: Yeah, we'll see. I think as a person that has a re-sold product, it's also a lot of work on my end. I would almost prefer the referral system.0:29:41.6 Aaron: Yeah. Yeah, that's my hope. My big question is, is the revenue enough for someone to care because they might not look at your product as like a revenue generator for them. It's like, it's money back in. It adds up. It's worth something, but it's not gonna become a line item on the balance sheet that you really care about unless you have hundreds of customers. I mean, oh man, I hope I have a reseller that's like, "Yeah, sweet. We have 100 accounts that we've brought you." That would be fantastic, so...0:30:15.3 Darren: Yep, and do you pay your resellers... Is your plan, if it's like a percentage, do they get that recurring forever or is it just like for the first six months, the first...0:30:24.0 Aaron: Yeah, we're gonna do recurring for forever, so...0:30:26.4 Darren: Okay.0:30:27.2 Aaron: Yeah, I want it to be a win-win. I actually want it to be a win, win, win. I want the agency to win.0:30:35.4 Darren: Win - win - win.0:30:36.8 Aaron: Yeah, I want the business to win, and I want the consumer to win by loving using our product. When they can text with the business, they win on it. I like this where I was talking to... I was doing a demo with another potential pilot prospect, and he used to be a GatherUp customer and saw what I was doing, and the great thing is he's like, "The beauty of you and Mike... " He's like, "You guys, I never felt like you're out to make money. You were just out to give us a great solution. So I fully trust whatever you're doing on this, and I fully trust whatever price point you set." And I was like, "Oh well, I hope the whole world feels like that, so that sounds good."0:31:14.6 Darren: Yeah, you have implicit trust, everyone that comes over to you.0:31:17.9 Aaron: Yeah. I'm leaving money on the table, but I sleep well at night and I like what the product does, so...0:31:22.6 Darren: Yeah, yeah. Good. What else related to planning? 0:31:27.3 Aaron: Yeah, now that it's like out, now, it's a lot of both planning on the marketing side, how do I keep mentions going and stay in front of people and things like that. Lucky over the years to build contacts. We just had Localogy reached out and did an interview with me. I have a couple of others that lined up, pinging some people and just saying, "Here's an angle. Is it worth mentioning?" To try to keep that going to launch and then use launch as another propulsion. And there's a lot of things that I even joke with our marketing or our product team when they're talking about building something. I'm like, "No, we can wait on that. We can wait. That can come a month after launch." Well, I'm like, "He gives me something newsworthy to talk about and to put out there." So just planning all that out. And then now I'm just starting to focus on the launch plan, and we still have a ton of things to build into the product and just mapping out.0:32:32.2 Aaron: We basically have five sprints to where we wanna hit for our launch date, so it's like we have each of those sprints ratcheted with like, "Here's what we need to do and accomplish in whatever else, and we're really at this point, you're kinda out of room on, "Oh, that can get bumped or at this point, if it falls out of a sprint, it's not gonna be in the product for the V1, which is gonna be a bummer. I look at my list of 20 things right now, and it's like, "I don't wanna live out without any of them at launch, but I'm also... There might be five of them that just aren't gonna make it at launch." So a lot of that planning going on and that plan will probably be re-factored pretty heavily as we move through each sprint, but we'll see what happens.0:33:16.7 Darren: And how do you do the planning? What software systems do you use? How do you communicate this with your team? How do you set up your meetings? How do you lay out this plan and manage to stick to the plan? 0:33:28.9 Aaron: Yeah, so we do all of our sprint planning and development in Clubhouse. My product manager just hates Jira. I think he spent too much of his life in it. So even though Jira is probably the staple that's out there, it's what we used at GatherUp as well, he wanted to use Clubhouse. So that's what we use for that. That's where everything goes into play as far as organizing the sprints and what epics and stories and tasks and everything go into that. For the team, for me, I try to... The less I'm writing things in Clubhouse for me, the better. I try to... That's the weeds for me. I try to stay out of those weeds. I review the stories to keep track of progress. I answer questions when they're needed, but I like to frame things up in just any visual and have done both like Google Slides and also spreadsheets, just to say like, "Here's a high-level view. Here's all of these things." And a lot of times I like to use those and then also match them up for them to understand the business goal side.0:34:39.4 Aaron: I think it's really easy for engineers to be building in a vacuum and not understand the business needs and what goes on publicly and things like that. So helping them understand, "Hey, we need these things done and need to be this far, so we can have pilot testers. And once we have that, we wanna be able to launch and show people the product and have short demo videos and things like that." So it's good to not only have them see the sprints, but like what are the business goals that might be attached to these sprints as far as public launch, how many pilot customers are on the platform, soft launch with some paying customers, all those kind of things with it. So there, I'm pretty, whatever I can pull together fast that is well organized, that shows them and gives them a longer view, helps them see three months out. And how does all this work together? 0:35:39.4 Darren: Yeah, how often do you... Has it been from the genesis of the concept of Leadferno to today. You make these plans, you try to put a structure in place and create the timelines. How often are you sticking to things, or has it been going pretty well? 0:36:00.8 Aaron: No.0:36:00.9 Darren: No.[laughter]0:36:03.5 Aaron: You get all the other challenges in building a team, right, like finding the right people with the right expertise, the right ways to communicate. We can definitely get into this another time, but we hit kind of a road block end of January, February that had to do with our team's expertise with Flutter, and that's what we're using for the front-end SDK format of thing. I don't even know if you can call Flutter a framework or what you call it, but we realized we needed to level up. And so we had to do some changing of our team in relation to Flutter experience, and so that was a big shift that probably just kinda gutted two sprints off us. So we were not only... We weren't moving fast enough to that time because we didn't have the right components, and you're back and forth between, "I'm hopeful this will change," and, "Let's try some of these things and whatever else." And your gut might be telling you something, and then finally, I was just like, "We have to do something, right?"0:37:14.7 Aaron: So yeah, between all that, we just kind of... It's not accurate to say we lost a month. That's how I feel about it, but we had to change guard. We had to hand off information. We had to bring some new people in. Any time you bring new people in, they are also gonna have some ideas, which a lot of times, they're good ones on restructure. "Here's the efficiencies you're missing. Here are some of the things that if I was here from day one, I would have decided different that you're gonna wanna redo this." So it was really hard, and I was super bummed at that point. It would be like, you combine what you're working on isn't public. You can't talk about it at all. You're just in this hole working with development teams and testing and everything else. We weren't at the point of being able to have pilot customers yet. We were trying to do this work to have pilot customers. That was part of it, where it was like, "Man, everything feels like it's just kind of not going right right now, but you just keep working at it and things are getting better."0:38:18.2 Darren: With that big speed bump behind you, are things flowing to plan fairly well since you've kinda caught up from that, that bump? 0:38:28.2 Aaron: Yeah, I feel like it's getting better. We've had to make adjustments. There were things on how we were planning, designing features where we weren't doing a good enough job on it, and so we had to step up our game with how prepared we were ahead of the sprint, how we are creating some of the epics and stories. We're making adjustments there. So yeah, all the stuff is always an evolution, and so you're working hard to how can we constantly be getting better? And you're taking what you feel and what you see and feedback from the team and you're bringing in new expertise. There's just a lot. There's a lot happening at once. And it's like, that's easily the one thing it's like, you come from... I came from a team at GatherUp that our core development team had been together for three years when I left, and there's so much that was in lock step. Things were still hard and difficult and you'd still have misses or holes, whatever else, but so far less just because there's so much trust in the team. They had worked together. They understand the overall direction, a bunch of things like that. And then you jump into something else and you realize you have to rebuild that, and for the first three years at GatherUp, we didn't have it. It took us three years to hit our utopia or our best efficiency within that, and now I'm trying to smash and shrink it into months. [chuckle]0:39:55.2 Darren: Right.0:39:55.8 Aaron: Which is really not possible.0:39:58.8 Darren: No, but I think you are shrinking it, though. It seems like you're moving really fast at Leadferno actually. If you think about how much you've accomplished since you started this, you're progressing pretty zippy, it seems to me.0:40:12.7 Aaron: Yeah, I can tell you personally, the weeks have never flown by faster for me like ever. They are like... I'm like, "What? How is it a weekend?" Then on the weekends, there's no stand-up. I can't see what else got done, [chuckle] anything. It's like, I actually don't want the weekends. I want weekdays. I want stand-ups. I want progress. I wanna test. Man, it's crazy. So anyway, but I threw into our notes. I read a great tweet, and this guy was just sharing something that he had heard. And I reached out to get the pronunciation of his name, and his name is Tobenna Arodiogbu. And he put out this Tweet, and he just said, "Someone once told me it takes about three years to build really great software." And he said, "I kind of agree. The trick is in providing value when your product is merely good and executing every day the right to make it great." And I was just like, "Oh, that's so it." Right? And I'm like, "I'm trying to make great software in six months, and it's not gonna happen. But I need to do well enough where people are like, Yeah, I see where you're going. This is good enough and keep going and we're gonna stay with you."0:41:28.9 Darren: Totally. It's a really good quote. It's like people... You don't wanna take three years to launch your product. Launch it when it's pretty good and it continue to iterate. And actually, this is one of the things that we've actually had a roadblock at Whitespark about is we continue to refine and iterate before, and then we do this massive launch. It took us a year-and-a-half to get this thing out the door, and we're really trying to solve that problem and be like, "No, this is our existing product. We're getting that out of the door." We did it again with our new account system. It's like, "We could have launched this a long time ago if we weren't constantly refining it." And actually the nice thing is that once you get it out the door, all those refinements can come week after week after week, and then you're doing regular updates. You're showing your customers that you're alive and continuing to make the product better, and you have a new marketing push every week. And so that's the cadence that we're trying to get towards where every week we've got some new updates, some new thing that we're pushing live.0:42:35.1 Aaron: Yeah. No, I think you're spot on with that is how can you build and iterate rapidly? I think it's the same thing I was kinda talking about with our team. Like momentum, that's the killer thing. When you have great momentum, it doesn't even matter if it's just constant small steps, but you have momentum. And when we hit our rut, January, February, the momentum was gone. If anything, the momentum was backwards, and that is emotionally tough. It's tactically tough, all of those things. And the same when you get your customers to start feeling that your product has momentum, like, "Hey, every month or every other month or every quarter there's something new," like they feel that momentum. I think that's the key thing to find.0:43:27.9 Darren: Yeah, I see it with ClickUp. So we use ClickUp for some of our project management on our GMB Management Service, and every Friday I get an email from ClickUp. They call it the ClickUpdates 2.75, every time it increments. And they've done, I think, 275 updates. And so every Friday, there is an email that usually covers about three new features in the software, three new things. It's incredible, and that's... I dream of getting to that point, and it doesn't seem impossible. It seems totally within our grasp very soon. As soon as we have new accounts out, we're gonna start iterating on all... 'Cause at Whitespark, we have like five products. So we have so many different things that we're always working on.0:44:14.0 Aaron: Yeah. Well, it gives you a story to tell, and then you can take that story to your customers. That's marketing, and, yeah, ClickUp does a great job. I definitely went on a binge of signing up for any tool with a free trial for researching onboarding processes and things like that. And so I'm still getting a ton of emails, which is great because it helps me understand their messaging, and yeah, ClickUp does... They do a really great job with it.0:44:40.3 Darren: Really good, yeah.0:44:41.0 Aaron: Some of their little animations in their emails and things like that, so yeah, that's definitely a good example.0:44:49.3 Darren: They've got the resources too. I think they got $100 million in funding. [chuckle]0:44:55.2 Aaron: I don't know. It sounds great to have... I would have such a hard... This like Leadferno, we raised a small angel round, so we can scale up a team. And even that still feels hard for me, getting a team of five, six engineers right off the bat. It felt like, "Oh my gosh. That's so much for no income coming in and whatever else." It's like, "Oh, I'm learning, man. I'm baby steps on how to do something that isn't bootstrapped from the start." So...0:45:24.9 Darren: Yeah. [chuckle] Yeah, totally.0:45:28.8 Aaron: Well, cool. I think we've probably worn people out by now. You've worn me out. You just made me answer all the questions today, so...[chuckle]0:45:37.8 Darren: You know what? That's because I'm like the worst planner, so I just basically have to defer to you and be like, "Hey, Aaron, what can you teach me about planning?" So I'm learning as much here as the audience.0:45:48.0 Aaron: Yeah, you're evolving though with it, Shaw, but sooner or later you will be the plan guru, and I'll just take notes from you, so it's all good.0:45:57.9 Darren: Great, well, we'll slate that for March 2022, new episode on planning where I'll lead. I'll give some advice on planning.0:46:06.7 Aaron: You'll hit it before then. I know you will.0:46:08.8 Darren: Okay, great. Great, I appreciate the confidence.0:46:11.3 Aaron: Awesome. Yeah, you bet. All right, well, thanks everyone for joining us. Good to get another episode out. Hopefully we won't let so much time go by until Episode 28, and we'll get back to you. Anything you wanna make note of coming up Darren? 0:46:27.2 Darren: Nah.0:46:28.2 Aaron: Nah? 0:46:28.8 Darren: No. [chuckle] Let's talk about it next time.0:46:30.9 Aaron: Keep doing the things on repeat.0:46:33.1 Darren: Yeah totally.0:46:34.2 Aaron: All right. Well great catching up as always with you Daren, and we'll talk soon. And we'll talk and record soon as well.0:46:41.2 Darren: Yeah within a month. All right thanks, Aaron.0:46:43.7 Aaron: All right thanks take care everybody.0:46:45.7 Darren: Thanks everybody.[OUTRO music]

We want to invite you to take our 31-day parenting prayer challenge. These are made possible in part by our faithful prayer team patrons.  https://marriageaftergod.com/patronjoin today! → Parentingprayerchallenge.com Read The Transcript  [Jennifer] Welcome to the "Marriage After God" podcast. [Aaron] We're your hosts. I'm Aaron. [Jennifer] And I'm Jennifer. [Aaron] We've been married for 14 years. [Jennifer] And we have five young children. [Aaron] We started blogging over 10 years ago, sharing our marriage story in hopes of encouraging other husbands and wives to draw closer to God and closer to each other. [Jennifer] We have authored over 10 books together including our newest book "Marriage After God," the book that inspired us to start this podcast. [Aaron] Marriage after God is a message to remind all of us that God designed marriage with a purpose. [Jennifer] To reflect his love. [Aaron] To be a light in this world. [Jennifer] to work together as a team. [Aaron] Using what he has given us. [Jennifer] To build his kingdom. [Aaron] Our hope is to encourage you along your marriage journey. [Jennifer] As you boldly chase after God together. [Aaron] This is "Marriage After God." Hey everyone, welcome back to the "Marriage After God" podcast. We're in Jennifer Smith, your host- [Aaron] Yeah, we're excited to be back with another episode. [Jennifer] Do you know that we are more than halfway through the season? [Aaron] I know, crazy. It's going by really fast and it feels good. [Jennifer] Yeah. Hope everyone's enjoying it as much as we are. [Aaron] Yeah. [Jennifer] One thing I wanted to share with you guys just starting out the gate here, is took the kids for a walk, we have these really cool parks where we live in central Oregon, and just wide open nature, fresh air flowing river, awesome bridge to walk over, and we got outside. And sometimes it gets hard for me in the wintertime 'cause it's like, I don't know, it's cold. [Aaron] and you did it by yourself, I missed out on it today. [Jennifer] Yeah, usually I make you go along with me, huh? [Aaron] Yeah. [Jennifer] More hands- I was impressed. [Aaron] And I missed it, 'cause I like going on those little adventures with you. [Jennifer] Well, a friend invited me, and it was just really good to get out despite it being cold, and the reason that I'm sharing this with you guys is because this friend of mine just is very enthusiastic and passionate about nature and being outside all the time, and so one of her ways of encouraging me is this challenge she gave me, this piece of paper that said the thousand hour challenge, and there's all these little bubbles that you get to mark off for every hour that you're outside with the kids, and I just thought how wonderful, and so it's been a fun little way of kind of keeping ourselves accountable to being outside every day, and the kids have loved being outside. I mean, they ask for it all the time anyways, so if anyone wants to take up that challenge, it's a thousand hour challenge. [Aaron] How many hours have you done outside? [Jennifer] I don't know, since I started it's been about a week. I think we got in I wanna say nine hours that I'm keeping track of. [Aaron] So I'm outside playing all day out back. So like that counts as like the, towards the hours. It doesn't have to be on an adventure just outside- [Jennifer] It could just be outside. [Aaron] That's cool. [Jennifer] Yeah, so anytime they're outside for an hour, I mark it off. [Aaron] I was actually kind of wondering what that thing on the refrigerator. [Jennifer] Yeah it doesn't really explain much. [Aaron] That's awesome. But I will try and go next time, 'cause it looked like you had a lot of fun. [Jennifer] It was a fun little adventure. Also the reason that I was bringing that up is because some of you may have seen me post on Instagram about it, just random pictures of us being out on our nature walk today. But I'm back on Instagram and that's new. [Aaron] So you're saying everyone should message and say hi to you. [Jennifer] Sure, say hi, pop in and say hi. I was off for pretty much all of January, and I had never taken a break like that from a social media. Like, so hands off, like, I mean, I deleted it from my phone and everything, and it felt really good. And then one day I just decided I missed it. So I came back and at first it felt weird to post, like I didn't know really how to, it felt new again. but I'm back. Do you wanna come see me? Come say hi. [Aaron] Awesome, I just want to invite everyone, if you haven't yet to leave a review today, that'd be awesome. Five star rating, actually doesn't have to be five-star you can get, you can start whatever you want. Five star would be appreciated, but yeah leaving a review or a star rating today would be awesome. If you have done that, we're just so appreciative and it helps the algorithms. We always mention it. So if you take a moment today, we'd really appreciate it. [Jennifer] Another thing that we wanted to offer you is very similar to what you may have heard in the last few episodes kicking off the season, but it's a little bit different. So we've been sharing about the marriage prayer challenge, today we wanna remind you and offer you and invite you to the parenting prayer challenge. And it's essentially the same concept. You can go to parentingprayerchallenge.com and sign up, and you'll get 31 days of prayer prompts to pray over your children. [Aaron] And you can actually choose whether to pray for your son or your daughter or both, if you have both, and it's completely free, and we'd love for you to join that and take that challenge. And you could take it even if you're taking the marriage prayer challenge already. So you can be praying for your spouse and you can be praying for your kids. You should do that today. [Jennifer] Again, that's parentingprayerchallenge.com. [Aaron] So Jennifer, why are we talking about... Just real quick, I know this isn't in the notes, but why are we talking about comforting each other during hard times. When we came up with this list of ideas for episodes? [Jennifer] Yeah, I think we already mentioned that the motivation behind the way we created our list this season was just, how we do every season is what have we been learning about? What have we been doing? What have we been walking through? What's God been teaching us? So partly from that just last year, there were times that you hard times that you comforted me and I comforted you. And it was a kind of relearning opportunity for us in our marriage of what it looks like to go through a hard time and be there for one another. And the other reason is just because I think that if you had, you know, a handful of categories that every marriage deals with, this is probably one, of the top ones where every marriage faces challenges and hardship and trials and hard times, and we get the opportunity as husband and wife to be there for one another. And so I think it's good to what we always say check our hearts or evaluate, you know, where we're at and how we're doing. And so we thought talking about how to comfort each other during hard times, would be inappropriate marriage topic for a marriage podcast. [Aaron] I think so. And it's good for everything, not just your marriage, but I'm just thinking about situations in my life where I needed to be comforted by friends, by my parents. [Jennifer] That's true, we are gonna go into more of just comforting others too. [Aaron] But it's good, especially with how the world's going, and things have just been going on. I think there's plenty of opportunities to be comforted into comfort. And personally, this has been something that's very difficult for me to do to others. [Jennifer] Comforting others or having compassion or empathy toward them? [Aaron] All the above. [Jennifer] Okay, I'm like, just clarify. [Aaron] I don't know why. I couldn't tell you why, but emotional sensitivity has been difficult pretty much my whole life. I don't know why. I feel like the last handful of years I've gotten better at it, I feel like I've been like changing that in me. You could probably attest to this, like going from just always, you know, logical and cold to getting a little bit softer and- [Jennifer] Well, let me encourage you, because I wouldn't say the word cold. I don't think you're a cold guy, I don't think you're a mean guy, I think that you're a very strong guy, and so sometimes some of the weaker ways that we humans walk through get overlooked because- [Aaron] Being very gentle to me, thank you. [Jennifer] I'm being honest. I do think that you... There are plenty of times you've been compassionate or have comforted me or others, I just wouldn't say that you're like that kind of tenderhearted always trying to be there. [Aaron] Yes, it's something that I need to work on for 100% sure. [Jennifer] Okay, let's just stick to the notes here. [Aaron] Yeah, okay. It's something that definitely doesn't come natural to me. I don't know why it is, but it just never really has. Comforting someone in hard times, someone who's going through painful situations, suffering- Like what to do in hard times? [Aaron] That, yeah, not knowing how to be that person for someone. [Jennifer] When you have someone in your life that is going through a hard time, do you automatically get challenged with the thought, like, I don't know what to do for them, or is it more just like this is so uncomfortable and I wanna like... I hope they get better and I'm gonna pray for them move on. Or I don't know. [Aaron] Yeah, I'd say there's a couple of things. Especially if someone who's going through something's not in close proximity to me. And like I said, I've been getting better at this, God's definitely shown stuff to me and highlighted this in me. But if they're not like indirect proximity to me, it's hard for me to like put my mind on them and my heart on them. But when I am in proximity to someone, I'm thinking of like deaths in the family, or, you know, friends going through hard things. [Jennifer] Where I see it. [Aaron] Where I see it and I'm present. And yeah, I think I want to, like, there's this, like I know I should do something, I know I should say something, I know should be a certain way, but I, yeah, I think it's both of those things, but I also feel uncomfortable. So it's something I'm wanting to grow in, and get better, which is why I'm glad we're talking about it, because it's been something that God has been teaching us, teaching me. [Jennifer] Me too. [Aaron] He's used you a lot to teach me, which we'll talk about. [Jennifer] I was just gonna say, marriage is awesome in that those moments where you haven't walked with compassion or comfort, I've been able to share with you how I feel in those moments. You know, if I've felt overlooked, or I felt like maybe you didn't respond to me the way I was hoping you would have in the way that I felt, over the years, you have been responsive to those moments that I've shared that with you. So you have grown in these areas. You might see yourself as not being super great at comforting others, but you have grown a lot since I've known you in this. [Aaron] Yeah, and I wanna grow more, I wanna be better for you at that. But I just know that even with you, there's times that I'm not understanding, or I see a situation differently, or I might be it come off as cold or un compassionate, because I'm just like, Hey, like we can get through this. Maybe I there's been times that I'm- [Jennifer] Quick to fix it. [Aaron] Yeah, like I, I just jumped to- [Jennifer] The solution or like- [Aaron] The solution. And I also think- Moving forward. Just now that I'm thinking about it, I think I get, because I'm uncomfortable with someone going through something, I want them to stop going through it. Like, come on- I see what you're saying. Like stamp out of it. Like let's move past it. Maybe because I don't usually get affected too much. [Jennifer] You're the type that if you're near Aaron and you're going through a hard time, he wants to grab you by the arm and go have a good time, like, come on, let's just go, let's move forward. Like that? [Aaron] Yeah, Sort of. It's like I want you to see it from my point of view. I don't know. And then that's not always right, right? Wrong, that's not right. [Jennifer] And this is what God's teaching you. [Aaron] Yeah, this is what God's teaching me. [Jennifer] That's good. Also, when were talking and explaining that just now, I was just thinking the silence. You know that people say the awkward silence. [Aaron] It's too awkward for me. [Jennifer] Well, yeah. But sometimes when people are sharing that they're going through a hard time, or are suffering or need that person, that friend to comfort them. Yeah, you're quick to say something, you're quick to move or quick to be actionable, because- [Aaron] I wanna give some sort of response. [Jennifer] You want to give a response to them. And so would you say that God is teaching you how to just be still in that moment, and kind of be there with that person? [Aaron] Yeah, well, it's something that we'll talk about in this episode, but it's, there's, I think He's showing me, He's been teaching me how to walk with individuals, because every situation isn't the exact same. I could see things like, this is always how I'm supposed to be, or always what I should say. But every situation is different, and I need to love someone enough to understand them and how they will receive love and comfort. So more of a putting myself in their shoes the specific person, I don't know, I feel like I'm- [Aaron] I know, I feel like we've kind of gone on this tangent of like, let's talk about and focus on Aaron, but we didn't kind of mean for it to go that way, but we'll run with it. [Jennifer] Yeah, I just wanted to bring up that this is a hard thing for me. [Jennifer] You're being honest, that's good. I think this is interesting because I get what you're saying, and I've seen what you're saying play out before with me and with others, just having known you for so long. But there's this other side of you that really is gentle and compassionate and comforting, I've seen it. And I've seen you treat people, everybody has as equal, like you don't put people on pedestals where there's like this person over here that's higher, and this person over here that's lower. Like you've always maintained this equal standing of like value with people, which I think is incredible. And you've also always kind of, I don't know how to say at the same time, you've been there for the underdog. At different times in our life, there has been people that are like hard to get along with, or people are struggling with them and you seem to be able to relate to them and be friendly and be there for them. Does that make sense? [Aaron] It goes back to that, seeing everyone the same. I, well, I do tend to not like knowing that there's someone that's being cast out or downcast or put aside. And so I feel like I gravitate towards those people, but at the same time, I don't treat them any different than I would treat someone else. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] I just, yeah, it is interesting. But that has come into play Now that I think about it, with some of the problems I've had, because like I was saying, treating everyone the same, isn't always... It's good to it's good to view everyone the same, but it doesn't mean I'd respond the same to everyone, or interact the same with everyone, if that makes sense. Especially when it comes to things like comforting, things like suffering, things like pain, something that I may not understand, something I've never gone through. So I feel like it's been opened my eyes to like how to, as Paul put it, be all things to all men so that I might win some. Like that idea of seeing where someone's at and being like, okay, good Lord. What do you, how do you want me to respond to this specific situation with this person? [Jennifer] Right. Well, I feel like we went through quite a bit of just how you engage and interact with people just now, And I don't want it for now. I just don't want it to sound super negative. So just as a reminder to you, Aaron, I have seen you in times where people are suffering an uncomfortable or needing comfort, you've been there. And even in the awkwardness, even in the not knowing what to do or how to respond in that moment, I do try. You do try. And you're really, you're a good friend, and you're a good husband. And I just wanted to remind you that. So without going more into me personally, this topic was meant for everyone. [Jennifer] And I think is the launching pad. [Aaron] Yeah, well It made sense, 'cause I was writing this and I had to start with, hey this is something that is hard for me, but I'm sure it's hard for everyone at different times. But it's also something that we desire ourselves that we ourselves want to be comforted, and as believers, we want to be good at being able to comfort because we can comfort the lost, and that could be an opportunity to bring them to Christ. We can comfort our family and our spouse and our children, and so it's a good tool in our tool belt, as we talk about in our book to all to have. And I think it's something that we should, like you said in the beginning of this, examine our hearts and say okay Lord, how can I... Teach me how to be compassionate and have a heart for the hurting? [ Jennifer] Yeah, and no one's exempt from or immune from having hard times, or facing trials, challenges, suffering. Right, it might look different for each of us, but we all experience it on some level, every marriage does, every individual within that marriage does, people we know friends, family, people who, neighbors. Yeah, everybody faces it in different ways. And I think if we keep our hearts tender, I think tender is such a good word when it comes to being able to comfort one another, I think we'll we'll know what the right thing to do is when those opportunities arise. [Aaron] Isn't it James that says that pretty much promises, we will have trials and tribulations in our life. Like it's a given not just for the believer, but for the world. You can't turn on the TV or go outside or drive down the street without seeing it or even experiencing it. Like there's just going to be trials and challenges and things that are hard. So having an eyes for this and I think you said tenderness is a good word, but like like a softness, like a heart that's ready. [Jennifer] Yeah, well that's good. Yeah. I like that. Before we dive into some of the meat of the message today, I thought it would be fun to answer this question, what is the most comforting thing I have ever done for you? [Aaron] There's been times when I've been really sick and you pamper me. [Jennifer] Pamper. [Aaron] I mean like you- [Jennifer] I call it babying, I baby you. [Aaron] Yeah, there was a time when I had a really bad earache, and I thought my brain was gonna explode. [Jennifer] I remember that, I've never seen you in so much pain, actually. [Aaron] I hadn't ever been in so much pain. But you like held me while I was like like crying on the bed, 'cause it was hurting so bad. [Jennifer] I was a little terrified, I didn't know what to do. [Aaron] Neither did I, it was so bad. But I remember you I prayed for you. [Aaron] Yeah I think of those times when I'm, there is nothing to do, but you just held me or, you know, prayed over me, and so that was the first thing I thought of. [Jennifer] And then I think I said, I think you should go to the doctors or had you already been? [Aaron] I did, I went to the doctors and I got a, some sort of antibiotic but it was like, it got worse after I got back. [Aaron] I remember that, that was intense. [Aaron] So what's the most comforting thing that I've ever done for you? [Jennifer] I'd say like you mentioned a very specific time but I think in general, just when you hold me close, when you pull me into you and hug me and yeah, just hold me. [Aaron] Remind you that I'm still here. [Jennifer] Yeah, that you're very close. I think the second thing is just when I hear you pray over me or for us, that's always encouraging. [Aaron] That's good. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] Some tips for all those listening. [Jennifer] The only thing you need, physical touch and prayer. [Jennifer] I guess we're done. [Aaron] Yeah, let's move on to the... Yeah, now there's some things in scripture we can look at that can give us some I don't know if they're guidelines, but it's encouragement for us in our walk and comforting, learning to comfort our spouse, others. And I just wanted to go through some of those and hopefully it encourages you listening, it encouraged me when I was writing it. So the first thing is for the believer, we're told to comfort each other. [Jennifer] So do it. [Aaron] Right, so this kind of sounds oversimplified but sometimes I feel like we don't think have that responsibility. Or someone else will do that. That's not my job. And I know we've in various seasons, struggled with this. Like someone's going through something and we think to ourselves, no we shouldn't like maybe someone else will, maybe they don't want anyone over there right now. And just kind of questioning whether it's our role to go comfort someone. [Jennifer] Which the hard thing about that is the moment you justify it, or excuse yourself out of the situation, it only takes a fleeting moment to then forget about it. Like, forget that need, forget that that person needs it right then and there. And then when, by the time it comes back around you remember it, the moment has passed, the opportunity has passed, someone else has stepped in, which is good, and we're so grateful for those people that take over when we don't or choose not to, or forgetful but let's not do that. [Aaron] So yeah, the first thing is that we're told- [Jennifer] You said maybe it's over simplified and I just the next word I heard, but under done. So over simplified, under done. [Aaron] It's true. Yeah, because we do, we disqualify ourselves from that ministry, but we're we're told to comfort each other. And I would imagine, not imagine, I would say that the first person that you should be like prone to comfort is your spouse. Right, they're a part of you, you're one with each other. And so if you're not comforting each other you're not comforting yourself. Like if you look at that- [Jennifer] I would definitely say this, I'm trying not to use double negatives. If you're not comforting your spouse, you better not be comforting anybody else because the moment you show others comfort, and that ability and your spouse is sitting over here going what in the world? [Aaron] That's true. [Jennifer] That's so hurtful. And the other part of that is if you guys... We're gonna talk about this in a minute, but you guys should be comforting people as a team, like your marriage, your one, so you be comforting each other first and then step into that space of like being able to comfort others. Sorry, I had to get out of the way. [Aaron] That's good. So second Corinthians 13:11 is where we get this says: "Finally, brothers rejoice, aim for restoration, comfort one another, agree with one another, live in peace, and the God of love and peace will be with you." So if we look at that os piece the God of love and peace will be with you. Do we want that? [Jennifer] Of course. [Aaron] Okay, then let's rejoice, let's aim for restoration, let's comfort one another, agree with one another and live in peace. This is how the brothers in the church, this is a Christians walk, [Jennifer] But this is such a great marriage verse. Like if you just replaced brothers for spouses. [Aaron] Finally spouse's rejoice, aim for restoration. And well, especially if you and your spouse are both believers like this totally applies. And even if you have a spouse that's not a believer, you can still aim for this on your side of the marriage. But we are to comfort one another. That's a, that's a command to us on how we walk. It's part of our job description, not only as husbands and wives, but as Christians, it's our responsibility to do this. So if you've been looking for permission to comfort someone, comfort your spouse, that you are qualified, that you are called to it, here it is. This is a part of your job. [Jennifer] Okay, so, because we're talking, it's kind of a mixed message or not a mixed, but- [Aaron] I love this note, by the way. [Jennifer] How do I say it's all encompassing message today on how to comfort others. So it is inclusive of your spouse and others, right? We need to- [Aaron] Like there is a caveat. [Jennifer] Yeah, we need to clarify that boundaries matter, And I'm saying this from experience being married to your Aaron for 14 years, that we've communicated and agreed upon boundaries that have, I think protected our marriage and protected our unity and our peace within our marriage. So do you wanna speak to that? [Aaron] And what you're talking about is specifically like so taking all of this advice for your spouse is great, and learning as a couple as an individual individual to comfort others is great, but we shouldn't just take that blanket across the board because it would be very dangerous if I got in the habit of personally and individually comforting other women or other people's wives, right? I mean, that was just, that would be wrong. Now, if someone needs to be comforted, what I can do is bring my wife into it with me, or encourage my wife to do it. [Jennifer] Hey, I noticed so-and-so is hurting over here. Have you reached out to them? Have you had a conversation? You know, things like that. And the reason that we bring this up, you guys is because our marriage matters and our relationship is sacred. Aaron and I's right. You would agree that our marriage is 100% special, special. Yeah. I don't know how else to explain that. And I think when you move into comforting others, there is a level of intimacy involved. And I'm not saying the same intimacy as a husband and wife, but emotional intimacy is something that's truly valued among human beings and how we experience life. And so if you're gonna move into that space where you're comforting someone, regardless of what it is like whether it's meeting a need of theirs, or sitting there and listening to some hardship that they're going through, that's something that we should be willing to look at and say, are we making sure that we are within our boundary, right? Just our boundaries is I don't. [Aaron] Our boundary is that I don't. I won't sit ever alone and comfort a hurting woman. I won't do that. And if I did, my wife would know about it immediately. It wouldn't be a secret thing, but that would be, that has never happened. So the, what would happen is I would call you I'd be like, Hey, I think we need to come up. And it sounded really bad. Like we should go pray for them, or you should go see if she needs to talk. And so we were, and the same with my wife, she wouldn't go and sit and have a really deep intimate conversation with someone listening to all of their hurts and the things they're going through alone, she would invite me, or she would tell me like, hey you should really chat with so-and-so, they really need some comfort, they need some, you know, someone to listen. [Jennifer] And we've actually found a really great blessing and benefit in this, and Aaron, you've had some really great conversations with guys who have needed that comfort from another brother and I've had the opportunity to comfort and be comforted by other Christian women. And it's been a good thing. And then together as a couple, we've been able to step into that and, you know minister to other couples and other people. So I just think that boundaries are important. And, and we kind of wanted to talk about it upfront and get it out of the way, because it'll apply to everything else that we're talking about. [Aaron] So we always want to just encourage boundaries and order and that it also encourages you to encourage your spouse to be a minister, to care for others. So working together helps with that, and it's not worth it. So if someone's going through something, just know that there's someone else that can comfort them, if it's not you. So find another sister, brother, "Hey so-and-so could totally use some comforting right now." And so that we protect our marriages. So I thought that was a really good note. Thank you for that. So I just want to give a quick definition of comfort. So comfort is, first of all, it's a verb. [Jennifer] Action. [Aaron] It's something you do, and you do it actively. And it's defined as a state of physical ease and freedom from pain or constraint. So physically comforting someone helping, you know, if they have a broken arm holding their arm up so that they're not in constant pain as a friend of mine, one time put his back out. And I had to take into the to the hospital and I had to like, hold up his whole torso so that he would put any weight on his lower spine. And it was wow. But that, that's what this is talking about is physical comfort. I'm comforting that physical pain with my body. [Jennifer] I'm thinking about labors. I've had the opportunity to be a part of, where you're just trying to help ease that woman going through, that you just helping in any way. Yeah. [Aaron] The other definition is the easing or alleviation of a person's feelings of grief or distress. So that's one, that's common of they're going through something painful emotionally, and you're there for them. And then another one is ease the grief or distress. [Jennifer] Console. To console someone. So that's essentially what comfort is. There's a physical comfort, which again, should be in a safe way with boundaries, but with your spouse like that, like you said, me being near you, holding you, coming to you, touching you you know, embracing you. And so that's what we're talking about when we talk about comfort. [Jennifer] As you're going through these definitions, the word that stood out to me is the word alleviate. And it reminds me of, you know, lifting up kind of like that illustration that you get so good. And I looked up another, you know, the source of synonyms in it, it means to take the edge off. So it's not just solving a problem or making something not painful ever again, that might be where that uncomfortable feeling comes from for you, that you had mentioned earlier. It's like this expectation to help in a way that that we just can't, you know sometimes some hard things won't ever be fixed, but in them we can help take the edge off by gladdening someone's heart reminding them of the good making them laugh or experience joy amidst what they're going through. So I just thought that word alleviate was I dunno, really cool. In normal times there there's plenty of reasons and seasons we go through that bring us to a point where we need to be comforted. I think everybody listening right now it's just like maybe sitting in that space right now saying I need that, you know hopefully our words bring you comfort today. [Aaron] I think a lot of believers right now look at the stuff going on in the world. Yeah. And we desire to be comforted. Like, is it gonna like, what? Like what's going on Lord? And so as believers, also, something to encourage you with is you can comfort because you're comforted. I know it kind of sounds funny but it's it's why we can comfort. That my next point is we are told to comfort but you can comfort because you yourself have been comforted. In 2nd Corinthians 1:3-5 Paul says this: "Blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the father of mercies and God of all comfort." Okay, right there just starts a God of all comfort, "Who comforts us in all our affliction so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God, for as we share abundantly in Christ's sufferings, so through Christ, we share abundantly in comfort too." This is true for every believer. Because no matter what, you're going through, you have the comfort of God on your life because you know that he has saved you by His son Jesus. [Jennifer] Okay, so just real quick, when we were sharing about the definition just a bit ago, a state of physical ease and freedom from pain or constraint. Oh my goodness. This makes me appreciate and just attend a way to salvation that we have in Christ. [Aaron] Right, 'cause no matter what the world or our happens to our bodies, man, does our bodies or just happens through age or disease, that we are comforted with the knowledge and the truth that this isn't it, that we have a new body coming, that we have a new home, that we have a savior, and we're going to have eternity worshiping our father. [Jennifer] So every single one of us have felt broken, shame, unrighteousness, that sin that he set us free from he's given us freedom from that's the comfort that we're talking about. [Aaron] And on top of that, He sent us his us His Holy Spirit who also comforts us. So when we're in the midst of just life, he reminds us of the truth about us. This is something that we dealt with a lot this year, just us thinking about who we are in Christ. And that we're no longer that old man. And that God was, he reminds us like, no, that's not who you are. Hey yes, it feels this way now, but it's not true. Like the Holy spirit has comfort us many times by bringing to remembrance the truth about us. When the lies are making us sad, and feel broken the spirit isolator, he comforts us. And so I just want to encourage you listening that you have that same comfort. The God of all comfort comforts you in all your affliction. And this is why, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted. So we're not comforting out of our perfect situation, we're not comforting out of the fact that we don't have any afflictions. [Jennifer] We're not even comforting out of our own means. So when we're trying to, you know, help comfort someone by providing them something or, you know fulfilling a need for them. It's like, it's not even out of that physical response. It's literally because we've all been comforted by God himself. [Aaron] Right, so the comfort that we give, the comfort that we offer, the comfort that we attempt to walk in is his comfort, right? That's an incredible encouragement, because we can go sit with someone and know that any comfort we could offer, has come from God already in our life and in their life. I also think this is a good place to just say if we struggle with that awkwardness of or being uncomfortable with seeing someone suffering or going through a trial or something hard and the Lord's given us the opportunity to step into that to comfort them. And we don't know what to do. Like Aaron, you said that you've struggled with that. We can pray and we can ask Him and we can say, God, the God of all comfort, can you show me how you want me to comfort for this person right now? I know how you've comforted me, I know you, how you have set me free, you know, how can I do that for this person? [Aaron] That's a good point when there's times that I'm struggling when you're going through something, and I'm like, I have no idea what to do. I'm like, Lord, what do I do? And he brings to remembrance your words. I wish you would just like, hold me, like just come close to me. Which is you don't say that in the moment but you've said it enough. And I'm like, okay. And then I'm thinking to myself, this is hard. Why is this so hard to go? Just sit down right now. Right? [Jennifer] Our flesh will get in the way sometimes. [Aaron] Yeah, a lot. [Aaron] Especially in marriage, but- [Jennifer] All right, here's your third encouragement, Christian, okay, rise up and go to them to be present. What I was just talking about, like I'm sitting across the room or in the other room or like, I'm like, how do I help my wife right now? How do I fix this situation? And the Holy spirit says, go to her. So this is your call. So it's not just that we're told to do it, it's not just that you have the comfort given to you already to comfort others, but it's also you get up and you go, you, you do it. You don't wait for someone to come to you because we might have this thought, well if someone needs comfort they're going to come and ask for it, they're going to come and knock on my door and say, "Hey, I need to talk, I need to sit down and know that you love me, and that you're my friend. And I need to-" [Jennifer] Yeah, 'cause if, that's... Yeah, 'cause if we sit there and we say, I'm just gonna wait until they tell me exactly what they need, what are you off the hook? [Aaron] Well, I mean, this is, what's funny is like do we even do that? Do we go around and tell every single person exactly what we need? No, we don't. [Jennifer] So I'm going even tell you, I want you to read my mind. [Aaron] That's true. But you're in your marriage. I think there should be a lot more communication about this by the way. So if you need comfort, you should go to your spouse if you have it in you and say, I need to be comforted, or I just need you to listen or will you just sit next to me? Like I think... Now that doesn't get you off the hook, husbands if your wife doesn't do that, or wives if your wife or husband, if your wife doesn't do that. [Jennifer] Yeah, I think our hearts should be tender toward one another, and our eyes should be always scanning and seeing where's my spouse at? [Aaron] Right, but it wouldn't hurt for us to communicate more. [Jennifer] True. [Aaron] But we can't expect everyone outside of our marriage to be that way. So we have to have a willingness to get up and go. It's not easy. Here's some stories of this happening. Okay, Genesis 37:35, "All his sons and all his daughters Rose up to comfort him. But he refused to be comforted and said, no I shall go down a shield to my son mourning. Thus, his father wept for him." This is when Joe Joseph's father thought he was dead. And they all, they all rose up and went to him to comfort him. They didn't just sit back and say, "Oh, he's mourning in the other room." Now they got up and they surrounded him. 1st Chronicles, 7:22 "And Ephraim their father mourned many days and his brothers came to comfort him." They didn't comfort from a distance, they didn't sit back, let him go through what he's going through by himself, they got up and they went. [Jennifer] I was gonna offer to read this next verse, but I think I'm going to let you tackle it. [Aaron] Okay. Job 2:11, "Now when job's three friends heard of all this evil that had come upon him, they came each from his own place. Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Namathite, they made an appointment together to come to show him sympathy and comfort him." So this is another really cool thing. Now, if you've read job these friends don't do a great job of comforting, they do actually do a lot of what I would be prone to do saying how would they were wrong or like what they did, but what they do what they did do well is they came together as friends, and they said, "our friend is really going through something bad, we should go." And so this is just a note of sometimes it's appropriate to say, "Hey, we need to get some people together to go comfort this person, so they're not alone, so that they know that we're here for them." Make a little plan about it. Yeah. [Jennifer] That's really cool. The first verse you mentioned it says that he refused to be comforted. And I just had a note that because I think that's very human to reject or to resist comfort. I don't know why we do that, but I think everyone can agree. Maybe everyone that when someone does try to comfort us, sometimes our reaction is to refuse that or to reject it. We shouldn't get upset by this if we're the ones trying to comfort someone or our spouse, we shouldn't let rejection keep us from trying again or even trying with others. Don't let that become an excuse for why you're not continuing on and other opportunities. But I think that it's interesting that it did note that he said that. So I just wanted to make a little- [Aaron] Yeah, but what's awesome is someone can't have the opportunity to reject comfort if someone didn't go to comfort in the first place. [Jennifer] That's true. [ Aaron] I love that, let's not avoid going to someone 'cause we think there's no way they want to right now they wanna be alone, let's just leave them alone. Going to be there even if they reject you, at least- [Jennifer] They know you tried. [Aaron] Yeah, and also you give them the option, rather than they're just alone and there is no option. No one came to them, no one reached out, no one sought to comfort. And so going to comfort is right. And then rejecting it. shouldn't stop us from trying. [Jennifer] And we shouldn't reject comfort when someone's... 'Cause that's an opportunity that someone's trying to act in what God has said we should be doing, right? like the Bible says to comfort. [Aaron] Yeah, but in some cases especially with like mourning it's a process. [Jennifer] Yeah, that's true, that's very compassionate. [Aaron] We should try to receive comfort, but sometimes where you could be in a really deep mournful state. [Jennifer] All good things to talk about. [Aaron] Going to the next thing, what is the appropriate response? Right, so you, you brought up helping someone is like taking off the edge. You can't bring the person back from the dead, you can't take away the cancer, you can't change the circumstance, but you can soften the blow. [Jennifer] Yeah, but that doesn't just mean that when someone's in pain, or going through a trial that you insert a funny joke, or you know what I mean? [Aaron] Are you sure? That's a great way to like someone's hurting really bad, you make a joke and laugh. [Jennifer] Maybe it depends on the person, but you should be mindful of the person, you should be mindful of your spouse. Discerning, yeah. Yeah discerning, that's a good word. [Aaron] Which is what I was talking about at the beginning is... And a lot of people have these responses, when someone gets hurt, I actually used to do this, when someone would get hurt, I would laugh about it. You've talked about that before. And so we have these kind of natural fleshly responses that just for whatever reason how we were raised in our DNA- [Jennifer] What did it do or how to understand it. [ Aaron] But learning and asking the Lord to teach us what is an appropriate response? It's good to go comfort, we want to do that, but we got to ask, we just got to ask for that discernment, because we can have the right heart and bring the wrong response, which is something that I keep going back to. This is how I've been, I might want to, but then I to say the wrong thing. I'm trying to prematurely cheer someone up, like you said, the joke, I'm trying to push someone to move on from where they're, what they're dealing with, which is something that I would tend to do. Like, hey- [Jennifer] When there really is a process. [Aaron] Well, I skipped the whole process, which doesn't care about the other person at all, what it does is it cares more about my discomfort with this person's suffering. Talking too soon, which is something I struggle with, 'cause I want to just fill that, that like, let's just figure it out, let's talk. [Jennifer] I love you still. [Aaron] Romans 12:15 says: "Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep." This gives a picture of walking with what someone's walking through with them. Someone's weeping for something. If they're weeping over a lost child, over a over sickness over just you name it, there's lots of things to weep over in this life, We don't just come in and be like cheer up buck. And you know, like, we should break.... Our hearts should break with them. When someone's rejoicing, rejoice with them. This is probably another conversation. But this is something that plagues the church I think sometimes is when someone gets some sort of success or something to rejoice in, we might get jealous. [Jennifer] So there's a lack of rejoicing for one- [Aaron] Yeah, I don't wanna rejoice with them 'cause like why didn't I get that? Or why are they being raised up? [Jennifer] So that played the church, but I think that it's more just the worldwide thing, it's a flesh thing. [Aaron] But if someone is winning, someone's successful, or if someone's has a praise report, if someone is having success in an area that you wish you had success in, or is having freedom and an area that you don't have freedom in, or like these things, like rejoice, they're part of the church, rejoice for them like that is so praise God. It also keeps us from that just contentment and Jealousy. [Jennifer] Another verse that we wanted to share with you guys today is Ecclesiastes 3:4 starts, and seven. It says: "A time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to tear and a time to sow a time to keep silence, and a time to speak." [Aaron] Yeah, and Ecclesiastes was written by the wisest man that ever lived. And he just talks about this idea of what time is it? Is it a time to weep with someone? Is at a time to laugh with someone? Is it a time to mourn with someone? You know, tear, like, are you pulling up that, you know, the plants are you planting, sowing, the seeds, are you to be quiet, are you to speak? And so there's these... We can look at the situation and say okay, what role can I play right now? How should my heart be in this situation? Proverbs 25:20 puts it this way: "Whoever sings songs to a heavy heart is like one who takes off a garment on a cold day and like vinegar on soda." That idea behind this verse is singing songs is a great thing. But when you go to someone with a heavy heart and you try and seem to like artificially cheer them up, it's doing what I just, what I said a second ago is you're overlooking that person's heart altogether. [Jennifer] Yeah, there's no care. [Aaron] It likens it to taking off a garment on a cold day. So like someone's cold and they've got their coat on and I go rip their court off. And they're like, what? So you, you take away comfort. You don't- [Jennifer] Add to it, yeah. Did anyone else think when you said like vinegar on soda, the volcano experiment? [Aaron] That's what that does, it forms up- [Jennifer] Like they've been doing it that long. [Aaron] The word would be agitate. The last thing someone who's going through something needs is to be agitated. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] I'm sure everyone listening, knows someone like that, that every time you need some comfort they know how perfectly out of agitate. [Jennifer] Okay, so earlier when I had mentioned, you know this idea of taking the edge off of pain and how it means to alleviate, I said that it reminds me of lifting up. What if it's like lifting up a huge stone off their shoulders so that they can breathe a little better? Is that a good picture? [Aaron] Yeah, and that's a great analogy. [Jennifer] It's like lifting the burden of the hard stuff off them which you've done for me plenty of times. [Aaron] Right, and we have this list of the things that you there's times for. Sometimes it's sitting quiet with someone, sometimes it's encouraging what the word of God and advice, sometimes it's listening and not talking. [Jennifer] Sometimes it's giving them a thoughtful gift that comes with a sweet message. Sometimes it's watching a couples, children so that they can go have a date night and talk it out themselves. [Aaron] Yeah, lifting that Like, Hey, there's these responsibilities, how can we take some of these away? So they can go through what they're going through with less. [Jennifer] Sometimes it's offering to drop off groceries for them, so they don't have to worry about that. [Aaron] Sometimes it's cleaning the house for someone for your spouse. I love that you like lifting that load off their shoulders. [Jennifer] Sometimes it's a text reminding them of who they are in Christ or sending them a scripture verse. [Aaron] Sometimes it's a bouquet of flowers sent to their house. Sometimes it's a bag of goodies dropped off at the door. I like that one by the way. [Aaron] It's actually happened to me quite a few times. And I really appreciate all of you. Actually, I mentioned it once in "Wife After God" pure joy, great chapter, go check it out. And it just happened recently. [Aaron] That was a good goody bag. We have some good goodie bag dropper offers. [Jennifer] Maybe we should do an episode of just like how to put together a good goodie bag. [Aaron] That's true. [Jennifer] Okay, I'm so sorry. Sometimes it's a phone call just to hear their voice. [Aaron] And then sometimes it's a prayer. And I would say always a prayer sometimes said out loud [Jennifer] Like sometimes all of these and then always a prayer, always a prayer. [Jennifer] I think they get the idea. You know, at the beginning of this episode, I quickly said marriage is so awesome. It really is you guys, I hope you agree with me that marriage is awesome. But it's such an intimate relationship. What a gift We have to share with someone who can comfort us when we're at our lowest and Aaron, I can attest to this, you have comforted me at my lowest, and I hope that I've been that for you. [Aaron] You have, yeah. At least, I think that this is what marriage was intended for, right? To lift other up and to comfort one another for some. And at times Aaron, we were, this couple were the 'cause of our hard time was, was our marriage and our marriage. It was each other getting in the way. And we had friends that stood by us, friends and family who stood by us and comforted us through it. If this is you listening right now, this is where you are, I just wanted to say that we're truly sorry. And understand that this kind of pain. The pain that comes from a marriage, that's struggling. And we hope you will find comfort in this verse that I'm gonna share. Paul is talking to believers but this is our prayer for you today. And it's Romans 15:1-7, "We who are strong, have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves. Let each of us pleases neighbor for his good to build him up for Christ did not please himself. But as it is written through approaches of those who reproached you fell on me, for whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the scriptures, we might have hope. May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another in accord, with Christ Jesus, that together you may, with one voice glorify the God and father of our Lord, Jesus Christ. Therefore welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you for the glory of God." [Aaron] Yeah, I love that verse for couples that are going through this because the reminder is that, the God of endurance and encouragement grants them to live in such harmony with one another in accordance with Christ and so that they can, again like the God of all comfort, we talked about, that they can be comforted knowing that even though they're going through these difficult times, they themselves individually can run to Christ, be comforted by him and know that his heart is that they would walk in harmony. And that is what they should be praying for, Harmony. [Jennifer] And the comfort that we receive from Christ and the comfort that we receive from others does produce within our hearts and our minds this hope that better days will come. Even if circumstances don't change, even if the trials are still hard even if the pain is still prevalent, because of loss or or whatever the reason is, we have hope. Because we talked about this on the first episode of the season, and we have hope in Christ. We have hope for what's coming right? [Aaron] Yeah, and we should keep our eyes on those things. [Jennifer] So as husbands and wives, let us be quick to comfort one another during hard times. Let us lay down our lives and love for each other. Let us be slow to speak, quick to sit, fully present a good listener. [Aaron] Yeah, and let us walk this life out in humbleness. And when those feelings of insecurity and uncertainty or fear of rejection, rise up, be quick to push them away. We need each other. [Jennifer] Wait, I think you need to repeat that last line. We need ourselves know each other. [Jennifer] We need each other in marriage. [Aaron] We do. [Aaron] We need each other as brothers and sisters in Christ. [Aaron] And most importantly, we need each other to point each other back to Christ. like that's the most comforting thing we can do is constantly be praying for the other person in their walk with the Lord, in their mind being reminded of the truth of the gospel. It's the most comfort we can get is pursuing that. [Jennifer] And as we do, our eyes and our hearts need to be open. I'll say this, our eyes need to be open. And our hearts may be tender toward one another and take every opportunity. God gives us to comfort one another especially in our marriage relationship, and as we do this you guys, the greatest part is that God is glorified. [Aaron] Yep, and we can cover it because we've been comforted, so don't forget that. Hope that was encouraging to you. As always, we end the episode as always this season, I should say, we end the episode with what we're grateful for. [Jennifer] It might end up being a permanent thing. [Aaron] It might, yeah. Because we want to encourage you to be grateful for everything. [Jennifer] And we know that you are grateful but to acknowledge it and to vocalize it and to share it with someone that you know, and love. [Aaron] So we'll be grateful people, who know how to comfort each other. [Jennifer] Let them know what you're grateful for. [Aaron] I'm grateful for my children. They're so full of energy and life often more energy than I have. That's probably why I'm so tired. They love to have fun. Especially when we get down on the rug our new rug that we talked about, the one that's comfortable in my knees and wrestle and play with them. They're just awesome. I honestly thank God for them, they're so amazing. [Jennifer] I love them too. I'm grateful for modern technology. I realized that I have a great appreciation for my washing machine and dishwasher and just all the things that I get to use that have just been really awesome in my life. I was sitting on the couch the other day and I had a busy day with the kids doing school and playing and cleaning up after everyone. And I could hear the wash machine going. And I just thought, man I can't fathom everything that we did today and having to hand wash clothes. And so I just was really grateful that I have those ICM is a luxury. Like I, I never want to be blind to the provision that God's given us. And I'm just really grateful for those kinds of inventions. I think they're really cool. [Aaron] Yeah, so thank you to whoever invented the washing machine. [Aaron] As usual, we end our episodes in prayer. So would you pray with us, dear Lord thank you for comforting us in our affliction so that we may comfort others. We pray for the creativity and confidence as we comfort those around us, please us of how you desire to comfort others. Please show us thoughtful ways of showing our compassion. We pray we would be slow to speak and quick to listen. We pray we'd be quick to comfort one another in marriage protect our marriage in this way, that we would be comforters for each other. Help us to alleviate the burdens that bring us pain. May you be glorified as we choose to comfort others in Jesus name? Amen. We love you all. Thank you for joining us on this episode. We just ask if you haven't done so, would you leave us a review? And also would you be our share warriors and prayer warriors? Would you share this episode with a friend send him an email, send a text message share shared on social media. Would you just help spread the word about this podcast with someone, you know we love you and we'll see you next week.

TranscriptAaron Hixson: Hey Northridge, welcome to A Little Better, where our goal is to know God better and to do better, so that we can be a little better. Hey everybody, welcome back to A Little Better, thank you for being part of our podcast community. We're so grateful that you join in each week. I know during the middle of COVID, if you're anything like me, I feel like my podcast listening time has been drastically reduced. Not having a commute means that my amount of listening has gone down. I don't know, Drew, are you the same way? What's that going like for you?Drew Karschner: Yeah, I mean, it's difficult to play a podcast right now, it just is. No commute, it takes down my podcast time, for sure. Aaron: Yeah. So anyway, thanks for still listening in. I don't know if you are now shifting when you listen to, you know, whatever, doing the dishes time, or shower time, what? I don't know, is that weird? [Laughing]Drew: Trying to get away from your kids time. Aaron: Yo, whatever, actually that's the same thing, showering. [Laughing.] But, yeah, thanks for still tuning in. And we've actually got some good options available. If you're the kind of person who has found yourself where you don't any longer have time where you can listen to something and feel like you could drive and listen or whatever, we actually had a volunteer come forward who wanted to provide transcriptions for the podcast, which is pretty amazing. So shout out to Sara [stuttering]. Wow, I can't talk. Shoutout to Shara. Drew: Not to be confused with Shara. Aaron: Yeah Shara. Easily confused. Shout out to her. And that's amazing that she's willing to do this. We're gonna make them available as easily as we can. Now, this is a volunteer who's willing to do this. I'm not saying, she has not signed on to do this for the rest of eternity, and we're not expecting her to, so obviously we'll keep you posted about how that process goes, but we're running it as an experiment for now, and excited that we get to have these available. Drew: Thank you Sara. Aaron: Yes, thank you. In terms of how we will make these available, at the moment they are on our episode webpage, so if you're savvy enough to know where the episode webpage is, depending on how you listen to podcasts, there's a million ways to get to it, so I'm not gonna describe all of the ways, but that's a button that you're looking for. Maybe click the details button or something like that, and you'll find an episode webpage. It'll be available there in text format. If you're having trouble finding it, no problem. You know, you can email us, podcast@northridgerochester.com, or you can even just text me or Drew or anybody that works at our church and they'll get you to us, and we can make sure that we get that to you. You can text me personally at (585)484-7636, yeah whatever, I'd be happy to make sure we get that to you. But that's just another way to make it A) accessible for our deaf and hard of hearing community, but then also at the same time, some people just prefer to read instead of listen, so. That's fine. Engage however you can engage. Cool. All right, that was 2 minutes and 42 seconds of housekeeping. Thank you guys for your patience. But Drew, hit me with some stories from quarantine. Have you had any like, funny things that your kids have done or embarrassing work from home moments? What's that been like? Drew: I mean, you know, I got a lot of good stories. My kids are always trying to interrupt my meetings. I think the best one -- you have to understand my office. One, we took the door off way before COVID-19 happened, which was a great move until now. It's wide open, so you can hear everybody going on. And it's right next to the stairs that come downstairs, and so one day I'm sitting in my office. And I face the door to the stairs.And I'm in, I wouldn't call it a super serious meeting, but I would say semi-serious, and so I'm sitting there and I'm talking back and forth with the people in the meeting. And Ruby-Kate comes down the stairs, and she peeks her head out and she smiles, and she comes all the way down the stairs so she's almost looking in the door frame, and she's looking at me, she smiles. She's got her pajama top on, and she turns her back to me. I'm like, what is she doing? But she doesn't move. And then all of the sudden, she raises her hands in the air, which reveals her tiny, cute little butt cheeks, and she starts shaking and she goes, [singing] "shake your booty, shake your booty,” and she's just wiggling her little hiney back and forth. And like, I just straight burst out in laughter in the middle of this serious meeting. I'm like, "Guys, I'm sorry. There is nothing I could do in this moment but laugh." Aaron: You have been ambushed. Oh, that is so funny. How old is Ruby-Kate again? Drew: She's two, yeah. Two. Aaron: Oh my goodness, so cute. Drew: The better question is, what is Ashley teaching her while I'm in the office?Aaron: Oh my word, that's funny. Throwing Ashley right under the bus. Drew: What about you, Aaron, Grayson do anything crazy like that? Aaron: He hasn't bombed many of my meetings. Thankfully, being where I am, he's not really able to get there without some degree of help. If he's gonna come up, Lauren's usually checking my calendar or whatever to see if I'm in a meeting, which is very nice of her. So no booty shaking yet, but he did, in trying to explain to him, specifically with Gigi, who is Lauren's mom, Donna, they live in New Hampshire. He was talking to her about why he wanted her to come or something, he wanted to see her, so they were talking about why she couldn't come, and she said, you know, trying to explain -- how do you explain COVID to a three-year-old? She just said, there's a bug that people are getting, and it's making them sick, and so I don't want to get that bug or whatever. She was just explaining it on FaceTime or something, and then the next time -- I don't know, it was a couple weeks later. She was on FaceTime with him again, and he said "Gigi, are the bugs still outside of your house? Are they still making everyone sick? Where are the bugs? Have you gotten rid of the bugs yet?" And we were looking at him, like, what are you saying? And she's like, "I tried to explain it, this is the best I could come up with." And now he thinks there are, like, venomous bugs waiting outside of Gigi's house. Which, I'll deal with that. I'll take it. Drew: If it was really a bug, we'd be good in New York cause the snow would have killed it a long time ago. Aaron: Very true, very true. We would be hoping for a snowstorm. Oh wait, we had one last week. Unbelievable. Drew: It's only April 19th, I mean, like, no big deal, right? Aaron: Yeah, everybody loves an Easter snowstorm. Drew: Where I grew up, we got 8 inches. 8 inches. Aaron: What? This past week? Drew: Yeah, 8 inches of snow. Like, the power went out and everything. Happy spring, everybody! Aaron: I know. For once we get to say we're so glad we live in Rochester, we didn't get as much snow. Drew: Jesus is alive, spring isn't. [Both laughing.] Aaron: Seriously. It's still in that grave. Come on out. That's funny. But hey, one more -- I realized I have another housekeeping thing I wanted to mention before we jump into sermon discussion, and that is that we're recording this podcast these days Mondays around 3 o'clock. That's kind of our current schedule. We've done some pre-recording in the past, but because of COVID, we're doing it Mondays around 3. So I would really encourage all of our listeners, if you've got questions or comments or anything that you wanna say related to this podcast, from Saturday night services or Sunday services or whatever, if you have anything, just send it over to us, because we would totally engage with it, and now you have the opportunity to do so right now. We're in a phase where we absolutely could be bringing those things up. Like I said before, podcast@northridgerochester.com, if email's not your thing, text me or Drew or anybody on our staff, that will get a question to us. Literally any way that you can contact us, social media, it doesn't matter. Get it to us by Monday around 3, and we'll see if we can include questions or comments or whatever. We would love to do that, and we're in a phase where we totally can even easier than other times. Hit us up. Okay. So, week 1, A Life That Matters. And I have a couple questions for you. And Connor's listening in, so he might have to tune in as well, we'll have to see here. But that video, the title package, did we already talk about this? The title package was Devin Graf walking on 490 right by the Rochester bridge, right? It looks literally like he's in the middle of the road, I was thinking, ignore social distancing, say nothing about that, he's in the middle of the highway. How did he get there? So then I'm hearing rumors that it was a green screen and I don't believe it, so someone prove it to me. Drew: I believe Connor has confirmed it was a green screen. Matt Snyder was behind Devin, and he was holding up a green screen, and boom, magic. It just shows you how amazing our creative team is. Aaron: Where were they? In the middle of 490? Drew: I think they were standing somewhere on the side of 490, and they green screened him into 490. Aaron: So I'm guessing the reason they wanted to do it there was to match the lighting or something so that it would look the same? Connor's nodding his head. Okay. I just, that is crazy to me, because I've seen bad green screening, and that did not look like bad green screening to me, and I wouldn't have assumed we have the ability to do good green screening. No offense to Connor, I just assumed we don't have that kind of cool technology, but apparently you literally just need a green sheet. [Both laughing.]Drew: The green sheet they used to hang in our podcast studio. Aaron: That's right, "studio." I love when we call it a studio. That makes me so happy, because it sounds so legit, and it's a basement. But, okay. Now that that's cleared up, it was officially green screen, which was very surprising to me. Week 1, A Life That Matters. You talked all about how we need to begin with the end in mind, and I kinda want to enter into your experience. I know that this series came as a result of your dad's death. Talk to me a little bit about, we planned super far in advance. This was not the sermon series that was gonna be just post-Easter. I mean, I don't know. A month and a half ago? When did we make that change? That's a very, quote, "last minute change" for us, and I'd love to just bring everybody in to kind of the genesis of this series. Drew: Yeah, I think when my dad died, obviously the point I said, death brings perspective, or crisis, so, I feel like I walked through both of those things, a crisis with COVID, and my dad's death. It has really caused me to reflect on my life and what's important and what's valuable. I often teach out of the overflow of what God's doing in my heart. I just think those messages are more real. That's not always the case. I think there's series we do that we just talk about. It's not necessarily something that's churning in my heart, but this was just a series that God places on my heart. I've just gotta do this. If I don't, I feel like I'm gonna be disobeying God, cause I feel like he planned it in my heart. So yeah. I just, through the season of life I'm in right now, God's been teaching me a lot of things, and I thought it would be valuable to walk our church through it. Weirdly enough, we're probably all thinking a little bit of those things right now, with the crisis that we're all dealing with. And it's really cool, again, how, even if you go back to Unfiltered Jesus and this series, and how God kinda laid it out for our church, I just feel really blessed with how he has planned our series for us. So we could be really relevant and engaging and impactful in this season. Aaron: I agree. I remember when you first said, kinda like, coming out of the fog of your dad's death, with, you know, the first few days or 10 days or something, where your life wasn't normal. As you were emerging from that a little bit you were saying, like, "Hey, I wanna do this series," and I thought, well that's gonna be really cool to hear such fresh insights from you. But at the same time, wondering, I wonder if someone hasn't experienced a death recently, would they find this to be as interesting, or whatever? And then COVID hit, so it was like, we planned this, and I was like, all right, let's see how it is in terms of relevance, and then COVID hit, and it's like, oh. Incredibly relevant. Yeah, been blown away by how it all came together. And we had an original direction related to -- I think maybe the first title you had was like "Legacy" or something like that. Is that right? Or am I wrong? Drew: No, I think it was -- yeah, I think "Legacies" or "Lessons from Dad." Aaron: Oh, yeah. Drew: So I mean, it's quite shaped and molded. And I didn't want it to be completely about my dad's death, you know? I want it to be about what you learn through those seasons in life, and so. Aaron: Yeah, I think it is fascinating how, I can say this from even, death in our family. Lauren's cousin, this was June of -- I'm trying to think, a few years ago. It doesn't matter. A few years ago, her cousin, who's our age, passed away in a car accident. And student baptism was actually that same week, and so I ended up not being at student baptism, cause I was with the family up at the funeral and blah, blah, blah. And I just remember, even in that moment, there's something about a death that creates like an, "oh my goodness, we have to be at the funeral, and we have to process this, and there's so much I'm thinking about, and like what really matters." And there's an urgency to that, that it feels like I'll never forget what this feels like. But for me, I think about her cousin's death. We're leaving the funeral saying "man, we gotta stay more connected, and we gotta talk more, and let's make that phone call, pick up the phone, let's stay connected." And actually, I remember Lauren's brother -- sorry, I'm kinda going on a rant here. But probably about a year ago, Lauren's older brother was facetiming us or something. He was like, "Guys, I feel like we're still not talking as much as we said we were going to. Remember at Dylan's funeral we were all talking about how we were going to stay so connected, and here we are a couple years later, and we're already back to where we were before," almost like, did we learn nothing from this unexpected death? And I thought, yeah. There's something so true about being at a funeral where you have like, just this lucidity about what matters, clarity around -- these people matter to me so much. I would be devastated if I lost them. But it's just so easy to lose that clarity. And so I think it's so key for us to hear from you as you're still in that phase of like, "I've still got very clear pictures of what matters to me, and I wanna speak to our church while those things are still on my heart." Drew: Yeah, I think as people we have to learn how to keep those lessons fresh in our mind, you know? For me, it's easy right now cause everything I do reminds me of my dad, every place I go. I mean, my mom lives with us. But I do think, over the course of time, it's natural for us to just let that fade, or go back to the way it used to be or living the same way. I think we have to learn to create constant reminders of that perspective that death or crisis gives us so we can live in a manner with the end in mind, rather than what's in front of us. Aaron: Yeah, and I think that's a little bit reflective of why Moses' words are "teach us to number our days." This isn't something that we do natively. We don't automatically begin with the end in mind. We don't automatically remember that our lives are gonna end or just even a picture of our own mortality. We don't automatically remember that, and so it takes God's work in our lives to teach us to do this, like, teach me to keep track of the fact that I've got such a short life. Drew: I don't think it's ever a lesson learned, like "Check that off the box, I got that." It's a constant, daily reminder, whether it's a reminder you set in your phone, or circumstances remind you. You know, there's certain lessons in life you have to constantly learn. And I feel like this is one that God teaches me over and over again through the circumstances that I walk through. It's like, "Dude, you've got plans, which are great, they're awesome, but who knows if you're ever gonna make it to your plans." I've been at my Dad's lakehouse this last weekend trying to get things ready for Mom and situated. The constant thing that Mom and the family says is, "We've finally got this place the way we want it and Dad's not here." And this was Dad's place. It's called "Pop's Place." And so, you just constantly need those reminders that, man, life is short. Your plans might be great, but God's might be different, so how do we learn that lesson regularly rather than through the tragic or the crisis? Aaron: Yeah. First of all, once again, yeah, I'm so sorry. Drew: It's okay, man. Aaron: But, that's why Solomon's words are, he says it's better to go to a house of mourning than a house of rejoicing. And I love that you used a wedding as a comparative, because there really is something -- there's something to be learned at a wedding. Right? I mean, if you've got a strong marriage or even a struggling marriage, a wedding can be a great reminder of, like, almost like a vow renewal. If you've got a strong marriage, you're like, "Baby, I love you all over again, I'd pick you all over again." If your marriage is struggling, it's like, "We gotta get back to this." Whatever. There's lessons to be learned there. But it's different than the, like, "I had an unfixable, irreversible reality of death." That's what a funeral is. It's not like, “Let's recommit ourselves to our marriage.” You can change the trajectory of your marriage. Once someone's passed away, they've passed away. There's something permanent that's like, "What am I gonna do differently now?" And so, funerals just have an incredible ability to do that. But hopefully we don't have to go to a million funerals before we learn the lesson ourselves. You know? Drew: That's the hope. But, I'm guilty so many times of going to a funeral. I don't know if I'll ever go to a funeral the same way anymore. And I think I've had such a good life in the sense of, I haven't lost anybody really close to me that has hurt this bad or stung. You know, I've lost people, but no one like my dad, that close to me. And I think, you know, thank the Lord that he's protected me and my family this far, but I'm telling you. There are certain things in life that I just won't look at the same. You know, as a pastor, death is common. People getting sick is common, people having heart attacks. I think it's gonna reshape the way I pastor. It's easy for me to get numb to, "Oh, someone died." Nope. Not anymore. My heart is gonna break for people who lost people. As a young person, I could have easily been like, "Okay, this is part of life." It is a part of life, but that part of life really stings and really hurts. And I think I'll be able to weep with people and mourn with people and hurt with people in a way that I just couldn't. Aaron: Mmhmm. No doubt. That's so real for any life experience. Once you had it. It's the walk a mile in somebody else's shoes, but you can't walk a mile in somebody's shoes until you've done it in certain cases. You can't really put yourself in the same framework as someone who's had a parent die or something like that until it happens, and then you're in a whole new ball game, you know? Drew: Yep, and that's why I love what Moses said about refuge. It's unique that he brought that up. Of all the things as he's looking back at his life, I love -- and I'm learning this -- that God is the best refuge. He offers comfort that people can't offer. In this season, I'm actually tired of people saying "I'm sorry." I'm tired of people saying "Are you okay?" And they all mean well. I'm not saying people shouldn't do that, but there's just nothing like a refuge from God. A place where God just -- like, sometimes even with my own family, when I wanna cry, I don't want people around me. I wanna be with God, and I wanna just mourn with God because he is that refuge for me. I've read Psalms 90 so many times. It's one of my favorite Psalms. It's actually the first passage I ever preached. So my first message ever --Aaron: That's awesome. Drew: -- to a live audience was Psalms 90. And I've read those words, like "Lord, you are our dwelling place," you know. But again, I'm learning this. I think we've talked about this in other podcasts. Those words are so different to me right now in this season in my life. A dwelling place. Man, I dwelled with God in such a real way lately, where I'm just like, "God, I don't want to go to anybody else but you, because I believe there's a level of comfort, and security and stability that only you can give me, and that's what I need right now." Aaron: And you'll come out of this stronger in that sense, your relationship with God, having been to this place with God, it doesn't go away. Your connection to God that is now stronger, better. What you've just described is literally a longer version of the phase "crisis brings clarity." I mean, you now know things you didn't know. You experienced things you could have never experienced. You know God in a way you didn't know him before. And that's a super bitter pill. Nobody wants to take that. You know, that's horrible, but it's God at work in you. Drew: I also think about, you know, a lot of times when crisis hits, people run from God. What I'm going through, I realize that people miss on some of the best moments with God when they choose in crisis to run from God, because they miss out on what I think I'm experiencing now, it's this level of comfort and stability and security that God gives. And when you choose to run from him because you're mad at what he chose to do, or what he was in control of that didn't stop, you didn't like the circumstances. It's crazy that, in the midst of that, people who run miss out of something that's so beautiful that God offers only in crisis, only in the crazy and uncertain times of life. Aaron: I'm not gonna add anything else, cause we're gonna end right there, man. That's really helpful, and I'm trying to do my best right now to believe that, to lodge it into my soul so that, when my crisis, like yours, comes, I'm more ready for it. I'm glad we all get to learn along with you, and this series is gonna be all about that. So, very much looking forward to it. Is there anything we need to know about this coming weekend or that our people should hear from you about? Drew: Couple things. One, we're gonna talk about relationships this weekend. It's like Rodney said. We talk about our relationship with God first, and Rodney said the second thing is relationships with people. And so we're gonna talk about how we create a life that matters through our relationships. Also, we're gonna be having a baptism, so it's gonna be an awesome celebration. Aaron, I believe you have an inside look at that baptism, because --Aaron: Yeah, I do. It'll be a little bit different because we have an executive order from our governor that requires a mask for any time which you cannot socially distance, so it's gonna be the weirdest baptism we've ever done, most likely, but we're gonna try to comply with every restriction and also make sure that we still do more and better. So, I got to be a part of it, and I can't wait for you guys to hear Ritchie's story. It's a great one. I guess I can say, it's already done. That's probably okay to say. Oops if it wasn't. We recorded it this morning on Monday. Very excited about it. You guys'll love it. All right. Let's be done. My friend, talk to you guys later. Thanks Drew, thanks Connor, thanks to our listeners. Please send us comments, questions, and thoughts. We would love to interact with you. We will talk to you next week.

TranscriptAaron Hixson: Hey Northridge, welcome to A Little Better, where our goal is to know God better and to do better, so that we can be a little better. Well hey, Northridge family, welcome back to A Little Better. Happy Easter. We are glad that you're with us. Today is the day after Easter. I don't know if that has a name, but I'm gonna still call it Easter. I'm the kinda guy who says "Merry Christmas" well after Christmas is over, so, I guess I'm just that guy. Drew Karschner: Do you really say “Merry Christmas” after Christmas is over? Or before it has happened? Aaron: Yes. Both, both. I mean, it's just like the Christmas season. It's a generic timeframe. Drew: No, the Christmas season ends after Christmas. It just makes sense that way. You got 25 days that lead to Christmas. You say “Merry Christmas” all the time. But once Christmas is over, you're not walking around like "Merry Christmas!" December 26th. That's weird, bro. That's weird. Aaron: I still do. I don't know. Okay. Well, anyway, happy Easter. [Both laughing]So, tell me about your Easter, Drew. How did it go down in the Karschner household? Drew: Well, we had a beautiful day with my mom and my family and my brother and sister. We watched the services. And we had turkey, so we baked a turkey, and we had some good food, great celebration. We hid some eggs, and when I say "we hid some eggs," I mean I threw them in the most obvious places for a five, a three, and a two-year old to get them. So we had a little Easter egg hunt with candy and little pennies in there, and the kids loved it. It was great. Yours? Aaron: Awesome. It was good, it was good. How many services did you guys watch? I feel like you're the kind of guy that would watch -- you're always watching other churches and seeing what they're doing. So did you check out other churches or just Northridge or what did that look like? Drew: I watched every Northridge service and I watched other church services as well. It's amazing. All day long my computer was full of services, so. Aaron: Yeah, you're like -- you get so many bonus points for how many Easter services you watched. I was present for all three of ours as well, 9, 10:30, and 1. I guess -- wait, do we have a Monday? Drew: We have one tonight at 7. Yes. Aaron: Yeah, we have one tonight at 7, that's right. So I guess I haven't been present for all of them yet. I've been present for all of the ones that have happened. But actually we're switching around service times. Have we already talked about that? Why don't you tell us what's coming this week for service times? Drew: Yeah, we're just moving -- so, Monday night at 7, it's been a great little experiment, and so we're going to shift it to Saturday night at 7. So, we're gonna take that Monday service. The only thing that's changing with our weekend services is we're taking the Monday night at 7, and we're moving it to Saturday night at 7. One reason why, Monday night was just a harder night for people to engage. I think after Sunday, they kinda move on to the next week, and so, a lot of churches I have worked for have had a Saturday night service, so we're gonna try this out, see if it works, and yeah. Praying God does cool things with it. Aaron: All right, so it's moving, not adding. We're just moving. There won't be a Monday starting next week. Drew: Exactly right, yep. We are moving the Monday night to Saturday night. Aaron: Sounds good. Yeah, I definitely have never heard of a church with a Monday night service. I do think it was a cool experiment, but I can't recall ever seeing that before. Saturday does make some sense. And we have the ability to do it, since we're having to pre-record right now, so that's cool. But hey, the big thing about Easter, obviously Jesus is alive, that's amazing. He is risen. He is risen indeed. Did you guys grow up saying that in church, "he is risen"? Drew: I mean, I think everybody says that. Even now. Aaron: No, I mean, it was like a call and response. It was like a real live thing every easter, you'd say "he is risen" and the church would say like "he is risen indeed." Did you guys -- was it just me? Maybe it was just me. Drew: No comment. [Both laughing.] Aaron: Anyway. So, we're excited. Jesus is alive. Why don't you tell us a little bit about the response from Sunday? What are we hearing from our people? And even people placing their faith in Christ. Did you have any of your pi2 people show up? Talk to me about that. Drew: Yeah, so Sunday was an amazing celebration. So one thing if you watched on our live.northridge platform, you saw a couple unique things that we've been adding. One of those is you could see when I gave the gospel and people had a chance to respond, you could see people say "raise a hand if you prayed that prayer." Aaron: Yeah, that was a cool thing. Drew: Yeah, it was really cool. Our team worked hard on that. Over our three services, we saw 27 people say yes to Jesus Christ. Aaron: Wow. Drew: Plus, three more that came in from a different avenue in that way. And so 30 people said yes to Jesus Christ. If you think about that, over four weeks, that is 61 people. 61. Aaron: Amazing, amazing. Drew: I mean, how amazing is God? And you know, we're griping and moaning over this COVID-19, but God is totally using it to draw people to himself. I know we talked about it, but I hope that never gets old. 61 eternities have been changed because of this, and whew! Let's go! I'm ready for more, I'm ready. Aaron: I know. That is very exciting. And I just love that we were able to capitalize on this season. You know, not every series and not every timeframe would be perfect for that kind of a shift where we're offering opportunities every single week, but this was just like the perfect moment and God utilized it, so I'm really excited about that. That's a very high number. Of course the number is reflective of stories and people that know and people that we’re following up with. They're not just nameless numbers. These are stories we care about and that we're checking with. So, that's very exciting. Drew: Yeah, and kudos to the people of our church for inviting. I got a couple messages from people who texted me and said, "Hey Drew, my friend texted me and said they said yes to Jesus." And that, just stirs a fire in people's hearts. My contractor. We've been adjusting some things in my basement for my mom to move in, and my contractor texted me this morning, so today, I think it was around 9:30. He says "Hey, we tuned in and it was awesome. Thanks for that." I got a message from my high school sixth grade teacher, who said, "Hey, I haven't felt that much hope in a long time. Thank you so much." Aaron: Oh my goodness. Wow. Drew: I mean, again, cool stories of God just working. He's fulfilling our mission. More and better, baby, more and better. People are growing closer to God and people are meeting Jesus for the first time. So, let's go. Aaron: Beautiful. And Drew, dude, I love that you're living pi2. I mean, it would be easy in your position, I think maybe mine too. We've talked about pi2 endlessly, especially back in the Paul series. It's easy at times to feel like that's outside of our purview because we're, you know, we work with a bunch of Christians and stuff, but I love that you've got names of people that you're thinking about. I love it. I've sent out some invitations, and got some positive responses. Some people ghosted on me, but, you know, that's gonna happen. And so, anyway, we'll see what comes from that. I loved getting texts during that morning. Like “Hey, my friend from wherever is tuning in, please be praying.” You know, people just in the moment being like, “I'm so excited they came!” I love that feeling for people, and just that they're sharing and spreading and praying, and we're all kinda like waiting with bated breath for what God's gonna do. And yeah. It's an especially expectant time because of the sadness and the distress and the fear that people are feeling, but then also of course with the biggest Sunday of the year in terms of people being interested in church. Drew: Yeah. Aaron: Yeah, so let's jump in and talk about the resurrection a little bit. Let's talk about this sermon from Sunday. I have some random thoughts that I might end up sharing that just were from my own devotional time on Sunday morning before church. But that's a whole 'nother thing that I'm looking at my notes here. We'll see if that comes up. But for now, you talked about how the resurrection should impact our daily life, and I just kinda thought, what does that mean? What would it mean for the resurrection to, as a believer, impact my daily life? How does the fact that Jesus is alive change what I'm doing day to day? Drew: I mean, if you truly believe in what Jesus accomplished, I don't understand how it cannot change everything. I mean, it should change your motives for getting out of bed. It should change the way you think about life and eternity. It should change the way you choose to live and act towards the people you love and the people you don't love. I mean, every fiber of who you are should be changed by the resurrection. Now, that doesn't happen in an instant. You know, it happens over a life of living in the perspective of the resurrection and how the resurrection gives you victory over your sin. And so, I think the major way that the resurrection has changed my life is the battle between my flesh and the Spirit. Living in light of the resurrection, man, my flesh wants to do things that I know I shouldn't do, and so the battle that wages within me, it helps me overcome the sin that I was enslaved to but now have freedom over. And so my daily choices of how to respond to my wife when she annoys me or how to have patience --Aaron: Wait, that's -- I'm gonna have to stop you there. That doesn't happen. Drew: It's actually usually in reverse, probably for my wife and me annoying her, but every once in a while --Aaron: Good clarification. Drew: But I think of patience with my kids, when we're locked in a house all the time together. I think of just the random emails that you get of frustration of people. Just every area of your life, the resurrection can impact. From my desire to want people to experience what I've experienced, you know. When you truly see the amazement of the resurrection and how it can change your life, it should create in you a desire for people to experience that as well. To love your neighbor, to tell your neighbor about Jesus. When I look at my life and I think about the resurrection, that Jesus is alive, what it really does is it makes me alive. It gives me life. And out of that new life, it changes everything I do. Aaron: That's great. I was thinking even to -- I don't know -- at the kind of really granular level, or really practical level, the fact that Jesus is alive, the reason you're saying it should impact everything is you're walking through the implications almost in an unstated way. You're like, if Jesus is alive, that means . . . and there's like five or six boxes that you're checking as a result of that truth, but like, why would a person 2000 years ago change my life? It's because what that resurrection means, as you said. That he's conquered sin. That resurrection means every claim he's ever made is true. That means that, if we have victory over death, even now in the midst of COVID, I don't have to be terrified of anything. I don't have to be terrified of even getting COVID and dying. I don't have to be afraid of people that I love having this disease and dying. I don't have to be afraid of economic ruin, or anything, global conspiracy that's making this whole thing up. Literally name your fear or whatever. None of it stands a chance against the fact that the worst thing that can happen to you is you lose everything and you die, and none of that can be -- the resurrection is more powerful than any of that. Drew: Right, and you think about this series. We've talked about, okay, you go back to Jesus' baptism, right? We talked about that giving him his identity. We talked about the temptation. It gave him his credibility. I think the resurrection gave Jesus -- it validated him as the son of god. It just took every claim Jesus had made in his life, as crazy as they were, and they said, check that box off, because that was true. You know, I think of even when he was crucified, the soldier, after he died, the veil was torn, the earthquake happened, the soldier says, "truly this must have been the son of god." It's like yep, checked that box. This was God's son. He did exactly what he said he was going to. And out of that, out of his resurrection, whew. The implications of that are endless in someone's life. Aaron: Yeah, and I don't have to -- if my spouse annoys me or if life isn't what I was expecting or if I never get married or if whatever, none of those things, as disappointing, frustrating, and hard as all of those things are, they're not ultimate. We have an ultimate truth in the form of Jesus' resurrection that overcomes everything. And so, it's kind of one of those "if all else fails" things, like, but it's not just an all else fails, break the glass in case of emergency, like, if your house is on fire, "oh no!" Quick, grab this last ditch effort. It's like, this is so important, so ultimate, that it actually can be pervasive in every detail of your everyday life. It's not just helpful in the biggest things. If you allow it to be, it's life-changing in the smallest of things. Drew: Exactly. And we're not saying that there are times in life where -- you know, life is hard and difficult. Right now, people are dealing with some really difficult things. And we're not saying, hey, walk around like "Oh, I got COVID-19, but don't worry, Jesus is alive." Like, yeah. He is alive. But that doesn't take away from the things in life that are hard and difficult. What the resurrection does in the midst of COVID-19, or in the midst of my dad dying or in the midst of anything that happens in life, the fact that Jesus is alive can change my perspective on any situation I go through. Aaron: I love it. In the midst of the story that we talked about on Sunday, there was obviously two guys, they're walking away from Jesus, and from faith. It's just insane to me. I was reading my Bible on Sunday morning before church in light of what I knew was coming in your content. It's just so remarkable to me how no one was expecting him to come back to life. Obviously, hindsight is 20/20, and so we know how this whole story ends, but these two guys, it's not like they were walking away because they hadn't heard. They had already heard that the women had come, they had gone to the disciples, it had spread enough through the disciples. These guys had already heard. There are already claims of a resurrection. They're like, “Yeah, but we didn't see him, so...” They're just walking away. And here's what I was struck with as I was reading my bible. After Jesus dies, Joseph of Arimathea comes. He goes to Pilate. He gets Jesus' body. He puts him in a new cut cave, puts the stone over the entrance. So immediately Jesus is buried. First of all, that's fine. It's to be expected. But it does indicate to me at least on some level -- they didn't want him laying out on the ground rotating, but I'm wondering like, why are you doing this? If you genuinely expect him to come back to life, it might be a little weird, but like, I don't know. Put him in your backyard on a patio chair or something. Like, he's coming back. Just give him a minute. You want to be there when it happens. But they put him in a tomb. Okay, that's fine. But then the religious leaders -- this is what blew my mind -- immediately they go to Pilate and say, “Hey, this guy claimed to say he was gonna be resurrected.” That's interesting to me. They knew that. Second of all, they said he's gonna be resurrected on the third day. That's what he claimed. So they had comprehended and, at least to some degree, believed it was going to happen. At least they expected that his disciples would be expecting it and they would try to fake it. So they're like, “This dude's gonna try to pull off that he came back to life. Can we just put a guard and seal the tomb?” And Pilate's like, “Yeah, that's fine. Do whatever you wanna do to seal the thing.” So they put two guards. And they're standing there. And then the women go on the first day of the week, and they're bringing -- again, this blows my mind -- they're not bringing party hats and kazoos, waiting for the third day to happen, they're bringing burial spices because they expect him to die and rot, and they don't want him to smell. It's like, the only people who took Jesus' words seriously about coming back to life were the Pharisees. All the disciples were like, "Aw man, he's dead. And now he's gonna be dead forever." And the more I was reading that, I was so confused. And these disciples, Cleopas and whatever his friend is, we don’t know the name, they're walking away too! I'm like, what is happening? Why did no one comprehend it? And I would cut them some slack if it weren't for that the religious leaders did! Sorry. I just went on a random rant. I told you I had stuff from my devos. But I've never put it together before that the Pharisees were legit like, “Yeah, he definitely thinks he's coming back and it's gonna be on the third day, so let's make sure that doesn't happen.” And the disciples are like, “Well, I don't know what's gonna happen.” Drew: I think the Pharisees were worried that the disciples were gonna come and steal the body. I don't think they actually believed that Jesus was actually gonna be alive. I think they thought, okay, they're going to try to do some trickery to spread this lie. But, think about it. It doesn't surprise me. Can you imagine if someone came into our world and made claims that Jesus did? I think this is a really good question. How many of us would have recognized Jesus if he walked on the face of our earth right now? What's crazy is, the people who claimed to know the most about God were actually the people who killed God. The Pharisees were the ones who walked him through court. They're literally in a circle, looking at God, and they don't know him. Aaron: I guess the thing that's blowing my mind about it is they knew enough, they had understood Jesus' teaching about the resurrection thoroughly enough that they were taking active steps to prevent him from being able to fake it. Like you said, they weren't expecting it to actually happen, but they're like, “Let's just post a guard to make sure these guys don't try to fake it.” I guess I'm thinking, the disciples, what would have been cool is, even if they weren't sure I'm telling myself -- and I'm being way too generous to myself -- but I'm telling myself, I think I would have gone, "Okay, he said he was gonna come back to life, he said it was gonna be on the third day, it's Sunday, can we just go chill? Let's just go sit there and let's just see what happens." You know what I mean? "I'm not actually expecting it, I don't really want to get my hopes up, but let's just go." Now, at the same time, I recognize it was dangerous for them and blah blah blah, and I'm being way too kind to myself, but it just never clicked to me that the religious leaders were like, "Yep, this is probably gonna at least get faked, so let's work against it," and the disciples were not taking any actions. Drew: But that's exactly what these two guys did, Aaron. They didn't leave until Sunday. They waited around, I don't know if they waited around because they thought at some level Jesus was going to come back --Aaron: That's true, that's a good point. Drew: But they obviously didn't believe it that strongly, because they heard the rumors that he did come back and still left! Aaron: They're like, “Yeah, I know.” Drew: That's pretty pathetic if you really think about it. Okay. “Jesus is dead. Okay. He's gonna rise again. Oh, he did? Nah, let's go.” Aaron: I know. So bold. They're just like, yeah, probably not. Let's at least go find out. Normally I'm not a disciples basher because I recognize I've got my issues. I would not have handled this better than Peter or whatever, but some aspects of the resurrection are like, guys, why not just stick around a couple more days and just see if you can at least find out who stole his body or something. Then you'll be on the inside. Don't just peace out. Then I love that Jesus walks with them the whole time, explains the Old Testament scriptures, gets to the very end, and they realize it's Jesus. I love what you said in the video where you're like, at first they probably were really embarrassed or whatever. I loved that point because I would have just been like, "Oh no. We look so dumb.” Drew: What do you say to Jesus? I mean, like -- Aaron: Thankfully he disappeared. Drew: I was just gonna say, I betcha they were so glad he disappeared. Because do you know how embarrassing and how shameful? I mean, in all seriousness, it's funny, because we're not them, but sometimes we are, aren't we? How many times do we doubt God? Like even right now. You think of COVID-19 and all that we're going through. We say things like this all the time as Christians. “Hey, but God's got this, he could take this away in a second.” But do we really believe he can? Aaron: I know if he did, and he were standing here, I would be like, “Well, I gotta say I didn't see that coming.” Like, I intellectually believe it, but I'm fairly certain I don't actually believe it. Drew: And think about how, I mean, it's one thing to take a disease away. To raise yourself from the dead. Again, we've heard this story so many times that what we say and what we claim feels so normal because we get the repetition of Easter, the repetition, but like to hear it for the first time, to believe someone's actually going to do it, it's hard to put ourselves in their shoes, because we know the story. We've heard it over and over again. This was so fresh and so crazy in their culture and their day that, if I'm being real, I probably would have been the guy that would've been like, "Jesus, I love you. But you're crazy. You're crazy, dude." Aaron: Yeah. Obviously my life indicates that I'm no better than these people when it comes down to the details, but it just does sound -- I love what you said on Sunday too, about how it's just another -- I actually can't remember exactly how you said it. It's just another thing with more traditions that's lost its meaning or something like that. You kinda compared Easter to Christmas. I heard it three times. I should be able to quote it, but I can't. But I love that because I do think that that's true, where it's so common. They're like ah, Jesus rose from the dead. But it actually is a crazy sounding thing. Cause it is a crazy thing. And I've even found -- I don't know if this is true for you, Drew -- but like, occasionally encountering other religions and studying them a little bit and finding out what they claim, all of their claims sound so audacious, like what? Like "Mohammed is capable of what?" or you know, whatever. Like that's just ridiculous. But then I go, “Oh no, wait.” That's of course exactly how all the claims I make sound about our God. I just have grown up with them and so it's very kinda, "Oh yeah, Jesus came back to life and that's what we celebrate." So, that brings us to how we lost the amazement of Easter. And I think that's so relevant for all of us to think through whether or not this has just become one more Sunday where we dress up, or where we have a nice lunch. Have we lost the amazement? When do you feel like you've been most amazed, and when were low times for you in terms of amazement of what Jesus did? Drew: Well, I think one thing that's been really helpful for me in recapturing the amazement has been my kids. You know, telling my children, like Joelle, who is really on the cusp of fully understanding the gospel and believing in it. I think seeing it through her eyes is so refreshing. It takes me back to when I was a new believer. Just explaining to her what Jesus did and that he rose again from the dead, the amazement in her eyes is the amazement that I want, hearing the story like as the first time. If you've got kids, I encourage you, share the stories with your kids and watch their reactions. Listen to their questions. I think this is why Jesus says to have childlike faith, where you can believe in something and you can submit to something even if you don't fully understand it. And kids, they believe things greater than we do, because they don't have, you know, the logic of life just stripping away from the faith that you have. Aaron: That jadedness that develops. Drew: Yes, and I see the lack of jadedness in my daughter and in my son when I tell them the stories. Joelle, just looking and watching her listen to the story and watching her eyes and her being in awe that God could do that, I'm like, "God, give me that again." You know, like just give that back to me. It has really helped me recapture. I think I'm in a season now too where I'm emotional cause you know, my dad's dead. I just think God is refreshing and giving me a new sense of amazement for life. I mean, my mom said while we were watching services, she was like, "I wonder what Easter's like in heaven." Aaron: Ah, yo. Drew: I wanted to cry. But I also wanted to rejoice. Aaron: I'm trying not to right now. Drew: Because like, man. Dad is literally with the risen Savior. It was a hard Easter for our family, but it was also helpful in recapturing how amazing Easter is, and to know Dad is with Jesus. Again, what are Easter services like in heaven? Come on, you wanna talk about a party, let's go. Jesus is alive! Aaron: I bet they have Monday night services. Drew: I betcha they get a little charismatic in heaven. Aaron: [Laughing.] Oh man, I had so many other things I was thinking about saying, but I'm fighting back tears right now, so I think we should end on that. In fact, I want to use that as a segue to talk about what's coming next. I'd love for you to just give us a little bit of even just excitement about what's coming in our next series, and I think obviously it's got some ties to what we were just talking about, so what's next? Drew: Yeah, so one, I'm saddened to see Unfiltered Jesus go away. What an amazing series. Aaron: Oh man, me too. Drew: And you know, again, I wanna just say thank you to the Davidsons, Drew and Meg. They're volunteers in our church that have put so much blood, sweat, and tears into this series. They got regular jobs, but they're making and creating these videos. God did some amazing things through these videos, and so, Drew and Meg, thank you for --Aaron: I don't think he's done using them. Drew: He's not. He's not. And thank you so much for your time and energy. You guys are amazing. I also am excited for our new series. It's gonna be different, but it's called A Life that Matters. And really, I'm gonna be just kinda teaching you what God's been teaching me in this series, through, you know, my dad's death, through COVID-19, what really makes a life that matters? I think death and crisis brings a level of focus to our lives, where we really understand what is important and what's not important. And really that's what this series is all about, getting us to get back to the place in life where we're not distracted, where we're zooming in on what truly lasts for all of eternity. And so, it's gonna be a fun, and challenging series, but I think it's what we all need right now in this season. Aaron: I love it. Crisis brings clarity, and I'm looking forward to the clarity you can bring us starting this Sunday. It's gonna be a great series. Thanks for jumping in and joining us again, and everybody thanks for listening. We've got some cool things coming for the podcast, just some updates even just to make it a little more accessible that we're hoping to be integrating, so we'll talk more about that in the weeks to come. Thanks for listening, sharing, send in your questions, podcast@northridgerochester.com, we'd love to be able to interact with those. And especially now that we're in a season where we're recording after Sundays, if you've got things that come up while you're listening on Sunday, if you shoot those off on Sunday, we might even be able to talk about them in the podcast. We'd love to be able to do that. Please reach out, podcast@northridgerochester.com, or, since Drew puts up his email every single week these days, you might as well just email him. Actually, email whatever you want @northridgerochester.com. It'll probably make its way to us. That's if you can stay awake long enough to type “northridgerochester.” Thanks, guys for listening, we'll see you next week.

Our physical health and learning how to take care of our bodies have played a large role in our growth of the years. In the beginning of our marriage, we dealt with sexual issues and after 4 and a half years living with those problems we finally discovered what we believe was a major contributor to those problems. We began replacing our toxic products with non-toxic products and almost immediately found healing in the area of intimacy. We have had many people over the years ask what kinds of products we use now and so in this episode we share a little of our journey and the products we like to use. Pleas enjoy! PRAYERDear Lord,Thank you for our bodies. We pray we would be good stewards of our bodies and consider all that goes on them and in them. We pray we would be willing to take the time and research the items we use on a daily basis, using things that help us and not hurt us. Lord, we ask that you would give us wisdom as we navigate living a healthy lifestyle. Help us to make good choices and be on the same page in marriage so that we can enjoy the benefits of living toxic-free. Please help us not to be overwhelmed by the process of learning, but rather, help us to be humble and willing to learn so that we can choose what is healthy for us and be advocates of healthy living for the sake of others. We pray living healthy would not become an idol in our lives and would not hinder any of our relationships. May we be people who don't just consume, but who are about our bodies and take care of them.In Jesus’ name, Amen! Some things mention this episode. http://Parentingprayerchallenge.comhttps://shop.marriageaftergod.com/products/the-unveiled-wife-embracing-intimacy-with-god-and-your-husband-by-jennifer-smithhttps://ENG.orghttps://unveiledwife.com/oils/https://norwex.bizDr. Bronner’s - https://amzn.to/2vRCQ91https://www.bendsoap.com/Native Deodorant - https://amzn.to/2VXpWkzBert's Bees - https://amzn.to/3cPJkpNBurt's Bees 100% Natural Moisturizing Lipstick - https://amzn.to/3aKRNs7Ancient Minerals Magnesium Lotion - https://amzn.to/2TQu6YT READ TRANSCRIPT[Aaron] Hey, we're Aaron and Jennifer Smith with Marriage After God. [Jennifer] Helpin' you cultivate an extraordinary marriage. [Aaron] And today, we're gonna share with you our favorite non-toxic products. Welcome to the Marriage After God Podcast, where we believe that marriage was meant for more than just happily ever after. [Jennifer] I'm Jennifer, also known as, Unveiled Wife. [Aaron] And I'm Aaron, also known as, Husband Revolution. [Jennifer] We have been married for over a decade. [Aaron] And so far, we have four young children. [Jennifer] We have been doing marriage ministry online for over seven years through blogging and social media. [Aaron] With the desire to inspire couples to keep God at the center of their marriage. Encouraging them to walk in faith every day. [Jennifer] We believe that Christian marriage should be an extraordinary one. Full of life-- [Aaron] Love. [Jennifer] and power, [Aaron] That can only be found by chasing after God. [Jennifer] Together. [Aaron] Thank you for joining us in this journey as we chase boldly, after God's will of our life together. [Jennifer] This is Marriage After God. [Jennifer] Welcome back everyone to another episode of Marriage After God. We are happy to have ya, and today we are just going to share some, it's kinda like a funner episode, where we're gonna share, not just our non-toxic products, but why we choose those, and part of our story. [Aaron] Yeah, and well, we've had a lot of people over the years, kind of, 'cause we've talked about our journey with health, and we talk about products we use, and you have people often asking, "Well, what do you use?" [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] And so-- [Jennifer] A large portion of my first book, "The Unveiled Wife," you know, talked about our journey, you know, figuring some stuff out, and so, we'll probably start there. [Aaron] Yeah, but it'll be fun. We believe that it's good to have a healthy life, I mean, everything we talk about it spiritual, but there's something to be said about, taking care of our bodies, and being careful with what we're putting on, being thoughtful, we even talk about, yeah, we talk about this often in our books, we talk about it in our life. We actually try and live it also, doesn't mean we're perfectly healthy in every aspect, but what's been awesome about it also is, we actually have less stuff, which is cool. So we'll talk about that a little bit too. So first, before we get into that, why don't you give a little update on baby Edith? [Jennifer] Yeah, is everyone as anxious as I am to meet her? I'm-- [Aaron] Some people are probably like, "They're having another baby?" [Jennifer] I know, [Aaron] Yes we are, number five. [Jennifer] Yep, I'm 38 weeks, and just starting to feel like way more ready and prepared, mentally, [Aaron] Some of that pre-labor stuff [Jennifer] Yep, and my body, but also, just in our home, I feel like, we are all kind of getting to that transition point where, I don't know, we're just, we're just ready. [Aaron] So I'll say this, if you don't hear of any more podcasts coming out, after this one, it's because we had the baby. [Jennifer] But, I haven't ever gone that early, so-- [Aaron] Yeah, you-- [Jennifer] I don't know. [Aaron] We're usually like, I should say, you're usually right on the dot. [Jennifer] I will say this, usually nesting kicks in, and I you know, look forward to, just utilizing that energy, that extra energy to clean the house, and get every nook and cranny, and this time I didn't get that way at all. I had to like, really rely on the Lord, and just um-- [Aaron] Well I'll say this, I think you did have the desire to nest, but you didn't have the energy this time. [Jennifer] Yeah, I had the desire for sure. [Aaron] You're like, "I just can't get up off the couch, "I just, I don't feel like I," So, there was all these things that you wanted to do, but it took a lot of my helping, it took a lot of like, extra stuff that you didn't have-- [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] and so, but that's just unique for this time. [Jennifer] But we got some stuff checked off our to-do list this weekend and now I feel ready. So thank you Aaron, thank you for your help with that. Yeah well, I'm sure we'll have a little bit more stuff before the baby comes. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] Gettin' the house ready, just gettin' some things off of our plates, so that we can enjoy little baby Edith, [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] when she's here. [Jennifer] What I did do, was I got through Olive's old clothes, and got like a drawer ready for her, and all of her clothes are ready, so, [Aaron] Oh, we also moved all of, 'cause right now we have all of Truitt's clothes, in our bedroom, like right below the changing station, so that we can like change him, and put clothes there, but we moved those. Now he's got his clothes in the boys' room. [Jennifer] Yeah, [Aaron] I'm imagining, we're probably gonna move him into the boys' room soon, right? [Jennifer] Soon, yeah. [Aaron] And then he's gonna be one of the big boys. [Jennifer] Uh? [Aaron] I know [Jennifer] Everyone's growing up too fast. [Aaron] Who in the world? [Jennifer] Elliot feels like he's seven feet tall. Doesn't he feel so big? [Aaron] Yeah, he's gonna be a tall one. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] But it's awesome, seeing them grow, we were just talking tonight about if we would have had children earlier, which kinda goes into a little bit into our story, but if we would have started, day one, we'd have a 13 year old. [Jennifer] Yeah, just recognizing, how long we've been married and-- [Aaron] And we probably have 13 kids. So, [Jennifer] At our rate. [Aaron] Yeah at our our rate, yeah. Hey, I just wanted to also bring up something that I've been doing lately, and maybe you can chime in on this, Jennifer, as well, but for the men listening, something I've been trying to do, I know not everyone has our situation. We totally understand that. We get that. But Jennifer and I both, I would say I work the majority of the time, it used to be much more equal, but as we've had more kids, Jennifer's desires, and our desires has changed to, you spending a lot more time homeschooling, [Jennifer] My work just looks different [Aaron] Totally looks different, but the idea is that we're keeping things going, but what I've been doing lately, is letting you have Fridays to yourself, often that's so you can get, you know, the work that you need to get done, done. But sometimes it's just to go. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] To get into the Word. To meet with a lady [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] From the church. To just have time to yourself, or a little bit of both, like you get some work done in the morning, and then you have like a hair appointment, or you have a meeting with a friend, [Jennifer] Yeah, I try and use that time to schedule appointments-- [Aaron] Yeah. [Jennifer] But um, I will say this, I've really enjoyed it, and it's been super beneficial in a lot of ways, but I also recognize that change is coming, with having the baby and post-partum, and all that. So it'll be something that we reevaluate, come very quickly. [Aaron] Right 'cause we go through seasons, and ebbs and flows, and we have to adjust our schedules and our way of living to the situations in life. But, I just wanna encourage the men out there, that even if you're not in a situation, where maybe your wife works with you, or works at home, or maybe, I don't know, like your situations are gonna look differently. The idea is being intentional, to let your wife know that, especially if she doesn't have like, a regular nine-to-five job if she is at home with the kids, if you have a similar situation in that aspect, is giving them time. It may not be every week, maybe it can't be every week, but if it's once a month, if it's every other week, if it's for a couple hours, there's times like, "Hey why don't you, "I got the kids you get out of here--" [Jennifer] And maybe it can't be during the day, but it's at night or, if it can't be during the week, it's you know Saturday morning or something like that. [Aaron] Yeah, there's always going to be a way to just let your wife know that you're thinking about her time, and also, as men who are leading our wives, spiritually, giving them time specifically like, maybe it's at home like, "Hey, why don't you just go lock yourself in the bedroom? "Open up the Bible like, read, journal, "go take a bath, and listen to some worship music." Giving them time to themselves, time to recharge, regenerate. I know some women probably recharge around people, not alone, but, whatever it is, maybe they need to go be with some friends. Just, keeping that in your mind, something we've been practicing, like we said, it's a it's a seasonal thing. So it's not necessarily that it's always going to be this way, but currently Fridays have been your day, and you've been enjoying them, we've been slowing down on that with the baby coming. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] Also 'cause, you're having less energy, and you're like, "I just wanna be home." [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] But, it's been a cool thing. [Jennifer] I think it's a really good encouragement, and I think it's good for husbands to hear, that when it's even spontaneous, 'cause this was something that we kind of scheduled out, and looked at our situation, and said, "This needs to be happening." But even when it's at random, you know, spontaneous, it's a huge encouragement to the wife's heart to know that the husband is thinking of her like that. You've done that for me plenty of times over the years and so, I love that you're bringing this up. I think it's cool. [Aaron] So hope you're encouraged by that. One more thing before we get into our, our list of our favorite non-toxic products is, we just want to invite you to join the Parenting Prayer Challenge. We created this prayer challenge, it's very similar to the Marriage Prayer Challenge, where you get 30, 30 some-odd emails everyday, reminding you to pray for your children, and giving you a topic to pray for over them. and you can actually sign up for one for a son, or one for a daughter, or you can sign up for both, which is pretty awesome 'cause some of you probably have a son and a daughter, or just sons, or just daughters, or just one or the other, but you can go, you go to parentingprayerchallenge.com, all one word, and you sign up, it's completely free, and we just pray that God blesses you, and your prayer life for your children, because praying for your children is so important. Just like praying for your marriage. Just like praying for your brothers and sisters in Christ. Prayer is so important. God wants to be praying people, and so this is just a fun challenge. It's a way of being a catalyst for your prayer life, for your children. It's parentingprayerchallenge.com, it's completely free. [Jennifer] Okay, so for some of you listening you may have already read "The Unveiled Wife," if anything we talked about today, you know sparks interest and you haven't read that book yet, that was our first book that we came out with, you should go check it out, just because it shares more in depth of our journey, of kind of coming to this place of like, being aware of healthy living, and living a healthy lifestyle. But we're going to kind of summarize it. Just to kick off this episode, just so that you guys can, just get some background into Aaron and Jen. How about that? Okay. [Aaron] Let's see how quick we can make this summary. [Jennifer] Okay so I would say that when we first got married, Aaron, we didn't really, we didn't have a strong foundation of what it look like to live healthy. We grew up on fast food, and and home cook meals, but there was no, [Aaron] We didn't have an awareness of healthy living at all. [Jennifer] Yeah, and so we didn't really care about looking at ingredients on products, or you know reading the labels of things. I would say that you know I used all the all the really good smelling lotions and body washes, and if you didn't have more than three or four in your shower, it was like, "What are you doing?" You know, that type of thing. Fragrant candles, the kind of laundry detergent that you just never think about, you just use it because your parents used, or that's what so-and-so use. I remember using MAC makeup. This one, actually, I didn't really ever talk about this one, but this was one that affected me, in my teens because I was caking on the foundation, but I was using it to cover up acne, [Aaron] Which that made more acne. [Jennifer] Which made more acne. And I was actually allergic to something that was in it, and so I stopped using that, even probably around like 18. But anyways, the point that I'm getting at is that we didn't care about what was inside of these bottles that we were using to put on our skin, you know, the soap that we use, the body wash, the lip balms, the hairspray, we just consumed it. [Aaron] Not internally necessarily. [Aaron] We were consumers. We bought what we liked, we didn't have any consideration of what it was, and I actually think, back then, not very many people did. There was movements of it, but social media wasn't a huge thing back then, so not a lot of people were talking about it. Like news wasn't talking about it, like it was just, you got these products, and it wasn't until there was some sort of, big blow up or news story about something that people were aware of something, but I think with, now looking back, everyone is much more considerate about what's in products, people care about it, but back then we didn't have that experience. No one was telling us to, like, "Oh, do you know what those ingredients are?" Can you even understand what there, like, we just figured, like, "Oh, that's what they put in everything. [Jennifer] Yeah, and then, on the side of like, I'm not gonna go too much into this, but medicine, it was kind of just like, the Benadryl, Tylenol, like, whatever you could get over the counter type stuff. And I wasn't raised with a really big awareness of homeopathy, or how to, you know, use what you have at home. [Aaron] Right. [Jennifer] To help through sickness or things like that. Or to even just look at what's the root of the problem here? Of whatever symptoms you have. [Aaron] Or having an understanding of what those, why those symptoms exist. How fevers work, and how, like, why are you coughing, and sneezing, and these kinds of things. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] Rather than just, medicating the symptoms, which we're not totally against medication. [Jennifer] No, I'm just saying this is kind of like, where we came from. [Aaron] Yeah. [Jennifer] So we get married, and I, you know, it was just like a normal thing people talked about, to go on birth control, so I did that. 'Cause I thought that was-- [Aaron] It's what you do. You get married, [Jennifer] What we were supposed to do. [Aaron] birth control, wait. [Jennifer] Yeah, wait. And I only on it for about two to three months, and it like, drastically effected my body, and so that was the first thing that I noticed should go. And so we did that. But that was also in conjunction with trying to find a solution for what we were dealing with in our marriage, which started immediately-- [Aaron] Physically, yeah. [Jennifer] And for those of you who don't know, Aaron and I, we struggled with intimacy right off the bat, like, zero, none. [Aaron] Like sex, specifically we couldn't have sex. It was very painful for you, and we've talked about this in the past, there's a few episodes where we talked about our story, and in your book you talk about it, we talk about it in our new book, "Marriage After God." We talk about it so much because it was such a influential season in our life, and how it brought us to our knees before God. Because, it drew out of us, so much other sins, and frustrations, and bitterness, this situation we were going through. Which is often when we go through things that are hard. They often will draw out those negative things in us. Which is cool, because then God gets to deal with them. But that was, yeah, we didn't know it, you would go to see doctors, and they would say, "You're young." [Jennifer] "You're fine. [Aaron] "You're fine-- [Jennifer] "You're really great." [Aaron] "there's nothing wrong, "this should be working just fine." And then we'd go home and cry, because it's not fine, it doesn't work, nothing's changing, it hurts you. [Jennifer] Yeah, it was like at least if you told me that something was wrong, I can work with that. I can't work with nothing. But moving on, so year four of our marriage, we had a conversation with some friends, we were being really transparent and honest with them about our struggles, and they kind of like, I remember them sitting across from us, just looking super confused, like, "How-- [Aaron] Dumbfounded, or like, "Are you serious?" [Jennifer] "Yeah, is this really happening?" but she goes, the girl, she goes, "The only thing I can think of to help relate your story, "to someone else's that I heard is, "a friend of mine has PCOS, and she changed out all "of her products to be more organic, "and just cleaner, and three months later, "she ended up pregnant." Which people with PCOS, it's a hard thing to do, and they weren't even trying to get pregnant. She was just trying to heal some of her other symptoms. And we quickly disregarded that because we thought, "Well, we're not trying "to get pregnant, we're just trying to start off "with the first thing, which is-- [Aaron] Yeah, how do I have sex? [Jennifer] "sexual intimacy." And we didn't think about it again for about five, six months. And then what happened, Aaron you share. [Aaron] Well, I would just, it got worse of course, 'cause we're like, "There's like no hope, "like this in never gonna change." You know, it started off with a lot of hope, like, "Oh, it'll get better, it'll get, "but it can't possibly keep going the same way." And it just did, and you know, I'm praying through this, God was working in our marriage. There was a, if you read in our book, in both of our books, actually, there's this moment that God gets ahold of my heart, and just totally convicts me of my wrong heart, towards my wife. Not just over the situation about our sex, but about a lot of things. And it brought me to my knees, I repented, and I just said, "Lord, I'm gonna obey you. "I'm gonna walk with you, "and I'm gonna love my wife, "regardless of if I ever get what I think I deserve, "or whatever she owes me, or whatever. "I'm gonna love her. "The way you've called me to." And that was the beginning of a lot of transformations, in our marriage, in our life, and our being. But how, I don't know how, it was like. [Jennifer] It was shortly after-- [Aaron] It was like that weekend, maybe, [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] or the next weekend, or that week, 'cause it was at church that this you know revelation that God gave to me happened. And I'm in the shower, and I'm just praying, 'cause I'm still like, "God, there's gotta be something, "that's gonna fix this." 'Cause even though, I've totally committed my heart to say "I'm gonna love my wife," [Jennifer] You still wanted change-- [Aaron] I still want a change, right? But my heart was totally in a different place now. And I'm just praying, and I'm like. "Lord, what is it? "It's been since before we were married, "like this is, since we've been married, I mean, "and there's gotta be something." And I looked down in the shower actually, and there's a face wash in there, and I just immediately remembered this story about the PCOS, and the girl that got rid of her stuff, and I just asked myself, I was like, "Is it possible that there's something reacting "with my wife's body?" And then I started thinking like, "What has there been, that you've used, "ever since the beginning, of our marriage?" [Jennifer] 'Cause shampoo and conditioner changed out, body wash changed out, a lot things changed, in those four years, but my face wash was the one main thing that I always was consistent with. [Aaron] And so, I said, I just yelled from the shower, I remember like, "What have you been using "since before we were married?" And you were like, "My f-why?" You were like, confused. Anyways, I take the face wash out of the shower, and I hop onto our computer, and I just start researching every ingredient on the thing. And there was like, first of all, like, half the ingredients were, I went on this site, and it talks about the toxicity level, of ingredients, right? You type the ingredient in, and it just tells you what the level is. [Jennifer] Had you ever done anything like that before? [Aaron] Never, never done like that before. Didn't even know it existed, I had to Google, and I'm searching like, how do you figure out, I'm typing these, and then this site shows up. And like half the ingredients in this thing, were-- [Jennifer] It was EWG. [Aaron] Toxic. [Jennifer] EWG.com. [Aaron] EWG.com, I don't even know, is it still a thing? [Jennifer] I think so. [Aaron] Okay. So half the products were toxic at some level. And then there was several of the ingredients that had specific terms that it said it was, that the affect. Specifically the endocrine system in your body. Then I looked up, I was like, "What's the endocrine system? "I'll just start looking it up." I'm getting all technical, and we're not scientists, we're not biologists, we don't know, like, I'm not gonna try and diagnose people, but all I know is the Lord lead me to something. [Jennifer] We were putting pieces together. [Aaron] I started researching, and regardless if it has any effect, the fact that it had all these toxic chemicals, and I'm like, "Maybe she should, regardless, "she probably shouldn't be putting this on her body." and the endocrine system something that's, it's super important to the whole reproductive system. To the normal function of the woman's body. Like secretion of normal hormones, and I was like, "Dang, that sounds like a lot "of like the things that we deal with." And so it-- [Jennifer] The specific thing that you're talking about is parabens. [Aaron] Parabens, yeah. [Jennifer] So there's four, different types of parabens, in this specific face wash. [Aaron] Methyl, propyl, like all these different kinds. [Jennifer] And this was before parabens was a thing, [Aaron] Yeah, like no bottle said paraben-free, back then. [Jennifer] Nobody was talking about it yet, but it soon became a thing, shortly after that. [Aaron] A few years later. [Jennifer] I mean, I remember a few years later, you'd go into like, Ulta, or Sephora, and you'd start seeing, you know, makeup lines that say, paraben free this, paraben free that. [Aaron] Which is interesting because back then, no one cared. I should say no on knew. And then we're like researching this and finding this out, and I don't wanna say, like started move, we actually didn't start anything. Other people are already trying to get this moving, but because of social media things like that, that it exist. Things were a lot slower. I think things are way faster now. But I was just like, "Hey. "I want to be with you, physically." And in this is a big deal because Jennifer has been using this forever, she believed that without it, she was gonna have acne. And be, and feel ugly, or whatever it was, and I remember I was like, "Hey, would you get this up?" [Jennifer] I said no. [Aaron] And she was like "No!" And I'm like, "I'd rather you have acne and us be able "to be together, than you have clean skin, clear skin." [Jennifer] And then I was like, "Well maybe there's something, okay. "I'll just do it 'cause you asked me." [Aaron] So you did, you chose to put it away. And now, I'm sure everyone's thinking like, "Yeah, I'm gonna go use this to get my wife, "or get someone to stop doing something." But, I, my heart was not just to get her to stop using this. I actually had never thought about it until this moment, and I was just like, "Would you be willing to experiment with me?" Like, "Let's just delete this from your life." [Jennifer] Yeah, it was an experiment. And here's the thing you guys, three days later, three days later, I was at work and I remember just feeling different, and I called Aaron and I was like, "I don't get too excited but, I feel different, "and I wanted you to know that my body feels, "it feels like things are changing." And I feel like it was just like two more days after that that we had sex for what feels like the first time. [Aaron] Yeah, in four and a half years. [Jennifer] Like pain free. [Aaron] Pain free. Not just pain free, but like it was enjoyable. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] Like it was, like we were like, "Whoa. "Like that's what it's supposed to be like. [Jennifer] There was nothing else that was gonna convince me, that what we stumbled upon, was the thing. [Aaron] Right, and I would also say, we, God lead us a new place, in our hearts toward him. We had been repentant, of things that were going on, and I think that the Lord revealed thing to us, so I would say I definitely think that there is certain things are engaging, or interacting with your body. I mean we know over the years that you're sensitive to certain things, I'm sensitive to certain things. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] But I also think that the Lord, was like working in us. So I'm not trying to over-spiritualize it but, I don't wanna take away from what God was doing. [Jennifer] Sure. [Aaron] And he revealed this to us-- [Jennifer] Well and I think, he's the one that revealed this to us, and it was really awesome, and so the next step was, "I'm getting rid of all parabens." Like parabens became this like, [Aaron] We literally threw [Both] Everything, [Jennifer] And I am telling you guys, [Aaron] All of our shampoos, all of her makeup. [Jennifer] It was it! [Aaron] My makeup too. I'm just kiddin'. [Jennifer] It was in everything. It was in so much stuff. People will message me on Instagram, and they're like, "So you know, "You talked about parabens in the "Unveiled Wife," "and what kind of stuff did you have to look at?" It was like, [Aaron] Everything. [Jennifer] I tell 'em, "everything." And so what's funny is that, I look at our shower now from what it used to be, and it's like you had mentioned earlier, [Aaron] There's two things in there. [Jennifer] Yeah, which is one of the reasons why I wanted to do this episode. 'cause we just thought it'd be fun to share with you guys, some of the things that we use now, but this indecent, this thing that happened over something as small as face wash, is what stimulated our hearts to say, "Hey, what were putting in our bodies. "What we're putting on our bodies, "is important because it has an effect on us." [Aaron] And I mean it's definitely not our main focus, I mean everyone that listens to our podcast would know that this is not, we're not like a health and fitness-- [Jennifer] Freaks, [Aaron] Podcast. No, we just know, that there's a holistic view that God has of us. He wants us to love him with our minds, our souls, our bodies. Like so, when we look at the world it's not just, "Oh, we can be unwise over here, "as long as we're wise over here." we look at idea of, what we, we gotta be wise in every aspect. And we seek God on that. So what's wrong with just, caring about what goes on our body and in our body? Not out of a, like, not putting something on my body and not putting something in my body is not making me more holy. It's making me more healthy. [Jennifer] It's taking care of yourself. [Aaron] it's taking care of the body that God's given me. [Jennifer] Yeah, and I will say this, back then, it felt a little bit harder to know what to switch to, because-- [Aaron] Well, there was also less things, I think. [Jennifer] Less cleaner things available and so I just wanted to make that clear, that, you know, anyone who wanted to make a switch today, like if they want to go to their products or-- [Aaron] There's a million products now. [Jennifer] be more healthy in this way, there are so many good products out there and so, it's a lot easier, I would say. But another thing that triggered our healthy lifestyle, was doing the Sugar Busters diet, which we-- [Aaron] This was long time ago. [Jennifer] that was just a couple months, after all of this, and we made the commitment to do it together. We even took a class on it do you remember that? [Aaron] I do. [Jennifer] And they taught us how to read labels-- [Aaron] It was at the church. [Jennifer] Yeah, it was at our church. [Aaron] The church put this like health class on. It was cool. [Jennifer] Yeah so, it taught us how the read labels, and so I remember going grocery shopping with you, and we're looking at the back of like pasta sauce-- [Aaron] Well, everything we bought, had added sugar in it. Every single thing. [Jennifer] But we were like, amazed, we were like, "And this has it too!" [Aaron] I was like, "Bread doesn't have sugar in it." and every loaf of bread, was like, the second ingredient was sugar. And we're like, "Okay, what's going on here?" So anyways, [Jennifer] And then you had to go with a list of what are sugars called? because there's a lot of-- [Aaron] All the different names of sugar, yeah [Jennifer] Different names, for it. But that was another one, when we talk about eating, like that was what stimulated our healthy movement towards eating healthier and just buying things so that we're aware of what we're putting inside of our bodies. It doesn't mean we don't consume sugar, and we don't, you know, we'll have Chick-fil-A, we'll go out and-- [Aaron] No, but that education, the learning about how to read labels. What are ingredients, you know, how they order the ingredients, that's important, I can give a little tip on that. Even though we don't still do Sugar Busters, that month or how many? It was a couple months maybe. [Jennifer] It grew a muscle in us, We now, that's how we shop. When we go grocery shopping, of course there's gonna be stuff that we grab that has added sugars to it, but for the most part, we look at the ingredients in almost everything we buy. Everything, now especially with you, you need to be gluten-free. We look at, we actually buy less things that have wheat in it period, because of that, but it was a good tool in our tool belt, as we talk about in "Marriage After God," to just help us be healthier, help our kids be healthier. They enjoy things, here and there, we just had icecream tonight, so we're not like, sans sugar in our life, we're sans sugar all the time. [Jennifer] I was gonna say, we try and make the best opportunity, or we take every opportunity, when we can, to be healthy, eat healthy, and you know, choose the right thing, but it doesn't mean that we don't get, [Aaron] We also enjoy things. [Jennifer] Yeah, we also enjoy things, so, [Aaron] In moderation. [Jennifer] in moderation. That's good. [Aaron] So, Oh I wanna give that quick tip real quick, 'cause people are probably thinking like, "Well, what about the ingredients?" Just a quick tip on ingredients, the order of ingredients on the box, so like starting from the first, to the second, to the third, the higher up an ingredient is on the box, the more of that ingredient is in the product. So if sugar is in the top three ingredients, that means there's a lot of sugar in that item. So if wheat's the first or water, that's how they order the ingredients, based off of amount of ingredients. [Jennifer] So here's another one, it's really random, but I've been seeing a naturopath for my thyroid issues through this last year, and one of the things she asked me is if we use Weed and Feed. And I didn't even know, 'cause you usually do-- [Aaron] For the lawns? Yeah. [Jennifer] the lawns, yeah. And that was just one instance where she was like, "Well, instead of using that, "why don't you just pick the weeds?" like-- [Aaron] Or leave the weeds. [Jennifer] or leave the weeds. So there's a lots of things in our life that we can look at and evaluate, and say, "Oh, we should probably make change." It doesn't have to happen all at once, but it is something that we should be aware of, to go, "Hey what's happening to this exposure "that we're doing to our bodies. "And how can we maintain a healthy body?' [Aaron] And the Weed and Feed was important because was saying, "You guys walk on "that grass all the time." And like, it goes into your skin, and you're going to be affected by it. Because you're you're working with your thyroid and all of these things, effect that. Which is interesting because, we knew back then that you were probably sensitive to some stuff, and now we know now, you are definitely sensitive to things. Your body's gonna react, maybe differently than someone who, has normal functioning thyroid, or endocrine system or all that. [Jennifer] Right. Okay so, we we're just going to get into kind of a list of our non-toxic products because-- [Aaron] These are literally things that we use, pretty much on a regular basis. [Jennifer] Two reasons, one we just thought it would be fun to share these things, and if you guys you know want to know more, you can reach out to us on Instagram @marriage-- [Aaron] Reach out to Jennifer about the [Jennifer] I was going to say @marriageaftergod. [Aaron] Ah there ya go. [Jennifer] or @unveiledwife We also know that everyone's always looking for, you know, new things or ideas or inspiration so, we just hope that by sharing these, it's an encouragement to you, and give you some information. [Aaron] And I'll also let you guys know that we're not like necessarily sponsored by any of these people. We're just we're literally going to share with you guys the things that we love-- [Jennifer] Now I will say, [Aaron] and use. [Jennifer] that some of these things that I put on the list, and we've been using Young Living Essential Oils for [Aaron] Several years now. [Jennifer] about four or five years now. And we did just recently, just be more open to sharing the business side of things on social media. You may have seen that, maybe not. And so I know you said that we're not sponsored by this, but we,-- [Aaron] But we use it. [Jennifer] but we do use Young Living, and we do believe in what they have to offer, and and have really fallen in love with their products. So, I just wanted to put that out there, just so that people know and we're clear about that. [Aaron] We're not trying to be tricky or anything, we just, these are literally products we love and no one's asked us to share about them. Except for us, wanting to share about them. [Jennifer] Okay so when it comes to cleaning I really love the Thieves Spray, which in the beginning I was using wrong, because I didn't know it could be diluted. I literally would just put the spray cap-- [Aaron] And everything was just like slimy and had like, film all over the [Jennifer] Uh yeah, like a residue. [Aaron] We had residue everywhere. [Jennifer] On the countertops. [Aaron] Oh man, there was no germs I bet. [Jennifer] Ah, probably not. So the Thieves container comes, and then you dilute it, and it lasts a long time. But it smells really good, and I can use it for-- [Aaron] Everything. [Jennifer] I feel like every, one product, I feel like I can use for so much. [Aaron] And what's awesome is like, if you sprayed it on food by accident, I'm not saying you should eat it, but it's not going to be like spraying Lysol on something. Like you spray the table, you spray the the highchair, you spray, you're not worried about this, you know hurting your children. Which is awesome. It's an added benefit to this kind of cleaning product. [Jennifer] Another awesome cleaning product, is by a company called Norwex, it's really awesome you guys, they do these microfiber cloths, but they're like-- [Aaron] Aren't they infused with like silver? [Jennifer] Yeah, they're infused with silver, and they just, I don't know what about it is, but like, when you go to clean the stove, you barely have to even scrape, it's just like, [Aaron] Reusable [Jennifer] It like makes you want to clean. The window rag, you just you put water on it, and just wipe your window down, and they look crystal clear. I bought these mitts for the kids that have, they're just really easy slip-on gloves, but they're good for dusting, [Aaron] So that they can help clean? [Jennifer] So that they can help clean. Oh and our mop, I use the Norwex mop, and it's just really nice. It's good, I like it. I like their stuff. [Aaron] I wouldn't say those are necessarily, healthy products, they're just good products that we love using. [Jennifer] Oh yeah. [Aaron] On that specific one, [Jennifer] On the Norwex side of things. [Aaron] I did wanna go back, and just real quick, the Thieves Spray, we just talked about, I wanted to say it like it what it replaces. Because I think, as we go, we should just remind them, also, what it replaces like, it replaces Lysol spray, it replaces window spray, it replaces like toilet cleaner, it replaces all these things that you'd use to clean your countertops, or your floors, or your tables, or your, it does all of those things. [Jennifer] So for all you minimalists out there, [Aaron] You get one thing, and it does all. [Jennifer] It'll make your cleaning closet, or cupboard very pretty looking. [Aaron] It also smells really nice. [Jennifer] It does, that's true. For laundry, again that they sell Thieves Laundry Detergent and we've really liked that. And I just noticed that, there's a drastic difference when washing towels and washcloths. They're just so much cleaner. [Aaron] And they smell fresher, and they feel nicer. I've been really liking that, as well. This is this one's kind of like for me. So Jennifer, actually, doesn't use the the Thieves Laundry Soap for me, because I'm really sensitive, my skin, if we, if there's any laundry detergent that has any sort of dyes or perfumes or anything, I get like a rash, on my whole body. [Jennifer] If I even think about changing it, he breaks out-- [Aaron] Now, it happens, we've gone, we've stayed at hotels in the past, and I wake up in the morning and I'm just like red, and I go down and I'm like, "What are you guys washing your stuff with?" And they're like "We don't know, why?" And I'm like "I like I need something else." It's like horrible 'cause I'm like sleeping on these blankets and pillows, and so the only thing that we found work, we've actually tried venturing out, into other things, is the Arm & Hammer Sensitive Skin laundry detergent. [Jennifer] But it's fragrance-free, it's clear, [Aaron] Dye free. I'm sure it's got a couple of bad things in it, but literally, it's the only one that I've been able to use and not like break out in a rash on my body. But that comes in a huge bottle and we use it for me so. [Jennifer] Okay so earlier, we mentioned the shower, and just how the bathroom is much [Aaron] less cluttered, [Jennifer] Yeah, less cluttered. So we use dr. Bronner's for just about everything when it comes to washing our bodies. [Aaron] Body wash, shampoo, [Jennifer] I use it in the kids hair, I throw it in their bath and they have different scents, and they come in big bottles [Aaron] I like the rose scented one. [Jennifer] I will say this, the first couple times that we used it, do you remember how it felt like, really different, almost oily, but then once you got out of the shower it was like, [Aaron] Yeah, 'cause it doesn't suds the same way, as like a regular shampoo and also, you have to dilute it. And so you if you use too much, it's like everywhere but it comes off really easy. Doesn't leave any residue, but it's, we love it we use it for everything. Apparently you can use dr. Bronner's for like, laundry soap, [Jennifer] Yep. and dish washing soap [Jennifer] You can use it for a lot of stuff. [Aaron] We use it mainly in the shower, but yeah, you can [Jennifer] I use it for my face wash now, face and body wash, [Aaron] You can use it for everything. We wanna make a note that, the company that that owns dr. Bronner's, they write a bunch of weird stuff on the packaging so we're not necessarily endorsing what is written on the packaging, but we love the product. [Jennifer] When it comes to my like, lotions and things like that, Cetaphil is pretty bland, there's not very much stuff in it. I've used that for years now. I love the orange blossom and ART brand from Young Living when it comes to face moisturizer. The Genesis lotion is also really great, especially because, well, it smells clean and fresh, but it's not super fragrant. That one's good, just an overall lotion, I use that one for the kids. But also, Aaron, [Aaron] Yeah, there's a lotion that I, I hate lotions, like I don't like putting anything in my hands, even though, like right now, my hands are so dry because it's so dry out. But I hate feeling like greasy and the lotion I love the most is from Bend Soap Company, they're actually right here in our hometown. And they make this goat milk lotion, they make goat milk soap, they make a lot of really awesome things. So if you have really sensitive skin, like eczema, things like that, their soaps are amazing for it. That's actually why they started the company, 'cause one of their sons had issues with skin like that. [Jennifer] What I like is their milk bath, it comes in these like shavings, [Aaron] Oh yeah. [Jennifer] And it's just, you toss it in the bath with the kids, and it's just so fun. [Aaron] So just go check out Bend Soap Company, I can't remember the domain, but just Google Bend Soap Company. And their lotion, does not feel greasy. Once it's rubbed in, it's like, it smells nice, it feels great. [Jennifer] You don't have to go wash your hands [Aaron] It feels soft, yeah I don't have to wash my hands afterwards. [Jennifer] For toothpaste we do use Young Living. The Thieves whitening, specifically, is really good for us. And then we use it the kid's ones for the kids. But for the deodorant, this was a big one for me, because I feel like every time I try to use like, a natural deodorant, it just felt weird [Aaron] They don't work. [Jennifer] and didn't work [Jennifer] Yeah, but there's a new company out I'd say a fairly new. They're gaining ground, they're like in Target now, [Aaron] Yeah, they actually have some body washes now, I saw. [Jennifer] Oh really? [Aaron] Yeah, I almost bought a bottle of it. [Jennifer] Oh you should, I'll have to try it. [Aaron] But I like my Bronner's [Jennifer] I know. It's called Native. And they have great scents, it goes on smooth, almost silky like, and it works. Someone asked me, "Do you think it'll work during postpartum?" And I'm like, "That I haven't tried yet, "so we'll know this time around." But I've really really enjoyed Native. [Aaron] Yeah, it doesn't have the heavy metals, or nothin' in it, [Jennifer] Paraben-free [Aaron] So it won't necessarily protect you from perspiring, I should say. It's not an antiperspirant, it's a deodorant. So it protects from the smell, but-- [Jennifer] I don't, really notice-- [Aaron] Yeah, well, it's winter right now, so I don't know, sometimes. [Jennifer] I've been using it for a while though. [Aaron] But I like it a lot. It smells great, it feels good, and deodorant is another one that's really been a, hard one for me because, like, pretty much any deodorant I use, I used to use the Arm & Hammer deodorant, but that has some metals in it, and so I've since switched to Native, but Arm & Hammer and Native are the only ones that don't give me rashes on my arms. And they're painful, you've see them. [Jennifer] Yeah, [Aaron] Like, I they hurt. And I've loved their deodorants. [Jennifer] Another good product for chapstick, is Burt's Bees. [Aaron] Yeah that's good. Especially their vanilla brand, [Aaron] I think a lot of people are like, "yeah, I like that." Burt's Bees, they've been pretty synonymous for chapsticks. [Jennifer] That or coconut oil. Which coconut oil, you guys, you could used for literally everything. [Aaron] Yeah, we should do an episode on that. [Jennifer] Dry skin, lips-- [Aaron] intimacy, oh we're gonna talk about it. [Jennifer] Lubricancy, or, lubricancy? [Aaron] Lubricancy [Jennifer] Whatever that is. [Aaron] It's like, new word. [Jennifer] Okay before we get there, supplements, some things that I've been taking his last year, Nordic Naturals-- [Aaron] You've been, just real quick, you've been getting a lot, into the supplements, just because of your-- [Jennifer] Thyroid. [Aaron] your thyroid. So you've been learning a lot about these. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] Because we're, we're trying to avoid going with other stronger, methods, we're trying to do the natural way, [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] and you've been, pretty consistent with this. [Jennifer] Yeah, and just as a testament, after being on the supplements, I have actually, my numbers have gone down, and in my symptoms have pretty much dissipated, but I've also been pregnant the last nine months. [Aaron] Which does change things, yep. [Jennifer] So it does change things. But Nordic Naturals has a really great, strawberry flavored, omega-3. Which I love. And I've been taking-- [Aaron] So it doesn't just taste like fish? It tastes like strawberries? That's good. [Jennifer] Yeah. We've taking D3 a lot. Young Living has a great line of supplements that we use, like the vitamin C, the vitamin B, Multigreens, [Aaron] Yeah, I've been loving their Master Formula. It's like a pack of like five little supplements, and vitamin B, C, D3, all these different ones. I've been taking that, pretty much regularly, every day, I really enjoy that one. [Jennifer] Cool. Okay so for pregnancy and post-partum care, my friend recommended ancient magnesium lotion for restless legs, and it works. [Aaron] Do you get restless legs when you're pregnant? [Jennifer] Yeah, mostly towards the end, [Aaron] I'm being facetious, because I know. [Jennifer] I know, Aaron does the massaging, with the lotion, [Aaron] Yeah [Jennifer] Thank you, Aaron. [Aaron] You've had pretty bad restless legs this time. [Jennifer] Yeah, [Aaron] And the magnesium lotion-- [Jennifer] It's been good. [Aaron] And lavender, on your feet. [Jennifer] Yep. [Aaron] Has been, really helping you. [Jennifer] Yep, that's true. [Aaron] 'Cause I can tell, 'cause then you fall asleep. [Jennifer] Yeah. I've love it. And then the other thing that helps, has helped me during this pregnancy is the Young Living Deep Relief roller and I don't necessarily put it on, but like I smell it, like especially when I'm nauseous, or anything like that. [Aaron] I personally don't like this one because of how cold it feels. It's like all this-- [Jennifer] When you put it on, yeah. [Aaron] Like the peppermint in it, I just can't. [Jennifer] The cooling effect. [Aaron] But it does work, but it's too cold for me. So you brought up makeup in the beginning, I remember you used to go to the MAC store and you were like, "We have to go to the mall, I need some MAC." And I was like, "Are you serious? "You look beautiful." I've never liked you wearing makeup. You remember this? I was like, "You don't need to wear makeup." But you've used since not used makeup, the MAC makeup and for a long time, you didn't use almost anything, because we couldn't find anything. What do you use now? I'm sure some of the women are like, "What kind of makeup do you use?" [Jennifer] Yeah, so I would say, like my everyday would be, a primer from Urban Decay, which just kind of holds the eyeshadow on, and the eye shadow is also from Urban Decay. And I just like it, they're neutral colors, easy to put on really quick, and the times that I do use foundation, it's a powder foundation from Young Living, it's called Savvy Minerals, it's like a mineral makeup. And it goes on super light and so, [Aaron] But that's rare. [Jennifer] Yeah, it's like on Sundays. [Aaron] I would say you used to use a lot more makeup, and now it's like, you do a little eyeliner, [Jennifer] Yeah, [Aaron] You do a little mascara, [Jennifer] I don't use eyeliner actually. [Aaron] You don't use eyeliner? [Jennifer] No but my mascara, Smashbox has been a really good favorite, paraben-free, and Clinique. [Aaron] Clinique, [Jennifer] Yep. [Aaron] So no eyeliner, but mascara, okay, and then you use some lipstick sometimes. [Jennifer] Every once in a while. [Aaron] Yeah. [Jennifer] The Burt's Bees tinted is really nice. [Aaron] 'cause it's kinda like lipstick, and it's moisturizing [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] Yeah, so I'm just making a note that you wear way less makeup than you use to [Jennifer] Oh yeah. [Aaron] And I think you're beautiful. [Jennifer] Thank you. [Aaron] Yeah, well, I'm not lying. I've never been a fan of a lot of makeup, and because of this, you've since found contentment in just a very little. [Jennifer] Yep. [Aaron] Which I think is really awesome. [Jennifer] Okay so when it comes to intimacy, you guys we ditched pretty much, well, we did all lubricants because of-- [Aaron] And we've tried a lot of lubricants 'cause, [Jennifer] We've tried a lot [Aaron] 'cause, things didn't work. [Jennifer] But there were so many of 'em that had parabens in it. [Aaron] All of them. [Jennifer] Every single one, [Jennifer] We didn't even know, [Aaron] Had parabens, yeah. [Jennifer] And then other things on top of that that were just not good for you, so, we stuck to coconut oil for a really long time. [Aaron] So, tip, coconut oil's amazing, for that, specifically, and it's so good for you too. And it feels good. That was a little side note, for the adults in the room. So, I guess what we wanna get at, and I'm sure there's like a ton more things that we-- [Jennifer] I know, [Aaron] we use that are healthy, and we could probably, make a whole other list, but we essentially, wanted to show you that we've simplified, we found the handful of products that we love, and that we know what's in them, and we just, what's really awesome about this is, we it makes shopping easier, it's actually cheaper 'cause we're not buying a bunch of stuff and always experimenting, we're not always saying like "Well, let's try this new thing." We just say "Nope, we love this product. "Let's just go with it, we know it works." And so it makes, we don't think as much about those things. We know that we're minimizing the amount of chemicals we're putting on us, on our kids. And so we can have some peace of mind, and just one less thing that we have to think about, in our home. And we can put more intention into the spiritual growth of our family, into our careers, into our children, into each other, and we're not like worried about these other things. [Jennifer] Yeah, or when you say, "don't put as much "thought into them," I would say initially we do, because we do look at ingredients. We look and we do our research and figure out what we want to use, and we're in agreement when we choose things, but then, once we know what it is, it's kinda like that going back to that spaghetti sauce, once we found the one that didn't have sugar in it, we just stick to that one. [Aaron] And it's great. We love it. [Jennifer] And it makes it easy. It makes it so easy when you know what you are good with. [Aaron] Well, and grocery shopping's hard. I don't know if everyone who's listening is like, "Yeah grocery shopping's hard." Like, for us it's hard, like, so once you, instead of trying to reinvent the wheel every single time, we've kinda, we slowly over time with built, our list of things that we like, "Oh, these are the things-- [Jennifer] Stick to the basics [Aaron] "that we can, "we're just gonna go to those things." And some of them are a little but more expensive. But what's awesome is we don't get as much of everything, like we get those handful of things and I was just at the grocery store the other day, and I was just thinking how awesome it is, that we have these habits on the things that we get. There's just the staples in our home, there's things that we get often. We've already looked at the ingredients. We know we enjoy them. We know that we like them. And it just makes these normal, everyday things so much more enjoyable and easy. They're less stressful like, all around like, this this this way of thinking, is just good for our everyday life. To simplify, to know the things that we like, and we create the good habit. And then that habit is there. So we don't have to reinvent the wheel, every single time we walk to the grocery store. Or every time we are shopping for something for our home, and for our kids. [Jennifer] And we also gotta know when we do choose that organic, clean, non-toxic, or non-GMO, whatever the thing is, we can't be up so obsessive about it that when we go out, or someone offers us, or brings us-- [Aaron] Right. That's a good point. [Jennifer] food during, postpartum, or whatever it is, that we're not nitpicky in a way that promotes-- [Aaron] Is this from that specific brand? [Jennifer] Yeah, let's not be like that. [Aaron] Yeah, we're not, yeah. [Jennifer] And I guess what I'm trying to say is we can't make it in idol. I think it's important to be healthy, and do the best that we can, but there's going to be times that we can't, and that's okay. We can't make living out this way, become an idol in our lives, and especially not become a strife point between husband and wife. I think this is something that you guys, [Aaron] Or friends, [Jennifer] can learn about together. Engage in together, and agree on together. [Aaron] That's a really good point, you know it's good to, in general, be making healthier habits in our life, but the point is not just to be healthier, it's too have a good habits. It's to walk rightly and have wisdom. And so is that thing, if those things, are getting in the way of your relationships with other people, they need to be put on the shelf. Not forever, but like you need to check yourself, and say "Am I letting this thing get in the way of them?" [Jennifer] Yeah, or if you really, truly have a heart to encourage your friends, or family members, or whoever to also, live a healthy lifestyle, be patient with them, because it might take someone else more time, than maybe it took you, or I don't know, I just feel like we need to have compassion for people's learning experience, [Aaron] Yeah, well and also don't let this, one last little warning, don't let this be the message you preach. It's good to encourage people and say "Hey like, you know, why don't you try this? "Why don't you try some more healthy things? "Here's an idea." It's one thing to share, healthy lifestyle, and to encourage someone, but if that if that replaces the message we should be preaching, the message of Christ, if like we have this opportunity and we're instead, we're encouraging someone to be healthier, and then what were thinking is, holiness comes from that. Rather than encouraging someone in Christ, and making the healthy lifestyle thing, that's an ancillary thing in our life that were like, "Oh and I like to live healthy, "and here's some ideas if you're interested." So the main messages is our life represents Christ and we preach him. 'Cause, we could do that sometimes. I got excited about crossfit, and every conversation I had was about crossfit, and I have to check myself and be like, "Hey, is this getting in the way "of the message I should be preaching right now? [Jennifer] That's really good Aaron, and I just, you know, just even thinking about this episode, it's little bit fun and quirky, and you know, not very Christ driven, but yet, I think the encouragement here is that we're aware of what we're putting in and on our bodies because, the scripture to tell us about, our bodies being the Holy Temple. [Aaron] Right, and we're, it's just being wise. Let's be wise with our bodies, and we can't control everything, and we shouldn't try and control everything. But what we can control, with moderation, with wisdom, and with sober mindedness, you know, thinking rightly, I think there's wisdom in that. And walking good, and not just putting junk in our bodies, and on our bodies. [Jennifer] And it has felt really good, I think you would agree with me, in having the conversations from time to time, about our lifestyle choices, about the things that we're doing, the things that were buying, and it's something that we evaluate often. You know, even when we go to the grocery store and so, I would hope that this episode, encourages couples to do that. [Aaron] Yeah. [Jennifer] So I also wanna let you guys know that if you, especially the wife, if you're interested in following me on Instagram, @unveiledwife, there's a highlight tab called toxic, free, healthy living, and you can get more information there. And also if you're curious about more things, if you want to hear more about, you know, the things that we use just message me. [Aaron] So before we close in prayer, I thought it'd be cool if we let everyone know some of the resources and people that we follow that kinda promote, some healthy living, so what are you share some of those? [Jennifer] So Dashing Dish, she's a good friend of ours and she is-- [Aaron] She's awesome. [Jennifer] really good at just like, meal planning, healthy fitness, [Aaron] Believer, loves the Lord. [Jennifer] everything you can think of, if you want some inspiration she's a great resource. Dr. Mark Hyman H-Y-M-A-N, is a really great resource, he just talks about the holistic living, like that Aaron mentioned. Carrie Vitt, I think it's a Vitt, or Veet. It's C-A-R-R-I-E V-I-T-T and on Instagram, that's where I follow her, and she talks a lot about thyroid health. So I mention that earlier-- [Aaron] Yeah, which is important to you. [Jennifer] Yeah, if you guys are interested in more inspiration for thyroid health, she's a great one to listen to, or watch, or follow. Follow, yeah. [Jennifer] I don't know what it's called. Another one is just.ingredients. She is going to really fun resource, a newer resource that-- [Aaron] Someone shared this with you, yeah. [Jennifer] someone shared with me, and she does like, Costco overhauls, she'll compare products and it's just been really great. [Aaron] A note on her, isn't she the one, that she'll say "If you can't do this, "at least do this?" [Jennifer] Yeah, I think so. [Aaron] And so she shows you like, if you can't afford this, the best product, here's one that's a little bit better than that other product. [Jennifer] I know she shows pictures too, of like, comparing products and things like that. So that's just.ingredients. And then another one I've been falling recently, is Purely Parsons. She's a fun one, just a mom, also nurse, who shares a lot of things, and her highlight reel, I mean, so much about birth, postpartum care, flu season, just home remedies, farming, like, anything that you can think of that you want to know more about, she's just a fun person to follow. And I really appreciated, how much time she takes in explaining things, and sharing resources. And then we had mentioned Sugar Busters, but if you want to know more about the toxi, I can't say that word, [Aaron] Toxicity. of sugar, Dr. Robert Lustig L-U-S-T-I-G [Aaron] Oh yeah, he's the guy [Jennifer] he's the guy. And especially on YouTube. Just research him and check out some of his-- [Aaron] He talks about what sugar does in our bodies. and this is not to be an anti sugar talk, we just when we're aware of how things interact with our body, how God created our bodies, it's pretty interesting 'cause it's not normal things to learn, so just wanna encourage you to check that out. So hey, we just want to thank everyone for being here today. As usual, we like to close in prayer. And so just Jennifer, why don't you pray for us? [Jennifer] Okay. Dear Lord, thank you for our bodies. We pray would be good stewards of our bodies and consider all that goes on them, and in them. We pray we would be willing to take the time and research the items we use on a daily basis. Using things that help us and not hurt us. Lord, we ask that you would give us wisdom as we navigate living a healthy lifestyle. Help us to make good choices, and be on the same page in marriage, so that we can enjoy the benefits of living toxic-free. Please help us to not be overwhelmed by the process of learning, but rather, help us to be humble and willing to learn so that we can choose what is healthy for us, and be advocates of healthy living for the sake of others. We pray living healthy would not become an idol in our lives and would not hinder any of our relationships. May we be people who don't just consume, but people who care about our bodies, and take care of them. In Jesus' name, amen. [Aaron] Amen. We love you all, We thank you for joining us on this episode. We hope it was enjoyable and educational. Go follow @unveiledwife and check out some of her, some more of her things. She posts about them often. And again, we love you, and we look forward to having you next week, possibly as long as we don't have the baby before then, we'll get some episodes up. See you next week. Did you enjoy Today Show? If you did, it would mean the world to us if you could leave us a review on iTunes. Also, if you're interested, you can find many more encouraging stories and resources at marriageaftergod.com. And let us help you cultivate an extraordinary marriage.   

Christian Alliance For Orphans Interviews (Part 1) - Bishop Aaron BlakeChristian Alliance For Orphans Interviews (Part 2) - Diana PrykhodkoChristian Alliance For Orphans Interviews (Part 3) - Bishop W.C. MartinFamilyLife Today® Radio Transcript  References to conferences, resources, or other special promotions may be obsolete. Adopting the Football Team Guest:                        Aaron Blake              From the series:       Adopting the Football Team (Day 1 of 1)  Bob: Aaron Blake is a pastor and worked for years as a guidance counselor at a local high school. He says nothing in his background prepared him for a conversation he would have with a young man named Melvin.  Aaron: I didn't understand what helping a 15-year-old in foster care was about. I had counseled folks with marriage, death and dying, jail—all kinds of situations—but never a foster kid that was in the system that had been in nine different placements since he was in high school. Now, he was sitting in front of me. I said this to him—I said: “Melvin, if I could, I'd take you home with me.” Bob: This is a special on-location edition of FamilyLife Today for Thursday, August 13th. Our host is the President of FamilyLife®, Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine. We'll hear a powerful story from Bishop Aaron Blake today as we learn about how God enlarged his family. Stay tuned. 1:00 And welcome to FamilyLife Today. Thanks for joining us. Once again, we've got maybe the world's greatest studio audience joining us here at the Christian Alliance for Orphans' Summit. [Applause] [Laughter] We're going to talk about something that your [Dennis'] heart for this subject has been expanded in a personal way over the last several years. Dennis: It has. Barbara and I have six children, one of whom is adopted—we don't know which one [Laughter]—but our children have picked up the virus—the adoption virus. We now have 21 grandchildren through biological means but also adoption.  2:00 There's a couple here—my engrafted son, Michael Escue—and his wife, who is our daughter, Ashley. Ashley and Michael have cared for 21 foster care children over the years and have emptied their county of any waiting children in the foster care system. [Applause] We have a hero with us that I think fulfills one of the words that Christ gave in His Sermon on the Mount. Matthew, Chapter 5, says, “In the same way, let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” You are about to meet a hero, who has let his light shine, along with his wife Mary of 38 years. Bishop Aaron Blake is going to join us on the stage. Come on up, Bishop. Bob: Bishop Blake, join us. [Applause] 3:00 Dennis: Welcome to the broadcast and our small studio here; okay. He has been a pastor for more than 35 years. For a number of years, Bishop, you served as a bi-vocational pastor. You were a high school guidance counselor. That's really where the surgery for your heart began, around the subject of foster care—share how that happened. Aaron: Well, the school that I was presently serving had a situation where a number of kids came into the school—that were in foster care. Many times, kids that move from placement to placement had a situation where they lost credits every placement.  4:00 So, being there, as a guidance counselor/social worker, I wanted to find out how we can recover the credits of those kids so that that wouldn't be another setback for them. My journey started when one kid came to me with that problem. Bob: That was Melvin who came to you; right? Aaron: Well, when he came into the office now, he came in the office with a little chip on his shoulder and a little attitude.  Bob: Yes. Aaron: He came in and sat down on the desk in front of me. He said, “I don't know who you are, and I don't know what you do; but you can't make me go to class.” I said: “Well, I'm not the principal. I'm not the one that makes you do anything; but when you decide that you want to go to Brownwood High School, let me know.” He sat in front of me. He sat through first period, second period, and third period—and then the bell rang for lunch. He said, “Are you going to let me go eat?”  5:00 I said, “Man, you don't have any lunch because you're not enrolled.” [Laughter] I thought food would convince him that maybe he needs to get a class. He said, “Well, we'll just sit here then.” Then, after the last bell rang, I got hungry. [Laughter]  We went to lunch, and that started the dialogue of who Melvin was. On the way to lunch, I noticed he had some biceps and triceps. So, on the way to lunch, I took him through the football gymnasium and dressing room. Something about a sock-smelling dressing room that goes into the head and nostril of a kid—and he said, “Do you think I could play football for Brownwood High School?” I said, “No way.” He said, “Why?!” “You won't go to class!” [Laughter] We go get a burger. We come back—  6:00 —we come back through the hall where all of the trophies and the pictures [are] on the wall. That was my high school alma mater by the way—and two of those championships, I was on—there was my picture. I said, “You see that guy there?” He said, “Don't tell me that was you.” I said, “Yes.” I said, “We won State Championship,”—pulled him by the coach's office. The coach began to talk to him—say, “Hey, isn't this the guy that's going to come play football?” I said, “No way.” He said, “Why?!” I said, “Because he won't”—and then Melvin punched me in the side. [Laughter]  We walked off and Melvin said: “Hey, I'll make a deal with you. If you get me on the team, I'll go to class.” I got him on the team / he went to class, but my main assignment that day was to recover Melvin's lost credits. Many kids, across the country in foster care, these things happen. That's why the drop-out rate and the inability to finish high school are high amongst foster children. 7:00 Dennis: You know, you not only cared about his lost credits, you also cared about his lost soul. Aaron: Yes. Melvin had gotten into class, gotten on the football team, and had some success that year. Then, at the end of the year, something happened with his placement. CPS [Child Protective Services] called and said, “We're coming to get Melvin.” The school transferred the call to me. They said: “Would you prep Melvin because we're going to have to move him. We know he's having success, but something happened.”  Before I could get to Melvin, the CPS worker had already gotten to the school and told Melvin that he's going to move. Melvin bolted out the door, ran to the side of the building, across the football field and was gone. The CPS worker came and said, “He probably is going to contact you because of relationship.”  8:00 That evening, I stayed at the school late. Melvin came in and sat in the same chair in front of my desk that he sat in the first day that he came to see me. He sat in that desk after running. Perspiration drenched his body / his clothes—running down his face. I couldn't tell the tears running down his face from the perspiration. We sat what seemed like 15 minutes but probably was only 15 seconds. Finally, he squeaked out these words—and they're the reason why I'm here today—he said, “Brother Blake, will you help me?”  Well, I didn't understand what helping a 15-year-old in foster care was about. I had counseled folks with marriage, death and dying, jail—all kinds of situations—but never a foster kid that was in the system and had been in nine different placements since he was in high school.  9:00 Bob: Wow. Aaron: And now he was sitting in front of me. I said this to him—I said, “Melvin, if I could, I'd take you home with me.” He said, “Really?” I said, “Yes.” He said, “You would take me home with you?” I said, “In a heartbeat.” I said, “But CPS is coming, and you have to go with them.” He said, “Okay.”  I learned, six months later, that Melvin heard something that I didn't think I said; but I understood. Melvin told the caseworker that “Brother Blake said that I could come live with him.” [Laughter] They called me and they said, “Melvin said that you said he can come live with you.” I said, “Wow!” While I had the phone to my ear, I couldn't say, “No.” There was something happening in my spirit and in my heart that I couldn't say, “No.” At the same time, Mary was in my mind; and I couldn't say, “Yes.” [Laughter] 10:00 On the way home, now, I rehearsed over and over [Laughter] what I was going to say to Mary. At supper that night, she was just going off about everything. I didn't hear anything she said—[Laughter]—I was trying to figure out what I was going to say. Finally, I said, “Guess what happened to me today” [Laughter]; and then I told about Melvin.  I didn't know that Melvin had been in her Sunday school class. She said, “You mean little Melvin doesn't have a home?” I said, “No.” She said, “Little Melvin that goes to school?” I said, “Yes.” She said, “I hope you told them ‘Yes.'” I literally almost fell out of my chair. I couldn't wait until the next morning to call CPS to tell them: “Hey, yes. Melvin can come.”  11:00 I called at 8:00 straight up and got voice mail; but anyway, finally when I got through, I said: “Tell Melvin, ‘Yes,' he can come and live with us. We're ready.”  Then they said, “Are you a licensed foster parent?” Bob: The audience knows a little bit about that. Aaron: Yes. Well, I didn't know anything about it. I said, “What do you buy this at?” [Laughter] Well, we quickly found an agency and went through the process. Melvin came to live with us. That is how that story— Bob: That was the first of six foster sons—all of them foster sons—is that right? Aaron: Yes, all of them foster. Let me tell you this story quickly, if I can. Melvin played football. The outside tight end was a foster kid—blew his placement. At practice, Melvin went to him and said: “Don't worry about it. [Laughter] I know where you can go.” [Laughter]  12:00 But then, the outside line backer blew his placement— Dennis: Well, you know how many kids are on a football team. Aaron: Well, I do. [Laughter] So Melvin and Joseph go and say to Buck: “Don't worry about it guy. We can't lose you! We've got to win the playoffs.” [Laughter] So, he came to live with us. [Laughter] CPS called and says: “He has a brother. [Laughter] We love to keep siblings together”; and he came to us. Six boys later, our house was filled up. Dennis: You were a bi-vocational pastor at that time. Your church watched you do this. What was the impact on your congregation? Aaron: I went to my church. I stood up one Sunday—heart was heavy because, at that particular time, there were 30, 000 kids in the system in Texas.  13:00 I also noticed there were an over representation of African-American children—a dis-proportionality—that was also in the system. God began to deal with me that Sunday on the ministry of reconciliation. Reconciliation without restoration won't work. God has called us, because He's reconciled us by Christ to Himself, and given us the ministry of reconciliation.  Then I say, “God, how can I really preach James 1:27, as undefiled religion without understanding restoration of families?—and restoration of children?”  So, I stood up that Sunday in front of my congregation. I said, “Guys, how many of you here would help me stand up for orphans?” I didn't mean literally stand up; but a lady in the back stood up and said, “Pastor, I will.” Then another one stood up and said, “I will.” And another one stood up and said, “I will.” A year later, 36 kids were in our church because of Stand-Up Sunday. [Applause] 14:00 Dennis: That's cool. [Applause] Just real quickly—because there's one more of the six that you engrafted into your family that I want you to talk about—you're on a mission now about the entire state of Texas. Share just a quick—if you can—about how you're embodying the ministry of reconciliation there. Aaron: Well, the purifying part of James 1:27—that happened to Mary and I—is that we wanted to make sure that the body of Christ—across racial lines / across denominational lines—understand that the only way that we're going to really understand, as a body of Christ, and heal our nation, and our children, and broken families is reconciliation and restoration.  15:00 The church has been absent with foster care and adoption. They've been absent with racial reconciliation / family reconciliation. It's time for the church to stand up and say: “We are the voice. We have the ministry of reconciliation. And we're for restoring families.” [Applause] Dennis: You and I could fight for the soapbox, at this point, because I think this is a huge opportunity for the church. You are the church—we can make a difference in our individual communities.  I want you to introduce us to a young man who you engrafted in—one of the six foster care boys that you cared for. Tell us about Diego. Aaron: Well, Diego, even when we—they would be upstairs at our house, and they would be [makes noises] doing all that kind of stuff. [Laughter] Dennis: Whoa, whoa, what was that? Aaron: [Makes noises again] “What's that?” That was what they were doing when they didn't have all the machines and all the stuff that made the sounds—they were rapping.  16:00 Dennis: Okay. Aaron: Diego would try to come up with lines and lyrics and all that kind of stuff. So, he started rapping back then.  Diego was at one of our meetings—that we were having across the state—and I had never told because I didn't want our guys to be put on front street about an incident that happened. Mark had a candle in the window—wind blew in, caught the curtain, went up the wall, and our house burned down. We were having a meeting, like this, and telling folks that: “You need to step up. You need to become foster parents, and you need to adopt.” Then, Diego stands up and says, “We burnt the house down.” [Laughter] Dennis: Great advertisement for foster care; huh?  Aaron: Yes! [Laughter] But Diego went on to say—he said, “I knew that my mom”—and he called me Pop—“and my dad, Pop, really loved us unconditionally the next morning after the fire.”  17:00 Well, the boys, the next morning, didn't want to go to school. I said, “What's going on?” They said this, “We do not want to go to school and see PS [Protective Services] come and pick us up at school and embarrass us.” He told the story: “I knew that Mom and Dad loved me because [emotion in voice] we have been moved from place to place for stuff less than that. We knew they loved us.” That's Diego. Bob: Hey, Pop, we've got a little surprise for you. Dennis: There's something the audience knows that you don't. [Diego walks out] Aaron: Oh! [Applause] My goodness!  Diego: Love you, Pop. Aaron: I've been dreaming about this. [Applause] Bob: Diego, have a seat.  Dennis: Diego, have a seat right here.  Bob: We thought this young arsonist ought to come out [Laughter] and—tell these folks that morning when Pop said to you, “It is okay.” 18:00 Diego: Well, like he explained in the story—when we did burn the house down, [Laughter] we burned the house down! [Laughter] Honestly, man, we thought we were headed somewhere else. We thought we were going to another foster home or somewhere else. Man, when I tell you this—this man, after the house burned down—instead of coming to us, and fussing at us and stuff, he took us—the only place open was Walmart®—he just took us to Walmart—bought us some clothes to go to school the next day. So, we went to school. After school, we worked out. We didn't want to get back home because we knew that—hey, we were going somewhere else!  The next thing you knew—we were going to a different—of course, your mom's house—moving us into your mom's house and like we were there.  19:00 He was like: “Y'all are my boys. Y'all are engrafted in. There isn't anything you can do to separate basically my love for you.” [Applause] Just being six boys that never had the type of love that [he] and Momma showed us—that love—that was just so awesome. It transformed our life, man. It really changed our destiny and the things that we are doing in life now. [Applause] Bob: You probably don't know this; but Dennis has a favorite assignment that he likes to give to folks, like you, that I think you can probably improv this on the spot. Do you [Dennis] want to give him the assignment? Dennis: Yes. You just heard him, without addressing you, break down, weeping about his love for you, and how proud he is of you, and the privilege of loving you. You've got him, face to face. You've got a chance to give him a tribute. Would you like to do it? 20:00 Diego: Yes. I'll give him a little something-something. [Laughter] I'll give him a little something-something. So, of course, y'all know about “engrafted” and I heard—I think you said something about your engrafted son—I was listening in the back. This man—when we first came to his house, he said, “You are not foster children.” He said, “You are engrafted into my home.” He said, “I'm your Pop and everything that belongs to me, it now belongs to you.” We took advantage of it, too, [Laughter] because we were engrafted in. He said: “The same way with the Kingdom—now, you're engrafted into the Kingdom of God. Everything that belongs to God now belongs to you, Diego.”  Of course, I'm a gospel artist—I do gospel rap. I wrote a song called—I entitled my album Engrafted. It just reflects the love that he showed us and the love that God is showing me now. So, man, thank you Pops. I just love you! 21:00 [Studio] Bob: Well, we have had the opportunity today to hear a conversation that took place at the recent Christian Alliance for Orphans' Summit that was held in Nashville, Tennessee. For those of you who would be interested in seeing Diego Fuller do a rap song called Engrafted, we've got a link on our website at FamilyLifeToday.com to the music video that he has put together. You can go to FamilyLifeToday.com. Click the link in the upper left-hand corner of the screen that says, “GO DEEPER.” You will see information about the brand-new Engrafted music video from Diego Fuller.  There's also information, online, about the Christian Alliance for Orphans. If you'd like to find out more about their plans for next year's summit, follow the link on our website at FamilyLifeToday.com to the Christian Alliance for Orphans website. We also have resources available for those of you who are considering being foster parents or adoptive parents.  22:00 Look for the resources we have available when you go, online, at FamilyLifeToday.com and click the link that says, “GO DEEPER.”  Maybe you're not considering adoption or foster care but you still have a heart for helping orphans in our world, we have information about different ways that individuals and churches can be involved in helping address the needs of orphans, all around the globe. Again, you‘ll find all of this when you go to FamilyLifeToday.com and click the link in the upper left-hand corner of the screen that says, “GO DEEPER.”  Now, the month of August is a significant month for us, here at FamilyLife. It's actually the end of the year for us. We begin our fiscal year September 1st. So, we're about to close the books on fiscal 2015 and start a new year, fiscal 2016, in September.  23:00 The reason I mention that is because, when you get near the end of the fiscal year, one of the things you're always wondering is: “Will we have the money necessary to cover the budgeted expenses of this ministry?”  So, we're asking you to consider making a yearend financial gift during the month of August to help us finish out our fiscal year in a healthy spot. That's easy enough to do. You can go, online, at FamilyLifeToday.com. Click the link in the upper right-hand corner of our screen that says, “I CARE.” Or you can call 1-800-FL-TODAY—make your donation over the phone. Or you can mail a donation to us at FamilyLife Today at PO Box 7111, Little Rock, AR; and our zip code is 72223.  By the way, when you make a donation right now, we'd like to say, “Thank you,” by sending you a book from Dennis and Barbara Rainey called Two Hearts Praying as One.  24:00 If you are making your first donation in 2015, in addition to the book, we'd like to add a prayer card that will help you know how to pray for one another in your family, especially when you're going through very difficult times, as a family. Again, all of that comes with our thanks for your support of this ministry.  Tomorrow, we're going to talk about heading back to school. Barbara Rainey is going to be joining us tomorrow. We'll tackle some of the issues that families face as they get ready to head back to school. Hope you can join us for that. I want to thank our engineer today, Keith Lynch, along with our entire broadcast production team. On behalf of our host, Dennis Rainey, I'm Bob Lepine. We will see you back next time for another edition of FamilyLife Today.  FamilyLife Today is a production of FamilyLife of Little Rock, Arkansas. Help for today. Hope for tomorrow.  We are so happy to provide these transcripts to you. However, there is a cost to produce them for our website. If you've benefited from the broadcast transcripts, would you consider donating today to help defray the costs?   Copyright © 2015 FamilyLife. All rights reserved. www.FamilyLife.com    

Helpful links from the episode: Zendesk Helpscout Olark Zapier GatherUp app on Zapier GatherUp User Guide MozCon FULL SHOW NOTES[intro music]00:10 Aaron Weiche: Episode 10: Building Customer Success and Support for your SaaS.00:16 INTRO: Welcome to The Saas Venture podcast, sharing the adventure of leading and growing a bootstrap SaaS company. Hear the experiences, challenges, wins, and losses shared in each episode, from Aaron Weiche of Gather Up and Darren Shaw of Whitespark. Let's go.[music]00:44 Aaron: Welcome to The SaaS Venture podcast; I'm Aaron.00:47 Darren Shaw: And I'm Darren.00:49 Aaron: And we have hit double digits, my friend.00:52 Darren: This is it. We've finally made it, big time.00:55 Aaron: Let's just shut it down.[chuckle]00:58 Darren: 10 episodes; this is our final episode.01:01 Aaron: But somebody that's just listening thought we maybe meant 10 years, but no, we just mean 10 episodes, but that feels good for five months into doing this.01:12 Darren: Yeah, we're gaining some traction. I think we're building a following, and I'm having a great time; it's been good.01:18 Aaron: Absolutely; I agree. So, hey, what's been going on with you since we last talked on the last episode? 01:26 Darren: What's been going on? Let's see... Well, I have a fun story to tell. Just the other day I was waiting for Violet and Jill to arrive at the gym, at the gym that I work out, and so that's also where Violet does her jiu jitsu class. So I'm on the treadmill and I'm running, just waiting for them to show up. And I never ride the treadmill, it's just that it was right by the door so I could watch. So I pressed the Stop button on the treadmill when they pull up and I go to get off. But because I don't ride the treadmill I didn't realize that it has, like, a slow down process. [chuckle] So I turn around to get off the treadmill, I realize it's still going as fast as it was when I was basically running full steam, and I was, like, full... Like arms, legs in the air, and landed hard on my back. [chuckle] And there were like three people come running over to see if I'm okay; I'm totally fine. I go to the car, and Jill is, like, in tears; she can't even speak because she saw the whole thing happening.[laughter]02:27 Aaron: Oh, perfect.02:28 Darren: And she's laughing non-stop. Thankfully I didn't really hurt myself, I just kinda got like a rug burn-type injury on my elbow, but I wish I could get the security camera video for it 'cause I would love to see it.02:44 Aaron: It would likely be a YouTube sensation, or make it into one of those compilations that you see on Facebook of exercise fails.02:52 Darren: I think it was worthy of that, for sure, yeah.02:55 Aaron: Well, I'm glad that your elbow is the only injury because, man, I've seen people... It looks like they... You can get knocked out if you fall on your head.03:05 Darren: I think so, yeah. So I was fine, just my biggest injury was my pride. I felt like a bit of an idiot at the gym there. But yeah. [chuckle]03:13 Aaron: Now, have you ever seen people who will walk on the treadmill, and it's set up where they can work... They're on a laptop while they're walking? 03:20 Darren: Yes, I have seen that before, and in fact, one of my employees, a developer that used to work with us, he had a setup like that in his office. And he would walk something like 15,000 steps a day. [chuckle] He was just, like, walk all day long while he was on his laptop.03:34 Aaron: Oh my gosh, I don't think I could pull that off. I would probably make it five or ten minutes; my focus would go elsewhere, and I would be like you. And then even at a walking speed I would end up down on the ground somehow.03:46 Darren: Yeah. You gotta really train and get used to that whole thing about working while walking. It would just be awkward, really, trying to type, I think.03:54 Aaron: Yep.03:54 Darren: Yeah.03:55 Aaron: Well, we gotta keep you upright, so let's leave the treadmill alone for a while.04:00 Darren: So we launched our new service, that Google My Business service that we were talking about last episode, and so I'm pumped about that. We were a little bit... We sent the email out to our mailing list on July 3rd, where I think most people were like, "Yeah, I'm gonna be gone", 'cause most of our customer base is in the US, and so maybe it wasn't the best time for a promotional email, so we're going to circle back on that in a couple of weeks. And we're trying to just do more promotion and build up the service; I'm excited about that. I'm also very excited about how our new account system is coming together, so with the Stripe integration and rebuilding all of our order forms, and just that whole user flow of signing up for our software or our services. So all that's being rebuilt in Stripe; that's awesome. And then of course, getting ready for MozCon which is next week. Can't wait to see you in person there. I should get my presentation finalized and all done here.04:56 Aaron: Yeah. By the time this episode airs we'll both be in Seattle and at MozCon; you speaking, GatherUp's there as a sponsor, but we'll get some time to hang out in person, and we're gonna try to record episode 11, in-person as well while we're in Seattle.05:16 Darren: Yeah, I can't wait; it's gonna be fun. We have to figure out where we're gonna do that recording.05:20 Aaron: It's gonna be a very top-secret location so that we don't, all of our fans aren't trying to break down the door to talk to us.[chuckle]05:27 Darren: Maybe we should at least have a window where the fans can watch.[chuckle]05:30 Aaron: Totally. Like some morning news show where they're just, like, screaming and holding signs.[chuckle]05:38 Darren: Yeah, totally.05:38 Aaron: We could pay somebody to do that; that would be the only way that would happen.05:42 Darren: I think, yeah, we would have to pay, definitely. How about you? What's up with you? 05:46 Aaron: On my side, I'm catching up after enjoying an awesome Fourth of July week where I was out of the office the entire week, just probably spent an hour to two hours each day on email and keeping some things moving, but it was a lot of time off, a lot of time with the kids. Time on the lake, which was awesome. But it always makes... The week you get back and all the things you kind of put off or said, "Schedule the call next week", now I'm basically living with the headset on the last few days, but all good.06:21 Darren: I was gonna say, it's like you get punished for taking that time off.06:24 Aaron: It is. It's double the work before you leave, and double the work when you get back, and that's right. You gotta make it count when you're gonna be out. It's like if you're gonna take all that punishment, then make sure you enjoy it.06:34 Darren: Totally.06:36 Aaron: Amazingly, we've talked a lot about my need and the work; we've had a specific episode on sales, but we have hired two outbound sales positions that start for us in the next couple of weeks.06:50 Darren: Amazing.06:50 Aaron: Yes.06:50 Darren: Yeah, I'm very curious to hear how this goes. Outbound sales, it's a whole new world.06:55 Aaron: Yes. So I'm incredibly excited; we got two great people. Both from referrals of one internal team referral and one from outside and few different things had to happen to get everything to align, but they're starting at the same time. So, a lot of my week... This week when I have spare moments is on materials and trying to get as much together for them to hit the ground running. So, plenty of work to do along those lines. And then related to the product, a really big piece that we've been working on for months that this is probably the first time we've had a feature big enough where we've built an Alpha of it first, usually it's a Dev Server in a Beta and pretty workable solution once we get going, but we've created an insights report that we have tied in with IBM's Watson to do natural language processing.07:53 Darren: Yep, that's nice.07:53 Aaron: So, you'll be able to... Yeah, understand sentiment of reviews... 'cause you might have a four-star review, where the customer talks about three really great things about the business, but then maybe has two things that weren't as good, and we wanna start to separate those kind of things out for you, instead of just attaching all of that content to a four-star review. We want you to understand what are the impact of, what are things that go on in a five-star experience compared to a two-star experience, so you can try to close that gap as a business and understand what those differentiators are. And then trends, what's happening on a week or a month or a quarterly basis that's increasing or decreasing, good or bad within how customers are talking about your business. So really big feature, a lot of work behind the scenes. We will be showing it off at MozCon and... Yeah, excited about that. And we're kind of targeting for the end of the month to get into an Open Beta with people.08:51 Darren: Great. Well, I'd like to get in on that Open Beta, check it out.08:55 Aaron: Yeah. No, I'll have a lot of fun giving you a demo with it. So, that will be fine.09:01 Darren: Yeah, I know it's Watson, is that a paid API you have to tap into? 09:06 Aaron: Yep, yep. Paid API, so we just have to tie into it, which that part obviously is already done. And now, you just get into the training part. We evaluated probably four or five different natural language processing APIs and theirs, I guess, kinda out of the box so to start with. We had two things going for: One, one of our engineers was already familiar with it, had used it in another capacity. And two, when we did some sample test results between these four or five solutions, we felt like it had just the most accuracy out of the box in the way that we were looking for. And no matter what... I mean, it's all about training, right? So you have to train the machine and everything else. But we felt like it was just a better starting point with it.09:56 Darren: Really cool. Yeah, awesome.09:58 Aaron: Yeah. And with that, new features are all about trying to make things better for your customers, the topic that you brought up I think is a fantastic one to address even deeper as taking a look at customer support, customer success teams, what do you need to do to build the right criteria, pieces, elements, processes, team, everything else to support your customers and to lead your customers to success.10:31 Darren: So I brought this topic up because I think we do a pretty decent job of it at Whitespark. If you look at our reviews, a lot of people talk about the excellent support that they get at Whitespark. We have good processes in place, we have a good ticketing software and live chat software that we get through Zendesk. But I wanted to bring this topic up 'cause this is gonna be an episode where it's like Aaron teaches me all of the awesome things. [chuckle] 'Cause I think that you've thought really deeply about this at GatherUp and you've really taken things to a next level and so, I wanna learn from you and I'm gonna be the question asker I think, and you can help me see some of the great ways that you guys have really taken your support to the next level.11:15 Aaron: Oh, I'm on the hot seat.11:16 Darren: Yeah, a little bit. Not really. I think that this will flow more naturally than a straight Q&A. But honestly, I really feel like you've got a lot to share here and that's why I want to bring it up.11:27 Aaron: Yeah, and truth be told, it's an area where we... It was probably almost two years ago now, where we realized we wanted to put a lot of focus into it. To your point with Whitespark and how you guys handle it and customers talk about that, I really think as a bootstrapped SaaS company, like "You have to win there," right? 11:49 Darren: Yeah, for sure.11:49 Aaron: You're not gonna win feature battles, you're not gonna have the 100 person sales teams, all these things that larger VC companies that can scale faster can have. You have to win with service and support as a bootstrapped SaaS company. We looked at and realize we need that to be a differentiator because some of these other things. We can build smarter features/cooler features, but they're gonna be able to build 50 to every five that we build.12:19 Darren: Yeah, exactly.12:21 Aaron: So, in looking at that it's like, "Yeah, you need that as a differentiator." And we realized that a long time ago. And to me, the biggest arc in this that yeah I'd love to talk about what we've done in questions you have but just this arc, right? It was a couple of years ago and funny enough, we were actually in Seattle. I think we were... I can't remember if we were at one of the... When they used to have MozCon Local. I think maybe it was at that, but we stayed a day or two later and we actually used Moz's offices to have an exec team meeting and we white-boarded out this timeline of what the arc looked like between customer support, which is completely reactive and customer success, which is completely proactive.13:08 Darren: Right.13:08 Aaron: And we tried to mark along those lines, like what are steps that we can take to continue to add more proactive and prescriptive things to what we provided and to make our team... We realized we needed more focus on customer success, as well as support but we really needed to make that entire piece the focus of GatherUp.13:31 Darren: Yeah, that's the interesting thing and I think this is where WhiteSpark can certainly improve and that's that proactive approach. Moving from Customer Support, which is when people are asking new questions to customer success, which is you're proactively reaching out to them and onboarding them, helping them out with things, noticing when they're not active in the tool. All those kinds of things that's where I'm really excited about, the potential for support and customer success. And I wanna hear more about what are some of the things you guys are doing like what... Do you actually divide them up into two teams at GatherUp? Do you have people that answer incoming questions and people that are trying to be proactive and reaching out to customers.14:17 Aaron: Yeah, so from a labeling standpoint, all the same team but we have started to... We look at where people's talents are and things like that and we are more giving them roles or responsibilities of this person based on experience, knowledge, personality. They're a great support person. They're great to answer email tickets and do these pieces and whatever else, where someone else like, "Okay, their level of understanding is really deep. They have a lot of confidence to recommend how to use features and they can be a little bit more leading with the customer. Like they're better fit for a customer success role. So we kinda call everybody the same, but we have started to differentiate what their main duties, what the majority of their time is spent on within that process.15:09 Darren: Yeah. And then I'm also curious. So tell me this, what percentage of your customers get a proactive outreach? Do you have to have a certain number of locations in order to sort of fall into this bucket where we're gonna proactively reach out or do you do that with everybody? 15:26 Aaron: Yeah, based on our pricing model, for us it is multi-locations. So the biggest thing for a new client, if we sell a multi-location that's almost always gonna be one-to-one demo and then we're gonna try to do a SOW with them to get an agreement to try to get them on an annual contract and part of that is an onboarding process. And then making sure we get everything set up right. We walk them through, we make them aware of features and all those other steps. And then what we've recently... And I know I've mentioned a couple of other podcasts, we had our team and then we hired a VP of Customer Success and Taylor came on and looked at like "Alright, great. You have this great set up and onboarding process but it kinda stops right at launch". And what he added was a 5th phase to it that's like, "Alright. Now, let's make sure in the first 90 days that you're hitting success metrics and you're getting value either statistically or emotionally out of the product and then graduating and then setting up quarterly business reviews to like, are they still hitting the things that you need them to? Are you on track to do the right things? 16:37 Darren: Yeah, that's that whole next level. That's I think really valuable when you start to tap into your best customers and really making sure that they're getting the most value out of the software. And then that also is a really great relationship building with your best customers where they just feel like you actually care. You're taking the time to reach out to them and they just feel really great about working with GatherUp.17:00 Aaron: Yup. And you discover so much about them when you have those types of conversations and when you get knee-deep in their data as well. And it's given us a more formatted approach. All the time in the past, I'm constantly jumping in and out of accounts and looking for signals on are they doing well, are they doing great, are they struggling, is there a challenge that I can see that I can reach out to them with. And now we're just building more and more of a system around that. We've talked in past episodes and we're just getting into this where we're gonna bring data to the table to help tell us more of those things more in-app analytics. That's still the piece of the story we're missing there. But now for our more valuable accounts, we're doing those types of things.17:45 Aaron: And then the other challenges then on the small business like the one location side, how do you wrap in when you have support opportunities to still provide them a little bit of success with it and as well provide them with as many resources as possible to be successful so that there are things on demand when they need answers or easy ways to talk to the support team I think are really important when you can't give all of yourself to a $40 a month customer or a $75 a month customer but you can give a little and also put them on to "Hey, here's a ton of content or tutorials or other ways that you can get your answers and be successful.18:29 Darren: Yeah. I think that's where we do a pretty good job. We have an email funnel. So when someone signs up for an account they're gonna get their welcome email, their next steps and then there's a series of emails that they're gonna get that sort of tell them about features of a tool and guide them through using the software. And it's pretty self-served. And so if they're not reading those emails, then we don't know. And the one thing that we don't do is we don't segment based off of account size and I think that's an opportunity for us. So if we did segment and we put a little bit more time into those higher value accounts, that's really a good take away for me, personally. And this one is to get a process in place to identify those accounts and then how are we gonna reach out to them and how we're gonna support them a bit better.19:13 Aaron: Yup, yeah. I would say that segmentation is really important and then the outlining exactly what you're talking about. How you can get to 'em. That has definitely been a game changer for us and it makes our customer success team is now in charge of renewals when they signed a one-year or two-year deal when that comes up for renewal. As we say, we should know with 99% certainty that they're gonna renew because we've been talking to them every quarter about of things are going.19:39 Darren: Absolutely.19:40 Aaron: You're not crossing your fingers. Will they renew or not? It's like, no, no we know how they feel about the product and how things are going and that we're a core part of what we're doing or we know like, hey this account is in trouble. We need to make an impact and a change quickly or they're not gonna give us any more runway to make an impact.20:00 Darren: Right? And your account man... You think you have an account managers, they're customer success people, but they're also account managers, and they're responsible for what 20, 30 different accounts that they have to keep an eye on.20:12 Aaron: Yeah, and that's some of the stuff we were just trying to... It'll be really interesting for the rest of this year and we're definitely gonna have some talks but how do we start to understand what each customer success rep can handle within their mixture of things especially is now we have sales people that are hopefully bringing more accounts that need to be onboarded, but we wanna try to get some amount of framework in place, so we know, when this happens, if we're sending out this many SOWs, we know this is the likelihood they're gonna close and so we know the likelihood we're gonna need additional help at this point in time, so we can just be ahead of it instead of reactive, where the team is like, "Hey we're buried. Please send help". That's usually when it's too late.20:56 Darren: Yeah, I wanted to ask you about this fine line between support and sales. Like at my company, we don't have a dedicated sales person, we have our support team, which is basically frontline sales for us. People come in, they have questions about the product, our support team answers those questions, will send them links to sign up for things, they'll make recommendations about what would make sense for them. So they kind of become the sales people in a lot of these cases. If it's a large looking account, they send it to me, or to Nick. And we handle more of the SOW type account set up. In your case, like how do you do that? Does your front... Does your support offer sort of sales stuff for signing up ike the one-offs, is that how it works at GatherUp? 21:48 Aaron: Yeah, so our customer success team will do a couple of our single-location demos within a week. And there really isn't a hand-off at all for them. 'cause it's more of a give demo, answer questions, if there's any straggler questions, answer those, then it's self served to go sign up and then they'll reach back out if they have questions. We have the process things to what you alluded to drip emails, a quick start guide, we have a very in-depth user guide, we have a number of ways to help them start with this minimal human touch as possible and then the support team is there to answer questions as they need it. For anything larger, our hand-off is basically when that agreement is signed, so when the SOW is signed, then I will go to Taylor and say, "Alright, here's what the deal is, here's what it looks like." and a lot of times we're even having conversations before that, but then we're like, Alright, here's the person, our team is gonna handle it, we have a little, small internal information hand-off and then I'm reaching out and saying, "Hey great news. Here's your customer success rep, is gonna be Josh. He's gonna schedule your first meeting, and layout what onboarding looks like for you. And now, I'm here just to ride along if you have any overall questions or whatever, but you're in great hands and move forward. So we use that intro email and scheduling that kick-off meeting as the handoff from sales to customer success.23:15 Darren: Yeah, that makes sense. And what's your you cut off? So let's say, how many people will self-serve that happen to have 20 plus locations, do they just come through the website and, "Oh wow, they just signed up."23:27 Aaron: Yeah, yeah very few. [chuckle] And we really find some of the things that we've done to help identify that. We have our multi-location pricing is behind a gateway. So you have to put in who you are and how many locations when you're looking at something. So we use that to reach out and be like, "Hey great. You looked at our pricing you saw it's completely competitive and very valuable. Would you like a one-on-one demo?" So we use that to get them into the sales process at that time and the majority come in that way and we really sell... I would say the biggest differentiator we do customer success with anyone that's paying a set-up fee.24:07 Aaron: If someone says I just wanna handle it myself and do whatever else then we might back off it a little bit, but we find most people like, "Hey I'd rather pay the fee and I get a tour guide, I get all this one-on-one support, I get a process that really is gonna help me get the value out of this." and then we know that customer is pretty serious too so that format has worked really well for us. We will get on occasion, a 5-10-15 location that comes in and they do sign up themselves and put stuff into it themselves and if we run across it, we'll likely ping them. And just, what are things looking like? Is there anything we can be of help with? Would you like to jump on a call to know more? So we will try to intercede with that, but we really find the majority of them end up coming through our sales process.24:52 Darren: Yeah, that makes sense, especially since you have it behind a form. So if you've got multiple locations, you wanna see that pricing they're already in that funnel where the next step is to set up a demo and then it leads to SOW and a set-up contract and all that, stuff.25:06 Aaron: Yeah, and we had a lot of internal debate when we moved to that when we rebranded we went to that method for our reseller pricing and our multi-location pricing, and I ultimately settled like, "Okay we're showing our one location pricing, this is as expensive as it gets per location. And see the other... Who are you, your email, your business and the number of locations, the minute you submit that you see the pricing right then and there you can bookmark that URL and review it as many times as you want. And our sales process isn't... We reach out with one or two emails max just to make sure that they understand everything correctly. Do they have questions on pricing, would they like to see a demo? So we're just trying to be helpful, we're not gonna over inundate them. There's a few on our team that were a little apprehensive and it's worked incredibly well for us and...25:56 Darren: Oh, that sounds great.25:58 Aaron: Yeah, haven't had any push back on why can't I see all of your pricing, and to some extent a lot of our competitors don't even show one location pricing, you have no idea the cost at all until you talk to somebody. So...26:10 Darren: I hate that, whenever I go to a website, it doesn't have pricing and I'm like, Well, no, obviously it's too expensive, so I'm not gonna sign up. There's only one reason why you wouldn't show me your pricing. It's because it's like $20,000, I don't want it, so that's how I think about it every time. [chuckle]26:26 Aaron: Yeah, totally.26:27 Darren: I think your approach is really smart actually. And maybe, I don't know how prevalent that is, but showing the single-location pricing and then for multi-location pricing, fill out this little form. Now you've got the great lead-capture and you have delivered the pricing to them up front. They still feel good. All they have to do is just enter their name and email, they're gonna get that pricing immediately, and then you have your customer success team outreach to them. Now, those will be sales leads, right? For your new sales team.27:00 Aaron: Yep. Which is perfect to give them a handful of those coming in even though my new sales people, their main focus is... They're outbound, they're gonna be generating their own love in the world.27:12 Darren: I got so many questions, but we'll save that for the next episode on sales. Let's keep talking about support. I wanted to ask you about support contracts. This has come up. We have a number of multi-location clients that are unbelievably time-consuming on support. Like seriously, five hours a week, we spend answering their questions, going back and forth, re-answering the same question six times. It's just like some of these clients, we love them, they're great, they are awesome people, but they really need a lot of hand-holding. And I'm wondering... Right now, we do not have support contracts. How do you deal with this, with these really needy customers that need a lot of time and hand holding? What do you do at GatherUp? 28:00 Aaron: So we're just starting to address this as well, our last exec Summit, a month-and-a-half ago, this was one of our topics. And coming from the world of agencies, you had some of these same things as well. And you try to build those into retainers and kinda have it factored out that way, but I think support contracts are really important and I think most of it has to do with how you position it right up front in the process. And the best way to look at it is you outline... You're able to outline for... In our case, the initial conversations we had was something around like three tiers of support. And I guess I should maybe go one backwards. You're probably in the same position as... You offer amazing support and as your company gets bigger, that amazing support becomes harder and harder to be equal all the way across the board. 'Cause where you were doing it for dozens or hundreds, now maybe it's thousands of customers.29:02 Aaron: And to get the same responses within hours and outcomes and all those different kinda things becomes increasingly hard. And I feel the best way to handle it is to kinda say, "Alright you have three different options in working with us," like "Here's the software fee, but then we also have support that you can decide to purchase or not purchase. And if you don't purchase it here is kind of our standard rule of thumb: You'll get a response within 24 business hours or 16 business hours." But something that gives you leeway for them to understand. "Hey, I'm not gonna get something in an hour and I have to live with that, I want it included I want it has a for free, and I'm willing to live." And the right expectations have been set.29:52 Darren: Yeah, that's the key. That's sort of differentiating is 'cause this is the thought that someone may have is be like, "Well, can't I just get support? Why are you offering support to all these other people? Why do I have to pay for support?" And so I think those different tiers is where you can actually make a case for a support contract. That makes a lotta sense.30:10 Aaron: Yeah. Because you end up showing them like, "Hey if you really value this and you want fast turn time and you want guarantees and things like that, well then you can have it, you have to pay for it." It's like anything, if you want a better version that is bigger, better faster, whatever that might be, there's value attached to it, and so you're willing to pay for it. And then when the expectation is off, then you're at least able to say like, "This was communicated, you declined that. You said, 'I'm willing to live with two days or three days to reply for no additional money.'" So we'll see. This is in theory. And we used to do... I've done similar things like this in agency before around development contracts and e-commerce, and website builds. And they worked really, really well in those scenarios. It's just getting all of it to be done up front. The most important part is selling it upfront instead of having them get in and then when they have a problem, and then saying, like, "Oh, well, you can pay to get help faster." And then they're like, "I would've paid from the get-go, now I'm mad because it didn't meet my expectations. You didn't set proper expectations." That's when you get into trouble if you don't have that available, and they didn't make that choice, then you're just making where, "Oh, it is an option. You never asked, so we didn't tell you."31:34 Darren: Yeah. So absolutely getting it in advance is the best way to do it. So I have a client or two now that is quite needy, that I would love to get on a support contract, but it is a very awkward conversation at this point. And then the other potential concern I have is, you have this client who they send you, once a week, a 15-point list of really long complicated obscure edge casey questions. It's like the most obscure stuff you could ever imagine. And even if they're on whatever a free support plan is they're like "Yeah, I don't need a response in 36 hours, I can wait till next week." But man, they just sent us seven hours of work, so much time to go through, look at what their weird edge case concern is, playing around with the software, going back and forth with the dev team. It's just, it's frustrating when you have these specific clients.32:37 Aaron: I would say since you have that historical data, I would use that to your advantage and say, "We've looked at this, we want to serve you at the right level to make you successful and based on our interactions in the last three months, six months, year, this is the amount of interaction, this is the amount of emails and tickets and request... You would be smart to pre-purchase five hours of support a month for us at this rate, otherwise we will have to look at going to a time and materials with this just because of the amount that it is and it's all to ensure you're successful. So it isn't easy but you have to realize what it takes. Ann a good customer and a good relationship, they'll realize that anyway and if they don't, then that's starting to send you some other signals like they have no problem taking you down with them. [chuckle]33:32 Darren: Yeah, I think that they're probably in the back of their minds are like "Boy, how long are we able and get this free support for Whitespark?". Because they know they're sending us so much extra work to do it. They must know that they're just waiting for the email to come where we suggest we're gonna have to start implementing hourly fees for all of this stuff.33:53 Aaron: Yeah. There's always a way to address it when you have history. I think you use that history to your advantage. These are knowns.34:00 S2: Yup.34:01 Aaron: We're not guessing how much you might need, these are complete knowns and here's how we can continue to help you at this level, Now that we understand the level of help your requesting all the time.34:11 Darren: I like it. Thank you. I will take that approach. How do you measure your... At Whitespark we use Zendesk. So Zendesk has this really great dashboard for statistics. So we can see how many tickets and what are the common things. One thing I really love in the dashboard is the search queries. People that are searching our help center, that's a gold mine of ideas of what people are looking for and what problems they're having. So what do you guys use at GatherUp? I'm just curious how you measure and measure success and what's important in support.34:50 Aaron: We use Help Scout and have for a long time and it's at the point where I'm not in it daily, does everything that we needed to and same things you're talking about. Response times, ticket close times, all of that information is available to us. We obviously have it wired in, integrated to a ton of things from everything from... For live chat we use Olark and if Olark's... If we're offline with live chat then it automatically goes and creates a ticket in Help Scout so we can address it that way. And then the same... Right, using tagging, we also do the same on who's asking, what are they asking about. So we track very, very heavily and we share it in our weekly team meetings. Here's the amount of support interactions in total, here is the amount of support interactions from small business, from multi-locations, from agency resellers and then here's what people are asking about. Like review widget is always one of our leading topics. And then we look at other ones? And that's really great 'cause that helps inform us, do we need to do more with some of our other support features like user guide documentation or something in our emails or do we even need to look at something in the product based on popularity or what are they asking about or what's confusing? 36:16 Aaron: So that has definitely led to us doing a number of things to try to be proactive by taking that reactive data with it. So can we decrease those numbers or be of more help? And even the support team. If they have just one link, they can drop in like "Yeah, your question. We get asked all the time. Here's a very detailed user guide post on this with screenshots. Go to here, and this will help you do exactly what you need to".36:42 Darren: Have you built a email response templates at Help Scout where for really common questions, you've got a template you just fire it up and hit send for the most part? 36:51 Aaron: Yup. They have a few of those put together for the most common ones because there are certain ones it's like, "Yeah, we're gonna get asked what review sites do you monitor?". Boom, here's the answer and here's the link to that full list. So absolutely, efficiency plays are huge.37:08 Darren: That's actually gave me a thought right now. Anywhere we have a template, that would actually probably be a good auto email. So for all customers, when they sign up it's part of the email funnel. It's like email number five is most commonly asked question number two. Right? So just putting all of those frequently asked questions that we have templates for into the auto email and so preemptively giving those to customers that might be wondering.37:36 Aaron: Yeah, totally, totally a good idea that having that information makes you smarter about what people are likely gonna hit as a point of confusion or needing some education or needing to be better is huge.37:49 Darren: Yup. I also was thinking about... I picked this up from that podcast we listened to and talked about last episode about proactively showing more obscure features and ways to use the software into that email funnel. So email number seven in the funnel is like "Did you know that the software can do this? And here's a quick little video on how to do it". Right? I like that a lot too in Email funnels.38:14 Aaron: Yeah, that's something we could definitely be better at because we have so many features. We kick so many out. It's like how do you expose those to more and more users and expose them at the right times for them. Getting smarter around all that stuff is definitely an area I have massive interest in. How do you produce great targeting, right message at the right time for them to be like, "Oh yeah, this is exactly what I should use" or "This will make me more successful with the product".38:44 Darren: Yeah right.38:45 Aaron: Couple other things that I think have been really helpful for us, one, we actually use our own product that after a support instance we send that out to gather feedback and then also request reviews.38:57 Darren: Right.38:58 Aaron: So first surface level, yeah, it's great 'cause we find out is a customer happy with that answer, where they serviced timely, was the interaction with their rep great. But secondly, we have driven more Google reviews for us because you're asking for a review, when somebody's just had a great experience of being helped and again, when we talk about that differentiator as our support team. We see that over and over again where people are like, "Yeah, and man, I loved working with Gatlin. So Gatlin was awesome, helped me do all these things, whatever else. And now I wanna go write a review and I'm talking about Gatlin or I'm talking about this other team member." And that's been really huge at not just getting feedback on the support experience, but people saying, "Yeah, your brand and your service are awesome and I wanna tell everybody about it." So that's been really interesting.39:50 Darren: So wait a minute, are you saying that when a customer support ticket closes in Help Scout, they get into a GatherUp funnel where the GatherUp is spinning the how did we do email? That's coming from GatherUp, not from Help Scout? 40:05 Aaron: Yep. Yeah, so we have our... We basically, our customer success has its own profile within GatherUp. We added that as a location. So the wording's different, the survey questions are different and everything else. And then it allows us to look at what is the net promoter score for our customer success team. And then within the last couple of weeks, Taylor and the customer success team has implemented this for onboarding as well now. And we've just got a couple of those in and that's been great to see where, "Hey, here's how I felt about the level of detail and the timing of it. And man, this person was so helpful in onboarding us." And when you're able to read that feedback from a 200 or a 300 location client, that's a very good client for you and you realize what a differentiator that is. And now that's content you could possibly share with your next prospect, "Hey, here's this company. This brand name and you know this brand name really well. Well, here's what their team said about our team and getting started with our products." So not only do we know the same thing that GatherUp does for other customers, we're producing marketing material to inform the next buyer.41:11 Darren: Oh man, I love that. We're gonna do it too. So we basically, right now we just have the default Zendesk email that comes out that rates customer satisfaction, which is not bad, but GatherUp is so much deeper and so much more valuable. So I'm curious, how are they connected when a customer support ticket closes do you have a Zapier connection? Is that what you've done or do they manually go and enter that person? 41:39 Aaron: Nope. I would believe we have it automated. I don't know specifically if we're using our API or we're using a Zap for it.41:46 Darren: Yeah, I can figure that out 'cause I gotta figure out how I can get Zendesk now talking to GatherUp so that I can integrate that.41:55 Aaron: Yup. Nope, you can absolutely make that happen.41:57 Darren: Cool, well maybe I'll talk to the helpful people at MozCon when I come and visit your booth.42:01 Aaron: [chuckle] There you go. Let's look at it. Let's figure it out.42:05 Darren: Yeah. Well that's awesome. How do you know... Are you measuring ticket volume and using that to identify when it's time to hire another support person? How are you figuring out or you're just waiting for your customer support head, your director of customer support to tell you "oh we need to hire some more people"? 42:28 Aaron: Yeah. This... It's kinda the same to where we were talking about with customer success. We wanna have framework for this. We definitely track support volume that same... In our weekly meeting, customer success department has their section and they're gonna say, here's how many tickets, here's how many conversations, here's how many phone calls, here's how many live chats. We break down all of those things by the medium that they're being handled on. But we don't have anything yet that says this is too much, this is too low. We track the flow of where those are. And sometimes we'll zoom out and say, "All right, what does this look like over the last 12 months?" But being more predictive by using those numbers is definitely a next step for us so that we're able to say, "Alright, where we're at here, one rep full time and two part time on support with the rest of their time on onboarding, we're fine, but the minute we hit this, then we need another and the minute this increase then we need another." We'd like to get it to be a little bit more regimented and predictive.43:30 Darren: Sure, yep. That makes sense. Yeah. For us it's just like we just start to feel it. It's like, we're getting overwhelmed and our response time is taking longer. We've just got too many tickets coming in and then we hire again. But so far we're doing fine right now, but we'll see as we grow.43:46 Aaron: There you go. You never know. What do you feel like is your guys's biggest challenge within your support team right now? 43:53 Darren: I think the challenge is being more proactive. So I don't know if challenge is the right word, but it's the next thing we need to do. Moving from a reactive support position to a proactive success position. And I think we have the resources right now. I don't believe that the support team is completely booked all of their time. And so getting a process in place where we can be more proactive and identifying those high value clients and really trying to reach out to them and help them get set up. There's a big opportunity there that I really have to focus on.44:29 Aaron: Yeah, no, that's exactly where we were two years ago. And the first thing is just identifying it, making it a priority so that everyone understands it and then you lay out what are these, if being proactive is the strategy, what are the tactics that support that that we need to put resources into or make sure we have tools to do. And yes, just you stair step and start picking those up and move up the ladder one at a time while you keep everything behind it at the same level it's at and you can get there. We're two years into that and we still have a ton of way to go. You're always trying to perfect it.45:09 Darren: For sure. It's interesting when you think about you talk about the difference between a bootstrap company and a VC funded company like you see these companies like Yelp and Yext that have invested so much into their sales force and not much into their customer support. And it's just like, it's a complete switch of values. They're just focused on signing people up, not supporting them. And it's such a backwards way to approach business, it seems to me.45:36 Aaron: Yeah. Well customer acquisition gets all of the love and depending upon what size you are, how much does retention make an impact for you? And when you're in a smaller bootstrap company, retention is massive because you might not have the resources to do acquisition all day long. For us we're over five years into the company and we're really truly building. We've had one salesperson on the agency side, I do our sales, but only a very small percentage outbound. But now five years later, now we have resources and we have the right fit with our product where we can very confidently say, "Yeah, now it's time to put fuel on the fire and take the fight to people and go and be outbound sales with it as well." So when you don't have the ability to do that, retention is really huge because as much as you need to land those next clients, you need to keep the ones that you have.46:36 Aaron: Obviously we spend a whole episode on Churn. You could do a whole podcast just on Churn all by itself. But yeah, no, it is super important. And yeah, for some people, I think the bigger they get, the numbers become so macro that a lot of it seeps through the cracks. And we're seeing more and more of that in the space right now where people are coming from some of our larger competitors and they're saying," Yup. I spent a year or two years with them. I didn't get a lot of love. I was paying for features I didn't even utilize. It looks like you guys aren't trying to have everything in the kitchen sink and you absolutely have what we need and you have a few other things that they didn't have because you're a little more focused on the SEO and the local search end of things and wow, it seems like people are raving about your service. So let's work together and that's fabulous. I want that to happen all day long.47:24 Darren: Yup. Well, we should keep that happening all day long for all of our services and products.47:31 Aaron: Totally.47:31 Darren: All right.47:32 Aaron: All right, my man. That's a wrap.47:34 Darren: We did it. We're gonna see you next week and we'll record another episode. Dan, I can't wait for that. It's gonna be great.47:40 Aaron: Yeah. All kinds of fun in Seattle awaits us. And yeah, we'll find a way to hide out and record episode 11 at MozCon in Seattle. And I don't know, we'll have to bring something really festive to the table with us being in the...47:56 Darren: Something, yeah.47:57 Aaron: The same area to record. I don't know if we can sit face to face that might not work, but we just might be like a hotel room away from each other.48:05 Darren: Or back to back.[laughter]48:10 Aaron: Totally. We might have to include some video clips of this.48:14 Darren: [chuckle] Totally. Alright.48:14 Aaron: Riveting stuff.48:15 Darren: Good. Well thank you. It was a good chat. We'll talk to you next week.48:20 Aaron: Alright. Thanks everybody. Remember to subscribe to the SaaS Venture podcast or share the SaaS Venture podcast with someone you know that is interested in sales, SaaS anything to do with software products. We appreciate building our audience more and more and it's all thanks to you guys. So thanks everyone and have a great week. We'll talk to you next time.48:41 Darren: Talk to you next time.[outro music]

Your Marriage Has An Impact!!! Join the Marriage After God movement today. https://marriageaftergod.com"A husband and wife chasing after God knows every aspect of their marriage is for proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ, they are not ashamed to share about it, and they are confident in the impact they are making in the world around them." - Marriage After God book"The two of you serving God together will always make a greater impact than the two of you could make alone striving for your own accomplishments and happiness."Marriage After God bookPrayer:Dear Lord, Thank you for the gift of companionship. Marriage is such an intimate friendship that blesses us. We desire to draw closer to each other and to use this intimate bond to bless your name. Thank you for being intertwined in our relationship and at the center of it. You are the reason we are stronger together. Please continue to strengthen us as a cord of 3 strands. We pray that you would use us to do hard things as we build up your body and build up your kingdom. Be our strength as we persevere. May we be intentional in encouraging each other in marriage so that we do not grow weary. We pray against the enemy. We pray against his evil ways. Thank you for being our refuge and our shield. Thank you for equipping us and empowering us to stay strong and to fulfill your will. May your will be done in us and through our marriage.In Jesus’ name, amen! READ TRANSCRIPT- [Aaron] Hey, we're Aaron and Jennifer Smith with Marriage After God. - Helping you cultivate an extraordinary marriage. - [Aaron] And today, we're in part 15 of the Marriage After God series and we're gonna be talking with Adam and Katie Reid about how we are stronger together. Welcome to the Marriage After God podcast where we believe that marriage was meant for more than just happily ever after. - [Jennifer] I'm Jennifer, also known as Unveiled Wife. - [Aaron] And I'm Aaron, also known as Husband Revolution. - [Jennifer] We have been married for over a decade. - [Aaron] And so far, we have four young children. - [Jennifer] We have been doing marriage ministry online for over seven years through blogging and social media. - [Aaron] With the desire to inspire couples to keep God at the center of their marriage, encouraging them to walk in faith everyday. - [Jennifer] We believe that Christian marriage should be an extraordinary one, full of life. - Love. - And power. - [Aaron] That can only be found by chasing after God. - [Jennifer] Together. - [Aaron] Thank you for joining us on this journey as we chase boldly after God's will for our life together. - [Jennifer] This is Marriage After God. Thank you guys so much for joining us on this podcast today. We wanna encourage everyone listening to just leave us a star rating review, that just helps the podcast get out into the world. And so, if you wanna support this podcast and you've been inspired by it, would you take a moment just to leave that review? Because it helps people find marriage after God. - [Aaron] Also, and we also wanna let you know the whole reason we've been doing these interviews, the whole reason this podcasts exists is because we wrote a book called Marriage After God, my wife and I and we're excited to get it in your hands. If you would take a moment after this podcast is over or take a pause in between and just go shop.marraigeaftergod.com and pick up a copy of the Marriage After God book. It's our newest book, we've written it together and we wrote it for you and your marriage and we're excited to get it in your hands and hear what you think about it. - [Jennifer] So, today, our special guests are Adam and Katie Reid. Hi you guys, thanks for joining us. - [Adam] Hey, thanks for having us. - [Katie] Thanks so much, we're glad to be here. - [Jennifer] So, why don't you just take a moment to introduce yourselves to our listeners, I'm sure a lot of them already know who you are, Katie, and your book. But just touch on that and then how long you've been married, how many children, what you guys do together, that kinda thing. - [Katie] Yeah, well, we're Adam and Katie Reid. I mean, Adam can probably share some things about himself too. But he's the lead pastor at our church, I'm a speaker and writer and we have a marriage show we do together called Stop Hammock Time on Facebook Live. And we have five loud and wonderful kids, we are not usually bored. - Awesome. - [Adam] Yeah, no, we stay busy and did you say that we've been married for 17 years? - [Katie] No, I did not. - [Adam] Yeah, we've been married for 17 years, it'll be 18 this summer and five kids ages ranging 14 to 2 1/2, almost three. And so, yeah, we definitely stay busy. - [Katie] Lots of life experience. - [Aaron] Yeah, that's awesome, we're aspiring to that. We're on our way, we're at year 12 and we got-- - Four. - Yeah, four kids. So, we're on our way. - Yeah. - Okay, guys, so, we always like to start with an icebreaker, this just helps everyone get to know you just a little bit more, so we're going there. What's your guys' most embarrassing marriage moment? - [Katie] Oh, man, so-- - [Adam] How do we choose? - [Katie] How do we choose? So we were part of a discipleship program at a Christian camp and there was a guy on staff that looked a lot like Adam and sometimes Adam let his twin, named Matt, borrow his vehicle. And one day, I was at the grocery store and I saw Adam's vehicle there. I'm like oh my goodness, I am going to totally pull the best prank. So I climbed into the back, like the trunk area of the car. And I'm like I'm gonna jump out, like maybe after he's driving, this is gonna be so funny. Well, all of a sudden, I'm kinda peeking and it's taking forever, it's really hot. And all of a sudden, I see our friend Matt walking towards the car and I'm like oh, this is gonna be awkward. And so, I'm like how do I get out of the truck area before he gets there? And so, I can't get out but I'm like hey, I thought you were Adam and I was gonna jump out. That was definitely embarrassing. - [Adam] Yeah, that was-- - [Aaron] That's really funny. - [Jennifer] What a terrifying prank. - [Adam] It was a great story to hear when she got back to the house. But another one that we just had happen just a couple days ago, we've been getting a bunch of snow and ice here in Michigan. So a lot of ice the last few days and I was watching something online teaching you how to walk on ice. And how when it's icy out, you should walk differently than your normal stride and keeping your center of gravity over your feet. And they said you should walk like a penguin because the penguins, they kinda have things figured out and they're on ice and snow often. And so, we were going to a funeral, Katie and I and we dropped our kids off at our in-laws. We walked out and the driveway was really slippery and so, I said, hey Katie, walk like a penguin. And so, we're both kinda waddling with our heads down and our center of gravity over, our toes turned out walking like penguins. And we look up and there's a guy walking his dog right at the end of the driveway and he kinda looked at us like we were really nutty. And Katie says, we're trying to walk like a penguin, trying that technique out on the ice. And he just kinda like okay. Just kept walking. - [Aaron] No context, no context. - [Adam] Yeah, we got in the car and laughed really hard about that one. - [Jennifer] That's awesome. - [Aaron] That would have been awesome to see. - [Adam] You guys gotta be able to laugh at yourself. - [Aaron] Yeah, being able to laugh is joy, that's joy. Being able to laugh at yourself, that's good. So, we're gonna go into, thanks for sharing those embarrassing moments. Adam, I just really wanna, I think that was an awesome prank you played on your wife, that you-- - [Adam] Best prank. - [Aaron] In the car when she was with, that's funny. - Yeah-- - So, we're gonna go into-- - [Adam] Didn't know if she said but it was a Jeep. And so, she wasn't climbing in the back of a car and closing the trunk on herself but it was the back of Jeep and it was so hot and she was dripping with sweat and that made it even more funny. - [Aaron] So we're gonna get into a quote real quick from the Marriage After God book in chapter 15. So we're gonna share a quote from chapter 15, Stronger Together in the Marriage After God book and this is the quote, the two of you serving God together will always make a greater impact than the two of you could make alone striving for your own accomplishments and happiness. So, real quick, we can just talk about that for a second, do you feel like this, do you see this in your own marriage? - [Adam] Absolutely, yeah, I look back at my life before marriage and completely different person, different way of doing life and different way of ministering and that definitely comes from learning and growing because of being married to Katie. And I think, I don't wanna speak for you, but I think you can say the same thing, Katie. She has strengths that I don't have and I have strengths that she doesn't have and that's the beauty of marriage and God's design For that is making each other better and not really making each other better, I think, but the husband and wife combination there, not just husband and wife but male and female combination there, I think, gives a much clearer and more accurate picture of God's character and who He is. And so, there are things that Katie is very good at that I am not and she fills in those gaps there and vice versa. We are much better person together than we are apart. - [Katie] Well, I think we learned this over time too because at the beginning, I'm a very driven person, semi-organized, getting more organized since we're trying to implement some of the tidying up techniques in our home. It used to drive me crazy that he wasn't like me in that area, it's like I just thought you see the world through your own lens. And so, to me, the thought of not turning a paper in in time in college stressed me out so much that I think I wrote his paper for him because he's just gonna turn it in the week it was due. - [Adam] It may have happened once. - [Katie] Just one time. But then there's things that he is really good with people. I can sometimes be too blunt, he has a great way of making people feel like they're important. And so, we've learned over time to appreciate the strengths in others instead of just trying to wish we were more like, they were more like us. I think we've looked at, okay, I have weaknesses and strengths, you have weaknesses and strengths and how can we blend these together to be more effective? - [Jennifer] I love that picture of complimenting each other in that way. And how God, He has a mission for all of us to do and work for all of us to do and each one of our marriages is so unique and yet, paired together, we compliment each other for all of those things and to be able to fulfill them. - [Aaron] Yeah and your guys' marriage doesn't seem anything like ours. I'm making a joke 'cause I, Jennifer is always like why won't you just, I do it this way, why don't you do it that way and we've had to get to this point of, well, I might do something differently and that's gotta be okay sometimes. Now-- - Learning to appreciate, knowing the value of that is really important. - [Aaron] Yeah. - [Jennifer] And I think that a marriage after God definitely has their eyes open to those differences and sees the value in them. - [Aaron] Yeah and also growing in them like there's some things that we do need to change in, for sure. But that's a really good testimony. Has there been any standout moments in your marriage? We're talking about this stronger together, the unification, us moving in the same direction in one mind, one spirit in our marriage, has there been any standout moments in your marriage where you realize the two of you were stronger together? Any personal stories-- - Well, for us, we are in vocational ministry, I know that's not the case for everyone but we have led multiple camps together, like a youth camp. We do cousin camp with our nieces and nephews and just being able to tag team. If I just did it by myself, I'd be completely burned out by the end of the experience and same with him. But learning, I think, to let each other lead and we are not perfect at this by any means, we're both first borns and a lot of times, stubbornness or determination, how ever you wanna spin it, comes with that. - Determination, so. - Yeah. So there are times when we butt heads and somebody bends so the other can lead but we kind of do this clumsy dance and learn how, are learning how to do that more and more. So I think, for us, ministering to kids has been a way that we've been able to do that. But I was just telling someone the other day, now that Adam is lead pastor, there are some changes we're implementing at church but we also need mindful of the culture. But my tendency is like sweet, we can change a hundred things at once, won't this be great? Well, it won't be great because there's a culture and you wanna respect that. And so, Adam's help reminded me let's celebrate the one thing that we're doing right now. And so, for me, kind of my side writing and speaking thing gives me creative outlet to drive and go and get it done without driving him crazy that I'm putting all that energy into what he and I are doing together. - [Aaron] I like that. You guys have recognized that in the pursuit of what God's doing, you're stronger together when you allow the other person to operate in the strengths and gifts that they've given them in that proper order, I love that. And you also finding out, as a team, ways that you can have the other outlets in ministry so it's still working together but even if it's in different ways, does that make sense? - [Katie] Right, and like if I'm gonna go speak somewhere, do something outside the home, like a lot of times, Adam will watch the kids. And so, sometimes I think ministering together doesn't always look like side by side, we're both doing everything together-- - [Adam] In the same physical space, yeah. It can be her, the things that God has called us to as a family, when she goes and speaks, we are ministering with her by allowing her to go do that and vice versa. Katie and the family allow me to go and minister to people by picking up and doing things that need to be done. And so, ministering together, again, I think that's a good point. Ministering together doesn't always mean that you are right side by side with each other but more allowing each other to minister within the calling that our family has and within the good things that each of have individually. - [Jennifer] That's great, so for people listening, just as an encouragement to them, could you guys share maybe like one or two practical ways that a husband and wife can support each other in whatever thing that God is inviting them to do? Specifically, like how can a wife support her husband, how can a husband support his wife, practically? - [Adam] I mean, I think we're walking through that right now, Katie writing and speaking is a relatively new thing over the last few years, three years maybe. Me and the kids supporting her looks like allowing her to have the time to go write and it's our expectations, we take those expectations on, we take those things on so that that frees up her time to be able to go write. And there were multiple times when she was writing the book that she would just go away for the weekend and she was able to accomplish a lot of things and it was really time for her writing when she was able to do that. So trying to pick up some slack and take some of the responsibilities on so that she was allowed or able to go do that. And then also with her speaking now, it's hey, we'll be home, I've got the kids while she's allowed to, she's able to, not allowed to. It's not like I'm giving-- - That sounds-- - [Adam] I'm giving permission to go do this. But she's able to go do that and not have to worry about getting kids to soccer practice and swimming and these types of things where she can just go and focus on what God's called her to do ministering to other people through the book and through speaking. - [Katie] And I think a big part of it is communication. It's sitting down together as a couple and saying, what does God want our family to be about? I mean, Aaron, Jennifer, you guys are a great example of this, of you clearly know the mission God has put before you, it takes different forms at times, whether through podcast or encouraging people one on one or retreats or books or all of those kind of things. But I think asking God to help give you a vision for your family where He comes first, your marriage comes right under that, right? Marriage after God and-- - Yeah. - [Katie] And communicating what is God calling us to and how do we pursue that in this season? I think there are different seasons in lives too where it can look differently. We've had an elderly friend and they had a vibrant prayer ministry and they did it from their recliners in their living room. And would call people and wish them a happy birthday and they were literally side by side in their living room doing that. But earlier on-- - [Jennifer] That's awesome. - [Katie] When they were younger, it looked like doing that in person. So I think knowing the vision for your family and then communicating what does this look like practically? If we're gonna do this, what are we gonna say yes to and what are some things we're gonna say no to so that we can serve together? - [Aaron] So, what you guys are saying right now is so perfect in the whole message of what we're talking about in Marriage After God. And I just wanted to go back to, you were talking about how right now, this new season, and we love the seasonal mindset knowing that there's gonna be seasons and like the Bible teaches us this and learning how to operate within seasons. And you guys were talking about right now, Katie, you're writing and speaking, and Adam, you'll stay home and let her go do that. And that only works, and I'm assuming 'cause, Katie, you brought up communicating but you guys sat down and said, what is that God wants to do? But then, are we in agreeance? It's not like, Katie, I'm gonna be a speaker and a writer, let me do my thing. And, Adam, I'm gonna be doing this ministry over here, let me do my thing. That would conflict, you guys wouldn't be able to get anything done which goes back to the quote of you guys being on the same page, communicating what's the Lord doing right now this season? Writing and speaking and Adam's like Amen, I agree and I'm gonna participate where I can to make that happen. Versus you both pursuing your ministries-- - [Jennifer] Individually. - [Aaron] Individually in this heart of you're in my way. And I love that you brought that up because some might be listening right now thinking God's put this thing on my heart and I need to do it. And I don't care if my husband, if he's drug along or is out of the way or vice versa. No, I'm doing this thing over here and I don't care what my wife's at. Rather, hey, let's lay it on the table, what's God doing and let's be on the same page with each other. 'Cause then you can work as a team, right? - Yeah. - Yeah. And we just had a conversation yesterday, right outside the door here at church. And I had felt like God was leading me to write another book but Adam and the kids were not ready for that. And so, that was hard because sometimes you do feel that pull of God, sometimes it's like I think God wants me to do this. But I talked to some mentors in my life and they said, you know, Katie, you have a Godly husband, Godly family, I don't think that he's gonna ask you to do something if your family's in opposition. Like that doesn't follow the model that God has laid out. Not to say that there's definitely, everything's not black and white. But so, my friend encouraged me like with Nehemiah, right? When he saw that the wall was broken down, he went and fasted and prayed before he went to the king. And so, my friend encouraged me like Katie, if you're really feeling like God is wanting you to write this book, why don't you fast and pray and then when you feel clear what God's saying, go to your husband and talk to him about it, ask him what he thinks. And so, we just had this conversation yesterday because if your family isn't on board, you are not gonna be stronger together, it's going to be divisive. But when you're on the same page, I mean, there's a difference. There's been times when we had adopted our fourth child and, I, again, felt from the Lord like we're supposed to do this. But Adam was praying, he's like I just don't have a peace about it yet. For us to just go ahead and do that, like we would have been divided and disjointed but when the time was right and Adam's like yes, I'm confident that we should do this. It was so much sweeter because we had that unity and that's a picture of Christ and of the Trinity and what, He once used marriage as a picture that the world will know Him. - [Aaron] Yeah and I just, it's perfect, it's a beautiful illustration of what we're talking about. Because to be honest, God could have put on your heart, might have put on your, did put on your heart that He wants you to write another book. But at the end of the day, He wants us to do the things He's given us to do His way. - [Jennifer] And in His timing. - [Aaron] And in His timing. So it could have simply been, you're gonna go this but I want you to walk this out well. And so, His challenge to you is to do it right versus, no, God's told me to do something, I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna do it my way, I'm gonna do it and everyone's gotta get outta my way or jump on the train. And any one of us could do this, Adam could be walking this, I could be walking this, Jennifer could be walking this but God's like just because I have something for you, doesn't mean I have that thing for you right this moment. And we see that all throughout the Bible with Moses and the people of Israel. With all of the prophets not being able to see what they were promised. - [Jennifer] David anointed-- - [Aaron] David and his anointing as a king. Like we see like, so it doesn't mean it's a no, it might mean it's a yes but later. And I love the process that you guys walk through and we can all take from this example. Saying, okay, Lord, I feel this is something You put on my heart but even though You put it on my heart, I'm still going to offer it to You and ask that You show me how You want it done and when You want it done. And a part of that is getting counsel like you said and then going to your spouse and saying here's what it is, what are we gonna do about this? - Fasting and praying. - Let's pray about this together, let's be on the same page. I wanted to encourage you, that was really good, I love that. - [Jennifer] So you've given us this picture of unity, you said being on the same page with each other makes us stronger together. Can you guys just talk a little bit about oneness and unity and how that makes us stronger for the ministry that God has for all of us? - [Adam] I mean, again, I think unity is so important in marriage, the enemy uses little things to drive wedges between us. And in Song of Solomon, I'm loving the Song of Solomon right now, that book is fantastic. There's this message of catch the little foxes, it's sometimes just the little things in a marriage that the enemy uses to drive a wedge between us and it's important that we are communicating often and on the same page. Recognizing little things that we say, hey, this is something that we might wanna look at and pray about and talk about and maybe even we gotta get rid of this because it's driving a wedge between us. There are things that we need to recognize and remove or at least be aware of and be communicating about to be able to stay unified. The other thing I was gonna say is, again, marriage being a picture of the church and Christ. And Christ being the bride/groom and the church being the bride and Christ wanting perfect unity between Him and the church. And, again, we're sinful people. And so, that some day will be accomplished but that unification, that pure unadulterated unity is something that like Katie said before, the world is going to see Jesus by the way we do our marriages. And if we're divided, that says something to the world about God and about Jesus and vice versa. If we're unified and we're on the same page and we're communicating, that communicates something very important as well. - [Katie] I was just gonna add too, the other day, we had a really hard conversation because honestly, we are both tired, we have busy lives. And so, we would just kinda zone out on our phones at night and we are kind of slipping into this pattern of kind of coexisting, doing things during the day, kinda saying a few things and then like zoning out, escaping on our phones and then going to bed. And we had a hard conversation where there was lots of tears. Honestly, Adam, he's a go with the flow guy but I know when he brings up something that I need to work on, it's a big deal 'cause he waits a long till we have to say it. But we were just realizing like I could almost see this path we are going down of like had we kept going down that path, we would have lost a lot of that unity and oneness. Because honestly, unity and oneness is hard work. We have the Holy Spirit, obviously, to help us but it's those hard decisions that aren't always convenient and aren't always comfortable but they bring him the most worry. - [Aaron] So, I was just thinking, Jennifer and I literally just had a conversation similar a couple nights ago. And with this book coming out and the podcast and all the things that we're trying to be obedient in lately and with God. I was just mentioning to her, I was like hey, Jennifer, we need to be extra protective over our intimacy, over our time alone. Because in these seasons of us walking in obedience and chasing after these things, this is where we're gonna be attacked, this is where we're gonna lose focus. Is in our physical intimacy, in our spiritual intimacy, in our times alone when we should be recharging each other, being recharged in the word. And so, I just mentioned to her, I was like we need to be extra vigilant in protecting this part of our unity because if that goes, it doesn't matter what else we do. And so, it sounds like we were on the same journey. - [Jennifer] Well, I think everyone listening too can relate to this 'cause as you were talking, Katie, I think I can picture all the listeners on their end looking at each other if they're listening together as a couple. Well, with these downcast basis, like yeah, that's us. Everybody has access to social media and their phones and other things too that get in the way of that intimacy-- - [Aaron] That take our attention from each other. - [Jennifer] That take our attention away from each other and I love that you brought that up just as a reminder. So if everyone can just drop this note down, it would be to get our eyes off of our phones, off of the things that draw attention away from each other, look to each other and look to God of what He is doing. 'Cause He is doing something in this world and He's doing it through His people, He's doing it through us. So I love that you brought that up and I appreciate the encouragement to other people. My next question for you guy, oh, go ahead. - [Adam] That's not something that is kind of a one time conversation either, that's something where sometimes-- - Right. - It's continual. - [Adam] Those conversations happen often because we can easily slip back into old patterns, we can easily slip back into things that are just easy and avoid the tough conversations and honestly, tough change and tough challenging. Katie, part of the reason Katie is in my life is to challenge me and make me better and vice versa. I believe that God brought me to her to make her better and together, we're better. But changing the way that we are and changing the things that are easy takes work and it's not fun. And so, a lot of times it's easier just to escape into something else and just avoid those conversations. And that is a conversation, obviously, that could probably happen more often than it even does and would make us better, so. - [Aaron] Yeah, so, thinking about those conversations, those corrective course changing conversations that need to happen often. Our pastor always says in conversations about raising our children, 90% affirmation, 10% correction, those 10% corrections need to happen. Like you said the other night, you just were like hey, we're at a point where this needs to be addressed and changed tonight. But the 90% affirmation side, how important and how integral has affirmation played a role in the building of unity in your marriage and for those listening that we need to be recognizing that affirmation is important? How does that look? - [Katie] Well, one example that comes to mind is actually with our kids, so I'm not the most tidy housekeeper as I may have alluded to early on. And so, when it's time to clean, I kind of turn into like housezilla. It's just like I'm barking orders, I'm like come on everybody! 'Cause I'm so stressed by the amount of what needs to get done. So, my son, he's 12, sometimes he'll just stop and go, mom, you're so beautiful. And later on I thought he's being manipulative because it would change my attitude and all of a sudden, I would stop and realize how horrible I was being and when he pointed that out, it made me feel good inside. And so, the picture when, if Adam sends me a text just saying I appreciate you, I love you, period. It does, it builds into that and I'm more guilty of saying, hey, could you pick up this on your way home? And hey, how about this? But even when he goes and cashes his paycheck, trying to say thank you for working hard to provide for our family, just those little things in texting can be great with that. Sometimes even when you're at your house, of course you wanna talk face to face but if you're in the other room, just say, hey, I love you. I think that's huge because those corrective things, if that's happening all the time, it wears us down and we get discouraged. But building into our marriage in those ways, I don't think can happen enough. - [Adam] That's a good point, I think we can put so much weight and a burden on each other when we're heavy on the corrective side of things and vice versa. We can really lighten things up and make things more alive and life-giving when we're heavy on the affirmation side of things. And so, yeah, I think we both, that scenario, we can both grow in, for sure. - [Aaron] Yeah, us too. And it makes for, and so, affirmation is proaction and I see correction as reactive. So it's the thing like well, when it's necessary, we should do it 'cause correction needs to happen. But the affirmation makes a lot of the correction much less because we're being affirmed in the correct directions. We're being affirmed in the word of God, we're being affirmed to continue in the faith and to continue in what we believe and what's true. And how, like you said, you're beautiful. And you're like oh, I am beautiful and I need to be acting like what I am. Yeah, the affirmation is so important to us, just continue to move the right direction and keep our marriages and our ministries full of life and full of love and peace and joy. So, Jennifer, why don't you ask this one last question and then we'll get to the last last question. - [Jennifer] The last last question. Okay, so, in this chapter of Marriage After God, we share this idea of contrasting, what the world says about love. That you and me against the world so it's kind of like internalized love versus God's picture and desire for the mission of our marriage which is you and me for the world. What does this look like in your guys' marriage? - [Katie] Well, first of all, I just love that idea, it's powerful. And it reminds me of like let's say you're trying to push a big wheel, like if we're pushing against each other, we're gonna get nowhere. But if we get on one side of that wheel and push it, like my kids were helping me push my van that was stuck in the driveway this morning. - Oh no. - Oh no, 'cause the snow. - [Katie] You're combining your strengths and I think there's so much hostility and division out there in the world. I think, again, back to Nehemiah when they were trying to rebuild the wall, they said fight for your families. And I love the picture, it was all the people that were building this broken down wall, were doing it, it said, shoulder to shoulder. And I love that picture in marriage, are you serving shoulder to shoulder? Again, whether you're in the same room or not, are you going towards one goal which is to honor God? - [Aaron] Yes, yes. - [Katie] Because we've had friends recently die, like several and it's reminding of how fleeting life is. And God has given each marriage a purpose and that purpose could look different but all of purposes combined are to advance the kingdom. And like you said, husband and wife for the things of God. - [Adam] I think what I would say to that is it sometimes take a change of mindset as well. Because we as Christians, it can be very easy to slip into a mindset of oh, the world is attacking my faith, the world is attacking my God, the world is attacking me, the culture is doing these things. And so, it can be very easy to get defensive and put walls up and say, okay, you're attacking me, I'm coming after you. When really the mindset that God has given us is He said don't be surprised when this stuff happens, they hated Me. Jesus said they hated Me and they're going to hate you because you're aligned with Me. But He also said lay down your life for those people, sacrifice for those people, serve those people. And so, it could just take, again, conversations, how are we becoming more passionate to be like Jesus in loving and laying down our life for the world? As opposed to how do protect ourselves against the world? - [Jennifer] I love that perspective. And I also can't get that imagine of pushing a wheel out of my mind, I love imagery. And so, that's really powerful to me and I just think of husband and wife on either side like you said, Katie. And as pushing with all of our force and using all of our strength and then feeling super defeated because it has not moved at all, it doesn't work. And so-- - Well, actually, to take that analogy further, when one does get weak, what happens? The wheel rolls right over 'em. And so, we harm our marriage and instead of working in the same direction and actually getting somewhere, we also don't destroy our marriage. We don't destroy our partner, our spouse, the one that God's given us to be one with, so those are great-- - Perspectives. - Perspectives, yeah. So let's get to this last question, we've asked this to everyone. In your own words, what is a marriage after God? - [Katie] Rock, paper, scissors. - [Adam] We're both playing it to tell ya, hey, you take the part of this one. But I think, again, I love the duality of the title there, a Marriage After God, meaning we're seeking to follow God, we're seeking to be in alignment with His design for marriage, we're seeking to be in alignment in His purpose for marriage. But we're also, lost my train of thought there, but-- - [Katie] Well, that we want our marriage to be, go ahead. I was just gonna say, we want God to be first, right? Our marriage comes after God but then we also want our marriage to pursue God and the things of God. 'Cause like bed, this life is but a vapor and there's eternity if we are in Christ, we will live eternally with Him but we really have a limited time on this Earth. And there's so many petty things, I think Elizabeth Elliot, I've heard through the grapevine she had said this. That I think Jim Elliot, her husband who is martyred, he used to snore. Well, that could have been the thing that just drove her crazy but then afterwards, when her husband wasn't there, she missed that snoring. I always joke with Adam that he's gonna miss when I'm gone because I fall asleep during movies and he's not convinced that he will miss that. But I think it's do you want an internal perspective-- - [Aaron] Jennifer, you fall asleep during movies too. - [Katie] Is God the head of our marriage? Is He giving us our directives and are we going after the things He's laid before us? - Amen. - Amen and amen. That is so awesome, thank you so much for answering that. And just so you guys know, we're super encouraged by you and the ministry that is coming out of your marriage. You guys compliment each other so well and the Lord's using it to impact this world for His kingdom. And so, we're cheering you on and we just wanna give you an opportunity to share a little bit more about where people could follow along, you guys do these awesome interviews together. So why don't you share a little bit about that. - [Katie] Well, first of all, thanks so much for having us and I hope everyone gets a copy of Marriage After God, I know it's gonna be a wonderful resource to strengthen marriages, so-- - Thank you. - You're welcome. So we do a live show called Stop Hammock Time, 9:00 p.m. on Wednesday evenings on Facebook Live and you can find that if you go to Katie M, M as in Martha, Reid, R-E-I-D on Facebook. And we do those, and sometimes it's just Adam and I, sometimes you interview people. We have a great interview with you guys on there but it's a way to encourage marriages. And then we also have a Facebook group called Hammock Time Hangout Hub and we just kind of go a little deeper with the people in that group and share things like about your guys book or about an article we read or a question. But we just wanna encourage couples to grow closer in the relationship with the Lord and the relationship with each other. - [Aaron] Awesome, we thank you guys and we're gonna go into a time of prayer for a second and then we're gonna close out. - [Adam] Yeah. - [Aaron] Dear Lord, thank you for the gift of companionship. Marriage is such an intimate friendship that blesses us. We desire to draw closer to each other and to use the intimate mind to bless your name. Thank you for being intertwined in our relationship and at the center of it. You're the reason we are stronger together. Please continue to strengthen us as a chord of three strands. We pray that you would use us to do hard things as we build up your body and build up your kingdom. Be our strength as we persevere. May we be intentional in encouraging each other in marriage so that we do not grow weary. We pray against the enemy, we pray against his ways. Thank you for being our refuge and our shield. Thank you for equipping us and empowering us to stay strong and to fulfill Your will. May Your will be done in us and through our marriage in Jesus' name. - [All] Amen. - [Aaron] Hey, so we just wanna thank you guys for joining us. And we wanna thank everyone that has been listening. We pray that this conversation has blessed you and your marriage and we pray that your conversations will be fruitful from this conversation. And you know what, we have one more episode in this series. So please stay tuned and we look forward to having you next week. Did you enjoy today's show? If you did, it would mean the world to us if you could leave us a review on iTunes. Also, if you're interested, you can find many more encouraging stories and resources at marriageaftergod.com and let us help you cultivate an extraordinary marriage.

Helpful links from the episode: MozCon ticket giveaway Whitespark's new Local Search Service FULL SHOW NOTES:[music]00:10 Aaron: Episode six. Competitors, obsessed or don't care?00:16 Speaker 2: Welcome to the SaaS Venture podcast. Sharing the adventure of leading and growing a bootstrapped SaaS company. Hear the experiences, challenges, wins and losses shared in each episode from Aaron Weiche of GatherUp and Darren Shaw of Whitespark. Let's go.[music]00:45 Aaron: Welcome to the SaaS Venture podcast. I'm Aaron.00:48 Darren: I'm Darren.00:49 Aaron: And today, we are going to dive into the topic of competitors. But before we get into the main course of this episode, Darren, I'm excited to hear about all the prep you had to go into the Brighton conference and your travels over to England. I'd love to hear how both the conference went for you and did you get a chance to do some touristy and fun things? How did all that go? 01:16 S2: Yeah. Totally, yeah. So, it a was pretty great trip. It was grueling trying to get ready for it, actually, because prior to giving my presentation, the day before, I was giving a full day of local search training which I had never done before, just everything up to... You could imagine with local search, so covering the full gamut and...01:39 Aaron: Did they get a certificate that says "Darren Certified," when they were done? 01:44 Darren: No, no.[laughter]01:46 Darren: I should have that though. I should have a nice stamp to give everybody. Yeah. But it was seven hours of training, so my slide deck ended up been 530 slides of just trying to get everything I could think of. It's basically, "Darren does local search brain in one massive presentation." It was crazy. Also, my flights got messed up. So, I was supposed to fly in the morning on Tuesday and then, I basically fly all day and arrive on Wednesday at 10:00 AM. But then, they bumped my flight from Edmonton to Toronto to leave at midnight. So, I left at midnight, Edmonton time, arrived in Toronto at 6:00 AM, and then, I ended up getting a hotel, so I stayed in Toronto in the hotel so I could get some sleep from 6:00 AM until about 1:00 PM. And then, I was just working in the airport waiting for my flight to leave at around 10:00 PM. While I'm working at this local pub, this pub in the airport, I dumped a beer on my laptop.02:44 Aaron: No.02:45 Darren: I totally fried my laptop and I was like, "Oh my God, I'm getting on my flight in two hours and I still have so many slides to make." So, I raced to the little electronic store, I buy a new laptop, I'm trying to get everything loaded on to the laptop before my flight takes off. They're calling my name and I'm watching the ton download of PowerPoint probably has to get a load on my laptop. They're like, "Last call for Darren Shaw to board flight to London." And it's like, I got 1% left and I'm holding the laptop, ready to close it, and ready to run into the gate. It was insane. So I finally got on my plane, worked a little bit on the plane, slept a little bit on the plane. It all worked out in the end, but man, it was stressful.03:28 Aaron: Oh my gosh, that sounds one of my worst nightmares like, "Holy cow."03:33 Darren: Yeah, it was really bad. But yeah, the presentation was great. I thought it was fun, and it's a cool case study I'm doing. I'm just taking a business that had zero local search presence and then, slowly stepping through each sort of thing that you would do in a local search, and measuring the impact of that like, "Okay, they got five new reviews. What impact did that have on local search?" We did other citation building, then we did a whole bunch of citation indexing. So, each step, I was like, "What impact did that have on the rankings?" And so, it was cool to do the study and I'm gonna continue that study as I go to MozCon in July.04:09 Aaron: Yeah, I'm super excited to hear about that. That sounds like such a great piece of research and everything you put into it. And also, if you and I, when we hang out next, if we're gonna have beers, I'm keeping my computer away from you.04:23 Darren: Seriously, keep it in your backpack. Do not get that anywhere near the table.04:28 Aaron: Oh, man.04:29 Darren: Yeah. I did a little touristy stuff, too. In Brighton, they have this i360 thing which goes... It looks like a UFO that goes up on a big stick, "Bzzzzz". Goes like way up high so you can see all the way out to the ocean, all of Brighton, which is kind of touristy and interesting. It was alright. And then, I went to visit a friend. I went up to London, ate some great meals. Yeah, Brighton's a beautiful spot, and London, of course, is awesome. I did a couple of days there. After that grueling work, I just wished I had gone home instead of taking a couple of days in London, actually. I felt like I'd rather be with my family than trudging around London by myself.05:11 Aaron: Yeah, I can see that but I almost always get like this. I don't know if it's like a high or just relief after when you have something that big and then, it's off your plate. It is such a... There's a lot of decompressing that you have to do. That was something for a long time that I think even my wife struggled with when I would come home from certain conferences or events where you had big talks and things like that, where I was like, I just need to check out for a few days and I feel really great about it but I have no... I don't have any purpose to accomplish big things right now, professionally or personally, so I'm just gonna be happy, have a beer, and walk around without a care in the world for a couple of days because I just had way too many.05:58 Darren: I totally get that. I feel the exact same. I love it when I go to a conference, say, something like MozCon, and I speak on the first day, because then, I got the next two days to just like, "Yey, I'm having the best time hanging out with all my industry friends and having some drinks and learning some new topics." And I'm just like, "I'm not checking my email for two days." Yeah.06:16 Aaron: That's awesome. Well, good. I'm glad it went well even though you threw the biggest curve ball at yourself ever, but way to overcome.06:25 Darren: Yeah, sucked. What's up with you? 06:28 Aaron: Well, on company-wise, I'm really excited. We just hired a new VP of Customer Success.06:35 Darren: Awesome.06:36 Aaron: Yeah. It's someone that I've known for a long time, has a great background and really, we already have a great customer success team. We have three direct reps, and we have had one that served as a lead. But I was directly managing or overseeing our lead customer success rep, and in the 100 ways I'm at, like I'm not giving him enough support. I'm not giving enough guidance to the team. And it just really became aware to me that, even though this wasn't like our number one need, that I knew the right person for this job, and that would be a great fit culturally for us and within our mission and a bunch of other things, and it would really help this team have more experience to draw from and more time with somebody to help both what we do and them individually grow.07:27 Aaron: I'm really excited about that. One of the things... We already have for, especially our multi-location clients, five locations to into the thousands, we have a really great onboarding process that we've developed and put together and communicate and everything else, but we almost like, Launch is like the finish line. And once they're up and running, then we kinda turn reactive again, and then we're like, "Okay, if you need something, let us know," where we should be...07:54 Darren: Not checking in on them. Yeah.07:55 Aaron: Yeah, we should be hands-on. What's their week one look like, what's month one, what's the first 90 days? How are we ensuring they're getting off to the right start, to really be successful? That's kind of one of our main high-level goals to get going, and I'm excited with how this hire is gonna plug in and help make that happen for us.08:13 Darren: How big is your customer support team? 08:16 Aaron: So total of four now with this hire. So we have three direct reps that those guys are handling everything from email tickets, phone calls. We do a live chat during normal business hours, on-boarding, all of those different things. We have four in total dedicated to that now.08:36 Darren: Right. And so, this made me think about one thing you could do is measuring engagement and then if you see a client fall off of engagement, they're not logging in, they're not sending out requests, then you could algorithmically send an alert to your customer service team and say, "Hey, you should check in with this customer."08:55 Aaron: Totally... Maybe that's another podcast. We talk about that, but we're definitely looking at a combination. We're just starting to do a deeper install with the product called Heap Analytics. We're gonna do a lot more event tracking in the app and things like that. So yeah, definitely a combination of we wanna be proactive and digging into accounts and looking for things. We wanna develop some systems that are kinda giving us those warning signs or being able to really high level kind of spot check where they're at.09:25 Darren: Yeah, totally. And I say that as just suggestion for you, but it's like, "Damn, we should do that too."09:30 Aaron: No, totally. And it's a great thing to talk about. And as we get further down, I'd love to talk about where we're getting with it, but it really is like, How do you have this prescriptive path that you know that they need to achieve and we know certain things based on how often they're logging in, often they're engaging with the feature, and then some of the metrics that are coming out. Those are key performance indicators that we really need to ratchet down on.09:58 Darren: For sure. What else is going on? Anything new? 10:01 Aaron: Excited that we landed our first customer from... If you remember back a couple of months ago, we did that IFA conference.10:07 Darren: Yeah, we talked all about ROI on that. So you got a good customer? 10:11 Aaron: Yeah, yeah, yeah. We got a good customer that basically, zeroed out our investment, right? We'll make money back on this customer in under a year from our investment on that. We signed them to a two-year deal. And then I still have a number of other conversations in addition to the exposure we got and everything else. I feel really, really good about that. Yeah, that's all I wanted out of our... Again, our first time. You have to understand these things that you're not gonna go in and shock and awe people first time in a giant conference like that, so it's like, "Can you just get a little traction? A lot of visibility, a lot of conversations." We're already signed up for the next one, next year, so excited about that.10:50 Darren: Yeah, and I think it's a good point. You definitely zeroed out. So you know you've got that exact measurable impact from the conference, but you did better than zeroing out because there was all that exposure of people that are coming to you because they saw you at the conference and you have no idea that you have a new customer, you didn't know that it was because of IFA.11:09 Aaron: Yeah.11:10 Darren: So you're definitely getting more than just this one big client, for sure.11:13 Aaron: Yeah, absolutely, but it's great to be able to go to the team just because some of my partners weren't always on board with doing these types of events and conferences and be able to say like, "Hey yeah, dollar-to-dollar. We got our money back and now here's all these other intangibles that continue to pay off, right? It's like anything in marketing. You have to look at it as an investment and some investments, they are short-term payoffs and some are more mid and long-term and you need to keep going back on it to get where you need to go.11:42 Darren: Yeah, and then you also get the lifetime value of that customer so it's more than just whatever the contract is that you sign, it's into the future. And then, a new customer and all the referrals that can potentially come from that customer.11:54 Aaron: Yeah, you just hope it's... You planted a seed with it and then it starts to grow and branch out and everything else, and you reap all those rewards.12:03 Darren: Totally, great. And I saw you guys were sponsoring MozCon.12:04 Aaron: Yeah.12:05 Darren: And I got to see all the tweets. Everyone's excited about giving away tickets.12:08 Aaron: Yeah, yeah, giving away a ticket, which is awesome, 'cause a MozCon ticket is expensive, like face value.12:15 Darren: And it's a great conference.12:17 Aaron: Yeah. Of like 1700 bucks and great speakers like yourself and Will Reynolds and Cindy Krum and things like that, where it really is awesome. And interesting enough, I saw in one of those side benefits, right? I was just on site a couple of days ago with a new customer that we're onboarding and kicking off with, that has hundreds of locations. And our main contact there was like... She's like, "Hey, can I ask you a question? I'm like, Yeah, totally she's like... Well, I was just looking into 'cause I need to get out to some conferences, and whatever. And lo and behold, I came across MozCon kinda looks great. And then I saw you guys are sponsor. So I thought you'd be able to give me really good insight on the... Is this a good conference and should I go to it? 12:58 Aaron: And to me, it was like one of those, it reinforced in other reasons why to sponsor conferences and things like that, 'cause even your customer see like, "Oh these guys are active in the space and they're part of these things and whatever else. So, that was kind of a cool full-circle moment there.13:10 Darren: There is no conference I've ever been to, I've never seen a better opportunity for vendors than the MozCon setup because at MozCon, they only take on eight to 10 exhibitors really, and they have these nice little, they call them partner hubs, and they're right as you walk into the conference. It's not like in a separate room like an exhibit hall that you have to go to. They're right there so your visibility is amazing and when people come out from the conference sessions to go and get a coffee or a snack, or they go off for lunch, they have to walk right past you. And so, all these people are mingling about and the snacks are right next to where all the vendors are. It's amazing. It's the best visibility I've ever seen at a conference. It's a good one.13:52 Aaron: Nice. I hope we can capitalize on that. Maybe we can even book like, Darren Shaw's in our booth for an hour and you can get photos and autographs.14:01 Darren: [chuckle] It's not just me, there's some great local people coming so Joy is gonna be there too, and Greg Gifford got a community spot. Oh, maybe I'm supposed to keep that on the down low. Well, it's out there now. [chuckle] It's definitely out there now.14:14 Aaron: Well, we'll have a handful of our team. Mike Blumenthal will be there as well, so we'll have a good crew.14:21 Darren: Yeah, it's gonna be great. It's gonna be fun. Can't wait.14:23 Aaron: I think maybe we do a thing where, for an hour, you will dump beers on people's laptops.[chuckle]14:29 Darren: You would get so many people lined up for that. Yeah. [laughter]14:33 Aaron: Oh, see I love these ideas. And other than that, man, I just... I know you know what this is like, too, but I've been on a plane every week the last five weeks. Monday, I leave for a local U in Austin. I go directly from there to North Carolina to one of our new clients and their internal conference for franchisees, so it's just been really hard to get time at my desk and to keep the other things moving forward when you don't have that focus time gap.15:02 Darren: And that's where this new hire comes in, right. Someone that can just... "Okay, you manage the customer support initiatives that we wanna run with? Like all this stuff that I don't have time to stay on top of."15:12 Aaron: Yeah, totally. Anyway, that's a normal struggle. You know what that's like, but man, it's crazy sometimes when it is. I'm going on week five of a trip, of multiple days every single week, and it's like I need a week just no calls, no emails, get caught up, get directions set on some things.15:32 Darren: I do not envy that. I know that feeling of just feeling like you're getting further and further behind with all the traveling and speaking, and all that kind of stuff. It takes a lot of time and I am really looking forward to this next stretch I have where I don't have anything until Moz... Oh, have a little one, a local U, in June and then MozCon so... But yeah, I'm basically free and clear for a while and I love it and I'm not gonna book anything. I've got so many initiatives that we have on the go here, I'm really excited about, and I'm so happy to be involved with.16:03 Aaron: No, that feels so good.16:05 Darren: One other new item for me, actually, is we launched a new service so I'm excited about that. It's called the local search service and we basically... You can kind of think of it like a Google My Business management service. We really tried to build a great productized service that we can scale, and I'm really excited about it and getting a lot of interest from it and I think there's great potential. We have so many customers that come to us that are like, "Okay, I don't even know what a citation is. What am I supposed to do? Can you help me?" And we're like, "Yes." Now, we can say, "Yes, we can help you. Sign up for this. We will basically manage all of the local pieces of search for you and so we can now meet the needs of all those clients, so I'm excited about that.16:47 Aaron: Yeah, you should be. That's really cool. And once again, it's usually when we talk, that totally sounds like an episode I'd love to do a deep dive on because I have some ideas around some productized services that we can bolt on top of what we're doing, especially with some of the features we have coming out in the next three to six months. So, that's really interesting. And yeah, let's put that on or our dock of notes on something 'cause I'd love to hear how all that unfolds for you more and what you understand as this rolls out and the success...17:17 Darren: For sure, yeah. There will be lots to talk about. Yeah, I'll be interested to hear more about your productized services. But now, let's get into the meat of it. We're gonna talk about competitors, right? 17:24 Aaron: Good old competitors.[chuckle]17:26 Darren: Yeah.17:27 Aaron: It's like an opinion, everybody has one, right? 17:30 Darren: Yeah, totally. Totally. You have lots, actually. Your space is pretty saturated and I suppose I have even more because we do everything so, yeah. How do you deal with your competitors? Are you like... Do you have alerts set up? Do you have a team member that's, it's their job to watch what the competitor is doing all the time? How do you deal with it? 17:51 Aaron: Yeah. I definitely fall into the camp where I pay attention and I think about them. I'm not as far... I know people who obsess about it and things like that. I think that's really unhealthy 'cause it derails the direction you're going.18:07 Darren: Yep.18:07 Aaron: But, especially when you're young, when you're a start-up and... Alright, I've been with GatherUp for just a couple of months shy of four years now, but in the earlier stages when I was there, especially when you haven't carved out where you are and you're not as secure in where you are, or confident, then you pay a lot of attention to it, right? And I think that can be a really hard evolution in just figuring out what the right balance is for you because it's smart to pay attention to them and understand what they're doing but when you obsess, then you start going backwards and the other way with it and that becomes really, really dangerous.18:47 Darren: How do you deal with feature parity? So one of your customers will be like, "Hey we used to be with this... We're currently with this competitor. We're thinking about switching to you. Do you also do this thing that my competitor does? Like is that something that you're like, "Ooh, we should really get that on a roadmap," or you're like, "No, we have our roadmap. We're staying the course. We don't care if this other competitor has this feature that this one customer wants."19:13 Aaron: It depends so much. I think if you go back to my first statement, I'm like knowing who you are and where you're going. A lot of times we're really easily able to say, "Does that feature even fit in with our vision and our direction or doesn't it?" And there are certain features, though, that you consider these are standard things that are needed in what we're doing, and that becomes the really tricky part in kind of parsing that out sometimes.19:41 Darren: Yeah.19:41 Aaron: We have certain competitors that I call  "everything-and-the-kitchen-sink" competitor where no matter who builds what in the space, they have enough of an engineering team where they will basically copycat everyone's feature. And they really don't ever innovate anything or bring out something that's really strategic. They're just gonna say, "Hey, we have 250 features. We're never gonna lose a deal on a feature," and as a bootstrap company, we can't afford to do that. We have to align very tightly with our strategy and our vision with it. So that's the big thing that we always use is like, "Does this align with what those are?" And then we have to give the consideration like, "Is this an expected across the board?" So an easy example in our space would be like if we didn't have review monitoring, right, people would be like, "That's great that you helped me get more reviews and all these other things, but you're not letting me know when new reviews happen when I get them and giving me a notification about it."20:40 Aaron: That would be an issue no matter how our focus of like, "Well, we wanna help you connect with your customer and that's a reactive thing, and we only wanna do proactive things." So, definitely pieces like that. How do you look at it just as you talked about... You have this feature set that's so broad that you then hit all kinds of people that just focus on one of your features, but that's all they do is that one? What does that look like for you and your competitive landscape? 21:09 Darren: Yeah. So for us, I feel frustrated about competitors often because it's like I have this broad vision about what we wanna do. But we're kinda small, actually. Our company is not huge, and then competitors seem to always be a step ahead of us. We're like, "Damn it, we were gonna launch that." And then they put it out like a month before us. Things like that often come up that are frustrating. So there is, obviously, in my space, one major competitor which is BrightLocal, and it was funny because at Brighton SEO, that training I did, there were ten attendees for my full training session, and five of them were employees with BrightLocal 'cause apparently they're based out of Brighton. And so, I basically was training Myles and [21:56] ____ how to do local search, which was good times. [chuckle] And...22:00 Aaron: That's so crazy... Like did part of you just kind of feel like... Asking them to walk out of the room like, "This is not for you." [chuckle]22:07 Darren: Well no, 'cause it wasn't really like... We weren't really talking about our software and our services. We were just talking about local search in general, so it was totally fine. And I did my best to try and train them up as well as I could. And then the next day I actually went for lunch with my top competitor, Miles Anderson, from BrightLocal. And yeah, we had a great, great lunch, we chatted about things. I feel like we were both pretty open and it was interesting to hear about their business and what they're working on and tell him a little bit about what we're up to. And it's funny because you have some competitors that totally seem like assholes and you're like, "I would never go for lunch with that guy, [chuckle] but then I have BrightLocal and Whitespark, we're friendly competitors.22:51 Darren: I feel the same way about Moz, Moz has their Moz local product, but I love them all over there. It's a great group and so I don't really... I don't worry about the competitors, and I don't, I don't hate my competitors, but sometimes I'm frustrated about their ability to release faster than us. But other times, I just don't obsess about it either because, like you said, we have our road map, we have our style, people choose us because of who we are and what we do and how we do things because they just... It feels like more of a fit for them than this other product. And so, we just have to be clear on who we are and what we're doing, and I think that there's room in the industry for lots of competitors. If you think about how many email marketing systems are there? You got Mail Chimp, you got... I'm drawing a blank [chuckle], what are some of the other ones? Campaign Monitor.23:47 Aaron: Campaign Monitor, AWeber, Constant Contact. [chuckle]23:48 Darren: There's probably 30 of them and they are all making money. So it's like, to some degree, spaces will eventually merge to like a top winner but... And I would love for that to be Whitespark in my space. And you would love for that to be GatherUp in your space. But I don't worry too much about the competition. I'm not worried about my business... My business continues to grow, your business continues to grow and so.24:16 Aaron: And you have to look at it that way. If you're in a space you can see there's enough business for all kinds of people. And there's just so many different... It becomes interesting to me, based on who we're selling into, we might have a different set of two or three competitors. And that always becomes really interesting as you get into those. And I can kind of, like, for the three main segments we work in, there's kinda two competitors in each of those segments, that that's who we bump into in a comparison process, more often than not with it.24:51 Darren: I was just gonna say, speaking of comparison like, how do you handle all those questions where people are like, "Well what makes you better than competitor X?"25:01 Aaron: Yeah. I think, going back to the other things I hit upon, the thing that we always look at is, strategically, right, we really rely on like, "Hey, you have some of the people who have cared a long time about local search, people who care about business and reputation and communication. We understand all those angles, and we're not giving you... We're not the Walmart of SaaS products, where every feature's on the shelf and you grab what you want. We are this honed experience, that if you come in, we have the right things that you need, and we also can help you with the right ways to use them.25:34 Aaron: And I think that's really important coming from that angle, we point that out all the time as a difference, and we also use the fact that like, "Hey, we are hard-core focused on helping connect you to your customers." So at the end of the day, we're not gonna be creating a bunch of other things around local listings or some of these other things. And I get customers want... When they find like, "Alright, I can get one bill and one provider and there's some overlap." I get all of those are wins, but we really look at it as like we wanna be the best option with what we're trying to do, more so than, we have more things to sell you and, all across the board, we can make it so you don't have to need three people, you just need one. But we have our own ways that we make that happen.26:22 Darren: Yeah, that's interesting, our approach is a little bit different. We are kitchen sink for sure, and we continue to expand, and add new things like, "Oh, customers need this, we're gonna build it." So, I don't know, I feel like we're kinda stuck there now because we already offer so many different products and services around the whole range of local search that we can never get out of that, but I do think your approach is really smart, from a competitor perspective. And I think there's a service behind it too. It's like, "Hey, we are subject matter experts on customer experience, customer feedback, reviews, you come to us and we're not just like a software you're gonna sign up for, we're gonna actually help you get the best results that you can from that review process, and feedback process." So, I think it's smart to... The way you have honed in on that.27:10 Aaron: Well, hopefully, 'cause... But it's also you have to make the most of what you have to offer too. I don't have 100 engineers building every last feature, so I can't be in that arms race, I'm not gonna win that. So, we have to build really great, well-thought-out strategical features that align with things we understand. SEO, and local SEO, and communications between business and customer, and really dial those in so that we can show them like, "Hey, here's a really great repeatable process that your business can prosper with." Rather than, "Hey, spread yourself super thin trying to do all these things." And more and more, I'm hearing customers come back to that just because I think there is such an explosion in the ebbs and flows of software, and SaaS and that explosion where there is that feeling of adding more features, adding more features, adding more features. And I've actually had some clients say, "What I like about you is you are laser focused on this, and that other stuff is just kind of fluff to me, or thrown in or whatever else. And we don't need it, we're likely not gonna use it, we need to put our focus here."28:19 Darren: Yeah, and you also end up with feature bloat, where someone logs in to the system and they're like, "Wow, this is insane. I don't know how to do anything. Do you have a two-day training course for me to figure out how your software works?" And so staying focused and not building every damn feature can really help to make your customer experience of using the software better too.28:40 Aaron: Yeah, you always wanna find it. And this is something we are constantly battling 'cause sometimes I think we're getting that, as we offer so many customizations and configurations, or whatever else where, to me, it's always figuring out this top-down approach of how can I do the easiest things up front and right away, and then I have easy pass to go into second, third, fourth level advanced type settings, and I can dig deeper if I want to, but I don't have all that depth thrown in my face right away, and that's something I'm...29:08 Darren: Yep.29:09 Aaron: Really trying to philosophically work into our user experience. Let's not expose everything right up front, I get that makes sense when we're creating it 'cause we understand everything. But when the first time user comes in, that's the last thing you want them to be, it's like, "Where do I even start?" You don't want that.29:25 Darren: Yeah, totally. You got a dropdown with 30 different options and it's too much.29:30 Aaron: I'm interested, Darren in yours, how often do you see customers switching from one provider or another, and how hard is that switch for someone to pick up and leave BrightLocal, and come to Whitespark or something like that? 29:43 Darren: Yeah, interestingly it depends on what they want. So, BrightLocal has a couple of things that we don't have and so, but there are a lot of people that have a Brightlocal account, and they're paying for all this extra stuff that they don't actually use. And so we did recently make it pretty easy to switch to us. We've added some features that make it easy to switch, and we will support people that wanna switch too. So, if they wanna switch, we're gonna do all the work to try and make it as easy as possible for them. And that's been pretty successful for us, and we find that our customers that do switch are like, "Wow, this is a whole new world, we really love it." And that gives us some confidence in what we're doing. But we also see people go the other way too. When people cancel, one of the options they can choose is moving to a competitor. And then, of course, we ask for more details. Yeah, we do see people switch over to BrightLocal, and they list their reasons, and we think about those reasons, and we figure out whether or not we need to make any changes based off of what the feedback we're getting. And then there's so many people that are switching one way or the other, you never hear from. You don't know if they're switching.30:51 Aaron: Would you ever consider... Do you market that switching process? I think about, I've seen this for a long time with banks, they will actively put out content on their website saying like, "Hey, here's how you switch to our bank and we make it easy. And here's what's involved." Do you do any of that or would you consider doing that? So people know like, "Hey, it's not super painful, and we actually will guide you through it, and make it easy."31:14 Darren: Yeah, we've recently built these features to make it easy to switch. And we are going to definitely market them. We're just putting it on the landing page and saying, "Hey listen, if you're currently with this competitor, it's so dead simple for you to switch. We move everything over for you, contact us today." So we definitely wanna market it, we're not gonna do a blog post and tweet about it, and be like, "Hey, anyone that's with BrightLocal definitely come to us." [chuckle] We're not gonna do that, it just feels kind of douchey. But we will let... We wanna let people know that it's easy to switch. And we're putting it into our welcome email. So, someone signs up for that, we're like, "Oh hey, are you with BrightLocal? If you are... " Just a line that says, "Hey, it's easy to switch."31:56 Aaron: Nice, very, very smart.31:58 Darren: And it's not just BrightLocal, we've made it easy to switch from other providers too.32:01 Aaron: Yeah, so in your space, and I can't remember if BrightLocal has taken any funding at any point or not, but do you have...32:10 Darren: They have not.32:10 Aaron: Okay, so are most of your competitors in your space bootstrapped or do you have... Are there certain ones that are big VC-funded, and on a different trajectory? 32:21 Darren: It depends on what you're looking at. For someone that is pretty close to almost exactly what we do, it's BrightLocal. But then we have competitors in different areas like business listing management. You've got Moz Local, and then you have Yext. So Yext, of course, massive funding, Moz Local, massive funding, and so they are different. And then we have some that are a little bit more agency, but also a little focused on business listings, and that would be, Advice Local is one that comes up here and there. And I think they might be funded too. It's an interesting thing like that, bootstrapped versus funding.32:57 Aaron: Yep.32:58 Darren: I feel like I don't know why, but we have a market advantage and maybe it's just because of the speaking and stuff that I do, but I feel like people look to us as experts and that helps drive business for sure, for us.33:10 Aaron: Yeah. As you know, we're in that same boat where we wanna be thought leaders in the space, especially when it comes to search. We're the only one of our competitors that are at a MozCon or talking at search conferences where our competitors especially like BirdEye or Podium, that these guys have taken $30 million rounds of funding those guys are talking at SaaS conferences and VC conferences and things like that, and we definitely use that to our advantage on how well we understand the space and what Google is doing and what they're up to, and that we even have relationships there that are productive strategic ones. But there's such a gap in our space, 'cause we really have a competitor that's just, "Hey, they got a couple of million dollars in funding and it's allowed them to accelerate." We have these behemoths that have taken on tens of millions of dollars or you have us, that have not taken on any money. And so, that discrepancy that divide is so large and you see it in size of engineering teams and size of sales teams. It's like...34:18 Darren: Yeah. For sure. Yeah.34:19 Aaron:  I'm the only one that does outbound sales. I'm hoping that changes in the coming months, It's been top of my priority list for a while. We still haven't found the right fit. But I wanna grow an outbound sales team because our product is good enough for it now, and we're doing very well just through inbound marketing and all the things we do there, but it's really time for us to scale up those efforts. And those guys already have sales teams of 50, 100, and every last...34:45 Darren: That's insane, I know.34:47 Aaron: Yeah.34:47 Darren: Yeah, it's totally insane. So what kind of outbound sales do you do? Who are you talking to you? 34:51 Aaron: Yeah, I focus all on multi-locations. So I wanna talk if your... For me, I'm probably targeting anyone like 50 locations, and up. So yesterday, I saw one of my contacts is friends with the COO of a 200 location coffee shop. So I asked for an introduction.35:08 Darren: Right. That's smart.35:09 Aaron: I'm looking at brands that have size, continue to grow. And I can usually pretty easily see from even their own website. Are they using something to streamline feedback and reviews, are they displaying reviews on their site or location pages. So it's like this, three to four item checklist where I can see like, okay, they're either doing one of the five things we offer or two of the five, or none or I see they're using two different services, where I know we could help them consolidate.  I'm reaching out and try to start a conversation. I'm gonna put some of our case studies in front of them or some thought leadership articles from our blog or, "Hey, are you gonna be at this event that we're speaking at or we're sponsoring." And try to spark that up that way. And I would love to have one, two, three, four, five people duplicating my efforts there, just because those relationships are so much demand... It's one thing to get the conversation started, but then it's the calls, the demos, the meetings staying on top of it, keeping it moving, all of those things that you gotta have a team for.36:10 Darren: Absolutely, I find like... Sales are great, I can do the sales, but it's all the work that comes after that. Great, I've started a conversation I have a client that's interested, and then it's like managing that relationship is really time-consuming. You definitely need to build a team or it'll end up taking up all your time.36:27 Aaron: Yup, absolutely, I'm with you. Anything in closing, Darren I think we've ran our course, but do you have any final takeaways or a statement that you'd offer advice to anyone when... How they're thinking about or watching their competitors, researching them, what would you put out there to our listeners? 36:45 Darren: Yeah, I think it is important to keep an eye on them. You wanna have... I do have [36:51] ____ what they do and I keep tabs on it and I keep looking at what they're doing, but also, having that mentality that you touched on which is making sure that you understand what you're about and what your mission is, and not getting pulled off course for this feature, or that feature, 'cause competitors are always gonna be doing things slightly different from you but understanding what value you're bringing, and if that feature contributes to that value, then it's something that you might wanna include or if whatever marketing thing they're doing makes sense that it might be something you wanna do. But knowing who you are and what you're providing, and what your value differentiator is against that competitor is really important to get nailed down, so that you're not always just chasing every little thing that the competitors are doing.37:36 Aaron: Totally agree with you, self-awareness of your product and your company, is so important for people to be as soon as you can find that way, to be secure with that. You can't be over confident where you bury your head in the sand, you still need to be aware, but you need that self-confidence so that you can build your own path. And the cautionary tale, I tell people all the time, is if you build yourself to be so alike a competitor. Now there isn't just as you hit about there isn't this unique distinction on why someone would choose you or the other one.38:08 Darren: Yeah totally.38:09 Aaron: And it's like, Oh, you're both the same. Alright, well, which one's cheaper, now? Which is the last comparison that you want.38:16 Darren: Exactly.38:16 Aaron: I never wanna win, because I'm the cheap option, I wanna win because I'm the best value that's there. So I'd tell people to really be thinking about that. When you are paying attention to your competitors, you're not obsessing but how do you carve out the value that you have in comparison? 38:31 Darren: Yeah, and I would add one little thing. It's very valuable to hear, as customers are coming in when they do switch over, to touch base with them and find out what was happening over with your competitor that you had problems with? And then being able to speak to some of those things and trying to amplify your benefits against those perceived problems over there. That's one thing that we try to do over here.38:54 Aaron: Yes, yep. Now we have that going on in our reseller space right now, and we have a number of resellers, coming to us from our biggest competitor there that are like your feature set is better, your interface is better, your customer service is way better, and those are all things that we need to just be a little bit more touting and put out there so the people understand that there is that difference and that makes up for, "We are a little bit more expensive than they are." But as everyone that switches said, "You're 10X the value because of those things." And we need to do a better job of bringing that...39:29 Darren: Yeah laying that out for them. When you're onboarding new clients or when you're prospecting in the sales process, that's where that stuff should come out, where you can speak to those things. So yeah, that's where I really think the greatest value of keeping your eyes on your competitors is in that, in the sales process.39:44 Aaron: Yep. Nope, you're completely correct, I agree. Alright, well...39:47 Darren: Alright.39:47 Aaron: Thanks everybody. That concludes another episode. Hopefully, we've had about three, four weeks between our last one, just because of, as we touched upon travels and conferences and everything else, hopefully Darren and I, in the next couple of weeks will be sinking again to get you out another episode of the SaaS venture. Please feel free to reach out to us on Twitter. We've had some questions in the past we love to answer listener questions, or topic ideas and if you have the time, leaving us a review in iTunes is super helpful, helps with the visibility of our podcast, as we continue to reach more 100 people and have more listeners interact with us. Love doing that.40:26 Darren: Alright, yeah, what Aaron said.40:29 Aaron: Have a good one, until we talk again, Darren.40:30 Darren: Yeah, we'll schedule another one and we'll talk again soon, thanks Aaron.40:34 Aaron: Alright. You bet. Keep your beer away from your laptop and we'll talk soon.40:38 Darren: I will. Okay bye.40:39 Aaron: Alright. See you everybody.

Join the Marriage After God movement and order a copy of our new book today. https://marriageaftergod.com Quote From the book: “...what we see as inadequate, God sees as enough.” Prayer *Dear Lord, We thank You for the way you created us and we thank you for your rich provision. Thank you for equipping us for the work you have for us to do. May our eyes be opened so that we can see all of the wonderful ways you have equipped us. Use us to encourage our spouse in the ways you have equipped them as well. We ask that you use every one of our marriage to bring you glory and to spread your gospel. We pray against fear and against the temptation to bury the gifts you have given to us. We ask that you remove our insecurities far from our hearts and help us to trust in you. We pray that we would walk in confidence as we chase boldly after you and as we pursue doing the very things you created us and created our marriages to do! In Jesus’ name, amen!* READ TRANSCRIPT [Aaron] Hey, we're Aaron and Jennifer Smith with Marriage after God. [Jennifer] Helping you cultivate an extraordinary marriage. [Aaron] And today, we're in part 11 of the Marriage after God series, and we're going to be talking with Katie and Elisha Voetberg about taking inventory. Welcome to the Marriage after God podcast, where we believe that marriage was meant for more than just happily ever after. [Jennifer] I'm Jennifer, also known as Unveiled Wife. [Aaron] And I'm Aaron, also known as Husband Revolution. [Jennifer] We have been married for over a decade. [Aaron] And so far, we have four young children. [Jennifer] We have been doing marriage ministry online for over seven years through vlogging and social media. [Aaron] With the desire to inspire couples to keep God at the center of their marriage, encouraging them to walk in faith every day. [Jennifer] We believe that Christian marriage should be an extraordinary one, full of life. [Aaron] Love. [Jennifer] And power. [Aaron] That can only be found by chasing after God. [Jennifer] Together. [Aaron] Thank you for joining us on this journey as we chase boldly after God's will for our life together. [Jennifer] This is Marriage after God. So today's guests are Elisha and Katie Voetberg from the podcast Now That We're Family. [Aaron] So before we get to the interview with Katie and Elisha Voetberg, we would love to ask anyone that's listening if they have not already to leave a review for us. That helps other people find the podcast. It helps the rankings in iTunes. So if you have a moment, leave us a star rating, leave us a text review. We'd love to see that. [Jennifer] We also wanna invite you guys to check out our new book Marriage after God, which is available at our store. So just go to shop.marriageaftergod.com to check that out and get your copy today. [Aaron] Yeah, that's the whole point of this series, is we're promoting our book coming out on June fourth, and we would love for you to get a copy of it. But following in the series, we're almost done with it, and we're excited to have you. Okay, Katie, Elisha, friends of ours. [Jennifer] Thank you for being here. [Elisha] No, thank you! [Katie] We're so stoked to be here today. [Aaron] We're here in our garage. Usually we record in our office, so there might be a little bit more echo, but this fits all of us. It's this fun little setup we got, I love it. [Jennifer] And it's in person. [Aaron] Yeah. [Jennifer] So I feel like it's just fun all around. [Aaron] So thanks for joining us, and no one is probably gonna know you, so why don't you guys tell everyone who you are, how long you've been married, kids, stuff like that. [Elisha] Right on, yeah. So my name is Elisha Peter Voetberg, and this is my lovely wife Kathryn Joy Voetberg, and we've been married for three years now, and we're pregnant with our third child. [Jennifer] Woohoo! [Elisha] So we've got a two-year-old. Yeah, we're really pumped. We've got our two-year-old, Leon Tucker, and our daughter Lucy's just about a year, and then we've got our third baby on the way. And we love being a part of fellowship with you guys, doing fellowship. [Aaron] Oh, I forgot to mention we go to church with them. [Elisha] Yeah, that's right. That's a huge highlight for us. And we're just really excited about life with each other and seeing what God can do through the family unit and through marriage. [Aaron] Cool, and that's why you guys started your podcast, was you loved what God was doing in your marriage and in your family, and we'll get into some more of your guys' background in a little bit. But yeah, if you haven't checked out their podcast, it's Now That We Are Family, and you can just search for that on iTunes or anywhere you can get podcasts, actually, so. [Jennifer] Awesome, okay, moving right along. [Aaron] This is our fun little section. We love this part. [Jennifer] Yeah, we wanted to invite you guys to join us for the icebreaker question, which is, what is one of your funniest marriage moments? [Elisha] Funniest, Katie? [Aaron] Katie has one, and she's prepared. [Katie] I am prepared. No, well, I would have to say one of our funniest marriage moments is probably the most ironic marriage moment, 'cause it was actually a fight. [Elisha] That's true. [Katie] But people think it's funny. [Elisha] It's funny now, right? [Katie] Yeah, exactly. [Aaron] Not in the moment, but it is absolutely funny now for everyone else. [Katie] Exactly, so it happened at our honeymoon, and I think it was the first wake-up call Elisha had to who he had married. [Aaron] Oh, no. [Elisha] Yeah, so yeah, I guess I'll tell the story. Katie and I, you're gonna hear more about our families, but we were both brought up in big families, and Katie's family was extremely strict when it came to sugar intake. And my family definitely was health-conscientious, but certainly not as strict regarding sugar as Katie's family was. [Katie] Nowhere close. [Elisha] Nowhere close. [Aaron] Yeah. And I think it was day four of our honeymoon, and I viewed our honeymoon as being a time that was celebratory, and you can kinda splurge. [Aaron] Yeah, which means it doesn't matter what you eat. [Elisha] It doesn't matter what you eat. [Aaron] You can have as much as you want. [Elisha] Exactly, that's how I was viewing it. And so, it was the evening of our fourth night, I think, the fourth day in our honeymoon, and we decided to get a little treat for a movie that we were gonna watch. And so, I got a pack of Skittles, just like the normal size. It wasn't the super size, it wasn't the party size. It was just the normal serving size of Skittles. And Katie didn't want anything, and that really blew my mind. I was like, you're not gonna get a treat? She goes, no. She was like, I'll have some of yours, which is classic, right? [Jennifer] Yeah, you're like, no you're not. [Elisha] Classic, yeah, exactly. And so, we started watching the movie, and I had a few Skittles, and then Katie took three Skittles and she told me that that was gonna be enough for her. [Katie] No, I had, okay, yeah. Okay, I guess, but this is a classic like, let me help you tell the story, honey. But I ended up eating 11 Skittles. [Aaron] She remembers the exact number. [Katie] Which was splurging for me. And Elisha was like, you're counting your Skittles? But then I took the Skittles away from him. [Elisha] Yeah, after I had eaten maybe 20 or 25 Skittles. [Katie] That's a lot of Skittles. [Elisha] Yeah. [Katie] Up until this point, I'd maybe had like one. Anyways, like, my family, I'm one of 11 kids, and we would split a bag of Skittles and make it last for two or three days. [Aaron] Wow, that's incredible, actually. [Katie] Anyways, yeah, so it led to kind of a crazy fight, and since then, I realize that I am the one that most people don't agree with on this story. [Aaron] Yeah, Skittles are usually a single-event, single-instance candy. [Elisha] Yeah, that's how I viewed it, exactly. She wanted to save it. [Aaron] It's one serving, isn't it, like, the whole bag? [Elisha] Exactly, I thought it was one serving too. [Katie] I wouldn't believe it, and we had to read the back. [Jennifer] Awesome. [Aaron] That is funny now, for sure. [Elisha] It's funny now. Well, you know what's funny is that we're laughing about it, but she was dead serious at the moment. She grabbed the bag from me. [Katie] I hid 'em. [Elisha] Yeah, and I thought she was being playful and kind of flirtatious. I was like, oh, come on, give me the Skittles back. She's like, no, we'll finish 'em later, like we can have 'em tomorrow or the next day. I was like, are you kidding me? I want them now. [Aaron] I wonder how many people are gonna really relate to this. They're like, this is exactly how we are with Skittles. [Jennifer] That's so awesome. [Aaron] We both would get our own bags of Skittles. [Jennifer] For sure. [Aaron] And our own bag of, what else would we get? [Jennifer] And remind each other that we're not sharing. [Aaron] Please don't have any of mine. Get your own bag if you want some. [Elisha] I don't think Katie can view you the same way anymore, now that she knows that. [Jennifer] That's okay. Okay, so we're gonna, we always share a quote, and we're gonna share a quote from Marriage after God from chapter 11, Take Inventory. Aaron, do you wanna? [Aaron] Yeah, so what we see as inadequate, God sees as enough. It's a smaller part of a bigger quote in a bigger context, but the idea is that oftentimes, we might see things that we have in our life, abilities, skills, and they're not good enough for God or adequate for what God wants to do in our life or through our life. And so we think we need something else. Oh, I don't have what it takes, that kind of mentality, but it's exactly what God's already given us, and he requires and desires us to invest it as we have it. It doesn't mean that we don't get better at things, but that's kind of the context of this, and we're gonna talk about this idea of taking inventory and we're gonna ask the questions to you guys, 'cause you guys haven't read the book yet, which is totally fine. [Elisha] Right. [Aaron] Because I think we all can learn and start to understand in our life that God's given us things, and he desires us to invest them, and not because we're trying to commend ourselves to God, but he wants us to invest them for his sake, for our sake, and it's because we love him that we invest them. So that's the quote, and then we can get into the topic and some questions for you guys. [Elisha] Cool. [Aaron] Are you guys excited about the questions? [Elisha] I am excited. [Aaron] Okay. [Jennifer] Okay, you guys are a young family figuring out what God has for you as a couple. How has that journey been so far? So you can describe things like how you feel about it, highs and lows, or maybe a significant story that stands out to you? [Katie] Yeah, so I think there have been a lot of highs and lows in our three years of marriage, and I think our first month of marriage was kind of indicative to that. Elisha was making I think $1800 at the time working at a restaurant, and our rent was 1150. So I don't even know how we quite managed to make it all work that month. We were doing a ton of odd jobs, and we started three different businesses our first month of marriage, and got pregnant. [Aaron] A little bit of things. [Katie] Yeah, like all of those moving parts I think really affected the last few years, but I think it's been so cool to see how God has worked to make all those things work together, even though there was such a random smattering of things over the years. And I think we've had so much fun, even though we didn't always see the plan, and I think what's cool now is that we trust the process so much more, and we trust each other so much more. We trust God. There were so many things through starting those businesses. Like, well, one of 'em provides for us now. It's a network marketing company, and I think it really has not only provided for us now, but it allows us to pursue our passions, and it helped give us thicker skin to handle rejection and stuff like that. So there were a lot of ups and downs just in that, you know, when you start one business. Elisha was getting his real estate license, so that was new for us, being employed, and then being unemployed it feels like when you don't have a deal. But I just think it's really cool that now, when we're uncertain of today or what tomorrow holds, 'cause I feel like as entrepreneurs, that is life. We just trust each other so much more, and we're like, you know God's gonna work these things together, and we see how he's using those things we started in our first few months of marriage now. [Jennifer] I think that's so encouraging, what you're sharing, because I think everybody has that tendency to wanna know what the next hundred steps are, like, see that bigger picture right away. But I think what you're saying is so encouraging to hear, to remind ourselves we have to just be able to trust God and trust our spouse with just that next step. [Elisha] Mmhmm. [Aaron] Yeah, Elisha, how do you, so, you guys have started businesses, making barely ends meet, which all of us have been there. Some people that are listening right now are probably right there right now. And you're just trying to figure out life. You guys have been married for three years, you have kids. You're just trying to figure out a lot of things, which is totally good, totally normal. But has there been times over the last few years that you feel like you're not moving in any direction, or how could God possibly use all these random difficulties and where we're at in our life? [Elisha] Absolutely. I know there's been numerous times where I've had those exact thoughts probably verbatim in my brain, and even looking back in retrospect over three years, and even though that's not a lot of time to some people, it's enough time for us to really realize that God does work all things together for good. There are some things that I know he's gonna continue to work out over the next 10 and 20 and 30 years of our life. But when you live, early on, month to month when it comes to your paycheck, and then you get pregnant in the middle of that, and then you get pregnant with your second child when you're kind of in the same position, it really makes you realize that the Lord does provide, and I think that that has helped me really embrace the season for what it is. I know that so often, everybody wants to arrive, right? You wanna be there, whatever there is. [Aaron] Yeah, whatever that there is. [Elisha] Whatever that is. [Aaron] How do we get there faster? [Elisha] Exactly. It might be a level of your income. It might be the size of your home or the quality of your vehicles that you're driving, but looking back over these last three years and seeing what the Lord's done, it's made us enjoy the journey and enjoy the process and trust the Lord in that. And when I look at those times where I was questioning what the heck I was doing with my life and what the Lord was gonna use with these things that I was doing, I look back, and so far, he's been so faithful to, in spite of me, a lot of times, use them for his purpose and for his glory. [Aaron] Yeah, so, I love that, and you know, this topic we're talking about, take inventory, is off chapter 11 of our book, and the idea of the chapter, we're not gonna go into too much of it, is that we can look at our lives and realize that there are, not certain things, that everything in our life, the inventory of our life, can be evaluated and looked at and say, okay, Lord, how are you using that season of life, that idea, that business that we wanted to start or that passion we have or that pain we felt? And so, what you're kinda saying is you've been looking back and saying, okay, I didn't know what I was doing then, but God's using that now. [Elisha] Yes. [Aaron] So when you look back over the last few years, and we're gonna get into your family in the next question, you look back over your life, taking this idea of inventory, can you guys pinpoint, be like, oh, wow, these things in our life, this way we were raised, certain giftings we have, talents, that's our inventory, that's what's on the shelf for us. Can you name a few of those things, and then we're gonna go into family next. [Elisha] Sure, yeah. We'll stick with our marriage so far, 'cause we haven't gotten into Katie and I's growing up experience, but I look at the businesses that we started in that first month, or even the job that I was doing. I was a bartender at the time, and obviously, you're dealing with people. You're dealing with all sorts of people as a bartender, and it's so easy for me to look at that season of life as being, man, I was just there to get tips and to go home and to pay rent. [Aaron] Right, meaningless waste of time, yeah. [Elisha] Exactly. [Aaron] However you feel about it. [Elisha] Yeah, exactly. And of course, I was interacting with eternal beings every day, whether that was my coworkers or my boss and my managers, and then, of course, the patrons that were coming and consuming alcohol, or buying food at the restaurant. And so I look back and I think, man, the Lord was preparing me just to have empathy and sympathy for all types of people. And then I think of the businesses that we started in that first month, and it was funny, 'cause we really acquired a lot of skillsets because we were kind of hacks when it came to, one of those businesses was an online music academy because I'm a musician, and I wanted to be able to offer my music lessons in an online format, and neither Katie or I were video people or really recording-type people. [Aaron] Yeah, but you guys did a good job. I remember you guys, it's still up, right? [Elisha] It is still up. [Katie] It is still up, yeah. [Elisha] It's effective, and people still use it. But we just figured it out. We just decided to dive in and go for it, and that was good for me to get over my pride and to let go of that perfectionism mindset that so often keeps us from taking any action. [Katie] And I think too it was good for us because, like, I remember when we first got married and you were a little more focused on your image then, and I was kind of like, I don't know, I was kind of a hack. I think I made you a little nervous, the way I threw around my image. [Elisha] Let's just do it, let's just do it. [Katie] Yeah, I was like, let's just do it, put it up. And I remember the first time I showed you a video that I was gonna post on Facebook. It was just a little parody I made, and Elisha's like, you cannot post that. Like, there is no way. [Elisha] That's funny. [Aaron] You're like, it's going up. [Katie] Yeah. Well, through Voetberg Music Academy, we ended up doing a lot of those little commercials or little parody videos together, and I think that that really, I mean, we use that now. [Elisha] Yep, absolutely. [Katie] And it just really helped us swallow our pride I think and just go for things. [Jennifer] Explain that a little bit more when you say we use that now. [Katie] Well, we use that now on YouTube is probably one of the biggest ways that we use that in just family vlogging now that we're a family on YouTube as well. And I think that that is kind of what spawned the podcast, because if we hadn't gotten enough confidence to just document our lives, I don't think we would have ever taken that next step to podcasting. [Aaron] That's good. So right now, what you're currently doing for the Lord, for your family, you can reach back into the inventory of those experiences and the inventory of those challenges, the trials and errors, and use that now and feel more confident in moving forward and, like you said, you wouldn't have been able to do it now if you didn't try it then or have those experiences. That's awesome. [Jennifer] That is so cool. Okay, so we touched on that we were gonna get into your families a little bit. Katie, you mentioned that you're from a big family, so how do you guys see the unique ways that you were raised or maybe family type being used for what God has you doing today? [Elisha] Yeah, so I was one of 10 children, all from the same mommy and daddy, and my parents are still married. They stayed married throughout our entire childhood, and they're in a great marriage. [Aaron] Which is rare these days. [Elisha] Yeah, and Katie is the oldest of 11 children, where it's same mommy and daddy for all the kiddos, and they're in a vibrant marriage right now. And so we were both homeschooled and brought up just with very Bible-centered homes. We read the Bible every single day as a family at the breakfast table, and sometimes at the dinner table, and I think that when I look at my history, not only was it an extremely enjoyable and relationship-rich time that I loved with my siblings and with my parents, and I know Katie feels the same way. [Katie] Yes. [Elisha] About her childhood, where we both just look back at them with really fond memories. I see that because my parents and Katie's parents, but I'll speak for myself right now, Because my parents become comfortable being unconventional and being counter-cultural, I grew up with this mindset that there are so many blessings in being different than the world. [Aaron] I like that. [Elisha] And I think my parents were the ones that were convicted by the Lord, and obviously, I was just along for the ride as a child and I was following in their leading, but they really exemplified to me that yes, a lot of times, initially, making those decisions to have many children or for the mom to stay home and be with the children and homeschool them or to take 'em out of the public and homeschool them, they can be challenging up front, and they can be challenging even for an extended amount of time. But the payoff is so worth it. So I think that growing up with a big family, in a big family and with parents that really trusted the Lord with their finances, with how many children they're going to have, it made me realize that I've adopted a lot of these mindsets not even knowing it. And so when I hear people that are my age say, well, we couldn't afford to have children now, I just think to myself, well, yeah you could. Where's that coming from? And I think that statements like that are so commonly accepted in our culture and in the world and they're never challenged, and I just don't believe that. I believe that you could probably find a way to afford to have children. I think that you can find a way to afford for the mother to stay home and not go to work and to even homeschool her children. And I think you can find a way to have a romantic and fun and flirtatious marriage, even while you have a bunch of kids, because I saw it exemplified to me. [Aaron] Yeah, that's the magic right there. [Elisha] Yeah, and so I'm not saying that I know how to do it; I just believe it can be done, and I think that Katie feels similarly. [Katie] Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think sometimes, there is this mindset of, we have to do things how everyone else does them, and I think the way we grew up, like, I had some of the best years of my life living in a tent and a trailer, you know? Like, we did that for two years so my parents could save up a down payment for their house, and they had six kids at the time, but those are some of the best memories of my childhood. And I think sometimes, we have this misconceived perception that, oh, we need to earn this amount of money or we need to take our kids to Disneyland or we need to be able to provide these things for our kids, and I just don't have that perspective at all. Because of the way I was raised, I just have incredible relationships with my parents, and I have such amazing memories of growing up in unique situations. I guess my experience helps dispel some of those societal norms. [Aaron] Yeah. So you, you have a lot of resources at your fingertips from the way you were raised, the versatility, the flexibility to make decisions that might be, hey, if we slow down here, we can speed up over here, or if we lessen what we're spending money on over here, we can have money to do something over here. You have those things at your fingertips to use now because of how, and you didn't even get to choose it. [Elisha and Katie] Exactly. [Aaron] Right? 'Cause that's kind of some of the things that we like to point out and we want our listeners to know, fortunately your family stories are powerful and just relationally rich, and then some people listening are gonna be like, well, I didn't have a family like that. My family wasn't that great. I didn't have strong Christian parents. But our point in this idea of taking inventory is that your story and your family doesn't give you something extra. It's what God has given you. And my family story's different, similar in some ways, but different. Jennifer's family story's different. And we we don't have your story to use in what God has for us to do ministry in, right? [Elisha] That's right. [Aaron] We use our story, the inventory that we have that God's given us. And so, that's kind of what's awesome about taking inventory of our lives, is our listeners can take inventory and be like, and I wanna encourage them that are listening not to throw out their story 'cause it's not your story. [Elisha] That's right, absolutely. [Aaron] Because they do have inventory, and God wants us to look at what we have and what he's given us and say, here you go, Lord. [Elisha] That's right. [Aaron] So here's my family and how I was raised, the good things and the bad things that happened to me as a child that I had no choice in, and how do you want me to use this for you, Lord? How do you want me to invest this? How do you wanna redeem this in my life? How do you wanna turn it into something for you, not for me, not for my sake. And so, maybe that gives someone listening right now peace and actually some courage in their own inventory. [Jennifer] Yeah, and something I wanna highlight is just that how cool that God would have you guys here on the show and be able to share your story, 'cause I think it will be an encouragement to someone. 'Cause like you said, there's other ways of living that have been expressed and accepted in our culture, and your story's different, and the fact that you're here and you're sharing and whoever's listening could be encouraged by this, I love that. [Aaron] Yeah, that story by itself right now, whether it has any other implications in your life, could potentially minister to someone today, which is amazing, right? [Katie] Incredible. [Aaron] And that's just one small way that God uses what we are, what we have that he's given to us, is just by saying yes to him, which is a theme that we mention throughout our whole book, is saying yes to God. [Jennifer] Okay, so when we say yes to God, sometimes insecurities flare up, fears, things like that. So what are some of your biggest insecurities when it comes to using your gifts and talents for God? [Elisha] You know, it's funny, 'cause I think that, even piggybacking on talking about our family, our unique story and our unique experiences can often be debilitating to us, and we can oftentimes find ourselves experiencing paralysis by analysis because we feel like we're from such a unique perspective, we can't relate with people. How are we gonna be able to connect and really encourage and exhort, whether that's fellow believers or minister to people that are not saved, and oftentimes, I mean, you can look at that from two ways. One, I feel extremely strong in my faith because of what my parents have done before me, but it also makes me realize it's not about me. It's not about Katie. It's about Jesus Christ. And I think of, is it II Peter chapter one, I think it's verses three and four that whereby are given unto you all things. [Aaron] That pertain to life and godliness, yeah. [Elisha] That pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of him who's called you to glory and virtue. And that's not the prerequisite. The prerequisite for that is not coming from a Christian family. The prerequisite for that's not coming from the fourth generation or fifth generation of Bible-believing Christians; it's being in Christ. [Aaron] It's being in Christ. [Katie] That's good. [Elisha] It's being a new creation in Christ. But the cool thing about that is that legacy is a real thing, and you have the ability in Christ to start a new legacy. We were just at my grandfather's funeral a week and a half ago, and it was really powerful to be there with his six children and then 42 grandchildren. [Aaron] Wow, that's incredible. [Elisha] And this is my mother's father, and to hear his story of being orphaned at 12 years old, heavily abused, on the street starving, an alcoholic father who ended up being a felon, never knowing his mother and never knowing the love of Christ in his home and making a decision to follow the Lord at 16 years of age, and the legacy that's come from that. [Katie] It's incredible, and we get to benefit from that. [Jennifer] That's powerful, wow. [Elisha] Absolutely, yeah, really is powerful. [Aaron] Wow, love that. [Elisha] And so, to get back to your question, insecurities, I think it's so easy to feel inadequate, 'cause of course, apart from Christ, we are inadequate, but that's not where we're at anymore. So you need to accept the reality that hey, we're in Christ, we are a new creation in Christ, and we do have all things pertaining to life and godliness, and therefore, we are equipped. And so I think our youth can play a factor in that, not feeling old enough. [Katie] I definitely think that plays in too. You feel like, well, I don't have enough experience, you know, life experience. [Aaron] I know, you're not allowed to have a podcast about family yet until you've had a family for a super long time, right? [Katie] Exactly, exactly. [Elisha] Exactly, that's right. [Katie] So I think we do wanna be thoughtful in that and share what we're experiencing more and what we're learning in the moment versus teaching, 'cause obviously, our oldest is two, you know what I'm saying? Elisha and I have been married for three years. [Aaron] Right, there's things you actually don't know, and that's fine. [Katie] Yes. So I think we want to be wise and cautious in that, but that doesn't mean that we can't encourage someone who's in a similar situation. [Elisha] Yeah, and I think that even though there's so much that we have yet to learn and that we need to learn as life goes on, I know that Katie and I are really excited about family, and we're excited about growth, and I think that regardless of what stage of life you're in, if you're in Christ Jesus, you can be excited about the future. [Aaron] Ooh, I like that. [Elisha] I know that's where we're at right now. [Aaron] So that sounds very similar to ours. When we launched Unveiled Wife and then Husband Revolution, how long were we married? Five years? [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] And people even asked us, how long have you been married, like, older people, which rightfully so asking us, but I always tell people, we're not marriage experts. We've never proclaimed to be marriage experts. That would have been wrong of us to do. We're marriage storytellers. [Jennifer] Yeah, storytellers. We're sharing our experience. [Aaron] How are we failing, what's God teaching us, and again, going back to our book, one of the themes is like what you said, it's not us. It's not my experiences that is changing anyone's hearts or that has any value, other than Christ using it. And it's his story. It's his vocation, it's his ministry, not ours. It's his message, not ours. And so, as long as we're going back to the very thing that's changing us and transforming us, like, the gospel's the power of God unto salvation, right? The gospel and Christ in us through the Holy Spirit, that's what we're doing in this world. So we've had the same exact inadequacies and fears almost every time we launch anything. Launching this podcast, we were like, we don't know how to do podcasts. So I hope that encourages people listening to realize, wow, if God's calling me out, and not if, he is calling me out and wants me to follow him and wants me to use my life and the inventory of my life for his glory, they should be encouraged to know that even if they feel doubt and fear, that it's not them anyway. It's Christ doing it. [Katie] Exactly. [Elisha] Amen. [Jennifer] I think it's important to note we have a real enemy who does not like us using the gift and things that God's given us to glorify God. [Aaron] No way, yeah. [Jennifer] And so there's gonna be opposition to that, and I think our flesh is sensitive to that. So sometimes it does come in the form of insecurities or fears and things that we're afraid of, but it's just temptation from the enemy to try and distract us. [Katie] That's a great perspective. [Aaron] Yeah, but I love that you guys use wisdom and thoughtfulness. I don't think we should test God and run into the middle of the street and say, save me! [Katie] Definitely not. [Aaron] We need to present, again, going back to the taking inventory, we don't just say like, oh, I'm gonna use this thing in my life this way. No, we say, okay, Lord, here's what I have. This is what you've given me, this abuse as a child, your grandpa story, or my godly upbringing, or this schooling I went to. Whatever it is, these gifts, these natural abilities that you've given me, here you go. What do you want? How do you wanna arrange this and turn it into a clay pot or a basketball hoop or whatever it is that he wants to mold it into. [Jennifer] It's in humility and submission to his will and his purposes, which leads me to the next question. I'd love for you guys to share on this. What's the purpose of all the gifts and things that he gives to you, or to us? What is the purpose? [Elisha] Yeah, I think big picture answer is it's for God's glory and for the furtherance of the gospel. [Aaron] Yeah, we talked about this on Sunday, didn't we? [Elisha] We did, that's right, a few days ago. And the way that plays out practically with each couple I think is obviously gonna look different, 'cause there are so many different skillsets and passions. And it's fun when you accept that big picture of, man, this is for God's purpose. It's for his glory. It's for the furtherance of his kingdom. Then it almost makes it like a fun game to figure out what your skillsets are and how you can be a part of the puzzle and the pie, realizing, wait, it's not about me. I don't have to get all the credit. [Aaron] Yes, yes. [Elisha] In fact, I shouldn't get all the credit. Like, how can I fit into the strategy that God has? And I think obviously, Katie and I are in the journey of figuring that out, and something that we both talk a lot about is being aware of the desires that are on our heart, and the Lord I think oftentimes places those on your heart, and then also being open to counsel. And you can speak to this, Katie, but I think that we've gone back and forth of caring too much about what people think of us, whether that's close friends and relatives, or even people that we don't know personally, but they have their opinion online of us and we'll let that influence the action we're taking. But then you can swing the pendulum and say, well, forget what people think. I'm just gonna do what I wanna do. And there's obviously, the Bible talks about there being safety in the counsel of many. And so I think finding this place where you say, man, the Lord's put something on my heart. I wanna have a community of counsel that I can go to and be humble before, knowing that they can totally see blind spots in my life, but then also realizing I don't wanna make decisions based off of the fear of man or what somebody might say to me. [Aaron] Right. [Jennifer] So good, and I find so much encouragement in several things that you guys have already shared throughout this episode, things like have fun along the way, enjoy the journey, and I love that, and I just wanted to take note for everyone listening, and for everyone who's gonna read the book Marriage after God, because sometimes, we just tell it like it is and encourage them to do. But I want them to hear this. It is a journey to be enjoyed, and it is something to have fun with yourselves when you're figuring it out. And so I just wanted to make a note, I love that you said that. [Aaron] And the highlight in your story, just all the unique variables, we call it inventory, that God has equipped you guys with to do the unique thing that he's having you do, whatever that looks like. It could be a business. It could be just you working nine-to-five jobs, you just being a mom, but how you guys work together with your gifts and talents, we don't know, but you guys are trying things and chasing after what God wants for you and saying, okay, Lord, okay, that's not it? Okay, cool, and we'll take the experience from that. We're gonna use it for the thing that you do want us to do, and that it's this organic thing. 'Cause God knows the complete picture. [Elisha] That's right. [Katie] He does, yes. [Aaron] It says many plans are in the man's heart, but it's the Lord that directs the steps. So we have these plans, we have these ideas, and we say, if the Lord wills it, and then we take a step, and you say, okay, that's the right step. Oh, no, that's the wrong step. Let's go to this step, let's do this way, and we let him direct us. And what's awesome is along the way, whether you have reached that goal, whatever that thing is, like you said, we always have this picture of what it might be, and we actually don't even know what it might be. We just think, it's usually probably compared to someone else's thing. [Katie] Probably. [Elisha] That's usually what it is. [Aaron] But like even right now, just by you saying yes to him in all of these decisions, you're saying yes to him, and you begin to see him not only change you guys, make you guys more in love, stronger in your marriage, better parents, better brothers and sisters in Christ, but then also, you get used to grow the kingdom, just along the way. Whether you ever achieve that position or ministry or goal or whatever it looks like, it's happening along the way because you're saying yes to God, and I think that's amazing. [Elisha] Yep. [Aaron] So, do you feel like God is currently inviting you two to do anything specific, like, as you guys have been navigating with all these gifts and talents and resources? [Katie] Yeah, well, I think that it's, like we mentioned, it has been a journey. I think it's so cool to see how the Lord has had us work together in little ways right off the bat, because there is no way we'd be able to even do the projects we're working on now if we hadn't taken those little steps, and I think of with Voetberg Music Academy, where I started recording a live show and we started getting into video, but I was so insecure talking in front of a camera in front of Elisha. I wasn't insecure about the camera. [Aaron] Elisha, turn around please. [Katie] Yes! [Elisha] Exactly, she would tell me to leave. [Katie] He'd have to leave. I had a crush on Elisha since I was eight years old, and I tried my entire life to impress him. [Aaron] Oh, that's awesome. And now he's standing there in front of you. [Katie] So then after we got married, I was like, I can't do this, and he was so good at it, and he was so good at communicating that, I don't know, there was just no way we were going to ever be able to talk to a camera together. And I think it was so cool, because I started my own YouTube now that I'm a mother before we did anything online, and it was cool how that just built my confidence, and that was a little step. It was just a hobby and a fun thing, but I do think the Lord was using it to build my confidence for us to be able to start doing video together and starting the vlog, and then starting, and I think it also gave you confidence too. [Elisha] Yes. [Katie] In the flip side, to see me just putting my life out there and people being encouraged by it, and that gave you the urge I think to have us jump into that together. [Elisha] Absolutely. [Katie] Which again led to the podcast, and I do think even though we are young and we are really newly married and a new family, we do have a desire to encourage family and encourage biblical rules and encourage seeking out what God's word says about family in a culture that is so starkly opposed to just the biblical worldview. And so, I think that's our goal, and that might look different throughout the years. The mediums we use to communicate might look different, but I think for both of us, that's what God has placed on our heart, to just encourage young families in our stage of life and newly married couples. [Aaron] Yeah. So I just wanna encourage you guys, 'cause I know you both, we go to church together, we know most of your families. Whether you have direct experience with being parents of large families and have been doing for ages, or you have a two-year-old, right? [Elisha] Yeah, that's right. [Aaron] You have more experience in this than many people, because I grew up in a family of two. You grew up in a larger family, but not the way you guys did. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] And whether or not you are directly experiencing it, which you are, just with a much smaller size right now, you were drawing from that inventory of how you were raised and the experience that no one has had, rarely, 10 children, 11 children, parents that stayed together that not just stayed together but love each other, 'cause that's a big thing. [Jennifer] Yeah, there's parents that stick it out. [Aaron] Lots of people, they stayed together, but it wasn't very joyful, right? [Elisha] Right, right. [Aaron] And so that's what's awesome, is whether or not you feel completely qualified, you're more qualified than me to talk about it, just by the experience you had, now, as long as we stay humble and we submit to the Lord and say we're gonna do it your way, 'cause it's his story. So I just wanted to encourage you guys that. I think that's awesome you're starting. I think we need more people, more believers. That's the whole purpose of this book, is to say yes to God and say, God, here's what you've given me. How do you wanna use it? [Elisha] Yes, amen. [Jennifer] Okay, guys, this is the last question, and it's in your own words, what is a marriage after God? [Elisha] In our own words, what is a marriage after God? [Katie] Okay, you go first. [Elisha] This isn't fair, 'cause we haven't read the book yet, guys. [Aaron] This is exactly why we're asking. [Elisha] I see. You know, God invented marriage, so I really do think that he gets to choose what the purpose of marriage is, what marriage is, what the end goal is, and something that Katie and I have really been contemplating over the last few months is that when you are joined in holy matrimony, you don't then start to try to become one; he makes you one. And so therefore, you start to act like one. And I think that so often, and this carries over into our faith. We think that when you are made new in Christ, from the day you're saved, you're a son of God. [Aaron] Oh, I love that, yeah. [Elisha] You are free from sin. You're able to live as a son of God. That doesn't mean that you don't need to learn some things, but you're learning to act how he's made you to be. I think it's the same thing with marriage. Oftentimes, we think, man, we need to become one, when in reality, you are one. He says, when two are joined together, they should no longer be called two, but they should be called one. And I think that once we've started to realize that more and more, we've realized that when I make decisions that aren't to the unity of our marriage, it hurts Katie, and similarly, if it's a negative decision, and if Katie makes a negative decision, it hurts me, whether you want it to or not. And I think that once we've started to have our minds transformed, you know, our minds are being transformed because we're renewing them and starting to believe what God says about who we are as Christians and then who we are as a married couple, we start to walk that out, we start to be one. And so once again, that's just one area that God has spoken to about marriage, saying hey, you are one. There's no more two, there's no more Elisha and Katie. You are one. I don't care how you feel. I don't care how she thinks or you think, you are one. So you better start learning how to act like it. Otherwise, it's gonna be a pretty miserable journey. [Aaron] Ooh, I love that. That's awesome, yeah. So a marriage after God is one that recognizes they are one. [Elisha] That's right. [Aaron] Like, not becoming one, they are one. And so, I love that, because you're right. We're not becoming something. We are it the moment we said yes. [Jennifer] Let's live it out. [Aaron] Yeah, and so, either we're living it out or we're fighting against it. [Elisha] Yes. [Aaron] So that's awesome, amen. So, where can people find you at? What are some websites? [Jennifer] 'Cause we know people got encouraged today. They got inspired. They wanna know more about you. [Elisha] Sure, yeah, well, you already mentioned our podcast. It's Now That We're A Family, and then we've got our YouTube channel, which is also called nowthatwereafamily. [Katie] Yep. [Elisha] And Katie's on Instagram at @nowthatimamother. [Jennifer] And she's super active there. She does live videos and interviews people. [Aaron] And her photos are awesome. [Katie] Yes, I was able to interview Jenn. That was awesome. [Elisha] Yeah, that's right, exactly. [Katie] Yeah, and are you? [Elisha] I'm on Instagram. [Aaron] Yeah, is yours @nowthatimafather? [Elisha] @nowthatimafather. [Katie] @nowthatimafather, yeah. [Elisha] That's right. Yeah, so that's really where you can find us, and then our website's nowthatwereafamily.com. [Aaron] So we just wanna encourage our listeners to go follow them and check them out. They have large families, large, awesome, godly families. [Jennifer] And they're growing theirs. [Aaron] And they're throwing theirs, and God's using them. [Elisha] Right on. [Jennifer] Okay, well, at the end of every episode, we just encourage everyone to join us in prayer. So Aaron, would you like to close us out in prayer? [Aaron] Dear Lord, we thank you for the way you created us, and we thank you for your rich provision. Thank you for equipping us for the work you have for us to do. May our eyes be opened so we can see all the wonderful ways you have equipped us. Use us to encourage our spouse in the ways you have equipped them as well. We ask that you use every one of our marriages to bring you glory and to spread your gospel. We pray against fear and against the temptation to bury the gifts you have given to us. We ask that you remove our insecurities far from our hearts and help us to trust in you. We pray that we would walk in confidence as we chase boldly after you and as we pursue doing the very things you created us and created our marriages to do. In Jesus's name, amen. [Jennifer] Amen. [Elisha and Katie] Amen. [Aaron] So thanks for joining us today, Katie and Elisha Voetberg. We love you guys, and we thank you for your story and your testimony. [Elisha] Mm, thank you guys, seriously. Thank you for your ministry. [Katie] Yes. [Elisha] And, I mean, I don't know if you guys are gonna keep this on, but. [Aaron] Oh, yeah. [Elisha] But just as an example you guys have shown to us I've really been thinking about this the last couple of weeks, is your guys' consistency in your faith and in your marriage and in your child training. That's a huge blessing to me as a new father. [Aaron] Thank you. [Elisha] Then also just in being in consistent community, being in consistent fellowship with our local body here. I just know that you'll be there. I know that you're a phone all or a text away and that you will be there on Sunday, and I see you guys being so faithful in your Bible times as a family, and I just never want you guys to question not only the work that's taking place in your own family, but the encouragement that is to me as a believer and I'm sure just to the global body that watches that. [Katie] Yes, you've been such a blessing to our family. [Jennifer] Thank you for sharing that, that's awesome. [Aaron] Thank you, well, yeah, I appreciate that. [Elisha] Actually, I'm gonna say one more thing. Just 'cause I don't know how many people you're gonna have on your podcast that go to your local church, but being the father of a two-year-old boy, I've really started to think more and more about child training within the church service content. And we've been going to church for almost two and a half years now with you guys and seen how you guys have been able to really train your children to sit in church is so inspiring. [Katie] Oh my goodness, yeah. [Elisha] You guys, I know that most of you listeners probably are never gonna have an opportunity to sit in church with Aaron and Jen, but their kids are so well behaved. They sit on their laps, and the only reason that's so remarkable to me now is because I've got a two-year-old, and it feels like I'm in a jiu jitsu match throughout the entire church service with him. [Katie] Yeah, we're trying to take notes from Aaron and Jen. [Elisha] Yeah. [Aaron] Well, thank you. [Elisha] Yeah, no, it's true. [Aaron] Yeah, thank you, I appreciate that. [Jennifer] It is about consistency, I would say, just to encourage others out there. The children just, they're awesome and they're a blessing to us. [Aaron] And it takes lots of hard work, and lots of prayer, and lots of screaming in pillows. [Katie] There you go. [Aaron] So, hey, thank you, that was really encouraging. We love you guys, and all you listening, we love you, and we thank you for joining us, and we pray that you will continue on in this journey with us as we have a few more episodes in this series. We'll see you next week. Did you enjoy today's show? If you did, it would mean the world to us if you could leave us a review on iTunes. Also, if you're interested, you can find many more encouraging stories and resources at marriageaftergod.com and let us help you cultivate an extraordinary marriage.

Order Your Copy Of Marriage After God Today! https://Shop.marriageaftergod.com Quote From Marriage After God Book “You and your marriage are no accident! He created both you and your spouse intentionally, with a specific purpose in mind!” Prayer *Dear Lord, Thank you for the gift of marriage. Thank you for pouring your thoughtfulness into the way you designed marriage. Thank you for giving us a toolbelt that is unique, so that we can pursue and do all of the things you have for us to do. Please help us to understand everything that is in our toolbelt and show us how we can use it for your glory. We pray we would keep nothing back from you. We pray we would walk humbly with you and with each other. Use us to encourage one another in marriage and affirm the gifts we see in each other. We pray that we would see all of the little and big ways you are inviting us to join you to spread your gospel of love, salvation, and amazing grace. May the testimony of Jesus be the motivation in our hearts to do what we do, all for your glory! In Jesus’ name, amen!* READ TRANSCRIPT [Aaron] Hey, we're Aaron and Jennifer Smith with Marriage After God. [Jennifer] Helping you cultivate an extraordinary marriage. [Aaron] And today we're on part 10 of the Marriage After God series, and we're gonna be talking with Channing and Jessica Gillespie about the tool belt God has given us. [Aaron] Welcome to the Marriage After God podcast, where we believe that marriage was meant for more than just happily ever after. [Jennifer] I'm Jennifer, also known as Unveiled Wife. [Aaron] And I'm Aaron, also known as Husband Revolution. [Jennifer] We have been married for over a decade. [Aaron] And so far, we have four young children. [Jennifer] We have been doing marriage ministry online for over seven years through blogging and social media. [Aaron] With the desire to inspire couples to keep God at the center of their marriage, encouraging them to walk in faith every day. [Jennifer] We believe the Christian marriage should be an extraordinary one, full of life. [Aaron] Love. [Jennifer] And power. [Aaron] That can only be found by chasing after God. [Jennifer] Together. [Aaron] Thank you for joining us on this journey as we chase boldly after God's will for our life together. [Jennifer] This is Marriage After God. Thank you guys so much for joining us today. We just wanted to take a moment to ask everyone listening to leave a review. This is just a great way to get the message of this podcast out into the world. So, if you could support us in that way, that would be so awesome. It's so easy. All you have to do is scroll down to the bottom and leave a star rating review or comment review. Both really encourage Aaron and I, so thank you to everyone who's already done that. [Aaron] Also, we'd like to invite everyone to pick up a copy of the Marriage After God book. It's our new book Jennifer and I wrote together, and it's the reason we're doing this series. It's the reason this podcast exists, so we'd love for you to get a copy of our new book, Marriage After God. Go to shop.marriageaftergod.com and grab a copy. Thank you everyone for listening. Today we have some Instagram friends of ours, Channing and Jessica Gillespie. Hey, welcome to the show, guys. [Channing] Hey, Aaron, Jen. How you guys doing? [Aaron] We're doing well. [Jennifer] So good. Thank you for being here with us today. We're so excited to have you guys, and we just want you to take a moment and let the listeners know who you are. So maybe how long you guys have been married, how many children you have, and what you do for work. [Channing] Awesome, yeah. Well, my name is Channing Gillespie. This is my wife Jessica. [Jessica] Hi. [Channing] We've been married two years, got married in 2016, October, and we're loving marriage. [Aaron] That's good, right? [Channing] We are high school sweethearts. [Jennifer] Aw. [Channing] So we've been together a long time. We just had four first baby. [Jennifer] Woohoo! [Jessica] She's so cute, she's the best. [Aaron] What's her name? [Channing] Her name is Hadley Kate. We had her in August of this year, so she is five months, and she is the only grandbaby right now and the only niece, and so she is spoiled rotten. But we've enjoyed these past five months as mom and dad. It's a new. [Jessica] It's interesting. [Channing] It's interesting, that's a good word. [Aaron] Yeah, learning to be married and learning to be parents at the same time. [Jessica] Yeah, for real. [Channing] Yes. But yeah, we love it. I am actually on staff at the Church at Grace Park in White House, Tennessee. It's a little bit north of Nashville. I serve as the college pastor there. That's relatively new. We started that ministry back in June of last year, and been going strong with that, and I serve on the worship team at the church also, and I'm a songwriter and am seeking to write songs that point to hope amidst sorrow. That's really where I feel like the Lord's leading me to write songs right now. And so, just kind of seeking after the Lord and looking for new opportunities to do those things, both in ministry and in songwriting ministry and in worship. So that's a little bit about me. Jessica, you wanna go? [Jessica] Yeah, I am a wife and a mom. I got to come home full-time and be with Haddie Kate when she was born in August. [Aaron] Awesome. [Jessica] So I'm really blessed to be able to do that and excited that the Lord provided that, a way for that to happen for me. But I also, I like to create and I love to write. So I started a blog that's called The Good Cottage Wife in 2016, the year we got married. Started that, and so I have that going, and also, I am a consultant with Rodan + Fields. So I help people change their skin and change their lives, and I love it. I wear a few different hats throughout the week, but I love each one, and I love getting to use those in creative ways. [Aaron] Awesome. [Jennifer] That's beautiful. [Aaron] Yeah, I love the diversity in you guys' career paths and also how God's using you. And that's what we wanna talk about today, getting into this idea, but before we get to our main questions, we always start off question an icebreaker question. Are you guys ready for that? [Channing and Jessica] Yes. [Aaron] Okay, all right, here it goes, all right? This is gonna let people know a lot about you guys. What is the most awkward thing you've experienced as parents so far? [Channing] I don't know. We were talking about that this morning a little bit too, of what's some crazy things. I don't know if there's been anything awkward per se yet, but I think you get initiated into parenthood when you get peed on a couple times, so. [Aaron] There you go, yeah. [Channing] I've had that happen too many times. [Aaron] Yeah, I think it's a requirement. [Jessica] I did have, we were at church one Sunday and I was holding her. She wasn't very old, not that she's very old now, but I was holding her, and my hand started getting wet, and I'm like, aw, man, she's peeing on me, and I go to lift her up, and she had pooped on me. [Aaron] Oh, no, right in the middle of church. [Jessica] And it was on my shirt a little bit. I'm trying to wash it off and stuff, and I had brought a change of clothes, but it was in the car instead of her diaper bag. [Aaron] Oh, no. [Jessica] And so, everybody was like, yeah, that'll be the last time you do that. [Aaron] Yeah, poop's infinitely worse than pee. [Jennifer] I was thinking of this question for you guys, and I was thinking about our own experiences, 'cause we have a couple kids. [Aaron] We have four. [Jennifer] Yeah, we have four. [Aaron] We have two couple kids. [Jennifer] But the first thing that comes to my mind was my kind of initiation to motherhood, and that was Elliott was born in November, and I remember it was Christmas Day, and we had stopped at a gas station, and I took him out to nurse him, and somehow, he managed to move beyond all of his clothes and only poop all over me. And I'm like, oh, no, Aaron, we have to stop at Target or something, 'cause we're on our way to my grandparents house. [Aaron] Oh, we had no clothes. [Jennifer] Nobody said you're supposed to have an extra change of clothes. And so everything was closed. I mean, everything was closed, 'cause it's Christmas Day. I ended up having to stop at a relative's house, a cousin that I had that was my same size and I asked her if I could borrow a pair of pants. [Aaron] Oh, I remember this. [Jennifer] Luckily it worked just fine. [Aaron] So pro parent tip, bring a change of clothes for yourselves. [Jennifer] For everyone. [Aaron] Yeah. [Jennifer] If someone is in the car with you, if you're traveling, just bring an extra change for everyone. [Channing] Love it. [Aaron] Yeah, a baby go bag, extra pants, shirts, underwear, socks. [Jennifer] Okay, all right, we're gonna move on. [Aaron] All right. [Jennifer] Okay, so we're gonna jump in with a quote. Okay, we're gonna jump in with a quote from Marriage After God, from chapter 10, and it says, "You and your marriage are no accident. "He created both you and your spouse intentionally "with a specific purpose in mind," which, I love this quote, "and it's for every marriage and for everyone." [Aaron] Yeah, the reason we wrote this book is because God's got a mission for all of his people, that we're all a part of his body, that his body's doing something in this world. So our encouragement is just to marriages to recognize that their marriage wasn't an accident, that God's got a plan for it, and he desires us to say yes to him and to offer up our tools and gifts and talents. And so today, we're gonna talk about tools and what that looks like in your life, but also, that everyone listening can ask themselves the same questions, that they can use this conversation we're having today with you guys as a launching pad or as a conversation starter for themselves to be like, oh, what has God given us, and how can we use what God's given us to serve him, to say yes to him? So I hope you're excited about that. [Jessica] Yes. [Aaron] Cool, so the first question we got for you guys is do you believe God brought you two together with a specific purpose in mind? [Channing] Yeah, absolutely. For me specifically, I know even in my pursuit of Jessica, if that doesn't sound creepy. That's not supposed to sound that way. But in seeking the Lord with her, I had always prayed for one girl. Jessica's the only girl that I ever dated, and knowing that just in the back of my mind, I can hear my great-grandmother always saying to me, don't you ever bring a girl into my house that you don't intend on marrying. [Aaron] That's awesome. [Channing] And I really was drawn to that. I really asked the Lord, would you just send me one? And he sent me the best one. [Aaron] Found a good man, Jessica. [Channing] And with that, you know, even when we started dating in high school, I didn't really see the extent of the things that the Lord was gonna do with us. I'm reminded of Psalm 139, that he knew us individually before we were ever thought of, and that while he was knitting us together in the womb, that he had a plan and a purpose, individually, but also together. And we're just seeing even the beginning steps of that in the first two years of marriage. But we know that his plans and his purposes, though, we don't always see them in full, yet we know that they're good and that they're for our good. And so, just being able to walk in the truth that the Lord did bring me a good thing in my wife and knowing that together, whatever that is, whether that's just being a mom and dad to Hadley or if that's college pastors, in this season, we know that he has a purpose for us. [Aaron] Love that. [Channing] You have anything that you can think of? [Jessica] Yeah, I think it's cool that a lot of times, you don't see things for yourself or you don't see things in yourself, and then all of the sudden, God has you in the middle of something, and you're like, never ever did I ever think that this is what it would look like, but it's much better than what you could have conjured up on your own. [Aaron] Yeah. [Jessica] Just an example of that is when we were dating, which, he'll probably go into this deeper a little later, but when we were dating, and we had been dating a while, but he came to me and he was like, I really feel like I'm called to the ministry vocationally, at least right now. I don't know what that looks like. But he said I don't know, I just wanna let you know. I don't know if that changes anything for you. [Aaron] Warning. [Jessica] And not that it was a bad thing or anything, but I was not expecting that. Never did I think, oh, yes, I'm gonna be a minister's wife, and my husband's gonna be on church staff and all that. I just had never thought that. And so when he said that, I was like, oh, my. I'm gonna have to think about this, not that I wouldn't want him to pursue what God wanted for him. But quickly God shut my mouth and cut off my mind of thoughts and fears that came up, just worries of what financially and all the things like that. But he said, don't stifle what I'm trying to do and what I can do through him and through you with him even though it's not something that you ever thought would be a part of your testimony and part of your life. So I think it's cool that, and I know that he did bring us together for such a time as this, for college ministry, for his music, for me to get to be a stay-at-home mom. All of that is part of his plan, and even though it wasn't something and we didn't get to this point that we're at right now the way that I in my feeble mind thought we would, it's been much more filled with joy and fulfilling than I ever thought it could be, and it's because it was God's plan and not ours. [Jennifer] Man, I love the hopefulness that you guys are both sharing. Both of your perspectives are so full of hope, and I just hope that the people listening are encouraged by this, because what I'm hearing is it doesn't matter how long you've been married. It doesn't matter whether you've envisioned your life the way that it is or the way that it will be. We can all have hope in that and trust in what God is doing in our marriages, and I love that. [Aaron] And I also love that you essentially said, you're like, I had a different idea or I didn't know what my idea would be, but I yielded to God's idea instead, and I think that's the key in this pursuit of okay, Lord, what do you want for our marriage, what do you have for it, what have you given these things to us for, is a yielding, is saying yes. Okay, Lord, yes. It doesn't look like how I think, it's not going how I would have manufactured this to go, but we want what you want, and that's what I hear from you guys, and that's awesome. [Jennifer] So in Marriage After God, we talk about this idea of the marriage tool belt, and without giving away too much, because we want everyone to go read it, what do you guys think a marriage tool belt is, and what do you think of when you hear that term and what do you think is in your tool belt? And you guys haven't read the book yet, so this'll be interesting. [Channing] Not yet, not yet. [Jessica] As far as what I think is in our tool belt, definitely some things that are in there are advice that we can draw on from people that have been married much longer than us. I know that I received a ton of advice just from my mom, my grandmother, from women at church who have been married when we were engaged, and it's kind of funny, because sometimes, when you receive advice, it's like, yeah, okay. Well, that might not really apply to us, or I don't see that happening with us. And then you're quickly silenced when you enter that situation. It's kind of like, you don't know what you're getting into until you're in it, not that it's a bad thing or anything. It's just one of those things that, when you get there, you do have to draw on that advice. You're like, oh, they were right. Yeah, that would really help in this situation. So I would say advice, and then also, one thing that I've had to really try to hone in on and remember to do is to learn from our own experiences. Don't make the same mistake twice if you can go back and say, okay, this happened before. What did I do? Okay, that was probably not the right thing to say. That was the wrong moment. How can I make this not happen again, or how can we work through this better, if that makes sense. [Aaron] Yeah, no, I love that. [Jessica] And I would say advice, drawing from your own experiences and learning from them, and then humility and communication, and I know people say communication, yeah, I know that. But willingness to communicate, willingness to converse when there is an issue and just personally, I've had to work on that I know, because I'm the one that, when there's an issue or someone gets upset about something, I don't wanna talk about it right then. Like, leave me alone. Let me process this in my own mind. I don't wanna talk. And that's not the best approach. And so, I have had to learn, like, put down your pride, say you're sorry, and be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry. So that, as far as what's in my tool belt, those are some very specific things. [Channing] Yeah, and I would add too of just growing up, thinking about the times that I saw my dad put his tool belt on, which, I don't own a tool belt. I need to probably get one. [Aaron] You're a dad now and a husband. You're supposed to have a tool belt. [Channing] I am. I have tools; I don't have a belt for them. [Aaron] Yeah, I don't have one either, yeah. [Channing] But I thought back to the times that I saw my dad put his tool belt on. It was when he was building something or he was repairing something. And I see that so much in marriage also of what I think the tool belt can be is whether it's building something together in your marriage, whether that's a ministry or just building a family, or there are gonna be times that you have to put the tool belt on because you're gonna have to repair some things in your marriage, and you're gonna have to address things. I think about it much like a house. If you don't attend to certain things in the house, after a while, those things are gonna need attention. And so, there might be times in marriage that Jess and I would have to address an area that would be an issue, or that has caused there to be some problem, but with that tool belt, I agree with Jess on a lot of that being from advice, and we've both been blessed to have parents that have stuck together through thick and thin and have really given us a good model of what marriage should look like and to persevere and endure. There's a lot of endurance in marriage. But with that in our tool belt too, to look at past experience, maybe even things that we've gleaned from our parents' marriages, things that we've learned from them over the years that help shape us in how we relate to one another, how we raise Hadley. I think there's a lot of things that can go into that belt. But those main things, I'm just really reminded of the building and the repairing idea. [Aaron] Yeah, it's almost like you guys have read that book already, and you haven't. The rebuilding and the repairing, those analogies are some of the reasons we bring up this idea of a tool belt, is because the tools are meant for something. They're meant for building and repairing. And the tools that God has given us, and you guys actually mentioned some of them. You mentioned relationships; you said advice. Relationships are part of that tool belt. You talked about your past and your experiences and all of these things that God has given us, and sometimes, we don't recognize them as tools to be used or things that God's given us as gifts in our life, the things that have happened to us in the past, education that we've received and our relationships. These are all things that God's given us that he wants us to use and steward and call on and employ in our life for not only our family's sake, but also for the family of God. So I love that you use those analogies. We were just looking at each other shaking our heads like yeah, this is good. [Jessica] That's awesome. [Aaron] Yeah, and that's our encouragement to those listening, is then recognizing that they may not be able to relate to everything in your story, but what is relatable is that everyone has a tool belt. All the things that you guys just mentioned, the people listening may not have a family like yours that raised you with certain things, but they do have a family, and they were raised a certain way. And whether positive or negative, those are still tools that can be drawn upon, and that leads us into this next question. One of the tools in the tool belt that we discuss in our book is our testimony. And so, that's why I go to this idea of, whether it's negative or positive, all of that plays into the testimony that God's given us of what Jesus has done in our life. And so I wanna ask you guys, you know, what is your testimony? What has Jesus done in your life? How has God drawn you to himself? Let's just talk about that tool for a moment. [Channing] Yeah well, I'll start. I grew up, my dad has been a pastor for pretty much my entire life, so I grew up in a ministry-style home. And so, I have the typical church Sunday school answer in the sense that we were always in church, and mom and dad always had us. When the doors were open, we were there. But for me, I got saved at an early age. My dad actually led me to Christ, just began asking questions when I was young. From that point, I had a good understanding of Jesus died for me and he wants me to come live with him in heaven. That was the extent of my faith as a child. But as I grew up, you begin to understand the depth of the gospel in that as you get older, you start to recognize you've really screwed some things up, and your sin just gets wider and wider, and the gap gets wider and wider. But then you begin to really appreciate and come to know the depth of the love that God has for his people and that he sent Jesus. And so, for me, it really became real to me when I got into high school and where I really began to get serious about my faith that it was more of a relationship when I got into high school with him, and for me, part of my testimony involves a call to the ministry and a running away from that call for a long time. Didn't wanna do ministry, didn't want that life. I grew up in it. Didn't want to be a pastor, but thought I had my own idea of what my life was gonna look, and pursued things that I thought were gonna bring me joy and happiness, and I can remember that Jessica shared a little bit about that conversation with me and her, but before that, I can remember my mom just point blank looking at me and saying, when are you gonna stop running? And a couple days after that, I was at a mens conference at a church in our community, and I can remember just sitting among thousands of other men, and it was like the Lord, it was just me and him in that room. And he said, I want you to stop running. I wanna use you in the ministry. And I accepted that call that night, not begrudgingly, but it was finally a moment in my heart and my life that I saw the picture of what the Lord wanted for my life. Now, he didn't say here's how this is gonna look. It was just a call to his ministry. [Aaron] Yeah, he was looking for a yes. [Channing] So yeah, it was just, okay. And so for me, that's been a big, big part of even my relationship with the Lord in the sense of learning to trust him and learning to depend on him and to submit to him and surrender to him. And so that call came when I was in my early years of college, and as soon as I made that call, all the anxieties of what I was gonna do with my life just started to fade away because I knew that he had already orchestrated and ordained me for that moment and that call. So for me, it's still growing. I count it as a relationship. I'm seeking to know him through his word and through his church and through just study of him. So I've seen my relationship with Jesus grow, even in the past two years of marriage, too, with the rigors and the good times and the bad times through marriage too, of learning how to trust him through it all. So that's what I would say, what about you? [Jessica] Yeah, so I was saved at six years old at a VBS, and just something that everyone knew about me. I was very shy. I'm not an extrovert at all. I really have to make myself come out of my comfort zone, which I know we all have to, but there's probably not an ounce of extrovert in me, naturally. But so I was saved there, and actually, part of it was I had to, I didn't wanna go down by myself. There were plenty of kids going down, 'cause they asked if anybody wanted to come down and receive Jesus into their heart, and I wanted to, but I was too scared to go down by myself. And so I asked somebody to walk down with me. And that, I didn't realize it until later how symbolic that was gonna be in my testimony of who I was and who God created me to be and who he made me to be after I received him. But as far as an intimate relationship with him, I really didn't know what that looked like or what that meant. In sixth or seventh grade, I was at a retreat with our school, and I don't remember who spoke. I don't remember what they said. But I vividly remember being at the altar and thinking, okay, I don't want a hello God, goodbye God relationship with him. I want a deep relationship with him. I want my life to matter. And so that was the moment where I really became intentional about growing that relationship with him and nurturing it, but a big part of my testimony, like I said, was I was shy. I was not willing really to get out of my comfort zone, and then the Lord said to me, it's not about what you have to say or what you can do, but it's about what I'm gonna say through you and what I'm gonna do through you. And he kind of just said, and there's nothing else that I need to say to you. Like what you guys said, you just need to say yes. Just say yes to me, and just do what I ask you to do. It's scary, and sometimes, it's inconvenient. Actually, probably most of the time it's gonna be inconvenient, but you're not who you once were, so you don't need to look like that anymore, and you don't need to be scared. And like a lot of girls do, as I got older, I started struggling with self-esteem issues. I really started to try to hide the fact that I struggled with that, and in a sense, I didn't have an eating disorder, but I started to really abuse exercise in my life and then just didn't eat enough to compensate for that. So I guess you could say I had an eating disorder, but that really became a god in my life. I was riding my bike around the house one day trying to get all that exercise in and make myself feel worthy and feel beautiful, and I remember, it was almost like the Lord stopped me, like I couldn't pedal anymore. And he said, oh, girl, just give it up. Like, you don't need this. All you need is me. I'm more than enough for you. My grace is sufficient for you, and stop going after all these things that you think are gonna make you comfortable, all these things that you think are gonna make you feel satisfied, because they're not going to. So that's really what he's done in my life and a big part of my testimony is when we're saved, we're not who we once were, but I, at least looking back at myself, I know that I am nothing as far as what my life looked like, the things I said, the things I did and wouldn't do because I was too scared. I don't look the same, and I thank God for that. [Aaron] Amen, wow. [Jennifer] Yeah, that's so cool, guys. We really appreciate hearing your testimony of what he's done in your lives, and I mean, I can pull out things just from hearing you talk of how God's already using those testimonies in what you're doing today. But I wanna hear from you. So how would you say that God's using these testimonies for what he has you doing today? [Channing] Well, for me, I know for this season, we've referenced it a couple times, of just working in college ministry. The Lord laid a deep desire in our hearts for 18to 25-year olds, because it's a very, very pivotal point in the lives of students, and I've been able to have some really good conversations with students who have come to crossroads in their lives of, do I pursue this, or do I pursue this? Do I listen to what friends say, or do I listen to what the Lord says? Do I listen to the desires that my mom and dad have for my life, or do I listen to the desire that I know God has for my life? For me, I can remember in that same age gap standing at that crossroad and multiple times coming to crossroads and running from what the Lord had desired and desired for my life. I wish I could go back and change some of those things. It would have saved a lot of heartbreak and a lot of striving in my life, but I know that it was all working for my good. So for me, to be able to share out of that on the ministry side with students to say, hey, you don't have to feel alone when you come to these decisions in your life that you just don't know what you're doing. I've seen the Lord be able to really cultivate some deeper relationships, some deeper trust in some of those relationships with some of the students that we work with. But then there's always still, I mean, Jesus has absolutely changed my life. So regardless of any of that, I desire for my life to be poured out for the gospel. And so, whatever that looks like, whether that's a conversation about where do I go to college next year or I'm really struggling through the pit of despair, Jesus is the answer. He's enough. And so, for me, that's always the bedrock of my testimony, is that Jesus is the answer. And so, where we may not always see him working right off the bat, we know that he is and that the story's not finished. And so, for me, I've seen the Lord open some really wide open doors for me to talk with college students, and even some in our church. [Aaron] Yeah. [Channing] That are not students, but the Lord just has opened doors for us to share. What about you? [Jennifer] Well, real quick, I just wanna say, I think what's so powerful of what I heard in your testimony is that when you said yes to God, all those anxieties that you had about what you were supposed to be doing went away. And so now you get to share that testimony, that part of your story, with all of these college-aged kids who are asking these really big questions, and that stands out to me as such a powerful way to communicate that when you say yes to God, he's the one that takes care of the details, and we don't have to worry about 'em. [Aaron] Yeah, and it doesn't mean things are gonna be easy. Like you said, you didn't get all of the answers right away, but he totally gave you peace, and you knew that you could trust him. So that's awesome, seeing that. Right there, you have a direct connection that you get to draw from that tool that God's given you, that testimony, that experience that you had with the Father to you pass onto these college students. And so, and I know you were about to ask Jessica, but Jessica, I have each question for you. This part of your testimony with self-image and just chasing after something to fulfill you and God getting ahold of your heart and saying, you don't need that. Has he given you opportunities to share with women who are struggling with the same things? [Jessica] Yes, and that's what I was gonna talk about, is you know, it's not about us, and that's what I usually tell people who start confiding in me about issues in their life or struggles with their image, who they are, and being scared to come out and be who God's made them to be, is none of this is about us. And if it is about you, and that's all you can focus on is what you have to offer, well, we don't have anything to offer. [Aaron] Yeah. [Jessica] There's no good thing apart from Christ. And I do love, and I am so thankful, that he walked me through that and he helped me through it so that I can share with others, because it's really cool when you see God take someone who has no self-image in a positive way, they don't look at their self at all through the lens of Christ, which is really easy to fall into, but it's so cool to see someone like that get up on a stage and sing or get up and even just share their testimony, or do the thing that they're so scared to do, but they can do it with Christ and with God's help. So that has been so cool, and I do think a lot about the fact that if I wouldn't have said yes, and I don't say that to boast about myself, because on my own, I would not have said yes. I would still be sitting in the corner of my bedroom. I probably wouldn't be married to Channing. If I wouldn't have said yes to anything that I'm scared to say yes to, I wouldn't have been able to see other people do the same thing. [Aaron] Yeah, that's just a beautiful example of God using the broken pieces of this world, us. We're in this flesh that is not yet redeemed, and he redeems our spirit fully and then walks us through the sanctification process and loves us as we're here in this world and then uses us when we say yes to him. I have a question though, one more for you, Jessica. Did you have opportunities to talk to women and share with women who were going through self-image things before God redeemed you from that, or did it start happening afterward? [Jessica] It started happening afterward. I don't doubt that he probably gave me opportunities, even as a middle schooler, just to pour into people that are younger than me, because I really have always had a passion for that, especially after saying yes, I will say anything you want me to say. I will get up and sing on that stage, or I will sing my baby to sleep at night in the room when no one else sees me, and I'll do it with a joyful heart. But before I said yes, I was focused on myself. I was focused on my fears and what I thought I could do and what I thought I knew I couldn't do. And so, I didn't really know. I might have had the opportunity before, but I didn't take it, and I didn't reap the joy that could have come from them. [Aaron] This is so great. Don't know Jennifer if you're being. [Jennifer] I'm to encouraged. [Aaron] Encouraged by this, but yeah, this is exactly what our hope for this conversation was, to show the reality of, it doesn't matter who you are. When you say yes to God, when you accept and follow Jesus as Lord, and you say, okay, Lord, here I am, like you said, we have nothing apart from Christ, and then he gives us the things he wants us to use. The master gives the servants the talents, you know? And you guys have said yes in your life, and I love that. [Jennifer] Yeah, what I think is so beautiful about you guys sharing your testimony and this story today is that, well, two things. The first thing is that how beautiful it is that all of our marriages are unique. So you guys are on our episode today and you're sharing your unique marriage story, your unique testimonies and how God is using those testimonies today to further his kingdom and build his kingdom, and I just want everyone listening to know that it is beautiful that every marriage is unique. And I know we shared about that in the last episode, but I just wanna reiterate that all of us have been given a tool belt, and it's an exciting process to be able to sift through it and see what God has given us and then encourage our spouse in using exactly what he's given us. And it sounds like that's what you guys are doing. You have these very specific testimonies, and they're powerful, and God's using them in specifically college ministry and other ways. But oh, I just love that. And then the other thing is that we know we can trust God. And so, when we're standing there wondering what it is we're supposed to be doing or asking those big questions, we know we can trust him. When we hear stories like this, it reaffirms that in our hearts. And so I just really appreciate you guys' vulnerability in just sharing this with us today. [Aaron] So, you know, we're gonna be coming to a close soon, and we were gonna ask you a question about have you had opportunities to use your testimony, and what's awesome is you just now shared your testimony with everything listening. So yes, yes, God randomly gives you opportunities to do that, and you guys probably pursue those, and we just love that. And you already answered that question in talking about who you're sharing it with. But we wanna end off with one question we've been asking everyone on this series, and it's in your own words, what is a marriage after God? [Channing] I immediately thought of David, of David was a man after God's own heart, and so of applying that same idea, a marriage after God is one that in all things puts God first, that desires to grow close to him, to look like him. I mean, I see marriage as a picture of Christ and his church, 'cause that's what it is. We are his bride, and the way that he has laid down his life for the church and the way that he is also coming back for, oh, yes, that's so good, I love it, he's coming back for his bride one day, that he hasn't left us in our sin and in the brokenness, but that he's coming victoriously back for us. I see a marriage after God as one that's a vertical and a horizontal component of that, where vertically, we're trying to become more like Jesus day after day and the sanctification of becoming him, but then horizontally, loving each other like the way that Christ loves his church. And so, for me, there's a little bit of that too for me. I was an athlete in high school and thinking about marriage after God makes me think of, we're running after him. [Aaron] Yeah, I love that. [Channing] There's this, I won't stop until I get you kind of idea. [Jennifer] That's great imagery. [Aaron] Yes, yeah. [Channing] Not creepy. [Aaron] No creepy references here, yeah. [Channing] Right, but seriously, for Jessica and for myself, what I desire is for a world to look at our marriage and say, man, they belong to somebody, you know? [Aaron] Yes. [Channing] That there's something different about them, and the only answer to that is Jesus. What about you? [Jessica] I would say a marriage after God, I saw this online the other day, so it's not original to me, but if you think about a triangle, I wish it was, but if you think about a triangle and you have the husband and wife on the bottom two corners and God's at the top corner, and it said if the husband and wife are constantly trying to get closer to God and moving up, you think about it as in moving up in the triangle, they are getting closer to each other. So the key to growing your marriage is growing are relationship with God. The closer you get to him, the closer you get to each other, and I don't remember who said it. It was Channing that said it, but I don't remember how it was a quote by: "Marriage is not to make us happy. "Marriage is to grow us closer to Christ "and to make us holy." I think a marriage after God is making every area in your life, especially your marriage, not about yourself, and make it point to Jesus. [Aaron] Amen, agreed. [Jennifer] So awesome, thank you guys so much. Yeah, agreed, agreed, agreed, and that quote you referenced was from Gary Thomas's Sacred Marriage book, and he's just such an excellent resource for marriages. So I appreciate you sharing that. Thank you guys so much for being on the show with us today. We really appreciate, again, your vulnerability and in sharing your testimony and encouraging people who are listening to consider the uniqueness of their marriage, the uniqueness of their testimonies, and how they can be using them today, 'cause of course the Lord's inviting us to use what he's given us for his glory. So, I just wanna thank you guys for being with us today. [Aaron] Yeah, and you guys are a marriage after God, and we appreciate that. [Channing] Thank y'all so much. [Jessica] Thank you, thank you so much. [Aaron] Yeah, you're welcome. So what we're gonna do is we're gonna close in prayer. So would you join us, and Jennifer, would you? [Jennifer] Dear Lord, thank you for the gift of marriage. Thank you for pouring your thoughtfulness into the way you designed marriage. Thank you for giving us a tool belt that is unique so that we can pursue and do all of the things you have for us to do. Please help us to understand everything that is in our tool belt and show us how we can use it for your glory. We pray we would keep nothing back from you. We pray we would walk humbly with you and with each other. Use us to encourage one another in marriage and affirm the gifts we see in each other. May we also have the courage to confront and repent of any sin in our lives. We pray that we would see all of the little and big ways you are inviting us to join you to spread your gospel of love, salvation, and amazing grace. May the testimony of Jesus be the motivation in our hearts to do what we do, all for your glory. In Jesus's name, amen. [Aaron] Amen. [Chandler and Jessica] Amen. [Aaron] All right, so we just wanna thank everyone for listening to the 10th episode in the series For A Marriage After God. We wanna encourage you to go get a copy of our book please. We wrote it for you. All these interviews we've compiled to encourage you and your marriage just to know that God has a plan for you and has call for your life, and we just wanna invite you to keep tuned in, because we have six more episodes in this series. So we'll see you next week. Did you enjoy today's show? If you did, it would mean the world to us if you could leave us a review on iTunes. Also, if you're interested, you can find many more encouraging stories and resources at https://marriageaftergod.com and let us help you cultivate an extraordinary marriage.

Join the Marriage After God movement and grab a copy of our new book today. https://marriageaftergod.com In this episode, we interview Matt & Lisa Jacobson From http://FaithfulMan.com and http://Club31Women.com & Faithful Family podcast. Here is a quote from our book Marriage After God “Your marriage is the message you are preaching to others. The way you and your spouse interact with each other reveals the gospel you believe.” Dear Lord, Thank you for creating marriage with such a significant purpose of revealing to the world your divine love. Please help us to make choices that reflect your love in the way we love one another. May we choose to walk in obedience. Thank you for your word which instructs us and shows us how we should walk in obedience. Please continue to give us wisdom and strength as we choose to walk in the Spirit and not our flesh. We pray we would make our marriage a priority. We pray we would gain a deeper understanding of how our marriage is our first ministry and the impact we have in each other’s lives and in this world, just by remaining faithful to your word. If our priorities are ever out of order or if we are not unified please help us to change course. Constantly direct our hearts to align with yours. May our marriage always be in a place where you can use us as a symbol to point others to you and may you be glorified. In Jesus’ name, amen! READ: [Aaron] Hey, we're Aaron and Jennifer Smith of Marriage after God. [Lisa] Helping you cultivate an extraordinary marriage. [Aaron] And today we're in part five of the Marriage after God series, and we're gonna be talking with Matt and Lisa Jacobsen about marriage being your first ministry. [Aaron] Welcome to the Marriage after God podcast, where we believe that marriage was meant for more than just happily ever after. [Jennifer] I'm Jennifer, also known as Unveiled Wife. [Aaron] And I'm Aaron, also known as Husband Revolution. [Jennifer] We have been married for over a decade. [Aaron] And so far, we have four young children. [Jennifer] We have been doing marriage ministry online for over seven years through blogging and social media. [Aaron] With the desire to inspire couples to keep God at the center of their marriage, encouraging them to walk in faith every day. [Jennifer] We believe that Christian marriage should be an extraordinary one, full of life, [Aaron] Love. [Jennifer] And power [Aaron] That can only be found by chasing after God. [Jennifer] Together. [Aaron] Thank you for joining us on this journey as we chase boldly after God's will for our life together. [Jennifer] This is marriage after God. [Aaron] Hey, thanks for joining us on week five of this series that we're doing. I hope you're enjoying it. You're definitely going to enjoy today's guests. But before we move on, as always, we want to invite you to leave a review. Those reviews help the podcast get seen by new audiences. So, if you've been enjoying the content, we'd love a star rating, which is the easiest way to do it, all you gotta do is tap a star in the app. And if you really, really want to and have time, leaving us a text review would be awesome. We read every single one of 'em, and we love them, so thank you for that. [Jennifer] Another way you can support this podcast-- [Aaron] So today on this episode, we're gonna be talking about content from chapter five of our book, Marriage after God. And the chapter's titled, "Your First Ministry." and we thought, what better way to talk about this chapter than to talk with our pastors and ask them who inspired us and showed us what it looked like to recognize our marriage as ministry. And now we actually reference them and talk about them in this chapter, and so today we have Matt and Lisa Jacobson with us, welcome. [Lisa] Hey, nice to be here. [Matt] Awesome to be here, you bet. [Aaron] Yeah, and we're in our garage, sitting on our couches. And today we're gonna be talking about this topic. But before we talk about that, why don't you introduce to the audience, just in case they don't know you guys, who you are, children, marriage, all that. [Matt] Okay, well, Matt Jacobsen, and this is my lovely woman. [Lisa] Hey, hello. [Matt] Lisa, and so we've been married for 26 years. We have eight kids between the ages of 12 and about 25. [Lisa] Yup. [Matt] Right, and there are four of them are out of the house and moved on. And so, what keeps us busy when we're not just hanging out and kissing in a dark corner somewhere. [Lisa] That's right. We also, we do homeschool and we do a lot of work with our kids. Our kids help us out with what we do at home and also in our ministry. [Matt] And so, speaking of ministries. So, my website is Faithfulman.com. [Lisa] And I'm Lisa with Club31women.com. [Matt] And so that is a writing ministry that speaks to marriage, parenting, church, and culture. Biblical perspective on those things. And so, that comprises a lot of what takes up our time in a given week. And then, of course, we're the pastors of a small local fellowship as well. [Aaron] Yeah, it's our fellowship. [Matt] That's right. [Aaron] You're our pastors. And we love you guys. And by the way, if everyone listening didn't hear what those were, that's faithfulman.com and club31women.com. You guys should definitely check them out. And why don't you tell them about your newest podcast that you guys just launched? [Matt] Awesome, okay. Well, the name of that podcast is Faithful Life. And it's essentially a podcast that is pursuing the and exploring the topic of what does it mean to live as a biblical Christian. There are a lot of people in the world, lot of Christians, people who identify as Christians, who are living a life that is really separate or tangential to the Bible. And really, if you're going to be a biblical Christian, you've gotta know what the Bible says about these various aspects of life: marriage, parenting, how we're to live within church community and then how we're to interact with the culture. And so, that's the focus of the podcast, faithful-- [Lisa] With a lot of emphasis on practical ways to do that, sometimes we kinda know in our heads what the right thing to do is, or what we believe the Bible says, but then how does that look in our day-to-day life, and that's something that matt and I really have a passion for is just connecting those two things. [Matt] And a little bit of experience. It's only been, what, 26 years you've been married and walking with the Lord and learning through all of the eight children. [Aaron] So we just want everyone to check out their podcast; it's called Faithful Life. And you're gonna love it. Just search for it wherever you listen to podcasts. So, let's get into the icebreaker question. And this is how we start all the episodes. It's just a fun question. How does your spouse like their coffee and what does that say about them? [Lisa] Okay, I get to go first on this one. Because everybody that knows Matt Jacobson well knows that he likes his coffee black, but, even more importantly, he likes it burning hot so that it burns a hole in your tongue, so he, if-- [Matt] And you better not put it in a cold cup. [Lisa] Right, the best way to show love to Matt Jacobson is to heat up the cup first and then pour his coffee into it. [Matt] Wow, that's one of the ways over the years you've shown love to me. But right, so anyway-- [Lisa] In the coffee-- [Matt] No, that's right in the coffee, in the realm of coffee. And Lisa takes her coffee with a teaspoon of sugar and cream and-- [Lisa] That's right, I like it a little sweet. [Matt] She likes it a little sweet, that's right. [Aaron] And it's just like her character too. Little sweet. [Matt] And I love making coffee for her; I do. In the morning, I love making coffee. I love bringing her a cup of coffee in the morning. [Jennifer] And you guys do coffee as a family a lot, so can you just share a little bit about that 'cause I just love that. [Matt] Okay, so, why don't you tell how we've corrupted our young children? [Lisa] Well, we started off in our marriage. We started each day with having coffee. Matt would make a coffee tray for him and I, and we would sit and have coffee together. And then as each child came along, we then slowly incorporated them into this special time until it became something our whole family just loves and so even our older kids when they come home for the holidays or different vacations, they'll come and that's the thing they look forward to most is having our time together over a pot of coffee. And we just talk about what we're thinking about, what's going on in our world, and it's just a really close family time. [Matt] And you know, oh, sorry. That whole process of incorporating the kids into it. It's kind of funny because it's really a metaphor, or an example, if you will, of what happens in your family. Over time, we're very strict with the older kids. I don't even remember when we began allowing them to have coffee. Including them. I don't even remember, do you remember how old they were? [Lisa] No. [Matt] But, as time went on, the younger kids just get to start earlier and earlier. And I think we started, did Hawkin have his first? [Lisa] He was about seven or eight maybe-- [Aaron] It was a bottle right? [Lisa] When he had his first cup of coffee. [Matt] That's right. [Lisa] A very, very tiny cup of coffee, mostly milk. [Jennifer] Mostly milk, yeah. [Matt] Yeah, right, and so now we're going, okay, so. [Lisa] Almost because their dad's kind of soft on the issue. [Matt] I am; I am. [Jennifer] I was just gonna say, I follow Lisa on Instagram, and I love watching your stories because you'll post about it every once in a while of just your guys' family time around that, and it's beautiful and you can just tell, just from that short glimpse that you give the rest of us that it's a really beautiful time that you're cultivating in your family. [Matt] And in some senses, like you see the snapshot, and it is awesome, it really is. But, it's just so normal, a part of life, and a wonderful life is built on a lot of normal moments that you just string together over time. [Jennifer] Mm-hmm, it's true, yeah, it's good. [Matt] And so, yeah. [Aaron] Yeah, there's the big one-offs that are memorable, but then there's the, it's the everyday things that shape who we are, it's all those habits that we have and those routines. I love that. Why don't you share the quote from the chapter? And then we'll just start asking questions. [Jennifer] Okay, so this is from chapter five of Marriage after God. "Your marriage is the message you are preaching to other, "the way you and your spouse interact with each other "reveals the gospel you believe." [Aaron] Matt and Lisa, how would you that that is true in what you guys have experienced, because it's something that you've definitely not only shown us through your own marriage, but also directly have shown us in ours in saying hey, you can't expect to have this ministry over here if your home doesn't match. So could you give me some insight on how this quote plays out in real life? [Matt] Well, one of the things that you just naturally see in life is you see people in ministry and what's the big joke in America, at least it used to be, I don't know if it still is, who are the worst kids in church? The PKs, the preacher's kids, right? And so, that is so antithetical to how we're called to live in the word of God because we are called ambassadors. That means that we are representatives of the kingdom of God on earth. We bear the name of Christ, and we're his representatives. And how is it possible that you have this ministry or you have this public presence, and then it's not true in your own personal life. You wanna tell somebody about the wonderful truths of Scripture. And you wanna tell somebody the gospel and explain to them how they can have a wonderful relationship with the Lord. And then you don't have, you're not living those wonderful relationships in your family. I know that we had seen a lot of this early on. And we were even involved in a particular church, years and years ago, they were lovely people but focused just on evangelism and kinda lost the relationships with their kids over time. We just saw-- [Lisa] And in their marriage. [Matt] This family's disintegrating. And the marriage is. Then we though, you know what, the life that we're called to as believers is much more holistic than that. And the truths of the gospel are supposed to be manifest in our lives. And if I could just say one more thing. I know you've got a lot to say, too. You see in the instructions for church leadership in the book of 1 Timothy, one of the principal requirements of anybody in ministry and this is serving as an elder or a deacon within the church. [Aaron] Yes, specific position. [Matt] One of the principal requirements is that you've demonstrated that your children have yielded hearts to you. You're governing your family well. You're leading your family well. There's a sense of order and peace in your home. So God wants it to be true at home before we go out to represent him to the world. [Aaron] And what does Paul tell Timothy, he says how can you presume to manage the household of God if you can't manage your own home, which is how he, after all that teaching, he says that it doesn't make sense. [Matt] Yeah. [Lisa] And I think that Matt's kind of big picture guy. And I'm more of what does that look like in my day kind of person. And one thing I had noticed that in Scripture, when it talks about how we are to be towards one another, how we're to be, to be loving, patient, kind. And we apply all of those things to out there. So, just an example: I go to the grocery store, and the cashier's taking forever to get me through the line. And she apologizes, but I've read the Bible, so I'm going to be, oh it's fine, I'll wait. I understand you're trying your hardest, and we'll get through here because I'm being patient, and I'm being kind. And then I go home, and I have a different response when it takes Matt forever to come out and help me bring in the groceries in the house. Or, because I'll be snippin' at him-- [Matt] Has that ever happened, like even one time in our marriage? [Lisa] Like I wait for you? Do you really wanna bring that up? [Aaron] Everyone listening was like that was just today. [Lisa] So, but it really struck home to me that all those things that we think apply to out there to strangers or maybe to friends. It somehow, or maybe there's a disconnect, to actually sometimes the hardest person, sometimes, is actually the person your married to. [Jennifer] I was just gonna say, thinking about our own marriage. I used to do this thing where I would always be upbeat and positive and smiley with everyone. And then I'd come home and immediately my countenance would change, and Aaron-- [Aaron] I finally called you out on it, I was like-- [Jennifer] Yeah, 'cause Aaron would be like-- [Aaron] Why do they get the smiles and then I get this? [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] What is this? [Jennifer] And then I remember specifically him saying, I want your best. And I had to figure it out. I had to figure out why I was doing that and check my flesh on it really. [Aaron] Well, I think there's a default position of, well, I have you, therefore you should deal with who I actually wanna be today, and everyone else has to, I want them to see the best part of me. It's almost like it's just totally backwards. And it's actually lying. [Matt] Well, the harsh reality of the circumstance is who you actually are in terms of your personal character is who you are when the doors are shut and you're letting your hair down, so to speak, and you're just being your natural self with the people where the consequences might not be as immediate or severe as they might be if you do this in public. And so, that's the reality of who we are. And so, it's important to take stock on those things. How am I with the people that I'm closest to because those are the people that we tend to take for granted and those are the circumstances that we tend to be a little less guarded. [Aaron] Now that you're saying that, I'm thinking, it's actually probably infinitely less damaging to be that kind of person in public, when people they may be offended for the moment, but they're gonna forget your face in like eight seconds 'cause they don't live with you than the person that we literally spend hours and hours a day and our lifetime with: our children, our spouse. We sacrifice the main thing for the non-main thing. [Matt] Totally, and that's of course humanly speaking, in terms of the cost, over the long-term. [Aaron] Yeah, publicly. [Matt] But relative to the Lord's perspective on these relations, he wants it to be the same everywhere. [Aaron] Yeah. [Matt] He wants us to be loving and in the spirit everywhere with the people, especially close to us, but also with everybody else that we're interacting with. [Aaron] Or repentant if we're not. [Jennifer] Yeah, yeah, there is grace Right? [Aaron] Which changes us. [Matt] Well, you know what, you brought up the R word: repentance. And that is such an important word and such an abused word in our Christian religious world because repentance has a specific meaning. It's a word that has a definition. And we cut ourselves so much slack and we dip back into the same sins over and, how about this, just this sin we're talking about here where we're not being kind to our spouse, but we've got it for everybody else. And, oh, I'm sorry I shouldn't have done that. Please forgive me. And Lord, I was unkind to my wife, please forgive me. I should have been more kind. And then we go on our day, and then I do it again. And then I do it again. Have I repented if I just keep walking in that same sin? [Aaron] No, you've apologized. [Matt] I've apologized, right? [Aaron] You're sorry for being-- [Matt] Because to repent means I used to do that, and now I'm doing this. It means to turn from, that's the definition of the word. And it's such a good word for Christians, all of us, to really wrestle with, and say, you know what, have I really repented and forsaken that sin? Because that's what it means to walk as God would have us as a couple and not to just keep going back, over and over and over again. [Aaron] I think of this quote. I'm not gonna say who said it, but someone in our family used to say, "If you were sorry, you wouldn't have done it." That's kind of the idea; we say sorry over and over and over again. But in reality, our heart hasn't changed. We're just allowing something, whether we're intentionally doing something. We're not intentionally walking in the spirit, so therefore, we're defaulting to walking in the flesh, and we haven't repented of anything. This is something that I had to recognize in my life with certain sin in my life was I was sorry, but usually I was sorry for the shame or the regret or being caught or the remorse I see in your face or the pain I've caused you, Jennifer, but I'd never had been sorry for my sin which is what leads to repentance, and then I change and walk in that. So thanks for bringing that clarity. [Matt] Yeah, absolutely. And so to come full circle on your question, what does it mean to have a marriage that is reflecting the gospel? Well, if you have a marriage that is the kind of marriage that someone else is interested in, then you're not creating this incredible disconnect in the mind of the person that you're sharing the gospel with because what are you inviting them to? If the gospel hasn't affected and hasn't made your marriage beautiful, what are you inviting them to? Here we are married, and we have a bad, bickering, difficult, challenging marriage, and I'm out there telling somebody that Jesus loves them and died for them. It's so critical 'cause as we, and I know you guys have talked about on your podcast and certainly in your book, that your marriage is the gospel you're preaching, that is the gospel you're preaching. And the power of your message will not be one iota stronger or more influential than is the meaning and the love and the strength of your marriage relationship. [Jennifer] That's so good. I hope everyone hits rewind and just listens to that a few times. [Aaron] Yeah, and let's take marriage out of the picture, just in the Christian individual's life. If the gospel's not true in our life, so for me, when I was walking in my addiction to pornography, and I wasn't repentant of it, I thought I was, I was sorry for it; I was sorry for what it did to me, but I wasn't truly repentant of it. I could never tell someone that Christ came to bring freedom, which is what the Bible teaches us, that's the fruit of the gospel. [Matt] There you go. [Aaron] Because I couldn't walk in freedom. Like you said, I'm literally showing them, like, hey, here's God, he's awesome-- [Jennifer] He's powerless. [Aaron] He's powerless. [Jennifer] In my life. [Matt]right. [Aaron] He can't, and this isn't about just all of the sudden everything being healed and perfect and great, but this is definitely the truth of freedom from sin and death, which is what the Bible teaches, which is what Christ came to destroy. He took the power away from it. [Matt] Absolutely. [Aaron] But he doesn't have that in my life. Therefore, you should love God and believe in Jesus, but he can't actually do anything for the core of who you are. He can't change your physical situation or your spiritual situation, but, you know what, he's the thing you should believe in. It just doesn't make any sense. [Matt] No, it doesn't. We just need to remember that even if we're not saying anything, even if we're not on the street corner, preaching the gospel. We're preaching a sermon every time we walk out the door together. We're preaching a sermon. We're literally saying, this is what it means to be a Christian man and a Christian woman. Whether you mean to or not, you're preaching a sermon. The question is, what's the message that you're giving other people? [Jennifer] And how, can you explain, just for those people listening, how are they giving that message to other people? [Matt] It tends to be if you're living in a town and you've got your immediate circle and then you've got your circle of influence, the people you interact with, the people at the bank, the people at the gas station, the people at the grocery store, they know, over the course of time, they know whether you're a Christian or not. It just becomes evident that that is who you are. People probably don't realize it, but as somebody who identifies as a Christian, people watch you a little closer. They tend to want to just scrutinize you a little bit, or when we're at a restaurant. [Lisa] I was gonna say, what I was thinking about was how many times we've been in an airplane, traveling together, in a restaurant together, we have been stopped so many times by people we didn't even realize were watching us, someone who's serving us or the flight attendant, and said, you know, you two are just such a loving couple. And they could just see the way we were just interacting. And so people do notice that. And often times, especially at a restaurant, they'll see that we've prayed, so they also know that we're believers. And we've had a lot of opportunities to share the gospel with those people just even based on their observation of us. [Aaron] Well, it's uncommon. It's uncommon; it's normal to have cold relationships and being on the phones. It's uncommon to see engagement and true infatuation and adoration or-- [Lisa] Yeah, like the last time we were on a flight, we had a flight attendant come to us at the end of the flight, it was a long flight. And she said, "You know, the other flight attendants and I "were all talking about you two." Really? We're not that interesting. [Matt] Well, we were kissing, I mean. We were getting along kissing. [Lisa] That's right; that's right. And they were just observing how we were with each other, and how cute it was and thought we were maybe somewhat newly married. And I'm like, "Oh, no, we've been married 26 years, "and we have eight kids." Like, no way, yeah, really. [Aaron] And you're still in love? [Lisa] Yeah, yeah, it was really astonishing. [Matt] And you mentioned something about praying in a restaurant. And I know a lot of people listening probably do. It's probably less common these days than it has been in the past, but a lot of people still bow their heads and pray in a restaurant. Personally, I love doing that. I love just the witness: I'm a Christian, and I'm gonna give God thanks for this food. So I like doing that. But if you're somebody out there who does that, can I just encourage you to leave a fat, hog tip? Okay, because-- [Lisa] It's like a bonus. [Aaron] It is a bonus. [Matt] Because you've literally hoisted your flag at the table, I'm a Christian, and so, leave a great taste in your waiter's or server's mouth. [Aaron] It's a little sacrifice. [Matt] It's so small, yeah, so small. So small, but it's a good testimony, too. Just to say, you know what, love the Lord, and oh, by the way, God bless you. [Aaron] Going back to the, I think that's a great little bit of advice of how to spread the love of God. Like, hey, we love God and we just wanted to bless you, thank you-- [Matt] And certainly if it's a place that you go back more than once. [Jennifer] Yeah, that's true. [Aaron] Oh yeah! [Matt] You have struck up, well you've created an opportunity to strike up a conversation with the person because they're, well, first of all, they're business people, right? They wanna make money. So they wanna serve you well, and it's just an opportunity, that's all. Just an opportunity, if you're going to pray, then by all means, please don't complain about the food. [Aaron] I was gonna say that actually. There's certain Christiany things that we do, maybe we were raised that way, and we just pray. We're Christians, we love God, we pray. But then, let's say we're bickering at the table, or we are being super rude to the waiters, or our kids are throwing food on the floor and silverware. That is a part of our witness. [Lisa] It is. [Aaron] How we are. And they're like, you did the thing that I thought you were gonna do. They're looking for us to fail. [Jennifer] To fail, right. [Aaron] Doesn't mean we're not gonna fail, but the majority of the time, our hearts should be aware of how we're being, which goes back to that marriage being your ministry. You guys had this awesome, oh, people noticed us, and they stopped us and said thank you. We've had the other side of it. And no one's actually confronted us and saw us fighting, but we've had people message us after the fact. We've mentioned this a few times. And like, "Hey, we saw you in the store. "I didn't stop and say hi, but just wanted to say hi." And they'd message us on Instagram. And then we were like, "Oh my gosh, I think we were, were we fighting?" [Jennifer] This was a long time ago; we've gotten better since then. This was a long time ago. [Aaron] It made us aware, man, like, well, A, we have a social media presence, but it doesn't matter if you do. Like if you're a Christian, there's people that know you. You have friends, you have neighbors, you have, and people that may not know you personally, they're gonna see you regularly in your small town, or big town, I guess, because you frequent the same places. What kind of fragrance as a couple and as Christians do we give in this world where we say one thing and act a different way? That's literally what hypocrisy is. We talk about this, actually, in this chapter. We talk about, we're gonna ask you a question in a second, another question, but it doesn't make any sense if we're trying to minister in other ways, and then in the home, there is no real ministry happening. And so, question for you guys is are marriages being a ministry, and being our first ministry, because it's our first one another, our closest neighbor, we always like to say is our spouse and then our kids and everyone else. Are there marriages that are exempt from this? Well, this husband, he's a minister, and he doesn't actually have time to be focused on his family. Or a wife that's doing this thing over here for God, and she doesn't have time to serve her home and children. Are there marriages that are exempt from this? Why or why not? [Lisa] I don't know that there are exemptions in that sense although Matt might want to address that, but what that's come to mind, I do have many women write me who are in a marriage situation where the spouse is not a believer or at least not walking with God. And I know that that's a greater challenge, and I wouldn't want to put undue burden on that couple, especially the one that's trying to be faithful, and the other is not walking that way. There has to be grace for that, and the one person has to, you know, scripture tells us to keep quiet and just keep shining the light of Christ in their home. But I also wouldn't want to feel like, oh, I can't minister to others now because my spouse is not walking in truth right now. [Matt] And the way I would look at that is the Bible teaches us what is normal and how we are to walk as normal Christians in this world. And when it comes to marriage, what's normal is the way Jesus loves the church, his bride. That's how we're supposed to love our bride. That's normal. And that instruction, love your wife as Christ loved the church, that's not a special instruction for somebody who happens to be in the public eye. That is an instruction for absolutely every Christian man, every man who stands up and says, I follow Lord; I have committed my life to Christ. I have repented of my sin, and I'm a Christian. Every man who has said that should have a wife who says, I'm the most cherished woman I know. And no man is exempt from that. And so, here's the thing, if a church lays claim to being full of godly men, then there's one thing you know for sure, it's full of cherished wives. You cannot have one without the other. You cannot be a godly man and not cherish your wife. And so in that sense, I would say nobody's exempt from this, but, of course, we live in a broken world with lots of relationships and circumstances, and people have struggled. And God has grace for those things. But in those circumstances, the person, whatever they are, wherever they fall on the spectrum, difficult and virtually sad and very challenging to not that bad, wherever they are in the spectrum, their job is to draw near to God and walk as closely to God as he wants them, as he desires them to, and to seek them in those circumstances. But I appreciate you bringing that up because there are lot of people, lots of wives, lots of husbands, a husband called us recently. His wife left, he's got, I think they've got five kids. One of the kids has Down's Syndrome, and the wife's just like, "I'm done." And she left, and he didn't want her to leave, he tried to love her right up through, for several years, up to point where she left. He himself has remained faithful and has a ministry even though she's left, so it's true, it's not that you don't have a ministry. It's just that God provides his standards and principles and requirements for Christian men, for Christian wives, and for marriage. And then sin comes in and everything else is an exception to the rule, but the rule is every man is to cherish his wife in the way Jesus Christ loves the church. [Aaron] So, I do appreciate Lisa that you brought that up, too, because I'm sure that we have people that listen, and one of the spouses is not walking, is not a believer, and we get, praise God, he gives provision for this in his word, in 1 Peter, he shows, it's funny because it's to the wife, it's almost like he knew that men were gonna be more prone to this, not being faithful, which is sad, but it's true. But even then I think, you're right, that it doesn't mean they can't have ministry outside of the home because their marriage isn't in order correctly faith wise, but that doesn't mean that their first ministry still isn't their spouse. Like you said, they still have a call, the wife or the husband, to serve and love their spouse the way the Bible has called them to, faithfully, whether they receive it or not, of course. And that's also, I don't wanna say qualifies, I don't know if that's the right word, but, it still prepares them to do ministry outside their home because it's in order. Instead of, I'm not going to love my husband or my wife like this because they're treating me this way, but I am gonna go love over here, that's not gonna produce the kind of fruit that God's looking for. But I did appreciate that. I think it's totally relevant to recognize that there are these non-ideal marriages. [Matt] You know, and one of the things that might be important to mention here is wherever you are on the spectrum: you have a spectacular marriage all the way to it's terrible. We tend to fall into this wrong thought process that goes something like this: you're walking in sin; therefore, I can't help being the way I am. [Lisa] Oh, now, that's a good point. [Matt] And the fact of the matter is is the way you act has nothing to do with my capacity as a believer to walk in holiness. [Lisa] Right, no that's-- [Matt] And we kinda cut ourselves a little slack there, don't we? 'Cause if you're a certain way, well then that gives me license to be another way in response-- [Aaron] Yeah, if you only respected me, I would treat you or love you as Christ loves the church. [Matt] That's right, and every one of us has the capacity according to the word of God to walk in holiness, irrespective of how our spouse is walking. Now we certainly make it easier, right? If we're walking in holiness for the other person. But, we can't blame our distance from God on how someone else has chosen to act. [Aaron] Amen. [Jennifer] Taking a look into your guys' marriage. You know, you've been married quite a while. So go back to the beginning. Was there a learning curve in your guys' relationship on how to love and respect each other and cherish each other in that? [Matt] OH, absolutely. I was the most loving husband in the world. The only problem-- [Aaron] That's a real laugh, by the way. [Matt] The only-- [Lisa] Revisionist history, I think that's what it's-- [Matt] The only problem with it is I was loving Lisa in the way that said love to me. [Lisa] Oh, that's true. [Matt] We'd like to tell the story, in fact, we tell it on our own podcast. We just have this crazy story where I literally am superman husband, okay? I am helping out with everything. [Lisa] It's our first year of marriage. [Matt] First year of marriage. I am helping out with everything. I am helping with, not the laundry, you wouldn't let me touch the laundry 'cause she said, nope, that's mine; I will do the laundry. Everything else, the vacuuming, folding the laundry. [Lisa] Cleaning the bathrooms. [Matt] Cleaning the bathrooms, everything else, the dishes, everything, I'm helping, I'm helping. I'm doing it all, and I'm thinking-- [Lisa] And I'm getting madder and madder and-- [Matt] And she's over in the kitchen. And there's the flames, you know, the ones coming out of her eyes, are visible from across the room, and I-- [Aaron] Although I have never seen Lisa angry before, so I couldn't-- [Lisa] Oh, I'm capable. [Matt] And I thought, what is wrong with this woman? You can't find five guys in the entire state of Oregon that do the things that I do with a willing heart, and I'm trying to bless you, you're just, there's nothing that will make you happy. You can't be blessed; I don't know what your problem is. And so, she just takes the towel, and she almost busts a dish on me as she sets the plate down on the counter. And then she takes the towel and throws it on the counter. [Lisa] Thank you. [Matt] And I'm going, what in the world. She turns to me, and she goes, "I just don't know why you don't love me." [Lisa] True story. [Aaron] What's happening? [Matt] And I'm going, okay, am I losing my mind here? And I'm going, you've gotta be kid, you've literally got to be kidding me. [Lisa] So my thinking is I can vacuum, I can clean the bathrooms, anybody can do that. But there's only one guy in my life that can take me out and spend some time with me and listen to my thoughts. [Aaron] Look in my eyes-- [Lisa] Yes! [Aaron] And talk to me. [Lisa] And so he could just feel my frustration over time. So, the more frustrated he would feel-- [Matt] I would try harder. [Lisa] The more he'd vacuum. [Matt] I'd do more! [Lisa] And I'm just like, put the stupid vacuum down. I just want to spend time with yo. [Matt] So I'm going, wow, that's easy. [Lisa] Yeah. [Matt] Who knew love was that easy? So in our case, it was just me taking the initiative to say, okay, we're gonna go out at such-and-such a day, and it didn't matter what it was. We'd go for a walk; we could go have a cup of coffee. And I mean, at any time you as a husband tell your wife, "Hey, I just wanna spend some time with you." You can turn one cup of coffee into an awesome date. You really can. [Lisa] It doesn't take much. [Matt] It doesn't take much. You talk about learning curve, absolutely we had to learn each other and what was important to you and what was important to me and this is so true in absolutely every area of marriage. For instance, we've given you the for instance in terms of the learning curve, but in terms of discovering what it is your spouse is interested in, what they like, what's important to them. There's a very, very interesting way of finding out. [Aaron] You ask. [Matt] You ask a question! Yeah, yeah, and it's such a great thing to do because you know what happens when I turn to you and I ask you a question about you. [Lisa] Yeah. [Matt] Who doesn't like talking about themselves? Who doesn't like being known and explored and discovered. Who doesn't like someone being interested in them. So that's what we do when we turn to our spouse and say, okay, I wanna ask you a question. I wanna ask you what are three things that I can do that would make you feel loved? So that's just the normal stuff of marriage. But you know what? And you can even take it right into the subject of sex. And you can say, what are things that you enjoy when we come together physically? What are some of those things? Because, you know what, we tend to love the other person with the things that we want. [Lisa] I think that sometimes people boil this down to love languages, which is interesting and helpful. But what we're talking about is so much more than a love language, for one thing, those things change over time. It depends when the season when we had four kids, five and under, the vacuum really helped a lot, and I had a, not that I still didn't want to go out, [Aaron] Right, in that season, that was much more loving. [Lisa] Yeah, it was loving; it did mean a lot. [Matt] And physical touch when we had five kids. What would the age's spread have been with our five kids? [Lisa] Yeah, six and under. [Matt] Five kids six and under. Physical touch was less important to her in those years. [Lisa] Imagine that. [Matt] You know? She's got kids. You got enough of that. [Jennifer] Her tank is full. [Matt] Yeah, I'm touching 24/7, exactly. Right, so it does change over time. [Lisa] So instead of thinking of it as big subjects of love language, think of it as who you are as a person and where are you at today, where are you at in this season, where are you at in your life right now. And that involves that continual seeking and pursuing and asking. [Jennifer] So continual even after 26 years. Like you guys are still asking? [Matt] Absolutely. [Aaron] You have gotten there yet? [Matt] Absolutely. [Aaron] You haven't gotten to the-- [Matt] No, we're seeking each other all the time. And you know what? [Jennifer] And it's fun, right? [Lisa] It is. [Matt] It is fun, absolutely fun. And the thing is, if you love the other person, it's not a burden to do it. You actually want to know where they're at. You wanna know where their heart is at. [Lisa] And I think it can even be in somewhat negative things like say, I notice something triggers Matt into a bad mood or just like a dark, you know. And it used to be, when we were younger, that would just like, oh, fine, if you're gonna be in a bad mood, then I'll just stay away from you. I'm not saying those things, but that was my basic attitude. And I feel like over the years, now, let's say something like that happens, which it does, then I can say, I noticed, like something happened, you know, we had a good start today, and then something kind of went sideways. You wanna tell me about that? Did something happen or did I say something? Not in a defensive way, but just really, we've had some really good conversations about that. He'd go, "You know, I wasn't aware of that." Sometimes even going back to your childhood. As a child, my mom treated me a certain way, so now whenever I hear this phrase, it takes me back to a time when I didn't feel cared for. [Aaron] Yeah. [Lisa] And you're thinking, oh, well, I didn't mean to [Aaron] I know how it feels. [Lisa] communicate that I didn't care for you. But I can see that that would translate to that. And now I know, and I can be more mindful of that. [Aaron] And lovingly. Just the loving hey, is everything okay? Not because you're bothered by it. [Lisa] Yes. [Aaron] But because you're concerned for it. [Lisa] Yes. [Aaron] Which then, I'm sure, Matt, you would experience. There's been times that I don't even know why I'm brooding. It just takes a moment to be checked on it. And then I'm like, oh, I actually don't know why I'm brooding right now; I actually do feel irritated. I don't know why. Which it totally could be a hormonal thing, it could be a something I ate, and maybe there's something spiritual going on that we need to be praying through, but that approach of not taking it personally because we do that. Why are you doing this around me? I was in a great mood, now you just brought me down. But rather, helper, but for each, an actual concern. Hey, is everything alright? That was a really good bit of advice. I think everyone listening is gonna be loving these tips because this is 26 years of you guys learning this. We're only 12 in, what is that? We're not even half. [Matt] It'll go quick; it'll go quick. [Aaron] We are halfway to the kids, though. [Matt] Oh, that's right. [Lisa] Yeah. [Matt] And you got started earlier than we did. [Aaron] We got started earlier, so we might bypass you So you guys'll [Matt] Outpace us, yeah, that's right. But then there's adoption, we can stay ahead of 'em. [Aaron] It's true, that's true. So I'm loving these tips. And it all plays back into this. Right now, you're talking about how you guys minister to each other. Loving each other, cultivating intimacy, the communication, the strong bond which allows us, then, it frees us to be more able to minister outside the home. Not that it can't happen, but when you guys are so connected, so close, there's more freedom, and less internal turmoil. [Matt] I might even say it a little differently. I would say what it does is it authenticates the message. [Aaron] That's perfect. [Matt] And you know, we see this principle, well not just principle, we see this exact teaching in the high priestly prayer that Jesus prays in John 17 where he's saying, their unity, let them be one as we are one, Jesus is praying. Let them, his followers, those who come to Christ, who come to a repentance and become the children of God. Let them be one as we are one that the world might believe that you have sent me. The unity that we have, the oneness that we have is the authentication of the message of Christ that he came from the Father. And so, that's so true in the church as a whole, and it's absolutely true in marriage. When we're walking in love, when we're walking in unity, when we're exuding that, where we go through life, it authenticates the message when we do speak the truth of the gospel to someone. [Lisa] And not just out there, but in our own homes, to our kids. [Matt] Oh, that's just so true. [Lisa] When your kids are little, you can kinda get away with it, or at least you think you are. [Aaron] We think we think we are. [Lisa] Believe me, as they get older, they'll tell the world what it's really like at home. They'll tell their friends. [Matt] They do. [Lisa] I'm just saying because it's reality. And the opposite is true, too, that if you are loving each other, it's a witness to them, it's an encouragement to them. Our kids all want to get married. They want to have that kind of marriage. And that's a huge blessing. One of the things that we recently asked one of our older daughters, who's in her twenties. I think it was a Father's Day thing. What do you like most about your dad? She said that, "He loves Mom so well." And it was such a beautiful testimony that yeah, they're watching, they know whether you have loved each other in those quiet moments. [Aaron] Well, when you think about it, almost everyone probably listening, when they look back and they think about their home and how they were raised, I'm sure a lot of them, being raised in Christian homes or not, maybe heard the Bible, but did they see it? Did they see the Bible; did they see the gospel? They don't remember what they ate. They don't remember all the places they've been. But they definitely remember how Mom and Dad were together. They definitely remember how Mom and Dad treated them. And that's where the ministry in our home comes in. 'Cause I've told Jennifer this. I said, Jennifer, all of these things that we have, Unveiled Wife, Husband Revolution, our podcast. I said all of that means absolutely nothing if my kids don't know the Lord. And so, not just our ministry to each other that we have a healthy marriage and that we're godly, and that we love each other and respect each other and honor each other and cherish each other and serve each other, but that my kids see it. And that they recognize what we're doing and why we're doing it, and that at the end of the day, they look back and they say thank you to us, not because of us alone, but because we were obedient. I want my kids to say that. I want my kids to say, "Mom and Dad loved each other. "I just know it; they loved me, and they showed me "who God was and they lived it every day. "They didn't just use their words." As James says, don't just be hearers only, but doers of the word. Are we just listening and not doing? Are we just telling and doing the opposite? The do what I say, not what I do? [Lisa] Right, right. [Matt] Do what I say, not what I do. It works every time, just not the way the parent thought it was going to work. [Aaron] Exactly and so I just, going back to that, that's what I want everyone listening to understand. The main purpose of this chapter in the book, is, and it's early on in the book, it's chapter five, and it's setting this idea of we could want to do lots of things for God, but God wants us to do what he's told us to do. And if we can't be faithful with the little thing, and the little thing is our children, our spouse, our home, this is a little picture of the world. If I can't minister to my wife and love her as Christ loves the church, I have no right going and loving a stranger like that. I could. [Matt] I think what we do is we tend to think like, I know what you're saying, as this is the little thing, so to do the big thing. I actually think that reality is kind of on its head. [Aaron] Okay. [Matt] I think the big thing we're doing is we're being faithful with our spouses, we're being faithful in discipling our children. And it's a great, big deal, and see-- [Aaron] Man, I heard that, yeah. [Matt] If the church had been teaching and focusing on that these past, what, I dunno, however many years. [Aaron] 60 or 70 years. [Matt] Would the church be in the state that it's in today with disintegrating families and churches filled with unfulfilled marriages and disappointments and divorce and all of those things. It's a great big deal. And if we're faithful here, God can entrust with ministry elsewhere. [Jennifer] In chapter 14 of the book, we talk about how what God sees as extraordinary is so different than what the world deems extraordinary. When we look at our own lives, it is that day-to-day, all those little choices of discipling our children, being faithful to one another, that is extraordinary because that is where God is working. [Aaron] Especially today, it's normal, you brought up the word normal, it's common, that's what it is, it's common in the world for there to be divorce and unfaithfulness and children who are rebellious and hate their parents. It is extraordinary and remarkable now even though it should be normal for a marriage to have love in it. [Matt] Well, that's just it. [Aaron] The gospel. [Matt] It is normal, biblical marriage to have a loving, close, wonderful, fulfilling, enjoyable, beautiful oneness in marriage. That is normal Christianity; that's normal marriage. The problem is, is we see what's common around us in the world, and we get used to what's common, and start thinking that that's normal, but it's not. If you have a biblical perspective, if you walk God's way, and your marriage reflects God's priorities and principles, then you're gonna have an awesome, wonderful, beautiful, loving, enjoyable marriage because that's what a normal Christian marriage really is. [Jennifer] And the power of God's testimony in your life is actually powerful. [Matt] Absolutely, right, exactly. [Aaron] Well, people can't argue with it. I mean, they can argue with anything. We were just talking about this. When you're around people that are walking a certain way, makes it easier to believe that you can too. That goes both ways. So when you see someone, and you're like man they're, like the stewardesses looking at you. They don't your whole story, but they know the story they just saw. You're not faking it when you're sitting in the aisle, whatever row you're in and like, oh we want everyone to see that we're perfect. We have this smile on because you can't fake it. [Matt] Yeah. [Aaron] Everyone fakes it, and no one falls for it. Like, oh-- [Jennifer] Maybe for a short flight, but not long one like you said. [Aaron] Yeah, the short flight's, but yeah. [Matt] That's right. [Aaron] And again, we keep going back to this. God's not interested in just us having a happy marriage and a healthy marriage. [Matt] No. [Aaron] For the sake of happy and healthy marriage. That's not an end game. [Matt] That's exactly right. [Aaron] It's the means to the end, like you said. It's what, what was the word you used? It verifies, no-- [Matt] Authenticates. [Aaron] It authenticates. [Matt] Yeah. [Aaron] What's sad and still is very powerful to realize is when we're not it doesn't make God the liar. It makes us the liar. [Matt] It reminds me or brings to mind that phrase. Having a form of godliness, but denying the power. 'Cause you look at it from a galloping horse at 100 yards, and it looks like Christianity. It looks like something that's related to God and related to the Bible. But then you get close and you see, well, no, actually. It's not real; it's not true, and that's when we see the disintegration in the next generation when the kids are like, I don't want any part of that. Again, you just can't hide that. And especially, you mentioned, Lisa, you said, yeah, you can't hide it, your kids will absolutely tell the story and we know of a family. The snapshot looks amazing, and nobody would know this, but their kids told us recently, oh yeah, our parents yell all the time. And you'd never know it, but the kids know it. And the kids are now talking; they're all older now. And now they're saying, oh, no, no, no, no. Parents yell all the time. So that's why it's gotta be true there because if you're out witnessing, if you're that parents, and it could be yelling or bickering or fighting or cheating on your taxes or any number of things, but if you're that parent, and in the gas stations, you're telling a guy, oh, hey, the Lord Jesus Christ died for you, and God loves you, and he wants you to have a relationship. The kid is sitting there going, "Are you kidding me?" it's so important that for the things that we say to be true about how we live. It's called not being a hypocrite, and your kids can figure it out at a very early age. [Aaron] All of this was so good. I'm encouraged; it makes me think about my marriage even though we're constantly working on it, I just think, man, I wanna-- Makes me think [Jennifer] Of the kids. [Aaron] Yeah, I wanna pursue you more. I want to constantly be doing that for the sake of our outward ministry and for the sake of our home, so thank you for these stories, the openness with us. We're gonna ask you our question that we're asking everyone. What is your definition of a marriage after God? [Lisa] I think that it's that ever growing a deeper love for each other. And it doesn't have to be perfect. I think sometimes we just go, well, it's perfect, so we throw our hands, or it's not perfect, so we throw our hands up. Instead of thinking, no, I'm gonna move forward in this. And I'm gonna grow in these areas. I can even think of things I have struggled with. Believe it or not, I do have a temper. And Matt has the ability, somehow, to press that button better than anybody else I know. [Matt] Well, I mean, just on a boring Saturday. I mean if there's nothing else to do. [Lisa] Press my buttons. So I'll find myself reacting to him, and I will stop myself literally mid-sentence and go, wait, it's like, yep, like okay. [Aaron] That's a good-- [Lisa] What I wanted say was. I didn't quite the first two seconds or minutes, however the situation was, wasn't right. But checking myself and going, okay, but that's not who I wanna be. That's how I was, but that's not who I wanna be anymore, so I wanna try again. And giving each other that grace to grow, but being determined to change and not say, this is not who I wanna be; I do want us to be loving close. [Matt] And for me, I think I would boil it down. I mean, that's a huge subject, right? And there's so many facets to it. But I would boil it down to this. The fundamental understanding that my marriage is what God is doing in the world. It's not what I'm doing in the world. It's not the thing that I have; I have a marriage. My marriage is what God is doing in the world. The Bible says what God has put together let no man put asunder. This is something God is doing, and so if you have that basic, fundamental faith about this relationship, it's a foundation and a starting point for moving forward. [Jennifer] Thank you guys so much for joining us today. This has just been, like Aaron said, incredible and inspiring. If people were inspired today and they want to follow you more, can you just remind them where they can find you? [Lisa] We have a podcast, Faithful Life. And we'd love to have you join us over there. And we also, both of us have a website. Matt has faithfulman.com, and I have club31women.com. [Matt] And then you're also on Instagram, club31women and faithfulman, on Instagram, so you can find us there as well. [Aaron] Everyone listening, definitely go follow them, they are golden. [Jennifer] If you like Marriage after God, and you like what we share, you're definitely gonna like them. [Aaron] We actually just steal all of our content from them and repurpose them. They have been integral in the growth and maturity in our life. And so, we appreciate you guys. [Jennifer] Thank you. [Aaron] And we thank you for not only sharing with our audience now, but for sharing with us over the last five years. [Lisa And Matt] We love you guys. [Aaron] That we've known you guys. So, we're gonna close out with a prayer. Jennifer's gonna pray and then, yeah. [Jennifer] Dear Lord, thank you for creating marriage with such a significant purpose of revealing to the world your divine love. Please help us to make choices that reflect your love in the way we love one another. May we choose to walk in obedience. Thank you for your word which instructs us and shows us how we should walk in obedience. Please continue to give us wisdom and strength as we choose to walk in the spirit and not our flesh. We pray we would make our marriage a priority. We pray we would gain deeper understanding of how our marriage is our first ministry, and the impact we have in each other's lives and in this world just by remaining faithful to your word. If our priorities are ever out of order, or if we are not unified, please help us to change our course. Constantly direct our hearts to align with yours. May our marriage always be in a place where you can use us as a symbol to point other to you, and may you be glorified. In Jesus' name, amen. [Aaron] Amen. [Matt] Amen. [Aaron] So, thank you all for listening today. I hope this blessed you guys. And as always, we want you guys to have a conversation about this. Go on a date, and discuss the things that we talked about today. We have, what is it, 11 more episodes in this series. 11 more interviews to come. They're gonna be awesome; please stay tuned. We look forward to having you next week. Did you enjoy today's show? If you did, it would mean the world to us if you could leave a review on iTunes. Also, if you're interested, you can find many more encouraging stories and resources at marriageafterGod.com, and let us help you cultivate an extraordinary marriage.

Panel: Charles Max Wood (DevChat T.V.) Special Guests: Aaron Gustafson In this episode, the Chuck talks with Aaron Gustafson who is a web-standards and accessibility advocate working at Microsoft. Aaron and Chuck talk about PWAs and the ins and outs of these progressive web apps. Check out today’s episode to hear more! Show Topics: 0:36 – Chuck: Our guest is Aaron, say HI! 0:41 – Aaron: Hi! I have been working on the web for 20 plus years. I am working on the Edge team for accessibility among other things. I have done every job that you can do on the web. 1:08 – Chuck: That is one of OUR publications? 1:14 – Aaron: No the communities. I joined the staff as editor in chief for 1.5 year now. It’s a nice side project to do. 1:36 – Chuck: I thought it was a commercial thing. 1:40 – Aaron: No it’s volunteer. 1:52 – Chuck: Talk about your web background? 2:02 – Aaron: I remember the first book I got (title mentioned). My first job on the web (cash) I was the content manager in Florida and this was in 1999. Gel Macs just came out. I relocated from FL to CT and worked for other companies. I got into CSS among other things. It’s been a wild ride and done it all. 3:52 – Chuck: Let’s talk about web standards? 4:05 – Aaron: It depends on the organization and what the spec is and where it originates. It’s interesting to see how HTML developed back in the day. When standardization started working then everything started to converge. Everything is a little different now. Some specs come out from companies that... (Apple, Responsive Images, and Grid are mentioned among other things.) 7:37 – Chuck: We set up to talk about PWAs. Where did PWAs come from? 7:57 – Aaron: Modern web design, best web applications. Being secure. One of the underpinnings came out from Google and they have been supporters of that. Firefox is working on installation as well. The Chrome implementation is weird right now, but it becomes an orphaned app. It’s like the old chrome apps where in Windows you can install from the Microsoft store. But the case of Chrome you don’t have to go through the store. 10:14 – Chuck asks a question. 10:24 – Aaron answers. 11:53 – Chuck: What makes it a progressive web app rather than a regular website? 12:05 – Aaron: The definition is running on HTPS and... Aaron defines the terms that Chuck asks at 11:53. 12:43 – Aaron: Of course you can push forward if it makes sense from the baseline. 12:56 – Chuck: We have an Angular podcast, and we talked about PWAs and nobody had a good definition for it. 13:18 – Aaron. 13:22 – Chuck: What are the pros of having a PWA? Let’s start with the basics first. 13:33 – Aaron: The ability to control how you react to the network. We development is challenging maybe in other areas because of the lack of control and how your code gets to your users. Any special needs that YOU might have. Aaron goes into detail on this topic. 17:14 – Chuck: Is the service worker the star for PWAs? 17:20 – Aaron: In a way, kind of. Aaron goes into detail on this topic. Share 2 is mentioned, too. 19:42 – Chuck: If the service worker intermediates between the browser and the page / Internet would it make sense to have your worker have it load and then load everything else? Cause you have those Web Pack now. 20:14 – Aaron: Some people would consider it but I wouldn’t necessarily. I am not a fan for that. If anything goes wrong then nothing loads. I remember back when... 22:23 – Aaron: That is a lot of overhead. 22:34 – Chuck: I am wondering what is the best practice? How do you decide to pull in a service worker and then move into more complicated issues? 22:53 – Aaron: Progressive Web App where they talk about their evolution about this. 25:17 – Advertisement – Fresh Books! Code: DEVCHAT. 26:25 – Chuck: In order to be a PWA you don’t need to have a push notification. 26:38 – Aaron: I don’t think anyone would want a push notification from me. 27:12 – Chuck: What features do PWAs have? 27:18 – Aaron: Features? None of them really, other than push notifications, it’s just standard it’s going to make an App feel more App “y”. If that’s something you want to do. It’s up to you to determine that. There is going to be like push notifications – sending person new updates about the order. If you were a new site you want to make sure you are not doing a push notifications on everything cause that would be too much. Exercising care with the capabilities with what the users are doing on your computer. This is a person that you are dealing with. We need to seem less needy. Give users control of how they want to use it. For example, Twitter will give you that control per user. 30:56 – Chuck: Could you also do it for different parts of the page? 31:01 – Aaron: It’s different scopes. Your servicer worker has different scopes and it needs to be in the root folder or the JavaScript folder. You can have different workers but they will come from different scopes. 31:32 – Chuck gives a hypothetical example. 31:50 – You can do a bunch of different service workers. 32:11 – Chuck: This is why we create different hierarchies in our code. 32:26 – Chuck: Is there a good point where people can be more informed with PWAs? 32:40 – Aaron: PWA stats website and Twitter account with Cloud 4. 33:22 – Chuck asks a question. 33:26 – Aaron: Yes. If you are a photographer you don’t want to cash all of your photos on someone’s hard drive. We have to be good stewards of what is operating on people’s hard drives. Even something as simple as a blog can benefit from being a PWA. 35:01 – Chuck: Are there new things that are being added to a PWA? 35:12 – Aaron: A new feature is the background sync. Aaron: What is native and what is web? 36:33 – Chuck: Yeah it can detect a feature in your machine. Dark mode is... 36:48 – Aaron: It would be nice to see things standardized across the board. 37:00 – Chuck: How does this play into Electron or Android or...? Do those need to be PWAs? 37:16 – Aaron: It depends on what you are building. So I talked with people through Slack and they want total control. If you r desire is to shift the same experience then Electron can make a lot of sense. They will have to pay a premium, though, your users. If you are aware of that then go the Electron route. But for most cases then Electron might be overkill for you. You don’t need that extra overhead. 39:55 – Aaron continues. Aaron: I think the major benefit of PWA is... 41:15 – Chuck: The other angle to that is that in an Electron app does it make sense to use a PWA things? 41:23 – Aaron: Yes that makes sense. 41:34 – Unless for some reason you need to unlock into an older version, which I hope is not the case b/c of security reasons. 41:55 – Aaron continues. 42:34 – Chuck: Where can we find you? 42:35 – Aaron mentions Twitter and other sites. See Links! 43:02 – Advertisement – Get A Coder Job! Links: Ruby on Rails Angular PWA States Website PWA Twitter Electron Aaron’s Website Aaron’s LinkedIn Aaron’s Twitter Aaron’s GitHub Aaron’s YouTube Channel Aaron’s Medium Get A Coder Job Charles Max Wood’s Twitter Sponsors: Get a Coder Job Cache Fly Fresh Books Kendo UI   Picks: Aaron Home Going by Yaa Gyasi Zeitoun What is the What Affect Conf. Charles Armada

Panel: Charles Max Wood (DevChat T.V.) Special Guests: Aaron Gustafson In this episode, the Chuck talks with Aaron Gustafson who is a web-standards and accessibility advocate working at Microsoft. Aaron and Chuck talk about PWAs and the ins and outs of these progressive web apps. Check out today’s episode to hear more! Show Topics: 0:36 – Chuck: Our guest is Aaron, say HI! 0:41 – Aaron: Hi! I have been working on the web for 20 plus years. I am working on the Edge team for accessibility among other things. I have done every job that you can do on the web. 1:08 – Chuck: That is one of OUR publications? 1:14 – Aaron: No the communities. I joined the staff as editor in chief for 1.5 year now. It’s a nice side project to do. 1:36 – Chuck: I thought it was a commercial thing. 1:40 – Aaron: No it’s volunteer. 1:52 – Chuck: Talk about your web background? 2:02 – Aaron: I remember the first book I got (title mentioned). My first job on the web (cash) I was the content manager in Florida and this was in 1999. Gel Macs just came out. I relocated from FL to CT and worked for other companies. I got into CSS among other things. It’s been a wild ride and done it all. 3:52 – Chuck: Let’s talk about web standards? 4:05 – Aaron: It depends on the organization and what the spec is and where it originates. It’s interesting to see how HTML developed back in the day. When standardization started working then everything started to converge. Everything is a little different now. Some specs come out from companies that... (Apple, Responsive Images, and Grid are mentioned among other things.) 7:37 – Chuck: We set up to talk about PWAs. Where did PWAs come from? 7:57 – Aaron: Modern web design, best web applications. Being secure. One of the underpinnings came out from Google and they have been supporters of that. Firefox is working on installation as well. The Chrome implementation is weird right now, but it becomes an orphaned app. It’s like the old chrome apps where in Windows you can install from the Microsoft store. But the case of Chrome you don’t have to go through the store. 10:14 – Chuck asks a question. 10:24 – Aaron answers. 11:53 – Chuck: What makes it a progressive web app rather than a regular website? 12:05 – Aaron: The definition is running on HTPS and... Aaron defines the terms that Chuck asks at 11:53. 12:43 – Aaron: Of course you can push forward if it makes sense from the baseline. 12:56 – Chuck: We have an Angular podcast, and we talked about PWAs and nobody had a good definition for it. 13:18 – Aaron. 13:22 – Chuck: What are the pros of having a PWA? Let’s start with the basics first. 13:33 – Aaron: The ability to control how you react to the network. We development is challenging maybe in other areas because of the lack of control and how your code gets to your users. Any special needs that YOU might have. Aaron goes into detail on this topic. 17:14 – Chuck: Is the service worker the star for PWAs? 17:20 – Aaron: In a way, kind of. Aaron goes into detail on this topic. Share 2 is mentioned, too. 19:42 – Chuck: If the service worker intermediates between the browser and the page / Internet would it make sense to have your worker have it load and then load everything else? Cause you have those Web Pack now. 20:14 – Aaron: Some people would consider it but I wouldn’t necessarily. I am not a fan for that. If anything goes wrong then nothing loads. I remember back when... 22:23 – Aaron: That is a lot of overhead. 22:34 – Chuck: I am wondering what is the best practice? How do you decide to pull in a service worker and then move into more complicated issues? 22:53 – Aaron: Progressive Web App where they talk about their evolution about this. 25:17 – Advertisement – Fresh Books! Code: DEVCHAT. 26:25 – Chuck: In order to be a PWA you don’t need to have a push notification. 26:38 – Aaron: I don’t think anyone would want a push notification from me. 27:12 – Chuck: What features do PWAs have? 27:18 – Aaron: Features? None of them really, other than push notifications, it’s just standard it’s going to make an App feel more App “y”. If that’s something you want to do. It’s up to you to determine that. There is going to be like push notifications – sending person new updates about the order. If you were a new site you want to make sure you are not doing a push notifications on everything cause that would be too much. Exercising care with the capabilities with what the users are doing on your computer. This is a person that you are dealing with. We need to seem less needy. Give users control of how they want to use it. For example, Twitter will give you that control per user. 30:56 – Chuck: Could you also do it for different parts of the page? 31:01 – Aaron: It’s different scopes. Your servicer worker has different scopes and it needs to be in the root folder or the JavaScript folder. You can have different workers but they will come from different scopes. 31:32 – Chuck gives a hypothetical example. 31:50 – You can do a bunch of different service workers. 32:11 – Chuck: This is why we create different hierarchies in our code. 32:26 – Chuck: Is there a good point where people can be more informed with PWAs? 32:40 – Aaron: PWA stats website and Twitter account with Cloud 4. 33:22 – Chuck asks a question. 33:26 – Aaron: Yes. If you are a photographer you don’t want to cash all of your photos on someone’s hard drive. We have to be good stewards of what is operating on people’s hard drives. Even something as simple as a blog can benefit from being a PWA. 35:01 – Chuck: Are there new things that are being added to a PWA? 35:12 – Aaron: A new feature is the background sync. Aaron: What is native and what is web? 36:33 – Chuck: Yeah it can detect a feature in your machine. Dark mode is... 36:48 – Aaron: It would be nice to see things standardized across the board. 37:00 – Chuck: How does this play into Electron or Android or...? Do those need to be PWAs? 37:16 – Aaron: It depends on what you are building. So I talked with people through Slack and they want total control. If you r desire is to shift the same experience then Electron can make a lot of sense. They will have to pay a premium, though, your users. If you are aware of that then go the Electron route. But for most cases then Electron might be overkill for you. You don’t need that extra overhead. 39:55 – Aaron continues. Aaron: I think the major benefit of PWA is... 41:15 – Chuck: The other angle to that is that in an Electron app does it make sense to use a PWA things? 41:23 – Aaron: Yes that makes sense. 41:34 – Unless for some reason you need to unlock into an older version, which I hope is not the case b/c of security reasons. 41:55 – Aaron continues. 42:34 – Chuck: Where can we find you? 42:35 – Aaron mentions Twitter and other sites. See Links! 43:02 – Advertisement – Get A Coder Job! Links: Ruby on Rails Angular PWA States Website PWA Twitter Electron Aaron’s Website Aaron’s LinkedIn Aaron’s Twitter Aaron’s GitHub Aaron’s YouTube Channel Aaron’s Medium Get A Coder Job Charles Max Wood’s Twitter Sponsors: Get a Coder Job Cache Fly Fresh Books Kendo UI   Picks: Aaron Home Going by Yaa Gyasi Zeitoun What is the What Affect Conf. Charles Armada

Panel: Charles Max Wood (DevChat T.V.) Special Guests: Aaron Gustafson In this episode, the Chuck talks with Aaron Gustafson who is a web-standards and accessibility advocate working at Microsoft. Aaron and Chuck talk about PWAs and the ins and outs of these progressive web apps. Check out today’s episode to hear more! Show Topics: 0:36 – Chuck: Our guest is Aaron, say HI! 0:41 – Aaron: Hi! I have been working on the web for 20 plus years. I am working on the Edge team for accessibility among other things. I have done every job that you can do on the web. 1:08 – Chuck: That is one of OUR publications? 1:14 – Aaron: No the communities. I joined the staff as editor in chief for 1.5 year now. It’s a nice side project to do. 1:36 – Chuck: I thought it was a commercial thing. 1:40 – Aaron: No it’s volunteer. 1:52 – Chuck: Talk about your web background? 2:02 – Aaron: I remember the first book I got (title mentioned). My first job on the web (cash) I was the content manager in Florida and this was in 1999. Gel Macs just came out. I relocated from FL to CT and worked for other companies. I got into CSS among other things. It’s been a wild ride and done it all. 3:52 – Chuck: Let’s talk about web standards? 4:05 – Aaron: It depends on the organization and what the spec is and where it originates. It’s interesting to see how HTML developed back in the day. When standardization started working then everything started to converge. Everything is a little different now. Some specs come out from companies that... (Apple, Responsive Images, and Grid are mentioned among other things.) 7:37 – Chuck: We set up to talk about PWAs. Where did PWAs come from? 7:57 – Aaron: Modern web design, best web applications. Being secure. One of the underpinnings came out from Google and they have been supporters of that. Firefox is working on installation as well. The Chrome implementation is weird right now, but it becomes an orphaned app. It’s like the old chrome apps where in Windows you can install from the Microsoft store. But the case of Chrome you don’t have to go through the store. 10:14 – Chuck asks a question. 10:24 – Aaron answers. 11:53 – Chuck: What makes it a progressive web app rather than a regular website? 12:05 – Aaron: The definition is running on HTPS and... Aaron defines the terms that Chuck asks at 11:53. 12:43 – Aaron: Of course you can push forward if it makes sense from the baseline. 12:56 – Chuck: We have an Angular podcast, and we talked about PWAs and nobody had a good definition for it. 13:18 – Aaron. 13:22 – Chuck: What are the pros of having a PWA? Let’s start with the basics first. 13:33 – Aaron: The ability to control how you react to the network. We development is challenging maybe in other areas because of the lack of control and how your code gets to your users. Any special needs that YOU might have. Aaron goes into detail on this topic. 17:14 – Chuck: Is the service worker the star for PWAs? 17:20 – Aaron: In a way, kind of. Aaron goes into detail on this topic. Share 2 is mentioned, too. 19:42 – Chuck: If the service worker intermediates between the browser and the page / Internet would it make sense to have your worker have it load and then load everything else? Cause you have those Web Pack now. 20:14 – Aaron: Some people would consider it but I wouldn’t necessarily. I am not a fan for that. If anything goes wrong then nothing loads. I remember back when... 22:23 – Aaron: That is a lot of overhead. 22:34 – Chuck: I am wondering what is the best practice? How do you decide to pull in a service worker and then move into more complicated issues? 22:53 – Aaron: Progressive Web App where they talk about their evolution about this. 25:17 – Advertisement – Fresh Books! Code: DEVCHAT. 26:25 – Chuck: In order to be a PWA you don’t need to have a push notification. 26:38 – Aaron: I don’t think anyone would want a push notification from me. 27:12 – Chuck: What features do PWAs have? 27:18 – Aaron: Features? None of them really, other than push notifications, it’s just standard it’s going to make an App feel more App “y”. If that’s something you want to do. It’s up to you to determine that. There is going to be like push notifications – sending person new updates about the order. If you were a new site you want to make sure you are not doing a push notifications on everything cause that would be too much. Exercising care with the capabilities with what the users are doing on your computer. This is a person that you are dealing with. We need to seem less needy. Give users control of how they want to use it. For example, Twitter will give you that control per user. 30:56 – Chuck: Could you also do it for different parts of the page? 31:01 – Aaron: It’s different scopes. Your servicer worker has different scopes and it needs to be in the root folder or the JavaScript folder. You can have different workers but they will come from different scopes. 31:32 – Chuck gives a hypothetical example. 31:50 – You can do a bunch of different service workers. 32:11 – Chuck: This is why we create different hierarchies in our code. 32:26 – Chuck: Is there a good point where people can be more informed with PWAs? 32:40 – Aaron: PWA stats website and Twitter account with Cloud 4. 33:22 – Chuck asks a question. 33:26 – Aaron: Yes. If you are a photographer you don’t want to cash all of your photos on someone’s hard drive. We have to be good stewards of what is operating on people’s hard drives. Even something as simple as a blog can benefit from being a PWA. 35:01 – Chuck: Are there new things that are being added to a PWA? 35:12 – Aaron: A new feature is the background sync. Aaron: What is native and what is web? 36:33 – Chuck: Yeah it can detect a feature in your machine. Dark mode is... 36:48 – Aaron: It would be nice to see things standardized across the board. 37:00 – Chuck: How does this play into Electron or Android or...? Do those need to be PWAs? 37:16 – Aaron: It depends on what you are building. So I talked with people through Slack and they want total control. If you r desire is to shift the same experience then Electron can make a lot of sense. They will have to pay a premium, though, your users. If you are aware of that then go the Electron route. But for most cases then Electron might be overkill for you. You don’t need that extra overhead. 39:55 – Aaron continues. Aaron: I think the major benefit of PWA is... 41:15 – Chuck: The other angle to that is that in an Electron app does it make sense to use a PWA things? 41:23 – Aaron: Yes that makes sense. 41:34 – Unless for some reason you need to unlock into an older version, which I hope is not the case b/c of security reasons. 41:55 – Aaron continues. 42:34 – Chuck: Where can we find you? 42:35 – Aaron mentions Twitter and other sites. See Links! 43:02 – Advertisement – Get A Coder Job! Links: Ruby on Rails Angular PWA States Website PWA Twitter Electron Aaron’s Website Aaron’s LinkedIn Aaron’s Twitter Aaron’s GitHub Aaron’s YouTube Channel Aaron’s Medium Get A Coder Job Charles Max Wood’s Twitter Sponsors: Get a Coder Job Cache Fly Fresh Books Kendo UI   Picks: Aaron Home Going by Yaa Gyasi Zeitoun What is the What Affect Conf. Charles Armada

Panel: Charles Max Wood (DevChat T.V.) Special Guests: Aaron Gustafson In this episode, the Chuck talks with Aaron Gustafson who is a web standards and accessibility advocate working at Microsoft. Aaron and Chuck talk about PWAs and the ins and outs of these progressive web apps. Check out today’s episode to hear more! Show Topics: 0:36 – Chuck: Our guest is Aaron, say HI! 0:41 – Aaron: Hi! I have been working on the web for 20 plus years. I am working on the Edge team for accessibility among other things. I have done every job that you can do on the web. 1:08 – Chuck: That is one of OUR publications? 1:14 – Aaron: No the communities. I joined the staff as editor in chief for 1.5 year now. It’s a nice side project to do. 1:36 – Chuck: I thought it was a commercial thing. 1:40 – Aaron: No it’s volunteer. 1:52 – Chuck: Talk about your web background? 2:02 – Aaron: I remember the first book I got (title mentioned). My first job on the web (cash) I was the content manager in Florida and this was in 1999. Gel Macs just came out. I relocated from FL to CT and worked for other companies. I got into CSS among other things. It’s been a wild ride and done it all. 3:52 – Chuck: Let’s talk about web standards? 4:05 – Aaron: It depends on the organization and what the spec is and where it originates. It’s interesting to see how HTML developed back in the day. When standardization started working then everything started to converge. Everything is a little different now. Some specs come out from companies that... (Apple, Responsive Images, and Grid are mentioned among other things.) 7:37 – Chuck: We set up to talk about PWAs. Where did PWAs come from? 7:57 – Aaron: Modern web design, best web applications. Being secure. One of the underpinnings came out from Google and they have been supporters of that. Firefox is working on installation as well. The Chrome implementation is weird right now, but it becomes an orphaned app. It’s like the old chrome apps where in Windows you can install from the Microsoft store. But the case of Chrome you don’t have to go through the store. 10:14 – Chuck asks a question. 10:24 – Aaron answers. 11:53 – Chuck: What makes it a progressive web app rather than a regular website? 12:05 – Aaron: The definition is running on HTPS and... Aaron defines the terms that Chuck asks at 11:53. 12:43 – Aaron: Of course you can push forward if it makes sense from the baseline. 12:56 – Chuck: We have an Angular podcast, and we talked about PWAs and nobody had a good definition for it. 13:18 – Aaron. 13:22 – Chuck: What are the pros of having a PWA? Let’s start with the basics first. 13:33 – Aaron: The ability to control how you react to the network. We development is challenging maybe in other areas because of the lack of control and how your code gets to your users. Any special needs that YOU might have. Aaron goes into detail on this topic. 17:14 – Chuck: Is the service worker the star for PWAs? 17:20 – Aaron: In a way, kind of. Aaron goes into detail on this topic. Share 2 is mentioned, too. 19:42 – Chuck: If the service worker intermediates between the browser and the page / Internet would it make sense to have your worker have it load and then load everything else? Cause you have those Web Pack now. 20:14 – Aaron: Some people would consider it but I wouldn’t necessarily. I am not a fan for that. If anything goes wrong then nothing loads. I remember back when... 22:23 – Aaron: That is a lot of overhead. 22:34 – Chuck: I am wondering what is the best practice? How do you decide to pull in a service worker and then move into more complicated issues? 22:53 – Aaron: Progressive Web App where they talk about their evolution about this. 25:17 – Advertisement – Fresh Books! Code: DEVCHAT. 26:25 – Chuck: In order to be a PWA you don’t need to have a push notification. 26:38 – Aaron: I don’t think anyone would want a push notification from me. 27:12 – Chuck: What features do PWAs have? 27:18 – Aaron: Features? None of them really, other than push notifications, it’s just standard it’s going to make an App feel more App “y”. If that’s something you want to do. It’s up to you to determine that. There is going to be like push notifications – sending person new updates about the order. If you were a new site you want to make sure you are not doing a push notifications on everything cause that would be too much. Exercising care with the capabilities with what the users are doing on your computer. This is a person that you are dealing with. We need to seem less needy. Give users control of how they want to use it. For example, Twitter will give you that control per user. 30:56 – Chuck: Could you also do it for different parts of the page? 31:01 – Aaron: It’s different scopes. Your servicer worker has different scopes and it needs to be in the root folder or the JavaScript folder. You can have different workers but they will come from different scopes. 31:32 – Chuck gives a hypothetical example. 31:50 – You can do a bunch of different service workers. 32:11 – Chuck: This is why we create different hierarchies in our code. 32:26 – Chuck: Is there a good point where people can be more informed with PWAs? 32:40 – Aaron: PWA stats website and Twitter account with Cloud 4. 33:22 – Chuck asks a question. 33:26 – Aaron: Yes. If you are a photographer you don’t want to cash all of your photos on someone’s hard drive. We have to be good stewards of what is operating on people’s hard drives. Even something as simple as a blog can benefit from being a PWA. 35:01 – Chuck: Are there new things that are being added to a PWA? 35:12 – Aaron: A new feature is the background sync. Aaron: What is native and what is web? 36:33 – Chuck: Yeah it can detect a feature in your machine. Dark mode is... 36:48 – Aaron: It would be nice to see things standardized across the board. 37:00 – Chuck: How does this play into Electron or Android or...? Do those need to be PWAs? 37:16 – Aaron: It depends on what you are building. So I talked with people through Slack and they want total control. If you r desire is to shift the same experience then Electron can make a lot of sense. They will have to pay a premium, though, your users. If you are aware of that then go the Electron route. But for most cases then Electron might be overkill for you. You don’t need that extra overhead. 39:55 – Aaron continues. Aaron: I think the major benefit of PWA is... 41:15 – Chuck: The other angle to that is that in an Electron app does it make sense to use a PWA things? 41:23 – Aaron: Yes that makes sense. 41:34 – Unless for some reason you need to unlock into an older version, which I hope is not the case b/c of security reasons. 41:55 – Aaron continues. 42:34 – Chuck: Where can we find you? 42:35 – Aaron mentions Twitter and other sites. See Links! 43:02 – Advertisement – Get A Coder Job! Links: Ruby on Rails Angular PWA States Website PWA Twitter Electron Aaron’s Website Aaron’s LinkedIn Aaron’s Twitter Aaron’s GitHub Aaron’s YouTube Channel Aaron’s Medium Get A Coder Job Charles Max Wood’s Twitter Sponsors: Get a Coder Job Cache Fly Fresh Books Kendo UI Picks: Aaron Home Going by Yaa Gyasi Zeitoun What is the What Affect Conf. Charles Armada

Panel: Charles Max Wood (DevChat T.V.) Special Guests: Aaron Gustafson In this episode, the Chuck talks with Aaron Gustafson who is a web standards and accessibility advocate working at Microsoft. Aaron and Chuck talk about PWAs and the ins and outs of these progressive web apps. Check out today’s episode to hear more! Show Topics: 0:36 – Chuck: Our guest is Aaron, say HI! 0:41 – Aaron: Hi! I have been working on the web for 20 plus years. I am working on the Edge team for accessibility among other things. I have done every job that you can do on the web. 1:08 – Chuck: That is one of OUR publications? 1:14 – Aaron: No the communities. I joined the staff as editor in chief for 1.5 year now. It’s a nice side project to do. 1:36 – Chuck: I thought it was a commercial thing. 1:40 – Aaron: No it’s volunteer. 1:52 – Chuck: Talk about your web background? 2:02 – Aaron: I remember the first book I got (title mentioned). My first job on the web (cash) I was the content manager in Florida and this was in 1999. Gel Macs just came out. I relocated from FL to CT and worked for other companies. I got into CSS among other things. It’s been a wild ride and done it all. 3:52 – Chuck: Let’s talk about web standards? 4:05 – Aaron: It depends on the organization and what the spec is and where it originates. It’s interesting to see how HTML developed back in the day. When standardization started working then everything started to converge. Everything is a little different now. Some specs come out from companies that... (Apple, Responsive Images, and Grid are mentioned among other things.) 7:37 – Chuck: We set up to talk about PWAs. Where did PWAs come from? 7:57 – Aaron: Modern web design, best web applications. Being secure. One of the underpinnings came out from Google and they have been supporters of that. Firefox is working on installation as well. The Chrome implementation is weird right now, but it becomes an orphaned app. It’s like the old chrome apps where in Windows you can install from the Microsoft store. But the case of Chrome you don’t have to go through the store. 10:14 – Chuck asks a question. 10:24 – Aaron answers. 11:53 – Chuck: What makes it a progressive web app rather than a regular website? 12:05 – Aaron: The definition is running on HTPS and... Aaron defines the terms that Chuck asks at 11:53. 12:43 – Aaron: Of course you can push forward if it makes sense from the baseline. 12:56 – Chuck: We have an Angular podcast, and we talked about PWAs and nobody had a good definition for it. 13:18 – Aaron. 13:22 – Chuck: What are the pros of having a PWA? Let’s start with the basics first. 13:33 – Aaron: The ability to control how you react to the network. We development is challenging maybe in other areas because of the lack of control and how your code gets to your users. Any special needs that YOU might have. Aaron goes into detail on this topic. 17:14 – Chuck: Is the service worker the star for PWAs? 17:20 – Aaron: In a way, kind of. Aaron goes into detail on this topic. Share 2 is mentioned, too. 19:42 – Chuck: If the service worker intermediates between the browser and the page / Internet would it make sense to have your worker have it load and then load everything else? Cause you have those Web Pack now. 20:14 – Aaron: Some people would consider it but I wouldn’t necessarily. I am not a fan for that. If anything goes wrong then nothing loads. I remember back when... 22:23 – Aaron: That is a lot of overhead. 22:34 – Chuck: I am wondering what is the best practice? How do you decide to pull in a service worker and then move into more complicated issues? 22:53 – Aaron: Progressive Web App where they talk about their evolution about this. 25:17 – Advertisement – Fresh Books! Code: DEVCHAT. 26:25 – Chuck: In order to be a PWA you don’t need to have a push notification. 26:38 – Aaron: I don’t think anyone would want a push notification from me. 27:12 – Chuck: What features do PWAs have? 27:18 – Aaron: Features? None of them really, other than push notifications, it’s just standard it’s going to make an App feel more App “y”. If that’s something you want to do. It’s up to you to determine that. There is going to be like push notifications – sending person new updates about the order. If you were a new site you want to make sure you are not doing a push notifications on everything cause that would be too much. Exercising care with the capabilities with what the users are doing on your computer. This is a person that you are dealing with. We need to seem less needy. Give users control of how they want to use it. For example, Twitter will give you that control per user. 30:56 – Chuck: Could you also do it for different parts of the page? 31:01 – Aaron: It’s different scopes. Your servicer worker has different scopes and it needs to be in the root folder or the JavaScript folder. You can have different workers but they will come from different scopes. 31:32 – Chuck gives a hypothetical example. 31:50 – You can do a bunch of different service workers. 32:11 – Chuck: This is why we create different hierarchies in our code. 32:26 – Chuck: Is there a good point where people can be more informed with PWAs? 32:40 – Aaron: PWA stats website and Twitter account with Cloud 4. 33:22 – Chuck asks a question. 33:26 – Aaron: Yes. If you are a photographer you don’t want to cash all of your photos on someone’s hard drive. We have to be good stewards of what is operating on people’s hard drives. Even something as simple as a blog can benefit from being a PWA. 35:01 – Chuck: Are there new things that are being added to a PWA? 35:12 – Aaron: A new feature is the background sync. Aaron: What is native and what is web? 36:33 – Chuck: Yeah it can detect a feature in your machine. Dark mode is... 36:48 – Aaron: It would be nice to see things standardized across the board. 37:00 – Chuck: How does this play into Electron or Android or...? Do those need to be PWAs? 37:16 – Aaron: It depends on what you are building. So I talked with people through Slack and they want total control. If you r desire is to shift the same experience then Electron can make a lot of sense. They will have to pay a premium, though, your users. If you are aware of that then go the Electron route. But for most cases then Electron might be overkill for you. You don’t need that extra overhead. 39:55 – Aaron continues. Aaron: I think the major benefit of PWA is... 41:15 – Chuck: The other angle to that is that in an Electron app does it make sense to use a PWA things? 41:23 – Aaron: Yes that makes sense. 41:34 – Unless for some reason you need to unlock into an older version, which I hope is not the case b/c of security reasons. 41:55 – Aaron continues. 42:34 – Chuck: Where can we find you? 42:35 – Aaron mentions Twitter and other sites. See Links! 43:02 – Advertisement – Get A Coder Job! Links: Ruby on Rails Angular PWA States Website PWA Twitter Electron Aaron’s Website Aaron’s LinkedIn Aaron’s Twitter Aaron’s GitHub Aaron’s YouTube Channel Aaron’s Medium Get A Coder Job Charles Max Wood’s Twitter Sponsors: Get a Coder Job Cache Fly Fresh Books Kendo UI Picks: Aaron Home Going by Yaa Gyasi Zeitoun What is the What Affect Conf. Charles Armada

Aaron Schmookler, Co-Founder and Trainer at The Yes Works, joins me, Jen Spencer to discuss collaboration, culture, the importance of building relationships and more on this episode of The Allbound Podcast. Jen: Welcome to The Allbound Podcast. I'm Jen Spencer, and today I'm joined by Aaron Schmookler, Co-Founder and Trainer at The Yes Works. Welcome, Aaron.   Aaron: Well, thank you, Jen. It's an honor to be here.   Jen: Well, I'm glad to have you. I've gotten to learn a little bit more about The Yes Works and I think that's a really good place to start. Would you mind just telling our listeners a little bit about The Yes Works?   Aaron: Sure, if I can take a page from Simon Sinek's book, I'll tell you why we exist. A little more than three years ago, my wife called me on the phone and she said, "I'm pregnant," and my relationship changed. And certainly, my relationship with her changed. But what I'm referring to is my relationship with the rest of the world changed and that actually changed a lot more profoundly. I started looking at everything in terms of, "How will this be for my daughter and how is that going to be for my daughter?" And one of the things that struck me the hardest is the work culture that we live in.   The TGIF bumper stickers and the "I Hate Monday" mugs and the fact that when you ask somebody how they're doing, a very common answer is, "I'll be better in an hour and a half when I get off work." It became immediately intolerable to me that we live in this culture where my daughter is more likely to find affinity with people when she enters the workforce by hating work, rather than in taking pride in the work that she does and the honor that it is to make a contribution.   So I set about to try to figure out, "What can I do to make a change in the entirety of work culture in our country, if not the world?" I took that tiny little ambition and started this company with a friend. Our mission is to make work good for people and to make people good for work. And more specifically, we do that by training teams to work effectively together, to communicate and collaborate like nobody's business.   Jen: Great, well, hold on. So you're saying that the rest of the world isn't as obsessed with work as I am? I mean, I absolutely love my job. I can't even imagine going into work every day and not being 100% in love with what I'm doing. So I'm glad that you're helping people get to that place because it's a great place to be.   Aaron: Yeah, it is. One of the things that I love about it is, clearly people like you and me gravitate together. So we can actually start to form the idea or the impression that everybody is like us. But in fact, the statistics say that the majority of people do not like work, hate their jobs, hate their bosses, want to quit. There are very scary statistics out there.   Jen: I'm sure. When I look at kind of how you represent yourself and your role at The Yes Works, you're a Co-Founder and Trainer. But you also refer to yourself as a Company Culture Engineer, a Team Building Improv Trainer, a Keynote Interactive Speaker. I got to ask, what exactly does a Team Building Improv Trainer do?   Aaron: Well, thanks for asking. We work with leaders to help them lighten up the interpersonal machinery in their companies. So we have a training model that's based on tools and techniques of theater improvisation. We use those tools and techniques to drill the teams that we're working with to help them build powerful communication and collaboration habits. It's not about information. I'm sure you have experiences like I do. I'm not too ashamed to admit that my wife and I occasionally raise our voices with one another. We don't do that because we know that it's a good idea, in fact, we do that despite the fact that we know that it's not a good idea.   But when we're under duress some of our worst habits come out. So we help teams to develop good habits so that even under duress, you're ready and able to do what's effective. Then we help sales teams to transform sales habitually from something you do to people to something you do in collaboration with buyers. And that also is a matter of having good interpersonal habits.   Jen: Absolutely. You mentioned something that definitely piqued my interest. You said the word “theater”, I don't know if you know this about me, but my career got started actually as a high school English and theater arts teacher. I was a theater kid growing up and played a lot of improv games over the years. So what I'd like to know is where do you see the role of an improviser's mindset when it comes to partnership and sales and co-selling together? I'd love to know more about that.   Aaron: Sure. Well I think Asher and Liz from the Avalara said it really well in an episode that they did with you on this podcast. I don't remember exactly what they said, but they said that they really pursue and work to generate deeper relationships with their partners. They do things socially with them. They work on the relationship, it's not just about the transactions. One of the core principles of improv is the idea that it's never about the thing, it's always about the relationship. So you and I for example, right now we're making a podcast. We're talking about partnership and we're talking about business.   At the same time, and more importantly, we're building a relationship. The things that I say on your podcast in the long run, for your business, and for mine, and for our relationship, are going to be more important in terms of how they help to construct or destroy the relationship that we have together. So if I start tearing apart things that are important to you, that's going to be destructive to our relationship, and if I affirm things that are important to you that's going to build our relationship.   Jen: Right. And I guess, from the improv perspective, there's only so much preparation that you can do, right? So let's talk more about theater. This is great. So if you're in a stage play there's a script and you follow that script. And you think about in sales there's a mentality of following a sales script, following something that's been pre-written for you to lead to success. In improv it's much more give and take, you have to be a good listener.   You have to really collaborate with that partner that you are on stage with, or in this case, that you're working with. So I love that. I'm actually kind of upset with myself that I didn't make that connection before now, but I appreciate you shedding a light on this.   Aaron: Well, let's take it even further. Certainly, I think there are a lot of people out there who know, "Okay, it's good to know what it is that I'm going to be talking about, it's good to have a script to fall back on." I think most sales people these days know that you can't just straight up follow your script.   Jen: Right.   Aaron: But they still may have an outline laid out for them, which I think is also a really great idea. But what do you do when the prospect in front of you doesn't want to follow those steps? Are you simply going to push? Are you going to ignore the fact that they keep trying to steer the conversation in a different direction? Are you going to hear them ask for something that is against policy and just simply say, "No" and the conversation is over at that point? Or do you have the flexibility of mind to do something different, to go in the directions that they want to go? A sales guy at BP asked me once, “What do you do when a prospect hijacks the conversation in a sales call?"   For me, the question itself is an oxymoron. I can't have the sales conversation hijacked. I'm there to serve the needs of my buyer or my prospect if I can in any way. Even if they start talking about the weather halfway through the conversation, they can't hijack the conversation. I instead would probably ask questions after that like, “We were talking about these problems that you're having with your business, tell me how the weather connects to that?" Rather than saying, “It's so cloudy, I really would like to see the sun too, but let's get back to the topic at hand, I only have 30 minutes."   If we go back to that principle that I was talking about earlier, remember it's never about the thing, it's always about the relationship. I've now done something to deteriorate the relationship. I have essentially rejected what in improvisation we call their offer. The offer that they made was, “I want to talk about the weather." Now, that doesn't mean that I'm going to talk about the weather. I'm not here to talk about the weather. I am going to validate that there is a relevant reason that the weather came up. The customer isn't always right, but the customer is always valid.   Jen: That's a good point. What you're talking about here I feel is very collaborative, and communication is collaborative. Actually, I have a quote from you about collaboration, it's just kind of something that stuck with me. You said, “When collaboration is defined by those who don't understand it everyone loses. Collaboration is an ad hoc or hodgepodge. True collaboration is systematic and effective, it creates that which no individual would have created on their own because there's more information among us than there is collected between us. And some problems are solved, some ideas are generated only when your peanut butter is mixed with my chocolate."   Maybe I really liked it because I was hungry, I don't know. But I love this picture that you've painted about what collaboration truly is. I would love to hear from you how have you seen this really put into practice when you talk about selling and working with channel partners? When there are people who are really selling on your behalf and they're not on your payroll, they're not within your four walls, they might be across the world from you, how do you effectively collaborate with them?   Aaron: Well, I think it starts with having an open mind. The greatest insights and the greatest innovations are not always revolutionary, there are more often smaller evolutions. For example, Airbnb, which created a revolution was itself a small evolution on things that were already out there. So it starts with having an open mind, our brains are an incredible association making machine. It really is associations that create innovation, and there's a reason that the words “partnership” and “association” are almost synonyms. The idea of making connections between different ideas, and the word for making connections between different people, both is association.   So when your mind is relaxed we make associations. Archimedes solved this incredible problem of determining the gold content of the crown in the famous story where he said, “Eureka.", not while he was agonizing over the problem, though he spent time doing that. But when he finally took a break from the problem and immersed himself in the tub and the water level rose he shouted, “Eureka," and the solution to the problem of measuring the gold and the crown was in displacement. So he made this association between the water level rising in his bathtub, and the water level rising if you were to immerse a crown in a measured beaker.   So what does this have to do with partners and channels? Well, it has to do in part with how to identify partners, how to identify potential channels, and what is going to be the nature of the partnership. So I think we have ideas about who would make a good partner for our company, we make ideas about how our product relates to other products, but those ideas are most often what our executive mind was able to come up with.   The executive part of the brain, the one that agonizes over problems, is not nearly as effective at making creative associations as a much looser network called the “default mode network”, which comes alive when we play and that executive mind is distracted, the editor is distracted. For example, if you're networking among people who serve the same people that you do and you've got only your executive mind on, you're going to miss incredible associations if your mind is narrowly focused.   Jen: Let's talk about that for a second because there was a piece that you wrote where you talked about how the best networking night of your life was when you were in a large room full of business people for two hours and you left without a single substantial lead and you said it was one of the best nights, right? A lot of sales people might say, “Well, that sounds horrible." So why was that experience one of the best networking nights of your life when you left without any leads? I mean, don't we go to networking events to get leads?   Aaron: Great, okay. If you go to networking events to get leads you're doing it wrong. It's not a lead getting event, there's a reason it's called the networking event, it is an event for building your network. If you think about any network, it's not that the hub, you or me, is connected to everyone in the network. It's that there is this living, breathing, series of connections. Like this is connected to that, connected to that, connected to that, connected to that, connected to that, or I am connected to you or connected to that other person, connected to that other person. LinkedIn is, in fact, a really good example of this, it shows you whether you're a 1st connection, 2nd connection, 3rd connection or further.   It was a great night of networking for me because I tightened the weave. I went out and made a lot of connections, I connected myself to other people...none of whom were leads but that doesn't mean that the connection is any less present. I also connected people that I was meeting with to people who were already in my network, so I expanded my network and also tightened the weave. The night in question that I wrote a blog article about hasn't yet led to any business that I can trace. There was a similar networking event that I went to about a month later that I could have just as easily written about. At this similar event, I made a ton of connections for someone in my network named Rhonda, who happened to also be at that event and we were walking our separate ways.   I kept meeting people whom I knew she should meet, and so I would grab them by the elbow, gently, and say, “You've got to meet my friend Rhonda, she's doing stuff that you're going to want to know about." And I would walk them across the room and find Rhonda, and I connected her probably to 10 different people that I met that evening. So none of that is likely to come back to me, none of those people are likely leads for me, but she wrote a Facebook post that mentioned me and talked about how many people I had connected her to and somebody else responded to that and said, “That's the kind of guy I want to meet” and so I met somebody else named Trisha.   Now, Trisha is like I am, an associative thinker and a connector. We met simply through me connecting Rhonda to a lot of people and Rhonda finding it remarkable. Rhonda remarked and Trisha then wanted to meet me. Trisha has now connected me to people who are definitely going to do business with me, in fact, I've already served some of the people in Trisha's network. That is the kind of thing that happens when you're out there. So I went to a couple of networking events, and I went and gave because that's what there was for me to do that day. I'm not saying that I never get leads when I'm actively networking, I also certainly have my eyes open for that but it's not my sole purpose.   Jen: One of the things you're talking about makes me think about the way that I treat my partners. We have a partner program here at Allbound and my goal is that I want to know as much as I can about my partners. I want to know where they shine, who they can help, what's going to make things better for them, so that I can help make those connections for them, and I have to say I am somewhat selfish because I know that that's going to ultimately come back to me in some way, shape or form, right? But the idea of being this networker I think is very much aligned with building a partner ecosystem where you have a number of individuals and entities that are working together and collaborating to help solve a customer's problem ultimately, and that's why we have the hashtag #NeverSellAlone. So I definitely see that connection.   The other thing that you're talking about is very cultural. You've talked a lot about this, “Got Your Back” culture, about the six different levels of commitment with this idea of “I've got your back”. I think it's really interesting, and I think it could be applied to determining the kind of relationships that partners have and the levels of practice that even align with partner tiers. I'd love if you could explain a little bit about what those levels of supportive behavior look like in this idea of the “Got Your Back” culture.   Aaron: I've talked about six levels of the got your back mentality, and that's really not even all there are, there are more, and I won't go through all six. I will point out something that you were just talking about, trying to support and understand how to help your partners thrive is a way of having their back. To tie it into networking...there are two ways of doing it wrong. One is to go out and be a go-giver, and just give and give and give. You also have your mind narrowed to, “How can I make everybody else's lives better?" And if you don't also have your mind open to, “And what's in this for me?" you're going to miss all those opportunities and you're going to fail that way as well.   So what I hear you saying that I really applaud is that you've got your mind open for how to generate value between you. Sometimes that value is generated in the form of creating for them and sometimes it's in the realm of creating for you, and sometimes it's in the realm of creating for both of you. So that's a pretty advanced, “got your back" level of play. In the article that I think you're talking about I started with level one of “got your back” which is, “I'm not going to throw you under the bus." I think that when we get in bed with the wrong partners and the people who are really in it for themselves, when there's a problem, when there's a customer complaint, if you're in bed with the wrong partner who only operates at this level of “I won't throw you under the bus," when there's duress, maybe they will throw you under the bus and say, “That's not our fault that's Jen's fault. Jen over there at Allbound created this problem that you're having."   Level one would be really even under duress, you're not going to throw them under the bus. Level two, gets up to, “If you're in distress I'm going to help you out." Now let's skip some levels. The really high level of play in, “got your back" that you were talking about is really knowing what are your strengths, what are your weaknesses as my partner, and as a part of my team. This isn't about transaction, this is about really aligning to support our customers.   I'm going to develop my skills, I'm going to develop the features of my product to complement yours, I'm going to find resources to eradicate the weaknesses between us and really serve our customers to the best of our ability. I'll look for ways to fill in the gaps, I may even look for ways to bring in third partners that are going to fill in the gaps that really are outside our areas of expertise. And I've always got my mind on that question of, “How do we build value between us?" Not just for me, not just for you, but how do we build value between us in ways that really support our mission?   Jen: I think it's a really powerful message. I think many of us have experienced managers, internally, that always have your back, that will always go to bat for you, and managers that will be the first to throw you under the bus, right? And that can be extremely crippling to an organization. If you think about that mentality extended exponentially to an entire partner organization that maybe has 10, 100, 1000, sales reps and all the damage that can be done by literally throwing that partner under the bus.   I know I've seen it, I've seen it in organizations I worked in. People pass the buck and want to blame the partner, whether it's the reseller blaming the vendor, or the vendor blaming the implementor, there's a lot of accountability that's being passed around. So I think that that's an extremely powerful behavior, and if you can harness it and you can focus it in the in the right place, you can get to that higher level like you were talking about. I think it's really exceptional to think about.   Aaron: When anybody throws somebody under the bus, everybody loses. If I throw you under the bus Jen, I get a momentary sense of winning because I've dodged a bullet, but what happens if you and I are partners is the first person who loses is actually the customer. Nobody is actually addressing the customer's problem, nobody is solving whatever it is that I threw you under the bus for. So the customer loses and you obviously lose because the customer now thinks ill of you. And in the end, I also lose because now you don't trust me, and if the customer has a brain in their head they also don't trust me because they just watched me throw you under the bus. Even if they didn't watch me throw you under the bus, they did notice that I didn't solve their problem.   I was listening to another podcast recently by a friend of mine, Jody Mayberry, who was talking about his experience at Disney. He went there with his kids and forgot to connect his day pass to his ticket or something like that. He had failed to follow directions, and that led to him having a problem getting into a certain attraction. And instead of pointing a finger at him and saying, “Okay, you did this, you're going to have to go fix it." or instead of sending him to customer service, the Disney employee that he first encountered took that problem on themselves and said, “Your problem is now my problem" and stuck with him for 10 minutes until the problem was resolved.   Compare that to the kind of customer service experience that we usually have. For example, if I were to call my CRM right now, it would drive me nuts if they did not have the proper customer service and passed me from one company to the next because some kind of software integration wasn't working properly.   We've all had experiences like that, even if it's just between departments within a single company. If the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing it's a customer service nightmare. On a rare occasion you might get somebody who says, “I'm going to stay on the phone with you, I'm going to be the shepherd of your problem. Even if I can't solve it I am going to stick with you until we find a solution." That's somebody having your back as a consumer, it's having the back of your own company by making sure consumers have a seamless experience, and it's having the back of the partners of that company so that everybody comes out smelling like roses.   Problems are inevitable. No client that any of us wants is going to expect a problem-free solution, all we want is somebody to say, “Your problem is my problem, we're going to get this solved."   Jen: Absolutely, I think you're 100% right there. Now, I have one more official question for you. A lot of people who listen to the show are building partner programs, maybe they've got small programs and they're really looking to expand and it's a strategic initiative for them within the next year. What advice would you give to leaders that are looking to grow their partner programs? I mean, we've kind of served them quite a bit of food for thought today, if they can walk away with one thing, what would you like the one thing to be?   Aaron: Well, I'll tell you a quick story, I know I can get a little long winded. I met a woman recently with a company called Big Smarty, and what they do is they take executive teams through an intensive process in a boardroom to revamp their mission, vision and values so that everything is aligned and passions are re-engaged and the company has fresh life breathed into it. I thought she'd be a fun person to meet, but while having a conversation with her we found together that there's this kind of incredible chemistry between her product and ours. If we were to go in before she begins with her work around the table, and do the kind of mind loosening stuff that we do, her work is going to be much more efficient and potentially even more powerful than it already is. Now, I didn't go into that conversation looking for a partner, I just went into that conversation looking for sparks because the person who introduced us said, “Hey, there are going to be sparks. I don't know what the connection is I just know I met you and I met her, there are going to be sparks here."   So to answer your question more explicitly, go expand and tighten the weave of your network, keep your mind open. There is a time for narrow focused deliberate purpose and there is a time for broad thinking and just allowing the loose connections in the default mode network of your mind to play and make connections that your intellectual mind, your editor, never would be able to make. It's actually hard work for me to shut off my critic, to shut off that editor, to shut off the executive mind, but there are always rewards when I do. So don't stop charging but do take breaks.   Jen: Great advice and I'll have to take that to heart. I think I'm very guilty of that editor mind so I'm going to be more conscious of that. Thank you, this has been so great. You listen to the podcast, so you know I'm going to ask you a bunch of personal questions. So I'm not going to ask you permission to do it, we're just going to get right into it, okay?   Aaron: Yeah.   Jen: So, first question I have for you is what is your favorite city?   Aaron: No question is easy for me until I actually have to go there, but I'm going to say Jerusalem.   Jen: Oh, I haven't heard that yet. Okay, so I have to ask, why?   Aaron: It is unlike any other city I have ever been in, it's got all of the modern constructions that that we're used to and it's also got this incredible antiquity. But the antiquity isn't a museum, the antiquity is still a living thriving part of the city. So, for example, there's a market in the Old City of Jerusalem that's hardly wide enough to walk down with people hawking their wares just as it would have been ages and ages ago.   Jen: Very cool. I haven't been there yet, but I hope it's someplace that I'll be able to travel to at least once in my life, that's a very interesting favorite city. My next question is are you an animal lover?   Aaron: Yes.   Jen: Do you have pets?   Aaron: Actually, I have a service dog. I'm grateful for the ways in which my life has been made easier and less painful through the service of an animal, and I've had pets my whole life so I love them all.   Jen: Wonderful. Okay, question number three, Mac or PC.   Aaron: For me, PC. I like to learn new things but my brain was trained on a PC and all my attention goes to learning new things in other areas. I'm not opposed to Macs, I've just chosen not to spend my time learning that language.   Jen: Makes perfect sense. All right, last question. Let's say I was able to offer you an all expenses paid trip, where would it be to?   Aaron: My wife has been talking since I met her about how we should go to Italy together and we haven't made that happen yet, so that would probably be it.   Jen: All right. Well, I have been Italy, I haven't been to Jerusalem but I've been to Italy and it is beautiful. I don't know if I'm ever going to have all of the funds to send all my podcast guests on all of their all expenses paid trips, so in the event that I can't do that for you, I do encourage you to take that trip. But thank you so much for sharing some of your insights with us Aaron, it was so great. A little bit of a departure from what we normally get into but I loved kind of being up in this very cerebral space with you, it was awesome.   If any of our listeners would like to reach out to you personally, what's the best way that they can get hold of you?   Aaron: There are a few ways, probably the most effective ways are LinkedIn or email. On LinkedIn I'm Aaron Schmookler, and that's S-C-H-M O-O-K-L-E-R, and I promise I'm the only one there. Or you can email me, my email is Aaron, A-A-R-O-N, aaron@theyesworks.com.   Jen: Wonderful. Well, thank you, everybody for tuning in. There were a lot of different blogs and articles I've referenced, so we'll be including those in the show notes so you'll have a quick link to access them. Thank you, again, Aaron, and to everyone else, we'll catch you next week on an all new episode of The Allbound Podcast.   Man: Thanks for tuning into The Allbound Podcast. For past episodes and additional resources visit the resource center at allbound.com. And remember, #NeverSellAlone.

Episode 19: Playworks Interview   Lindsay talks with student playwright Aaron Cargile who participated in the Arizona Thespians  Playworks program. His short play was one of three chosen to be developed over the course of the festival and put up as a staged reading. A great listen for any student playwrights out there! Show Notes Arizona Thespians Playworks Subscribe to The Theatrefolk Podcast On iTunes. On Stitcher. Episode Transcript Lindsay Price: Welcome to TFP, the Theatrefolk Podcast. I am Lindsay Price, resident playwright for Theatrefolk. Hello. I hope you're well. Thanks for listening. Today we're talking to a student playwright about his participation in the Playworks Program. But first, let's do some Theatrefolk news. This podcast is going up the last week of November, which means that December is right around the corner. December is one of our quietest months. It makes sense. Schools are winding down, fall productions are over. What usually happens in December is that Craig and I, we take a little break. We don't do a daily blog. Sometimes we go on vacation. It's really lovely to always know that December is going to quiet so we can make plans if we want. Now having said all that, and this is the reason that this is Theatrefolk News, is that, yes, usually things are quiet here at global headquarters, except when it comes to our podcast. That's right. TFP is rolling right along and there will be podcast episodes into December. We won't take a break until it's closer to Christmas. There are still three, I said three, upcoming podcasts in December. One of which is going to be a YouTube fireside chat on Les Miserables. Can't wait to that. Lastly, where, oh where, can you find this podcast? We post new episodes every Wednesday at theatrefolk.com and on our Facebook page and Twitter. You can find us on the stitcher app and you can also subscribe to TFP on iTunes. All you have to do is search on the word theatrefolk. Episode 19, Playworks Program. I was recently at the Arizona Thespian Festival where I participated in the Playworks Program as a director and a playwright mentor. Playworks is a fabulous, fabulous opportunity for student playwrights. Students, they submit a short play and then a couple are chosen. In Arizona, it was three. Those three plays get one-on-one feedback. They get some development with a professional playwright and then they get to see their play go up in a heightened staged reading. It's on its feet. We had a whole day to rehearse. It's not just a cold reading. It's a very, very warm reading with action. For my playwright, Aaron, this was going to be the first time he would have seen his play, this play, his first play, in front of an audience. So let's hear what Aaron has to say about participating in Playworks. Hello. I'm here at Arizona Thespians, and I'm here with... Aaron Cargile: Aaron Cargile. Lindsay: Aaron Cargile. Awesome, Aaron. You are a participant in the Playworks Program. Aaron: Yes, I am. Lindsay: Playworks is a pretty interesting program. Aaron: It's very interesting. Lindsay: What it is student playwrights from all over your state in Arizona can submit a... How long does the play have to be? Aaron: Six pages. Lindsay: Six-page play. They choose three to go up at festival. Basically it's you get feedback and then we gather on the Friday, had auditions, you got some more feedback, you did a pretty substantial re-write, you met with a director playwright mentor which happens to be me for your play, and then in just over an hour, the three plays are going up. Aaron: Yes, it's really exciting. It's very similar, from what I've seen, to a 48-hour film contest in the way it's just really rapid fire. Lindsay: It's very intense, isn't it? Aaron: It is very intense, and there's no room for stopping. Thankfully, my play is very straight forward, not a lot of... Lindsay: Let's talk about your play.