Podcasts about At Home

The Robertson family welcomes another new baby as John Luke and Christian celebrate becoming uncles again, and the guys remark on the growing number of grandkids filling up the family compound. From there, Al, Zach, Christian, and John Luke turn to Homer's “The Odyssey” and the surprisingly modern warnings buried inside its stories of pride, pleasure, distrust, and temptation. They connect Odysseus' downfall to today's struggles with pornography, drug addiction, doomscrolling, and the constant pull of quick dopamine. The guys also look at how Scripture gives a fuller answer to the moral truths Homer recognized, and why faith, community, and Christ matter when it comes to breaking those cycles. In this episode: Romans 1; Romans 2:14-16; Genesis 6; Genesis 11; Ephesians 4:17-32; Titus 1:10-13; Genesis 1:28; Genesis 9 Today's conversation is about Lesson 5 & 6 of The Odyssey taught by Hillsdale Professor Dr. Benedict Whalen. Take the course with us at no cost to you!  More about The Odyssey: The Odyssey tells the tale of the cunning and crafty hero of the Trojan War on his journey home. After ten years of war, Odysseus faces another ten years of fantastic temptations, deadly monsters, treacherous seas, and impious men. Meanwhile, Ithaca is threatened by suitors who plague his wife and plunder his wealth. When Odysseus reaches home, he must slay the suitors, test the loyalty of his friends and family, and restore order to his marriage and his kingdom. Join Dr. Benedict Whalen as he explores themes of love, marriage, kingship, duty, and piety. Encounter Homer's epic, which displays the full human experience. In a world of uncertainty, Odysseus charts a path towards peace through perseverance, prudence, and justice.  Join Odysseus on his fantastic journey home from Troy in Homer's unrivaled story. Sign up at ⁠http://unashamedforhillsdale.com/ Check out At Home with Phil Robertson, nearly 800 episodes of Phil's unfiltered wisdom, humor, and biblical truth, available for free for the first time! Get it on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, and anywhere you listen to podcasts! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/at-home-with-phil-robertson/id1835224621 Chapters 00:00 The Odyssey's Cyclops 05:04 Homer's Ancient World Still Looks Familiar 09:28 A New Robertson Baby 13:18 Why Odysseus Called Himself “Nobody” 18:02 Did Elephant Skulls, Nephilim & Giants 23:11 One Mistake Changes the Entire Journey 27:42 Jealousy & Distrust Create a Cycle of Destruction 32:21 Being Made in God's Image Changes Us 39:08 The Modern Traps of Pleasure & Addiction 42:26 Why You Need Other People - Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Wild Brothers grew up deep in the jungles of Indonesia, where their family lived among the Wano people before teaching them the Bible. They recount a childhood surrounded by fear of evil spirits, witch doctors, malaria, and intense spiritual opposition, until the incredible moment they watched the Gospel take hold. Al, Jase, Morgan, and Kian trace the unlikely connection between their family and ‘Duck Dynasty,' which helped inspire their own adventure-based ministry. Today, the Wild Brothers are encouraging families to get outside, grow in their faith, and see following Jesus as the ultimate adventure. Get the FREE Wild Brothers Field Pack with family devotionals, scavenger hunts, activities, and more: https://wildbrothers.myflodesk.com/ulirj544vs  In this episode: Matthew 28:18-20; Acts 17:22-31; Genesis 3:15; John 3:16; Genesis 1-11 Want to watch Unashamed ad-free? Only on EKKL! Get 20% off with code GOUNASHAMED, and watch faith- and family-friendly movies, podcasts, and more: https://ekkl.com/ http://unashamedforhillsdale.com/ - Sign up now for free, and join the Unashamed hosts every Friday for Unashamed Academy Powered by Hillsdale College Check out At Home with Phil Robertson, nearly 800 episodes of Phil's unfiltered wisdom, humor, and biblical truth, available for free for the first time! Get it on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, and anywhere you listen to podcasts! https://open.spotify.com/show/3LY8eJ4ZBZHmsImGoDNK2l Chapters 00:00 The Wild Brothers Invade Unashamed 04:32 Leaving the American Dream for the Jungle 08:45 Growing Up With the Wano People 13:09 Life in a Culture Ruled by Fear 18:36 Learning a Language No Outsider Knew 23:52 Teaching the Bible From the Very Beginning 29:41 Waiting Months to Introduce Jesus 34:47 The Wano Church Is Born 39:11 How ‘Duck Dynasty' Reached the Jungle 44:23 Turning Missions Into the Ultimate Adventure 48:29 Getting Kids Outside Their Comfort Zones - Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My guest today, RM, is disturbed and angry with her brother for discussing porn with her nephew.  Through self-inquiry, we ask who is really being hurt.  Could it be all three of them?  Join us for this powerful brother Work. The podcast is recorded during "At Home with Byron Katie"—join me live on Zoom on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays, starting at 9 a.m. Pacific Time. Register: athomewithbyronkatie.com

Uncle Si's medical equipment causes chaos on his trip home, but he quickly turns the tension into an impromptu airplane concert, rhinestones and all. Jase discovers that his old ‘Duck Dynasty' HOA problems never really ended when a neighborhood trash issue leaves him trimming trees from the hood of his truck and paying the price for trying to help. Al connects the discussion of anointing to a powerful moment in Lisa's faith journey, and the guys close out James 5 by digging into prayer, confession, healing, and why Elijah's extraordinary story still begins with the reminder that he was a human being just like us. In this episode: James 5:11-16; Matthew 5; Matthew 23; Exodus 30:30; 1 Samuel 16; Genesis 28:11-22; John 1:47-51; Romans 5; Acts 1-2; Mark 2; 1 Kings 16-19 https://ekkl.com - Get 20% off unlimited access to EKKL's movies, series, podcasts, kids' entertainment, and devotionals with code GOUNASHAMED “Unashamed” Episode 1431 is sponsored by: https://duckstamp.com/unashamed - Get your digital duck stamp online and keep it right on your phone! https://bravebooks.com/unashamed - Get both of the Robertson books completely free, plus a free starter kit, all for 70% off! http://unashamedforhillsdale.com/ - Sign up now for free, and join the Unashamed hosts every Friday for Unashamed Academy Powered by Hillsdale College Check out At Home with Phil Robertson, nearly 800 episodes of Phil's unfiltered wisdom, humor, and biblical truth, available for free for the first time! Get it on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, and anywhere you listen to podcasts! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/at-home-with-phil-robertson/id1835224621 Chapters 00:00 Uncle Si's Airport Standoff 07:10 Uncle Si Takes Over the Plane 9:50 The Worst Teal Season Ever 13:55 Jase's Neighborhood Crisis Gets Expensive 20:30 Rednecks vs. the AI Takeover 25:25 James 5 Gets Extremely Practical 31:10 The Prayer of Faith & Healing 38:00 Al Connects an Old Prayer to Lisa's Story 40:05 Jacob's Ladder & Access to God 47:05 Elijah Was a Human Being Just Like Us 51:35 Uncle Si Realizes Jesus Is Everything - Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Former country singer Granger Smith opens up about hitting rock bottom alone on a tour bus after the devastating loss of his 3-year-old son, River, and the moment he finally cried out to God. Granger tells Jase, Al, and Zach why Scripture eventually convinced him to walk away from a successful music career. Jase and Granger agree on why emotion-driven altar calls aren't the same as becoming a disciple of Jesus. Granger also gives a stunning answer when asked whether he would go back and prevent his son's death if he could, leading to an honest conversation about grief, eternity, and trusting God through unimaginable loss. Granger also discusses his new book, Poison in the Well: 11 Toxic Beliefs That Kept Me From the Living Water of Jesus, which grew out of the beliefs and assumptions he had to confront in his own life. In this episode: John 14:22-23; Matthew 1; John; Hebrews 4:12; Matthew 16:24-26; Psalm 42:1-2; Matthew 28:19-20; Luke 23:43; Philippians 1:23; Psalm 23:4; Psalm 90:12; Hebrews 2:14-15; 2 Corinthians 7:10 Want to watch Unashamed ad-free? Only on EKKL! Get 20% off with code GOUNASHAMED, and watch faith- and family-friendly movies, podcasts, and more: https://ekkl.com/ “Unashamed” Episode 1430 is sponsored by: https://chministries.org/solution - Get a better solution at half the cost of traditional healthcare!  https://duckstamp.com/unashamed - Get your digital duck stamp online and keep it right on your phone! http://unashamedforhillsdale.com/ - Sign up now for free, and join the Unashamed hosts every Friday for Unashamed Academy Powered by Hillsdale College Listen to Not Yet Now with Zach Dasher on Apple, Spotify, iHeart, or anywhere you get podcasts. Check out At Home with Phil Robertson, nearly 800 episodes of Phil's unfiltered wisdom, humor, and biblical truth, available for free for the first time! Get it on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, and anywhere you listen to podcasts! https://open.spotify.com/show/3LY8eJ4ZBZHmsImGoDNK2l Chapters 00:00 Granger Smith Joins Unashamed 04:00 AI Gets Podcast History SO Wrong 07:00 Why Granger Became a Pastor 13:20 The Loss of Granger's Son River 17:40 When Granger Hit Rock Bottom 21:10 Granger Trades Devotionals for the Bible 24:10 I Refuse to Lead the Sinner's Prayer 31:20 Leaving My Music Career Behind 35:45 The Problem With Emotional Altar Calls 42:00 A Kid Asks an Unthinkable Question 48:15 Facing Death Without Fear or Regret - Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Uncle Si earns a new nickname after proving he can still hang with the younger bucks, and an old proverb of Phil's sparks a conversation about ego, failure, and learning to serve instead of seeking the spotlight. A popular end-times interpretation gets put to the test as Jase, Al, and Zach dig into James 5, Matthew 24, and Jesus' warning about the destruction of the temple. The guys examine whether passages often connected to the final tribulation were actually pointing to judgment that would come within that generation, while still affirming Christ's future return.  In this episode: James 1:1; James 2:1; James 3; James 5:1-11; Matthew 23:37; Matthew 24:1-24; Mark 13; Luke 21; Genesis 4; Genesis 18-19; Genesis 21; Exodus 30; John 2; 1 Corinthians 6; Ephesians 2; Revelation 21-22; Ezra 2; Nehemiah Want to watch Unashamed ad-free? Only on EKKL! Get 20% off with code GOUNASHAMED, and watch faith- and family-friendly movies, podcasts, and more: https://ekkl.com/ “Unashamed” Episode 1429 is sponsored by: https://andrewandtodd.com or call 888-888-1172 — Get a FREE no-pressure mortgage and refinance review and see if your deal still makes sense! https://myphdweightloss.com - Find out how Al lost 80+ pounds. Visit the website or call 864-644-1900 and mention "Al Robertson" to get 2 weeks free in the program! https://preborn.com/unashamed - Visit the PreBorn! website or dial #250 and use keyword BABY to donate today. http://unashamedforhillsdale.com/ - Sign up now for free, and join the Unashamed hosts every Friday for Unashamed Academy Powered by Hillsdale College Check out At Home with Phil Robertson, nearly 800 episodes of Phil's unfiltered wisdom, humor, and biblical truth, available for free for the first time! Get it on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, and anywhere you listen to podcasts! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/at-home-with-phil-robertson/id1835224621 Listen to Not Yet Now with Zach Dasher on Apple, Spotify, iHeart, or anywhere you get podcasts. Chapters 00:00 Uncle Si Bags the First Duck of the Season 06:01 The Pressure of Being ‘on an Island' 10:26 Phil's Famous Advice About Missing Shots 16:41 Burley Learns the Value of Being a Servant 22:03 Returning to the Book of James 27:58 Why God Hears the Cries of the Oppressed 33:52 The Coming of the Lord Is Near 39:35 Jesus' Prophecy About the Temple 42:07 Challenging an End-Times Interpretation 49:12 Jesus as the New Temple 53:13 Eschatology Can Affect Real Decisions - Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Introducing the All Def SquADD Cast show “Versus". It's a podcast with the OG SquADD! Each week, the SquADD will debate topics and vote at the end to see what wins. Versus airs every Monday and you can download and listen wherever podcasts are found.Special GuestLance WoodsChinedu UnakaThis Week We DiscussOnly Listen To Music On Vinyl vs Cook Every MealSpend A Year Naked, At Home, For $2 Million vs Give Up Sitting For A Year For $3 MillionBe A Pokémon Trainer vs Attend HogwartsS/o To Our SponsorsHims Wegovy®Ready to reach your goals? Visit hims.com/SQUADD  to get personalized, affordable care for weight loss, hair loss, sex, testosterone, and more.Individual results may vary, and stopping treatment may result in weight regain. LEGAL DISCLAIMER REQUIRED:Weight Loss by Hims is not available in all 50 states. Wegovy® is the registered trademark of Novo Nordisk A/S. To get started and learn more, including important safety information, Wegovy® clinical study information, and restrictions, visit Hims.com.Cash AppNew Cash App customers can earn $10 if they use code CASHAPP10 in their profile at signup and send $5 to afriend within 14 days. Terms applyDownload Cash App Today: https://capl.onelink.me/vFut/qi3gs1iw #CashAppPodCash App is a financial services platform, not a bank. Banking services provided by Cash App's bankpartner(s). Prepaid debit cards issued by Sutton Bank, Member FDIC. Cash App Visa® Debit Flex Cardsissued by Sutton Bank, Member FDIC, and The Bancorp Bank, N.A., pursuant to a license from Visa U.S.A.Inc. See terms and conditions for the Sutton prepaid card, Sutton debit flex card, and Bancorp debit flexcard. Cash App Green features, Savings, Direct deposit, Round ups, Overdraft coverage and Discountsprovided by Cash App, a Block, Inc. brand. Visit cash.app/legal/podcast for full disclosures.

This hour of At Home with Gary Sullivan is a must-listen for anyone looking to upgrade their home's water heating system. The guest, Scott Warren, president of Reliance Water Heaters, shares the latest advancements in tankless water heaters, including a new product that's changing the game. From energy efficiency to innovative features like a patented X3 technology, this conversation is packed with valuable insights for homeowners and professionals alike. Gary and Scott dive into the world of water heaters, discussing the benefits of tankless systems and how they're becoming increasingly popular. Scott shares his expertise on the latest products, including a new condensing gas tankless water heater that's making waves in the industry. With a focus on energy efficiency and innovative features, this conversation is a game-changer for anyone lookin.g to upgrade their home's water heating system. One of the key takeaways from this hour is the importance of considering the long-term benefits of tankless water heaters. Scott explains how these systems can provide endless hot water, even when you're not home, and how they're becoming a more practical choice for many homeowners. He also shares some surprising statistics on the growth of the tankless water heater market, which is expected to continue growing in the coming years. If you're considering upgrading your home's water heating system or are simply curious about the latest advancements in tankless water heaters, this episode is a must-listen. Tune in to hear Scott's expert insights and learn more about the benefits of tankless water heatersSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This hour of At Home with Gary Sullivan is a must-listen for anyone looking to upgrade their home's water heating system. The guest, Scott Warren, president of Reliance Water Heaters, shares the latest advancements in tankless water heaters, including a new product that's changing the game. From energy efficiency to innovative features like a patented X3 technology, this conversation is packed with valuable insights for homeowners and professionals alike. Gary and Scott dive into the world of water heaters, discussing the benefits of tankless systems and how they're becoming increasingly popular. Scott shares his expertise on the latest products, including a new condensing gas tankless water heater that's making waves in the industry. With a focus on energy efficiency and innovative features, this conversation is a game-changer for anyone lookin.g to upgrade their home's water heating system. One of the key takeaways from this hour is the importance of considering the long-term benefits of tankless water heaters. Scott explains how these systems can provide endless hot water, even when you're not home, and how they're becoming a more practical choice for many homeowners. He also shares some surprising statistics on the growth of the tankless water heater market, which is expected to continue growing in the coming years. If you're considering upgrading your home's water heating system or are simply curious about the latest advancements in tankless water heaters, this episode is a must-listen. Tune in to hear Scott's expert insights and learn more about the benefits of tankless water heatersSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This weekend, homeowners are in luck as they get expert advice on how to tackle common household issues. From rejuvenating a deck to dealing with musty odors in the basement, this hour of At Home with Gary Sullivan covers it all. Gary takes calls from listeners who are struggling with various home improvement projects. Karen wants to know how to restore her small deck, which is showing signs of wear and tear, while James is concerned about his sump pump and whether he should invest in a battery-operated backup device or a water-powered one. The speaker also discusses the importance of ventilating below-grade spaces to prevent musty smells and moisture buildup. Other topics covered in this hour include how to deal with clogged gutters, the benefits of using a grinder pump, and the best products to use for sealing cracks in asphalt driveways. If you're a homeowner looking for expert advice on how to tackle your next home improvement project, tune in to this hour of At Home with Gary Sullivan. With his years of experience and expertise, Gary will guide you through the process and provide you with the knowledge you need to get the job done right.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This weekend, homeowners are in luck as they get expert advice on how to tackle common household issues. From rejuvenating a deck to dealing with musty odors in the basement, this hour of At Home with Gary Sullivan covers it all. Gary takes calls from listeners who are struggling with various home improvement projects. Karen wants to know how to restore her small deck, which is showing signs of wear and tear, while James is concerned about his sump pump and whether he should invest in a battery-operated backup device or a water-powered one. The speaker also discusses the importance of ventilating below-grade spaces to prevent musty smells and moisture buildup. Other topics covered in this hour include how to deal with clogged gutters, the benefits of using a grinder pump, and the best products to use for sealing cracks in asphalt driveways. If you're a homeowner looking for expert advice on how to tackle your next home improvement project, tune in to this hour of At Home with Gary Sullivan. With his years of experience and expertise, Gary will guide you through the process and provide you with the knowledge you need to get the job done right.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Artificial intelligence, robots, and the possibility of technological collapse launch the guys into a surprisingly ancient question: What happens when something that promises comfort and convenience starts controlling us instead? Al, Zach, Christian, and John Luke turn to The Odyssey to examine Odysseus' battles with temptation, pleasure, security, and the pull to abandon his responsibilities for an easier life. They connect Homer's warnings to modern porn culture, marriage, fidelity, and the danger of choosing fantasy over what is real. The guys ultimately contrast Odysseus' search for wisdom, forgiveness, and a way home with the hope Christianity offers through Christ. In this episode: John 17:3; James 4:17 Today's conversation is about Lesson 3 & 4 of The Odyssey taught by Hillsdale Professor Dr. Benedict Whalen. Take the course with us at no cost to you!  More about The Odyssey: The Odyssey tells the tale of the cunning and crafty hero of the Trojan War on his journey home. After ten years of war, Odysseus faces another ten years of fantastic temptations, deadly monsters, treacherous seas, and impious men. Meanwhile, Ithaca is threatened by suitors who plague his wife and plunder his wealth. When Odysseus reaches home, he must slay the suitors, test the loyalty of his friends and family, and restore order to his marriage and his kingdom. Join Dr. Benedict Whalen as he explores themes of love, marriage, kingship, duty, and piety. Encounter Homer's epic, which displays the full human experience. In a world of uncertainty, Odysseus charts a path towards peace through perseverance, prudence, and justice.  Join Odysseus on his fantastic journey home from Troy in Homer's unrivaled story. Sign up at ⁠http://unashamedforhillsdale.com/ Check out At Home with Phil Robertson, nearly 800 episodes of Phil's unfiltered wisdom, humor, and biblical truth, available for free for the first time! Get it on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, and anywhere you listen to podcasts! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/at-home-with-phil-robertson/id1835224621 Listen to Not Yet Now with Zach Dasher on Apple, Spotify, iHeart, or anywhere you get podcasts. Chapters 00:00 A.I., Robots & Apocalypse 05:08 America's EMP Vulnerability 10:07 ‘The Odyssey' on A.I. & Wisdom 13:36 Odysseus Faces Temptation 17:02 Porn Culture & Fantasy 21:43 Choosing Fidelity Over Comfort 27:04 Wealth, Security & Starting Over 32:14 Where Human Virtue Falls Short 36:25 Odysseus the Manipulator 40:15 Suffering, Pride & Forgiveness 44:38 How Christ Changes the Ending - Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My guest today, RM, is disturbed and angry with her brother for discussing porn with her nephew.  Through self-inquiry, we ask who is really being hurt.  Could it be all three of them?  Join us for this powerful brother Work. The podcast is recorded during "At Home with Byron Katie"—join me live on Zoom on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays, starting at 9 a.m. Pacific Time. Register: athomewithbyronkatie.com

A former elite Hells Angels enforcer gets real about how his search for family and freedom eventually landed him in prison. Joby Walters recounts recruiting the undercover ATF agent he unknowingly helped bring into the club, the armed standoff with police that finally forced him to surrender, and literally fighting for his right to preach in prison. Jase spots some unexpected Uncle Si tendencies in Joby's storytelling, while Al finds surprising parallels between Joby's past and Phil's life before Christ. Joby explains how leaving the Hells Angels behind and writing his new book Cut Free gave him an entirely new identity and a mission to reach people still trapped in the life he escaped. In this episode: 2 Corinthians 4:16; Psalm 23; Matthew 18:3; Ephesians 2:1-10; James 3:16-17 Want to watch Unashamed ad-free? Only on EKKL! Get 20% off with code GOUNASHAMED, and watch faith- and family-friendly movies, podcasts, and more: https://ekkl.com/ “Unashamed” Episode 1427 is sponsored by: Get firearm security redesigned and save 10% off @‌StopBoxUSA with code UNASHAMED at https://www.stopboxusa.com/unashamed #stopboxpod https://www.wildalaskan.com/UNASHAMED - Get $35 off your first box of wild-caught, sustainable seafood delivered right to your door. https://duckstamp.com/unashamed - Get your digital duck stamp online and keep it right on your phone! Get 15% off Branch Basics with the code UNASHAMED at branchbasics.com/UNASHAMED #branchbasicspod http://unashamedforhillsdale.com/ - Sign up now for free, and join the Unashamed hosts every Friday for Unashamed Academy Powered by Hillsdale College Check out At Home with Phil Robertson, nearly 800 episodes of Phil's unfiltered wisdom, humor, and biblical truth, available for free for the first time! Get it on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, and anywhere you listen to podcasts! https://open.spotify.com/show/3LY8eJ4ZBZHmsImGoDNK2l Listen to Not Yet Now with Zach Dasher on Apple, Spotify, iHeart, or anywhere you get podcasts. Chapters 00:00 Zach's Family Medical Scare 03:25 Jase's North Dakota Trip 09:35 Little Man Tries to Walk on Water 15:35 Former Hells Angel Joby Walters 19:05 Fighting to Preach in Prison 24:55 What Sent Joby to Prison 27:20 Searching for Family 30:30 Meeting Sonny Barger 35:05 Freedom, Identity & Chaos 41:30 The Undercover ATF Agent 44:40 Joby Chooses to Surrender 47:00 Joby's New Mission - Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Born without arms or legs, global evangelist and motivational speaker Nick Vujicic opens up to Jase, Al, and Zach about growing up convinced he might never have a future or a meaningful life. He recounts reaching his darkest point at just 10 years old and the realization years later that completely changed how he viewed his circumstances, purpose, and unanswered prayers. Nick also looks back on his unforgettable appearance on “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” becoming a husband and father of four, and taking his story around the world. The guys dig into the message behind his new documentary, No Limbs, No Limits, and why a life that once seemed defined by limitations became anything but. In this episode: John 9; Matthew 5:29-30; 2 Corinthians 5:7; Ephesians 3:20; Daniel 3; Genesis 1:28 https://ekkl.com - Get 20% off unlimited access to EKKL's movies, series, podcasts, kids' entertainment, and devotionals with code GOUNASHAMED “Unashamed” Episode 1426 is sponsored by: https://rocketmoney.com/unashamed - Join Rocket Money and let them help you reach your financial goals faster.  https://trees.com/ - Get an additional 20% OFF with code UNASHAMED at checkout https://andrewandtodd.com or call 888-888-1172 — Get a FREE no-pressure mortgage and refinance review and see if your deal still makes sense! https://duckstamp.com/unashamed - Get your digital duck stamp online and keep it right on your phone! http://unashamedforhillsdale.com/ - Sign up now for free, and join the Unashamed hosts every Friday for Unashamed Academy Powered by Hillsdale College Check out At Home with Phil Robertson, nearly 800 episodes of Phil's unfiltered wisdom, humor, and biblical truth, available for free for the first time! Get it on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, and anywhere you listen to podcasts! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/at-home-with-phil-robertson/id1835224621 Listen to Not Yet Now with Zach Dasher on Apple, Spotify, iHeart, or anywhere you get podcasts. Chapters 00:00 Nick Vujicic Meets the Robertsons 04:17 Growing Up Without Arms or Legs 19:08 The Passage That Changed Everything 24:02 When the Miracle Doesn't Come 31:41 Marriage, Fatherhood & Fear 35:12 Nick's Oprah Prediction Comes True 43:25 Why Every Life Has Purpose 49:06 The Mission Behind ‘No Limbs, No Limits' - Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Matthew West looks back on the career advice that told him to be more of a “rock star,” a mold he knew he didn't want to fit. He recounts touring with Willie Robertson, quickly realizing who the real celebrity was, and finding humor in some deeply humbling moments along the way. Matthew opens up to Jase, Al, and Zach about his brother's long battle with addiction, the prayers that seem to go unanswered, and why his song and devotional book Don't Stop Praying grew out of his own need for a deeper prayer life. The guys dig into surrender, grace, and Matthew's new Jesus Is King album, reflecting on what it means to draw near to God instead of trying to control everything yourself. In this episode: Romans 8:26-27; James 4:8 Want to watch Unashamed ad-free? Only on EKKL! Get 20% off with code GOUNASHAMED, and watch faith- and family-friendly movies, podcasts, and more: https://ekkl.com/ “Unashamed” Episode 1425 is sponsored by: Download the FREE Upside App and use promo code Unashamed to get an extra 25 cents back for every gallon on your first tank of gas https://preborn.com/unashamed - Visit the PreBorn! website or dial #250 and use keyword BABY to donate today. https://helixsleep.com/unashamed - Get 27% off sitewide and make sure you enter our show name after checkout so they know we sent you! Taking care of your health just got easier - start here with Zocdoc: https://zocdoc.com/UNASHAMED #sponsored http://unashamedforhillsdale.com/ - Sign up now for free, and join the Unashamed hosts every Friday for Unashamed Academy Powered by Hillsdale College Check out At Home with Phil Robertson, nearly 800 episodes of Phil's unfiltered wisdom, humor, and biblical truth, available for free for the first time! Get it on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, and anywhere you listen to podcasts! https://open.spotify.com/show/3LY8eJ4ZBZHmsImGoDNK2l Listen to Not Yet Now with Zach Dasher on Apple, Spotify, iHeart, or anywhere you get podcasts. Chapters 00:00 Matthew West Joins Unashamed 04:08 Jase's Michael Jackson Story 08:02 Jase Pitches “Eager Sunday” 12:26 Matthew West Wins Over a Crowd 17:41 Why I Reject the “Rock Star” Image 24:16 Willie Humbles Matthew  28:38 Matthew's Songwriting Career 36:10 When Prayer Goes Unanswered 42:17 How Prayer Changed Jase's Life 47:03 Matthew West on “Jesus Is King” 55:23 Jase Pitches a Song - Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Dasher family gets a full-circle surprise when Zach's son and daughter land a dream gig opening for Hank Williams Jr., the same artist who soundtracked Zach and Jill's first date. Jase, Al, and Zach also challenge the divide between “sacred” and “secular,” arguing that faith should shape the way people work, create, serve, and relate to others in every part of life. The guys dig into why disagreement so often turns into alienation and why burning every bridge over differences can do more harm than good.  In this episode: James 5:7-11; James 4:11; James 2:8-13; James 3; James 4; John 3:16; John 10; John 12:30-32; John 16:7-11; 2 Corinthians 5; Luke 15; Ephesians 4; Ecclesiastes; Job 2-3; Proverbs 11:1-4 Want to watch the Lost Episodes of Unashamed, only on EKKL? Get 20% off with code UNASHAMED, and watch faith- and family-friendly movies, podcasts, and more: https://ekkl.com/ “Unashamed” Episode 1424 is sponsored by: https://cozyearth.com/unashamed - Get up to 20% off when you use our link and code UNASHAMED!  https://myphdweightloss.com - Find out how Al lost 80+ pounds. Visit the website or call 864-644-1900 and mention "Al Robertson" to get 2 weeks free in the program! https://chministries.org/solution - Get a better solution at half the cost of traditional healthcare! http://unashamedforhillsdale.com/ - Sign up now for free, and join the Unashamed hosts every Friday for Unashamed Academy Powered by Hillsdale College Check out At Home with Phil Robertson, nearly 800 episodes of Phil's unfiltered wisdom, humor, and biblical truth, available for free for the first time! Get it on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, and anywhere you listen to podcasts! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/at-home-with-phil-robertson/id1835224621 Listen to Not Yet Now with Zach Dasher on Apple, Spotify, iHeart, or anywhere you get podcasts. Chapters 00:00 Zach's Kids Land a Full-Circle Gig 05:06 Hank Williams Jr. & the Dasher Connection 09:18 Christians Don't Belong in a Cultural Bubble 13:42 James Warns against Judging Your Neighbor 20:37 ‘Rock-Throwing' Christians 27:29 ‘Doing Jesus Stuff' Is for Everybody 33:07 Ordinary People Are the Best Gospel Influencers 40:53 There's No Divide between Sacred & Secular 48:30 Job's Friends' Lesson in What Not to Say - Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Here's the story of how tried to get my French driving permit in a world-record time. I'm joined by Lina, who hangs around for some listener questions about fashion in Paris at the end.  This episode is brought to you by an exciting antique sale: At Home with Patricia Wells, Volume III, the final catalogue from Chez Pluie. Find more here: https://catalog.chezpluie.com/at-home-with-patricia-wells-volume-iii The music in this episode is from Pres Maxson.  Why not check out our walking tours at The Earful Tower Tours. Come join us in the Marais, Montmartre, or the Latin Quarter. Our Walking Tours are exceptionally highly rated online and are the best way to experience this podcast in real life. The Earful Tower exists thanks to support from its members. For just $10 a month you can unlock almost endless extras including bonus podcast episodes, live video replays, special event invites, and our annually updated PDF guide to Paris.  Membership takes only a minute to set up on Patreon, or Substack. Thank you for keeping this channel independent.  For more from the Earful Tower, here are some handy links: Website  Weekly newsletter  Walking Tours

A conversation with Ada Palmer about building the future with humility, the process of creating a science fiction world, and many spoiler-heavy deep dives into the world of Terra Ignota. Mentioned in this episode Books and works. Ada Palmer, Terra Ignota — Too Like the Lightning, Seven Surrenders, The Will to Battle, Perhaps the Stars · Ada Palmer & Jo Walton, Trace Elements: Conversations on the Project of Science Fiction and Fantasy · Ada Palmer, And Loki in His Prison (forthcoming) · "Somebody Will" (song) · Bill Bryson, At Home · Giorgio Vasari, Lives of the Artists · Ursula K. Le Guin, A Wizard of Earthsea · Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet · Boccaccio, Decameron. People and places. Tyler Cowen · Teresa Nielsen Hayden · Johannes Gutenberg · Francis Bacon · Michelangelo · Villa I Tatti (Florence) · Worldcon · the Terra Ignota Discord. Transcript Ada: Stop telling stories about a thing as if one person did it. Tell the story of how a whole team of people did this. And when we look at the major innovations of the past, recognize their plural and often anonymous origins and shapers — and ask: will we be content if we end up being the anonymous contributor to future generations having this wonderful thing? Introduction [00:00:26] Ben: Today I'm excited and grateful to share my conversation with Ada Palmer. Among many other things, Ada is a professor of history at the University of Chicago and the author of several books, including the science fiction series Terra Ignota, which now lives rent-free in my head. In the words of the inimitable Tyler Cowen, this is the conversation that I want to have — which means the vast majority of it is an extremely nerdy, extremely spoiler-heavy discussion of the Terra Ignota series. The spoiler warning comes around the one-hour mark, but rather than making you stop then, I'd recommend stopping right here, going and reading the entire series, and then coming back. We'll still be here. A podcast about the unwritten workings of a fictional future is a vaguely legitimate segue to noting that I've brought Idea Machines back after a very long hiatus, for a fairly specific reason. I'm still going to dig into the people and systems that turn ideas into reality, but with a particular focus on knowledge and stories that are in people's heads and aren't yet written down or recorded anywhere. Even in the age of the internet and LLMs, there is so much that can only be discovered through conversation — and that, I think, should be the point of podcasts. So with that, here's my conversation with Ada Palmer. "Somebody Will," and making peace with not seeing the end [00:01:57] Ben: This is actually a very selfish question. Your song "Somebody Will" is one of my favorite songs. Ada: I had to practice for six months before I could sing it without crying while singing it. It still requires great concentration. Ben: I sometimes cry a little when I listen to it. If you're listening to this and you haven't heard the song, you should stop and listen to it, because it's amazing, and we will be here when you get back. Okay — assuming everybody has now listened to the song. I think it captures the fact that ambitious projects take many lifetimes and the labor of many people who are only contributing indirectly, in a way that I feel nothing else does. And that fact feels very at odds with the cultural milieu today, where — at least for me — it feels like you personally need to be working on the thing, and if you can't get it done within your lifetime then you're a failure. So how do you internalize that personally? I constantly feel this tension: I believe the message of "Somebody Will" is true, and at the same time I cannot feel satisfied with it. And how would you get more people to internalize it? I feel like the world would be better if more people did. Ada: I have the advantage, as a historian, of being used to thinking on century and multi-century timeframes — of looking at how many of the things we celebrate or think of as important were multi-generational projects, and how few people, even among the ones we talk about as if one person achieved the thing, actually saw that achievement bear fruit, or even near-full fruit, within their lifetime. Lately I've been asked about Gutenberg a lot. From Gutenberg's perspective: I invented the machine, I used the machine, the machine worked great, the sales didn't, I went bankrupt, and I died in poverty. In the later part of his life he got to see other people starting to build printing presses and trying to print — and also going bankrupt. The books were starting to circulate, and everyone was saying, "I don't know about these new weird books, they're different from the old ones." So if he judges himself on his lifetime achievement, he judges himself negatively. The ongoing effects of the Gutenberg revolution mostly happen well after his death, and after the deaths of his first generation of apprentices, in the mid-1500s and moving toward the 1600s — and there are stages of it still happening in the 1700s as it democratizes access to knowledge, which is something one could anticipate it would do, but not see. So many of our best and biggest projects are like that. In fact, you very rarely have a project that comes to fruition within its beginner's lifetime. But it requires us to look at history to feel that. Another factor is that we're so often pressured not just to look short term, but to look very short term. My friend Teresa Nielsen Hayden, a brilliant editor, has a very apt saying that I think about a lot: we always overestimate what we can accomplish in a year, but underestimate what we accomplish in five years. If you look at yourself and ask, "What did I do this year?" you'll always judge yourself harshly and be disappointed. But if you make the list of "What did I do in the last five years?" you'll say, "Oh, wow, I accomplished a lot" — even though each individual year felt like you didn't meet your own standards. And another part of it is that yes, there is a melancholy to "Somebody Will." It's about a kind of surrendering acceptance: that you will not be there to enjoy the thing, that you are working on something so that others will enjoy it in the future. That requires remembering that the same is true of the people in the past who worked to give us what we enjoy — that there is a teamwork across the diaspora of time, in which we all have to love the future generations we are helping and accept that they will get benefits we will not. Because otherwise, what are we doing? Ben: Let me poke at this one more time — and the answer might be that it's impossible. How do you get to serenity with the fact that we're working on a very long-term project that needs many people who are not going to be the person remembered for the thing, and that this is important and worthy? What actually goes on in your head? Ada: Again, there is a mournful side to it. And we therefore need to encourage a culture that celebrates all the contributors. Stop telling stories about a thing as if one person did it. Tell the story of how a whole team of people did this. And when we look at the major innovations of the past, recognize their plural and often anonymous origins and shapers — and ask: will we be content if we end up being the anonymous contributor to future generations having this wonderful thing? Because what matters to me isn't that I get thanked for X. What matters to me is that I helped make sure X happens. That separation of credit is important. I remember thinking vividly about this after reading a book called At Home — by, I think, Thomas Madden, although I may have the name wrong [it's Bill Bryson] — which is a fun popular history about all the objects in your house and how they developed. The history of the table knife, and the chair, and the chest of drawers, and the kitchen; how houses were originally one room and came to be subdivided into multiple rooms, and what the front hall is. It's a really fun, light history, essentially a string of delightful anecdotes. But I noticed that he would sometimes talk about the inventor of something we have — the inventor of the egg whisk or whatever — and then, if the inventor of this useful thing didn't end up rich and famous as a result, he described that as a tragedy. His definition of tragedy was: somebody contributed something that benefited the human race, and they didn't become rich and famous as a result; they lived an ordinary life as X, Y, or Z. Ordinary life was the tragic outcome. I snagged on that. What are we doing if living the life that most people live, having also contributed to the sum total of human happiness, is your definition of tragedy? He had this very strong sense that it was an injustice for someone's name not to travel with their invention, and for someone not to become rich as a result of their invention. And it was such a narrow portrait of what it could mean to contribute to human thriving — one that assumes only the inventor contributes, and not the hundreds of thousands of people involved in the distribution and manufacture and improvement of the egg whisk, who also bring things that help our daily lives. It felt so un-Baconian and unscientific. Bacon, when first arguing for the scientific method, says there is no greater act of charity and love than to do something that helps every human being after you live a better life. In its original articulation, that is its own reward. But the idea that it should be a ladder to fame and social rise, as opposed to something one achieves and is proud of — I think that's where we get snagged, and where we get these stresses. To contribute to humans reaching the stars is to contribute to humans reaching the stars. It is not to be the name that becomes famous. Whose labor counts [00:11:27] Ben: It's an open question to me how you make more of a culture of that. Ada: Part of it is that we have to start evaluating contributions more equally, because we have a really unfair way of thinking about labor, where some types are celebrated and high status and others are low status. This goes way back. It's true in the Middle Ages: any job you do with your hands is low status, and any job that is intellectual work is high status. This is why Michelangelo's father was absolutely rabid against Michelangelo being a sculptor. They came from a banking family, and Michelangelo's father did intellectual work — banking — and it would be a shame upon the family for his son to work with his hands and be an artist. The outcome of this over the course of the Renaissance, via things like Vasari's Lives of the Artists, is that they make the argument for art being intellectual labor — for an artist like Michelangelo to shift status from being thought of as manual labor, like a carpenter, to being thought of as intellectual labor, a peer of a doctor or a scholar. And we now consider art to be a high-status intellectual occupation. But we still have these horrible terms like "unskilled labor." Go watch anybody doing so-called unskilled labor for an hour and you think: holy moly, this person is really good at this. The speed and the elegance with which they have optimized this set of skills is incredible. It takes many kinds of labor to do something. But at an academic institute, we do not celebrate the people maintaining the site or preparing the food in the kitchen as contributors to the thing — even though it's absolutely essential, and without it the thing can't happen. That is a terrible problem. And more and more I see people talking about the world as if only a tiny elite are serious contributors and everyone else is just a dot moving around. An NPC. I was being interviewed about the singularity — this idea of trying to maximize the computing power that Earth produces in order to speed up how quickly we create an AI god. The interviewer asked what one thing would contribute most to maximizing Earth's computing power. And I said: well, obviously it would be UBI, or another way of solving poverty. Because right now the majority of computing power on Earth is human brain cells, which vastly outnumber the computational power of computers. And a large share of that computing power belongs to people living in poverty, whose capacity is being diminished and sidelined onto worrying about where tomorrow's meal is going to come from. When you provide a safety net at a reasonable standard of living, so that people don't have the anxiety that poverty causes, people become way more creative and generative, and start new businesses. All of our UBI experiments show outpourings of art, discovery, entrepreneurship, increased generation — all of which contribute, second order, to Earth advancing. And the crowd who thinks about this was just blown away by thinking of, A, the human brain as computing power, and B, poverty as the largest drain upon the computational powers of the Earth. Ben: People don't think about second-order effects enough, period. Ada: There is no symphony hall without its janitor. There is no symphony hall without the workman in addition to the architect. And we celebrate one of these arbitrarily and not the others. Why is that? Is it because the construction worker is doing something athletic and manual? Well, we celebrate sports people, and they're doing something athletic and manual. It's a totally cultural construction, which of these occupations are celebrated and which are not. Ben: So we just need to celebrate everybody. Ada: Celebrate ninety percent of the occupations — and identify the ten percent where it's actually, this is a waste of a human being. Ben: This is a waste of a human being, and we should not have a human being doing this. That's where we bring in a robot. Ada: Right. But there's all this discussion of "let's have the robots replace everything everyone is doing." No — when human beings are doing things that are stimulating and creative and make them happy, leave it alone. But if we have a robot that cleans out the gutters, that would be great, because nobody is stimulated by cleaning out gutters. Ben: Or does boring paperwork. Ada: Oh, that's the dream. Where the Hives came from: a lunch table in Florence [00:16:44] Ben: Shifting toward Terra Ignota — but not yet to the spoilers. You spent a lot of time in Italy. How did that affect the creation of the Terra Ignota world? Ada: A lot, specifically via Villa I Tatti, an institute owned and run by Harvard but quite independent, in the outskirts of Florence. It's not on the hill where the Decameron takes place; it's on the hill next to the hill where the Decameron takes place — to anchor it in literary geography. It has fellowships, so scholars from all over the world come there, about two dozen a year, for a year-long residency. And one graduate student at a time. I was the graduate student. You're sort of there as a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed mascot. Ben: So it's a bunch of senior scholars and you? Ada: A lot of them are postdocs — they're starting their careers, they've finished their PhDs recently. There are usually two or three senior scholars resident, and then two dozen who are at the next stage from where you as a PhD student are, and from whom you can learn exciting stuff. Some are later career. And they're from all over the place — and they've usually gone all over the place, on similar postdocs and for research. I remember vividly being at a group lunch. There was a married couple there having a conversation with a couple of other people. The mom was Australian and the dad was Spanish. They had two kids, one of whom had been born in the US and another in the UK. They'd lived in France while the kids were little, and now the kids were medium-sized and in Italy, attending a polyglot school. And the parents were discussing the different citizenships the two kids were eligible for, and the benefits and drawbacks of each. "You get this with a UK citizenship, but you can't have that. You can have UK and then US, but you can't have US and then UK. These benefits versus those benefits. And if the kids have two different citizenships, is that bad for them relative to each other? Does it make them feel envious, or unspecial, or special compared to their sibling?" It was such a buyer's-market conversation about citizenship. They were strategically sitting down and asking: which ones do we want to apply for, which ones do they already have, what are the utilities of each one, how do we feel about the governments and the values that they advance? And it made me think: what if everybody had that conversation? What if it were normal, when you're coming of age, to sit down, think about all the citizenships in the world, decide which ones you think are best, and choose — rather than having it fall upon you by accident of birth? It made sense to me using the EU, where people have free movement, as the model. When you're in the EU, you may have been born in France, but your family is Polish and you feel Polish because you grew up with them and visited family and learned the language — or you don't, and you feel French, and that's up to you. That freedom of movement, where who you are isn't where you live, it's what group you identify with, felt so plausible for a future in which technology means mobility is getting faster and more natural, and we choose jobs and homes based on location rather than being limited by geography. Plotters, pantsers, and the tyranny of past you [00:20:42] Ben: I don't know that I've ever heard you talk about your writing process in any detail. Fiction writers — some are plotters, some are pantsers, some are in between. Where do you fall? Ada: I have an essay on Tor.com arguing that the difference is less binary than it feels. For those listening who don't know the definitions: a plotter is somebody who plans ahead, outlines, has a whole plan for the story before they start writing it. A pantser is somebody who plunges in and figures out the story, or the characters, or the details, as they're writing. Here's my argument that these are less different than they sound. If you're a plotter, you're spending extra time planning at the beginning — making your outline, revising your outline, thinking about order and structure, rereading the outline, getting a sense of how it flows and fixing that. Then you implement it, and you do comparatively less revision at the end. Whereas a pantser will plunge into writing six months earlier, figure out those structure questions as they go, get to the end, and then often do more revision — doing to the manuscript the revisions that the plotter would do to the outline. So you're doing the same steps, you're just doing them in a different order. Everybody still does the "hmm, let's think about the pacing; this character has too many chapters where they appear all together and then they don't appear for a long time; I have to think about the balance of that." Everybody does that step. But do you do it before you write the first draft or after? That's the real difference. And you can have a very meticulous story where you figured it out as you went and then went back and put things in earlier to make it all work. I am at the far extreme end of planner. I world-build for at least five years, and then I spend six months doing the outline before I sit down to write the first sentence. I outlined the entire series — chapter by chapter, all four books — and had a complete plan for the whole thing before I wrote the first sentence of the first chapter of the first book. I then followed that outline incredibly precisely. Often when I'm writing I'll get to a point and think, maybe this bit of the outline is wrong, maybe I should do this other thing instead. And I'll start doing the other thing, and work on it, and get more and more frustrated, and wonder why it's going wrong, and whine to my bash'mates about it. And then I'll go back to the outline and realize: oh, of course. Past me is always correct. And I repent of having strayed from the outline. Because past me was in the middle of six months of being zoomed out, looking at the whole structure, really understanding everything being set up short term and long term. Whereas present me, in the middle of writing something, is very immersed in that one chapter and its valences and its emotion, and can lose sight of the work it's doing to continue things from five chapters ago and set things up for five chapters later. I was fully aware of all that when I did the outline, and I might be less aware of it in the act of writing. Which is why the version of me that was outlining is always more correct about what the chapter needs than the version of me sitting down to write the chapter. That's what the outline is for. Five years of worldbuilding, mechanically [00:24:18] Ben: What do you actually do, mechanically, for the five years of worldbuilding? What does that entail? Ada: A lot of it is that I'll have a notion. I'll be sitting at that table at Villa I Tatti listening to the conversation and think, wouldn't that be neat — that would be a really cool thing to explore in a story. I will then take the worlds I'm building, because I'm always building several at once, for several successive series. I'm currently doing the worldbuilding for the series after the series after the series of which the first book comes out next summer. Ben: That's so cool. Ada: I've already fully done the worldbuilding for this series and the series after it, and I'm worldbuilding the series after that, and a couple of others. They're sort of on a conveyor belt: the most assembled, the medium assembled, and the less assembled, as they move forward. I'll take the notion and go to my most assembled world, the one I intend to do soonest, and ask: does this notion fit? Does it combine well with the other stuff I already have in this world? Do they synergize? Are they compatible with each other? And if they are, I'll plop that new idea into the world. So I'll be working on a world where the key ideas are the flying car network, and voluntary citizenship, and a kid who can bring toys to life with a touch, and a revival of eighteenth-century ideas about gender. And then I'll independently get the notion of somebody being a professional living doll. And I'll ask: could that happen in that world? Yes, it could. What would that mean? Well, celebrity culture in a global world would have neat characteristics; the stuff I'm doing with gender would intersect with it in nifty ways. Neat. That notion, totally independent when I came up with it, can live in that world. Or I might have another idea, look at it in that world, and say: you know what, this isn't compatible with this world. The society of Terra Ignota — it doesn't fit. I'm going to take this idea and move on to the next world. And the first world it can go in is where that idea then lives. So worlds accumulate multiple different seeds. You'll notice that it's not that the living doll is derived from the other stuff — it's an independent idea. But once put in, the two connect to each other, the way trees in a forest develop shunts that send sugar to each other and keep each other alive and support the entire forest ecosystem, even though they began as individual and indeed competitive trees. The whole world develops from multiple different central seeds. Ben: Sorry, I'm very interested in the details of this. Are you writing these down on index cards? Ada: A lot of it will just be in my head. I also use OneNote, where I'll jot things down. There will be notes in OneNote that are sometimes a whole table with a chronology that develops over time, but also just a list of words I found evocative, or a reminder note to myself. I also email myself ideas so that I remember them, and there they are, searchably, in my email. I also sometimes write them on Post-it notes and leave them around the house. Sometimes something came to me and felt evocative from a picture — a work of art, or a postcard, or an image. Ben: You have your mood board. Ada: I'll put those by my bed, or in other places, and they'll make me chew on those ideas over time. But the majority of this will be in my head. Nobody could reconstruct the world from those notes. The notes are chaos, until I get to the late pre-outlining stage. I was probably working on the Terra Ignota world for four years before I started writing down the chronology. I do have a long timeline of events, from the present to the completion of the terraforming of Mars, with the dates of when everybody was born, when different cultural movements happened, when this or that historical war that's mentioned began and ended, and so on — a long, color-coded timeline. I'll probably share it at some point, but it's in OneNote, which is hard to export. I also have a custom Google Map which shows the Hive majorities in every major city on the globe, so you can see the distribution of the population. One thing I did deep into the worldbuild, preparing to think through the latter half of the series, was go through all the cities with a population above — I think it's ten million — that exist on Earth now, to figure out the future of each one, and then create several new cities that would be above that threshold by then. Making sure I wasn't skipping any cities. That I did Africa. That I did the Pacific Rim. That I had a global plan for this and not a non-global one. OneNote lets you combine text and note-taking with images, so for example there's one page that is a map of ancient Rome with my own notes on what is in each building in the reconstructed version of Rome in Romanova, where so many events take place. So the note-taking is extensive, but chaotic in my case. Ben: That is incredibly cool. I feel like there's a through-line in great artists and makers of things, where the thing that you see is the tippy-tip of an iceberg. Ada: It has to feel like that — especially for a built world. It has to feel real, it has to feel deep, it has to feel like it has all those things. Big beats, connective tissue, and the management of mood [00:30:35] Ada: Another thing about outlining, briefly. A word I've known a number of authors to use, that I kind of use too: when you're developing the story, there will often be a point at which you know what the big beats of the story are. Let's imagine we're outlining Romeo and Juliet. A big beat is when they meet. A big beat is when they get together. Then there's a sort of midpoint crisis, when the deaths of Mercutio and Tybalt result in crisis and Romeo has to be kicked out. And then there's the dramatic ending in which they die. And then you ask: okay, what other stuff do I want in this story? Well, I need to develop the characters of Mercutio and Tybalt, and that has to happen before the midpoint. And I need some comedy scenes — this is Shakespeare — so I need to put those in at some point. So you can imagine Shakespeare saying: I know what the big beats are. Where am I going to fit the Mercutio characterization scene? Should it be right before his death, or earlier, so that we're invested in his character for a while? I want a comedy scene between this sad major serious beat and this sad major serious beat, to vary the mood. Who can be in that scene? I need a lighter scene between Romeo and Juliet meeting and Romeo and Juliet getting together — what can I put there that will change the mood, so we don't have two passionate romantic sequences in a row? So you figure out the big beats, and then you figure out the in-between connective tissue. And sometimes you'll be aware that there must be a speech: I have this idea for Mercutio making this passionate, weird speech about Queen Mab, it's a lot of fun, where do I put it? There's some flexibility — it can be at any point before his death. It can be early, it could be at the beginning, it could be just before his death. How does the audience — or in my case the reader — feel about Mercutio's death differently if we've just come to love him right before, versus if we came to love him really early on and we like him almost more than Romeo because he had more character for half the play before this crisis comes? Many technically-pantser authors I know have figured out the big beats before they start, and then are filling in and improvising the in-between stuff, and might move it around at the end. So if Shakespeare were a pantser, he might have been writing along, and then: Mercutio's dying soon, I get to give him a speech — oh, this speech is so awesome, I want to move it earlier. And he'd move the Queen Mab speech from right before his death to substantially earlier, so that we care about this character for a longer period of time. That's exactly the kind of revision that a pantser does, and that I would do at the outline level, where I have everything on screen in front of me and I'm thinking: these three Mercutio scenes are really all in a cluster. Do I want that? Do I want a character who gets introduced and then, the moment we love them, they're gone? Or do I want to stretch this out, so this is a character with whom we have a longer emotional relationship? So that's core to the outlining process. We have these big beats. At some point we need to meet Saladin — when do we meet Saladin? Is it before or after the revelation of what Mycroft really did? How does it feel if it's before? How does it feel if it's after? Let's settle that. Because many things that happen in a story are not causally related. Some are: Romeo committing murder has to be before the Romeo banishment scene; those can't be reversed, because one causes the other. The "Juliet is sad because Romeo has been banished" scene follows from those. Those have to be in an order. But Romeo meeting Juliet versus the Queen Mab speech — those can be reversed. They aren't causally related. They're independent, except inasmuch as they both have to be early. And then the author gets to think through which is first and which is second, and what the effects of that are. So a lot of the outlining process is putting in the big beats, figuring out what has to be before and what has to be after, and what can go at any point, and then situating it in the right place — and also realizing when mood needs to alternate. One principle of reading is that we notice changes in mood and tension much more than we notice the absolute level. If you write a book with five super-high-stakes action chapters in a row, the reader gets tired of super-high-stakes action. It all feels homogeneous. It doesn't feel exciting anymore. The beginning will feel exciting, but it will then flatline experientially. Whereas if you have a high-paced action sequence, and then a low-mood piece where people are relaxing and something silly happens, or we cut away to the cooks preparing the banquet who are not at all invested in the action that's going on — then when we return to that high-stakes thing, it feels high-stakes again. You need to alternate sad with happy. You need to alternate tense with relaxed. You need to alternate fast-paced with slow-paced, so that people feel all of them more, compared to having a homogeneous mood. So sometimes I'll be going along and think: we've just had three or four chapters in a row where Mycroft, our narrator, is freaking the heck out and overwhelmed and in despair. We need a nice, calm Martin Guildbreaker chapter here, where he's patiently investigating something and explaining his investigation, because that will let us escape the mood — so that when we return to it, the grief being experienced by our narrator is vivid and exciting again, because we had a break. And also so that the complexity of trying to understand what the hell this narrator is actually saying is enjoyable again, in a puzzle-box way. If you do a puzzle box, you want to then coast and not do a puzzle box next — have something as a break, and then do the next puzzle box. I don't want to give you nothing but puzzle-box chapters in a row. I'm also going to give you a nice linear fidget-toy chapter, where you're enjoying manipulating the thing but there's not a puzzle challenge goal. Ben: Noticing the change in mood rather than the mood itself — I see that across many areas of how people notice things. People notice a thing changing more than the absolute level. Ada: You notice color in places where there is very little color. You notice beauty in places where there's very little beauty. Ben: Or changes in prices. People don't go around thinking "ah yes, this is expensive" all the time while the price stays the same. But all of a sudden a price changes and people react. Ada: Exactly. We very much operate logarithmically, and notice the change — the integral rather than the absolute amount, or the absolute speed at which something's moving. Designing the Hives [00:38:20] Ben: Related to worldbuilding — and if you've talked about this somewhere and I missed it, I apologize — how did you come up with the Hives in the first place? They feel so specific. Ada: When I had this idea at Villa I Tatti of "what if you choose your citizenship," I was thinking about it as deriving from transit — transit becoming easy. And then I thought: okay, what kinds of organizations would these be? If transit is suddenly really easy, if you can go anywhere on Earth in two hours, people are not going to want to put up with the frustrating, slow passport system. They're going to want that streamlined. I was thinking about the Global Entry program. This is a thing you sign up for, and it vets you, and it's trusted, and it's a third party but semi-governmental and semi-not, and it facilitates you being able to go much faster through the border. What if one of those became even more so, so that when you're a member you really can skip everything and zip around the Earth really easily? Well, if one of those developed, competitors would develop. What other kinds of focuses might a transit thing have? One of the things people would want to travel for is sports matches — people already do that. So there would be something whose whole shtick is: do you want to go see that game on another continent? We will facilitate that so it's easy. I also thought about CouchSurfing, which — I think people do it less now — but you sign up to say "I've got a couch," and others sign up to say "I'm traveling to a place," and the thing itself facilitates being friendly, and there's trusted-person vetting. And that idea became the Cousins: the idea of having a cousin in that town, who you may never actually have met, but they're not going to be too weird, because they're your cousin. You have this slight bridge of trust. So what if there was a company that stepped in to capitalize on what CouchSurfing is, but make it more formal, and called itself the Cousins network, and its motto was "what if you had a cousin in every town — we will hook that up"? I could see that company having started out more like CouchSurfing, where it's about where you're staying, and then branching into facilitating your ticket. And then Gordian being the one that really was just like Global Entry — a simple profit-seeking company that would do this. And then when the moment of the Great Renunciation comes — this is all background to the book, of course — these suddenly become political associations, when they had just been memberships. The way you might have a membership in Costco. The European Union is already this. But if people have a membership in Costco, often that means they have certain values, as well as desiring to buy cheap bulk things. So you could imagine that if suddenly there were a major global crisis, and Costco said, "Okay, everybody who has a Costco membership — we kind of trust you, and we believe you share our values of paying people a living wage and making sure things flow. Do you want to transition to being a politically active group?" And everybody who has a Costco membership would say, "Well, actually, yeah. In fact, it does make sense at this weird juncture in human history to transition my Costco membership into being part of a political association that's in favor of a living wage and making sure people eat." And you could see Costco transforming itself in a real crisis into a big series of pop-up mutual aid and new community kitchen things. That could totally happen. Ben: They already make a lot of hot dogs. Ada: The infrastructure is there, and the number of people with a connection to this thing is there. So it's the sort of thing that in the moment of the Great Renunciation could do that. And I imagined lots of other Hives being born like that. And then I asked: what new ones would be born, when suddenly this is political? Well, one of them would be the Masons — because there's always this sort of "oh no, I'm not in any of these groups, I feel left out," among the large slice of the population that feels drawn to strength and claims of tradition and claims of strong authority. And here are all of these legends about this being that. So if somebody cunning steps in and mobilizes it, they could make the Masons be born at that moment. And meanwhile, science fiction nerds are really well connected with each other. We all have community groups that organize Worldcon and all of this, and authors who can speak up and say, "Hey, all my fans — this thing, it's time to act." So it was plausible to me that Utopia could form very quickly in that moment of crisis as well. So part of it was: what groups and corporations and things that already exist could do this? And I remember wanting a really corporate one — this is the Mitsubishi in the end. What kinds of things last over time? The obvious choice would have been to be like Google or something. But when you look over time at corporations that really last multiple centuries, they tend to do very plural things. They tend to be consortia of multiple corporations rather than one. And they tend to be defined around a market or a world ethic rather than a product. Look at IBM, which has not become one of the giant Earth-owning corporations, but has sure steadily existed and never had a crisis. A big part of that is that IBM defines itself as: we make products for corporations. Whatever new thing needs to be made for corporations, we will start making that. If people develop a completely unprecedented new technology, that is what we will do, and we will orient it around having an established, clear relationship with corporations. So even if the computer ceased to matter economically tomorrow because it was replaced by the genetically modified super-eggplant, they would transition into corporate-focused genetically modified super-eggplants. And they would make that transition fine, in a way that Apple — which defines itself as an electronics company — would have struggled with at the time. Though Apple now is also a media and entertainment company, which is broader. So the Mitsubishi Group, which is not one corporation but dozens and dozens of corporations that make a wide variety of things and are a consortium with each other, is a corporate structure that's likely to withstand multiple multi-decade, multi-century tech tumults and still be coherent. That's why I picked that. Ben: Were there any Hive ideas that got the chopping block? Any that almost made it in? Ada: None got the complete chopping block, because of course one of the structures of this is that there have been fewer over time and they've merged. So the other ideas are the ones that are mentioned briefly as existing — like OBP, which stands for One Big Party. Ben: Which merged with the Humanists. Ada: They merged with the Humanists. But that was globe-trotting so that you could go to concerts and parties and get-togethers, rather than sports matches. There's enough overlap between those ideas — because you're traveling to enjoy an event — that it makes sense those two could merge, with a focus on both sports and art, concerts and performances: a focus on wanting to go enjoy and behold a human being doing something excellent. So you could see how they'd share a compatible ethic. Similarly Greenpeace, merging later with the Mitsubishi — but not fully yet. Would there be a group that would form centered on environmental custodianship, and wanting to take care not of people but of baby elephants? What would that be like? What countries would it have — not just a bunch of enthusiastic members, as it would anywhere, but massive, systemic, big cultural buy-in as opposed to small cultural buy-in? In the same way that sports fandom is bigger in some countries than others, or science fiction fandom is bigger in some countries than others even though it's present everywhere, personal investment in land and the value of land and land custodianship varies a lot. I was interviewing friends from all over the place, and it sounded, from talking with them, like India was the place where people had a very strong cultural investment in land. One interesting quality of India in the international world is that people in India are much more reluctant to sell land to a foreign owner than in most cultures. There is lots of land in India owned by corporations, but they're Indian corporations much more so. And people are likely to turn down a foreign buyer making an offer on property — whether it's large-scale property or even just a house or a bungalow — because of this sense that India's land should belong to India's people, which is stronger than in many other cultures. And this isn't a "we don't want foreigners dwelling here." We'll happily rent to a foreigner. It's the idea that the land should stay in the hands. I thought that would be an interesting place for Greenpeace's big nest of power to be centered, as it values land and land custodianship. And then I was thinking through: in this global future, who inherits all the national parks? If the nation-states are giving way to successor states, do the national parks dissolve, or does one of these say, "We're going to be the one" — and have what become global parks, and a huge portion of the unpopulated world in their ownership and custodianship? [Sponsor break — Seedhouse. "Buying a house is a big decision. Planting one isn't." Seedhouse grows carbon-negative homes from a single architect-designed seed: choose your floor plan, check your soil, and in twelve weeks you're ready to move in. The house faces the morning sun — and also turns toward the morning sun, which takes some getting used to. Need another bedroom? Order the right clipping, graft it, and wait. Visit seedhouse.com and use code IDEAMACHINES for a free guesthouse acorn. Seedhouse: put down roots. Literally, quite extensive roots.] The fandom, and the people who stop after book one [00:49:24] Ben: Last unspoiled question. How do you feel about the Terra Ignota fandom? Ada: It's great. I've never had anything but the most positive interactions with readers, and I love discussing the big meaty questions. A story that is as big and meaty as this one means really thoughtful, interested, eager people who want to chew on ideas. Ben: It feels like it's really touched something in the zeitgeist that even other good science fiction has not. Ada: I think it holds up an example of a future worth having and worth living in, with lots of exciting things one can push for. And a future of strong and respect-worthy values. One of the things about Terra Ignota is that, with very few exceptions, all the characters are philosophically self-examined and noble and have good ideals — ideals worth fighting for. And even though people come into strong conflict with each other, you respect and love both sides, because these are great people and they're fighting for great things. Ben: It's not a "there's a bad guy," which is so common. Ada: It's a neat vision of the future: what if everybody, even the people we fiercely disagreed with, was awesome, and we were disagreeing about important implementation or values — but underneath that, everybody was great? What if we have this high portrait of what humanity is and could become? Because one metric of progress is how rich we are, and another is how long we live. But what if another metric of progress is how excellent our conflicts are — so that we only have conflicts when it's about some really important, worthwhile cause? We don't have conflicts about grievance, or oil, or profit, or moral panic. We have conflicts about important philosophic principles and fundamentals. Wouldn't that, even though there's still conflict, be a form of progress? Ben: Peace is one form of progress, but moving to "this is a war worth fighting" is another form of progress. That's fascinating. Ada: And "I respect my enemy" is a form of progress. I love when Terra Ignota readers embrace and really want to live by some of these principles. I do sometimes feel like we could organize into a political advocacy group and crowdfund a lobbyist who advanced the values of this. Ben: Let's do it. I think that would be really cool. Ada: I would love to see it happen, because there are very important values in it — including the "what if we love the future and work for the future, but aren't vain about it, and do so with humility?" Now, one thing I sometimes run across— Ben: No, say what you were going to say first. Ada: No, I want to hear yours. I'll say what I was going to say anyway. Ben: Okay. The thing that also almost surprised me is how it really has something for everybody — there's a Hive that everyone feels kinship with. The obvious opposite would be Harry Potter, where of course you want to be in Gryffindor; Gryffindor is awesome, maybe Ravenclaw, but everybody else is kind of meh. When I interact with other people who love Terra Ignota — I'm a Utopian, and at first I assumed everybody else who likes this is going to be a Utopian. But no. I've run into people who identify with every Hive. Ada: And also sometimes people who say they would be a Graylaw, or who say "my religious identity is so core to me, I think I'd live in a reservation." I do run into that as well. And — great, there's space for you in this cool world. The world needs to respect you too, and have room in it for that, and needs that population, and needs to interface with them more as the narrative unfolds. I worked hard for there to be breadth. And I worked hard to think through: if these Hives were the Hives that formed from other Hives merging with each other, if there used to be dozens and now there are seven— Ben: What's the spanning set? Ada: Exactly. And what bigger and bigger ideas came together under umbrellas? Ben: Okay — what was the thing you were going to say? Ada: I sometimes run into people who say, "Oh, I'm a big fan of Too Like the Lightning," and who haven't read further. It's a little perplexing to people who are completionists and read the whole thing, but there's a not insignificant swath of people who read book one and haven't read the rest, who are very excited by the glimpse it shows of this future, but didn't continue on to see the way it then critiques the imperfections in this future — and shows the future recognizing its own problems and critiquing itself and becoming dynamic, and by the end being on the path to incremental improvement. I find it interesting talking with people like that, a lot of whom are Silicon Valley people. When you're an author, one thing that's the case is that you can log into Amazon and it'll show you this little map of America with how many copies of your book have sold in each region. So I know how many copies of Terra Ignota have been bought in New York City versus Arkansas versus elsewhere. For practically all books, the largest sales are New York City — New York City is very big, very populous, and they read a lot of books — and usually Silicon Valley is second. With Terra Ignota it's the other way around. So it is disproportionately popular among a world of people who see their technology transforming our lives and want an apparatus for thinking about what its future will be — one that is not just yet another cautionary tale about how the thing they're making could be used by a dystopia to make the world worse, but also how it could be used by a positive future to make the world better. I love that it's popular there, and I love talking to tech people who are eager to talk to me about it. But every so often I'll get this chilling thing, where one of the things in the world-build that for me is definitely negative and should be raising your alarm bells, they will have seen as positive. Ben: I'm sure you know the meme: "Ah yes, we have built the Torture Nexus from the book, Do Not Build The Torture Nexus." Ada: Yes. With its much-needed sequel, No, I Meant Don't Build the Torture Nexus. I had a conversation not long ago with a person who said they loved how Terra Ignota was basically a world without crime — an interesting thing for them to observe, because of course we know that's not the case— Ben: That's not the case, and that's not the mechanism by which it's not the case. Ada: And this was, in their reading, because of the trackers and universal surveillance: that it was an exploration of how universal surveillance could be great and could cause the end of crime. And I said: well, firstly, there is crime. But secondly, the reason the universal surveillance isn't that bad in Terra Ignota is that the governments are so good — because the buyer's market for citizenship holds governments to great degrees of accountability. If they misused this data, there would be public outcry, and then a mass movement against the government that did it, as citizens switched to other Hives. That accountability means that when the data is misused — as indeed it is, as we see over the course of book two — there is a consequence, speedily, for that misuse. The governments, being accountable, cannot abuse it. And the person just looked really sad. Because clearly, to this person who worked for a surveillance tech company, this was a hope that a surveillance tech future could be good, not bad. They hadn't thought through that it's the political change and the levels of political accountability that make it plausible that in such a future, surveillance tech would not do the harm it can do in a future where governments have a lot of power and not a lot of accountability. So I always find it interesting to see people who see a particular thing they're looking for in a future in Terra Ignota — at least in book one — and then didn't follow that journey forward to be challenged by it. But I love the people who read all of the books and followed me through the journey of: what if we have this future, and it's a great future, but it's not a perfect future, and it recognizes that, and it has to go through growing pains and work to become even better? Because one of the things about a utopia in the classic sense is that it's static. It's achieved this perfect state and it's unchanging. A book that is a true classic utopia basically feels like you have arrived in the city and they say, "Hello, stranger! Would you like to learn about our perfect public transit system? Now would you like to learn about our perfect public education system?" Welcome to Finland — we would like to lecture you on the superiority of all of our social and technological institutions. And you're like: actually, Finland, you're really great at all these things, and I wish we could elect you to rule the world and implement all of these things in most of our countries in many ways. But it feels weird getting these tours of perfect worlds that then aren't also self-examining and dynamic. So Terra Ignota is a hopeful future, but not a utopian future, because it has flaws. I remember when the first book came out, a lot of the initial discourse — the first blog posts of its earliest readers — was arguing about whether it was a utopia or a dystopia, trying to put it in one bucket or the other. "It has to be a utopia, everyone's happy, the lifespans are long." "No, it has censorship and surveillance, it has to be a dystopia." People would talk with each other before thinking through that it's an in-between. It has a lot of things that are better than our present and a few things that are worse than our present, and a lot of great achievements and a lot of stuff that still really needs to change. And a realistic future is one that is still changing. ⚠ The spoiler line [01:00:44] Ben: I'm going to transition us to speak about that realistic future. So — this is the spoiler warning. Anybody listening after this point: we expect you have read all the books. You will learn what happens in them. We will not explain anything. This is the part I'm very excited about. Also, sidebar: the fourth book is actually my favorite one. Ada: It's the best one. I needed all the other stuff before I could do that. Ben: The speech about the Trunk War, and the in-path and the out-path — that got me. Ada: Like the composer of a symphony, I needed to introduce all the leitmotifs and establish everything so that I could then do the final movement, in which everything happens at once. So I do setup, and I do more setup, and I do more setup — and then I have the full resources of those three books' worth of background, so that I can jump in and do things with an enormous complexity and depth that can only work when you have built that far. How the economy works [01:01:51] Ben: Something you don't talk about very much in the books, but that I assume exists in the giant iceberg: how does the economy work? There are little hints — clearly there are still black markets, clearly there's some form of buying and selling — but beyond that it's really not explained. And we get hints that it works a little differently for different Hives. Ada: We also know that the Hives resolve police conflicts with each other: when a member of one Hive has committed a crime against a member of another, the Hive that the person in the wrong came from pays the other Hive, and then punishes their own person by their own techniques. So a Mason receives the punishment a Mason normally gets, which might be much harsher than what the Cousins would normally do — but the Cousins get a certain amount of money that is standardized for the crime. So money is used among the Hives to balance out their frictions. That means Hives are incentivized to discourage crimes by their members against other members, because it costs them a certain amount of money. But they're not super-mega-over-the-top incentivized. They would never spend half their budget on policing, because it's resolved. Within that, the economy works quite differently for different Hives. The Mitsubishi and Humanists are on a very capitalist, more corporate model. The Utopians are space communists. Everything you earn goes to space, and you receive back what you need to live. The constellations process things around, and there is enough for everyone to live in comfort, but you do not have private assets and private income. It's set up the way a monastery runs. If you have a job and are a monk, this is just true: if you're a monk and you also have a professorship, your salary goes to the monastery, and you still receive the same meals and support and housing and stipend that any other monk does. It doesn't matter whether you're in a high-profit or low-profit job — you're doing a worthwhile job, therefore the Hive supports you, or the monastery supports you. So they're fully space communists: everything goes into the Hive and comes back out. The Cousins have much more of a safety-net thing, where everybody has a guaranteed income, but you can also have additional income on top of that. And if you do have earned income, the Cousins take a very large slice of it in taxes, because they pay for so many services which both you and the world benefit from — and you feel good that, in a charitable way, you have funded schools and hospitals all over the world in a massive transformation. So that also appeals to somebody who, if they had supplementary income, would choose to give a lot of it to charity. You're sort of signing up in advance to have your income largely routed to charity, while you keep enough to live on and some more, so there's an incentive to earn more, but not a huge one. The Masons have a complicated thing — this is why it's not in the book. It's calculated: the value of your contribution to the empire. How valuable a subject are you to Caesar? A number is put on that. And if you have a job or occupation that earns less than that, then you receive a stipend from the empire in credit for the services you've done to the empire. And if you're working directly for the empire, as the Guildbreakers do, then you receive a stipend from the emperor. What it means is that a lot of Masons will fluctuate during their lifetime between "100% of my income is coming from a salary" and "now half my income is coming from a salary and half from the fact that I am a Masonic traffic guard, or whatever it is, working for Caesar." So Caesar pays this slice of my income, and my salary for something else pays another slice. And it's a point of pride to have more and more of it be your value from the empire — because then you're serving the empire better and doing more. Though there's also a point of pride in having a hundred percent from salary, so that you're not draining Caesar's purse. Ben: I bet there are the two different groups of people — the one high status and the other high status — and they beef a little bit. One currency, and the currencies underneath it [01:07:06] Ben: All of that implies some kind of single cross-Hive currency. Ada: You'll notice all the prices are in euros throughout the book. Whenever any price is named, it's in euros. And the presumption is that Romanova administers a kind of central bank — and that the Censor's office is key to the administration of that central bank. The Censor's office is fundamentally doing economic analysis as well as social analysis. Ben: Which sort of implies that Hives cannot operate like a lot of modern governments, where they print their own currency. Ada: They can and they can't. You can still do currency exchange with the reservations, which are very intentionally not discussed very much in the first three books, so that we're sort of curious and slightly alarmed. And then they become so vividly present at major key moments in the last book, and you have this sort of backwards — I've been thinking of this as the marginal barbarians. Wait a minute, that's the United Nations. That's me. We are those marginal remnants — that's the evolution of the way we live now. The other thing is that Hives can create internal fiat currencies of different sorts, that are tradable only among them and that only they would really care about. So for example, the Mitsubishi have this: you get one vote for owning different amounts of property. Property and votes move together, and there's a unit which is one vote's worth of property — a significant value of a thing. And the Mitsubishi pay a lot of attention to those circulating. So it's not a small currency, in that you would never buy a sandwich with it. It's a currency in which the smallest unit is $300,000 or $200,000, because it's the value of a condominium, basically. But people pay a lot of attention to it, care about it. They can't just generate more without building architecture — but they can generate more by the act of building architecture or buying property. And if Mitsubishi buys property, that transforms it from a thing that has cash value to a thing that has cash value and a vote's worth. And then it moves around. So it operates in a complex way, like a non-fiat currency — a currency where there is a real thing attached to this unit of currency — but they only change hands for big deals, not small deals. And then people commit their vote to a voting bloc, which supports a higher voting bloc, so you're delegating your voting power rather than exercising it independently. The campus system [01:10:26] Ben: I feel like I could talk about this for a very long time, but I have more spoiler questions. How does the campus system work? Ada: A campus is referred to a number of times but never really explained. It's not quite a university, because it's a cluster in one area of multiple educational options. A campus might have a major research university, and three different colleges with different focuses, and several trade schools. So you might choose to go to that campus to attend a research university. Or you might choose to go to that campus to get a trade school degree as an artisan and be a master glassblower. Or you might choose to go there and say: I like the mood of this campus. This is the Romanova campus, so everybody who goes here really cares about politics — but they want to do different things in politics. Some want to go to journalism school, some want to be lawyers and complete law school, some really want to be politicians, some really want to observe, some might want to be architects but are interested in political thought and how it informs architecture, so there's an architecture school there. And you might be going for different lengths of time, because you might be doing different successive degrees. You might say: I really love political thought, I want to be in the city where it happens, I want to be in the community of other people where all my fellow students are into politics. So even though I want to be a doctor, I'll choose to go to medical school there, and make friends with somebody who's there to do architecture, and another friend who's there to get a polylaw degree and wants to be a polylaw. But we get to mix and mingle and enjoy debating and discussing and observing politics, united by that shared ethic for my bash'. And then I made another place that's like: this is a campus designed for people who really love water sports. We're going to have fifteen different educational options — there will be a medical school, and a law school, and small liberal-arts-focused colleges, and a large research university here also — but all of them are structured around a bay that has really good surfing and where there are lots of boats. So if you're somebody who loves that kind of thing, and you think you probably want to have a bash' with people who share that passion, then you might choose to go to that campus. You choose based on the campus and its mood, not based on which school is best for law. You can choose any campus and get a law degree there. So it's more about expecting that this is a personally formative phase of your life, in which you're going to find your bash' and find your bash'mates. So you go to the campus where you expect shared interest with those bash'mates. And there are a few campuses that are dominantly Masons, where you go — you grew up a Mason, you're expected to be a Mason, you want all of your bash'mates to be Masons, and they do Masonic things, and probably you're going to join a hereditary Masonic bash'. But you still do need to go about finding your bash'. You might therefore choose to go to one that's dominantly Masons. But you could also go to the Romanova campus and be in the college that's a Masonic college at the Romanova campus, where one part of your social world is mostly Masons and another part is very mixed. Ben: Administratively, are they all one organization, or just a bunch of co-located organizations? Ada: Co-located organizations, with a central organization that maintains the campus as a whole. That organization doesn't do the admissions, or decide who's there, or what programs there are. But they collect money from all of the schools that benefit from the presence of this campus, and use that to maintain the grounds and the infrastructure and the safety and the boats. Or, in the case of the Romanova one, to have lecture series where they bring in statesmen to talk to the students. So the central organization organizes the infrastructure and incentives that make the campus desirable, but it doesn't run the individual universities and schools. Those are still independent. When a new campus is formed, it buys up a bunch of land and then either sells or leases that land to individual schools that want to develop there. Most often the format would be a hundred-year lease. And then after a hundred years we'll evaluate whether this school actually still is a major contributor to the thing or not — so that it's not constantly uncertain. There's a symbiosis between the campus umbrella organization and the individual schools, but the individual schools are themselves separately run. Ben: I love that. Ada: There are already parts of the world where there are three or four colleges really near each other — like Cambridge, Massachusetts, where there are people from Harvard and people from MIT mixing with each other, and one of the things the two schools do is benefit from each other. And the more your educatio

Al, Zach, Christian, and John Luke dig into The Odyssey, comparing Christopher Nolan's interpretation with Homer's original, from the diminished role of the Greek gods to Penelope's complicated fight to preserve her family and kingdom. They explore Telemachus' struggle to grow up without his father and the stark contrast between men who build and protect and those who simply live off what others have built. The guys ultimately contrast Odysseus' long journey home with Christianity's radically different picture of God bringing his people home. In this episode: Judges; 1 Samuel; Job; Daniel 2; Daniel 7; John 9; Hebrews 13:2; Hebrews 13:4; Ecclesiastes; Revelation 21-22 Today's conversation is about Lesson 1 & 2 of The Odyssey taught by Hillsdale Professor Dr. Benedict Whalen. Take the course with us at no cost to you!  More about The Odyssey: The Odyssey tells the tale of the cunning and crafty hero of the Trojan War on his journey home. After ten years of war, Odysseus faces another ten years of fantastic temptations, deadly monsters, treacherous seas, and impious men. Meanwhile, Ithaca is threatened by suitors who plague his wife and plunder his wealth. When Odysseus reaches home, he must slay the suitors, test the loyalty of his friends and family, and restore order to his marriage and his kingdom. Join Dr. Benedict Whalen as he explores themes of love, marriage, kingship, duty, and piety. Encounter Homer's epic, which displays the full human experience. In a world of uncertainty, Odysseus charts a path towards peace through perseverance, prudence, and justice.  Join Odysseus on his fantastic journey home from Troy in Homer's unrivaled story. Sign up at ⁠http://unashamedforhillsdale.com/ Check out At Home with Phil Robertson, nearly 800 episodes of Phil's unfiltered wisdom, humor, and biblical truth, available for free for the first time! Get it on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, and anywhere you listen to podcasts! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/at-home-with-phil-robertson/id1835224621 Listen to Not Yet Now with Zach Dasher on Apple, Spotify, iHeart, or anywhere you get podcasts. Chapters 00:00 ‘The Odyssey' Adventure Begins 06:15 Why Christians Should Care About Homer 09:58 Odysseus Chooses Home Over Glory 12:22 Why This Story Still Connects 3,000 Years Later 19:31 What Ancient Hospitality Reveals About Culture 23:47 Greek Gods vs. the God of Christianity 27:36 The Question Humanity Has Always Asked 33:07 Penelope, the Suitors & the Politics of Marriage 42:26 What Happens When a Father Is Missing 46:31 The Rise of “Parasitic Masculinity” 48:27 Two Very Different Roads Home - Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Miss Kay gets a taste of the old Robertson river days when Jase brings her a dove dinner that stirs up some emotional memories. Jase also has a message for the global warming alarmists after one brutally hot morning sends him down an unexpected rabbit hole about the deadliest killer on Earth. The guys decide who in the Robertson family is the worst offender when it comes to interrupting and not listening to each other. Jase, Al, and Zach wrap up with James, Ecclesiastes, and Philippians as they dig into contentment, wealth, self-reliance, and what it really means to trust God. In this episode: Genesis 9; James 3; James 4:13-17; James 5:1-6; Acts 3:14; Acts 7; Ecclesiastes 2; Ecclesiastes 3:9-13; Matthew 6:25-34; Philippians 4; Philippians 4:13 Want to watch the Lost Episodes of Unashamed, only on EKKL? Get 20% off with code UNASHAMED, and watch faith- and family-friendly movies, podcasts, and more: https://ekkl.com/ “Unashamed” Episode 1422 is sponsored by: https://andrewandtodd.com or call 888-888-1172 - Get a FREE no-pressure mortgage and refinance review and see if your deal still makes sense! https://duckstamp.com/unashamed - Get your digital duck stamp online and keep it right on your phone! http://unashamedforhillsdale.com/ - Sign up now for free, and join the Unashamed hosts every Friday for Unashamed Academy Powered by Hillsdale College Check out At Home with Phil Robertson, nearly 800 episodes of Phil's unfiltered wisdom, humor, and biblical truth, available for free for the first time! Get it on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, and anywhere you listen to podcasts! https://open.spotify.com/show/3LY8eJ4ZBZHmsImGoDNK2l Listen to Not Yet Now with Zach Dasher on Apple, Spotify, iHeart, or anywhere you get podcasts. Chapters 00:00 Who Interrupts the Most? 04:20 Jase's Opening-Day Dove Hunt 08:35 The Mosquito's Incredible Design 16:45 Finding Evidence of a Creator 22:15 Miss Kay Devours Jase's Dove Feast 26:25 Louisiana Rallies Around LSU 33:50 What Keeps Christians Divided? 39:25 James' Warning to the Wealthy 44:05 Solomon's Secret to True Contentment 48:05 Trusting God With What Comes Next - Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My guest Heather is frustrated with her autistic son because he keeps asking the same question.  She can't answer, and his insistence drives her crazy. As we sit in this powerful Mother/Son Work, Heather opens her mind and finds the cause of her suffering.  Join Heather and me for this powerful self-inquiry.  The podcast is recorded during "At Home with Byron Katie"—join me live on Zoom on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays, starting at 9 a.m. Pacific Time. Register: athomewithbyronkatie.com

WANT TO WIN A YOU BEAUTY GIFT BUNDLE?! Kelly and Leigh have bundled together their all-time favourite beauty products and two Mamamia subscribers are winning the lot. Subscribe to Mamamia to be automatically entered to win. Current subscriber? You're already in the draw. T&Cs apply. IN THIS EPISODE: Spring is finally around the corner, and if your body skin resembles a scaly lizard and your brows need a serious rescue mission, Leigh Campbell and Kelly McCarren are here to save the day! Things get messy in the studio as Kelly attempts a live DIY peel-off brow tint on Leigh before they help solve a listener’s SOS for ultra-dry winter legs with the ultimate two-week body hydrations routine. Plus, we've got a $4.50 brow pencil that beats luxury brands and a Lady Gaga lip colour that literally refuses to budge in Spendy Savey. PRODUCT RECCOMENDATIONS: L’Occitane Deluxe Beauty Advent Calendar, $325 12 Days Of Christmas Mco Beauty, $59 1000HOUR Lash & Brow Dye Kit, $19.99 1000HOUR Lash & Brow Tint Kit, $24.99 Maybelline Tattoo Brow 3 Day Gel Tint Dark Brown, $26.99 Rimmel Wonder'Bond Brow Filler Peel-Off Tint, $25.95 Urban Jungle Grime Fighter Exfoliating Body Wash, $36 EpZen AHA Exfoliating Body Wash, $21.99 Q+A AHA Exfoliator Body Scrub, $17.99 CeraVe Intensive Moisturising Cream, $34.99 Mixa Urea Cica Repair+ Body Milk, $14.99 Bioderma Atoderm 2-in-1 Oil Dry Body Oil, $54.99 Paula’s Choice Skin Revealing Body Lotion 10% AHA, $54 CeraVe SA Smoothing Cream, $22.99 Vaseline Gluta-Hya Serum Boost Lotion Smoothing Perfector, $12.50 By Terry Tea To Tan Face & Body bronzing mist, $57 Cocoa Brown by Marissa Carter Instant Bronze Wash Off Self Tan, $22 Elle Effect The Tint, $44.95 LEIGH'S PRODUCTS: SPENDY: Redken Extreme Playsafe Heat Protection Treatment, $49SAVEY: Ma:Nyo Galactomy Essence Mist, $34MVP: Tower 28 Swipe Serum Foundation, $59 KELLY'S PRODUCTS: SPENDY: Haus Labs Atomic Shake Lip Lacquer $47SAVEY: Essence Micro Precise Brow Pencil ,$4.50MVP: D’Alba Double Serum Multi-Balm $39 HELPFUL LINKS: Become a Mamamia subscriber and get an all-access pass to everything we make, including exclusive podcasts and early listening, subscriber-only articles, monthly giveaways and our home workout app, MOVE. Get access to Very Peri, Mamamia's exclusive perimenopause series, for just $59. 25 world-leading experts, over 20 on-demand sessions, available now. We’ve sorted through the noise so you don't have to. Go to veryperi.com.au today. You hot? Same. READ MORE: Want access to all of Leigh's articles? Sign up to be a Mamamia subscriber here. Subscribe to your exclusive You Beauty newsletter here. I Took My Bush To The Beach. Did Anyone Care? - Article from The Cut SOCIALS: Follow Us on Instagram and TikTok to get all our fabulous beauty hacks, tips & tricks! Join all 87,000 Youbies over in our Facebook Group here to ask questions and get exclusive behind the scenes content. Got a beauty dilemma you need solved?! Email us youbeauty@mamamia.com.au And if you want something else to listen to you can find all the Mamamia podcasts here. CREDITS: Hosts: @leighacampbell and @kelly_mccarren. Producers: Talissa Bazaz & Zara Sengstock Video Producer: Artemi Kokkaris Mamamia acknowledges the traditional owners of the land on which we have recorded this podcast. Become a Mamamia subscriber: https://www.mamamia.com.au/subscribeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Movie & TV stars Carlos and Alexa PenaVega open up about finding faith at some of the lowest points in their lives and putting their marriage ahead of Hollywood expectations. They share a candid discussion with Jase, Al, and Zach about why Hollywood and the heartland of America often seem worlds apart when it comes to authenticity, family values, and understanding what audiences actually want. They also reflect on the devastating loss of their daughter and the supernatural peace they experienced through grief, while Al connects their story to the Robertson family's own transformation.  Check out the LEXLOS podcast at https://lexlos.com/ and on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/@LexLos. In this episode: Philippians 4:6-7; Revelation 2:17; 2 Corinthians 5:18-20; Matthew 18:3; Job 1:20-21 Want to watch the Lost Episodes of Unashamed, only on EKKL? Get 20% off with code UNASHAMED, and watch faith- and family-friendly movies, podcasts, and more: https://ekkl.com/ “Unashamed” Episode 1421 is sponsored by: https://chministries.org/solution - Get a better solution at half the cost of traditional healthcare!  https://rocketmoney.com/unashamed - Join Rocket Money and let them help you reach your financial goals faster.  https://myphdweightloss.com - Find out how Al lost 80+ pounds. Visit the website or call 864-644-1900 and mention "Al Robertson" to get 2 weeks free in the program! http://unashamedforhillsdale.com/ - Sign up now for free, and join the Unashamed hosts every Friday for Unashamed Academy Powered by Hillsdale College Check out At Home with Phil Robertson, nearly 800 episodes of Phil's unfiltered wisdom, humor, and biblical truth, available for free for the first time! Get it on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, and anywhere you listen to podcasts! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/at-home-with-phil-robertson/id1835224621 Listen to Not Yet Now with Zach Dasher on Apple, Spotify, iHeart, or anywhere you get podcasts. Chapters 00:00 Carlos & Alexa Create a New Family Name 06:35 Carlos Hits Rock Bottom 12:50 Faith Becomes Their Foundation 20:00 ‘Duck Dynasty' Was Never Supposed to Work 26:48 Why Authenticity Connected With Millions 32:11 The Robertsons' Four Generations of Faith 39:20 Alexa & Carlos Put Marriage Before Hollywood 43:30 The Hardest Season of Their Lives 48:22 God Redirects Their Family to Nashville 51:15 Losing Their Daughter & Finding Supernatural Peace 56:10 Carlos & Alexa Launch Their New Podcast - Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

‘The Chosen' actor Elijah Alexander opens up about the powerful first words fellow actor Jonathan Roumie spoke to him off camera and how they helped launch his journey to Jesus. Raised Jewish, Elijah tells Jase, Al, and Zach how playing the Roman Atticus eventually led him from searching for God to becoming a disciple and getting baptized on set. He also reflects on his lifelong love of biblical storytelling and his role as King Nebuchadnezzar in the upcoming film Daniel and the Fiery Furnace. In this episode: 1 John 4:7; Acts 17:26-27; Matthew 28:19; Romans 8:28; John 1:38 Want to watch the Lost Episodes of Unashamed, only on EKKL? Get 20% off with code UNASHAMED, and watch faith- and family-friendly movies, podcasts, and more: https://ekkl.com/ “Unashamed” Episode 1420 is sponsored by: https://preborn.com/unashamed - Visit the PreBorn! website or dial #250 and use keyword BABY to donate today. https://homechef.com/unashamed - Get 50% off and free shipping on your first box plus free dessert for life! https://duckstamp.com/unashamed - Get your digital duck stamp online and keep it right on your phone! http://unashamedforhillsdale.com/ - Sign up now for free, and join the Unashamed hosts every Friday for Unashamed Academy Powered by Hillsdale College Check out At Home with Phil Robertson, nearly 800 episodes of Phil's unfiltered wisdom, humor, and biblical truth, available for free for the first time! Get it on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, and anywhere you listen to podcasts! https://open.spotify.com/show/3LY8eJ4ZBZHmsImGoDNK2l Listen to Not Yet Now with Zach Dasher on Apple, Spotify, iHeart, or anywhere you get podcasts. Chapters 00:00 Meet ‘The Chosen' Actor Elijah Alexander 04:18 From Jewish Roots to a Search for God 12:06 The Call That Changed Elijah's Life 19:28 Jonathan Roumie's First Message to Elijah 25:48 Finding God in Higher Learning 29:09 Filming the Crucifixion Changes Everything 34:18 Elijah's Journey to Baptism 41:45 Why Jesus Asked So Many Questions 46:08 The Unforgettable Baptism Request - Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jase, Al, and Zach challenge the way we think about success, judgment, and having life all figured out. The guys push back on the “don't judge me” culture, drawing a line between hypocritical judgment, healthy accountability, and calling out what's wrong without playing God. Jase points to James' sobering reminder that life moves fast and that money, plans, and worldly success can create a dangerous illusion of control. Plus, Zach learns that Unashamed Nation has definitely chosen sides in his ongoing rivalry with Jase. In this episode: James 3:15; James 4:1-17; James 5:1-6, 16; Titus 3; Matthew 7; Luke 15; Acts 2; Acts 17; Romans 1; Romans 2:1-11; Romans 4; Romans 8; Romans 9:30-33; 1 Corinthians 5; Psalm 127; Genesis 1:28; Genesis 2; Proverbs 3:34 Want to watch the Lost Episodes of Unashamed, only on EKKL? Get 20% off with code UNASHAMED, and watch faith- and family-friendly movies, podcasts, and more: https://ekkl.com/ “Unashamed” Episode 1419 is sponsored by: https://www.covesmart.com/unashamed/ - Use code UNASHAMED at checkout for up to 70% off your first order! Go to curehydration.com/unashamed to get 20% off your first order with promo code UNASHAMED https://bravebooks.com/unashamed - Get both of the Robertson books completely free, plus a free starter kit, all for 70% off! https://myphdweightloss.com - Find out how Al lost 80+ pounds. Visit the website or call 864-644-1900 and mention "Al Robertson" to get 2 weeks free in the program! http://unashamedforhillsdale.com/ - Sign up now for free, and join the Unashamed hosts every Friday for Unashamed Academy Powered by Hillsdale College Check out At Home with Phil Robertson, nearly 800 episodes of Phil's unfiltered wisdom, humor, and biblical truth, available for free for the first time! Get it on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, and anywhere you listen to podcasts! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/at-home-with-phil-robertson/id1835224621 Listen to Not Yet Now with Zach Dasher on Apple, Spotify, iHeart, or anywhere you get podcasts. Chapters 00:00 Team Jase vs. Team Zach 05:55 Resist the Devil & Draw Near to God 12:19 Confession & Double-Mindedness 18:41 “What Is Your Life?” 25:34 The Prodigal Son & True Repentance 30:46 Faith & Works Go Together 37:29 When Christians Should Judge 42:05 Do Less Isn't the Way 51:09 Doing Isn't the Same as Earning - Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Professional Organizer Helps Declutter Organize and Beautify Your Home and Your Life an Interview with Nikki Boyd (Episode 299)   Ecclesiastes 5:13 AMP “There is a grievous evil which I have seen under the sun: riches being kept and hoarded by their owner to his own misery.”   *Transcription Below*   Nikki Boyd is a professional organizer, author of the Beautifully Organized series, and founder of the At Home With Nikki brand. Known for her elegant yet practical approach to organization, she inspires women to create homes that feel calm, beautiful, and intentionally lived in. Through her books, courses, and social media presence, Nikki shares simple, thoughtful systems that help people simplify their spaces and live more intentionally each day. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, Real Simple, and House Beautiful.   LOOKING FOR HELP WITH YOUR LIFE? VISIT OUR WEBSITE | SUBSCRIBE OUR CHANNEL | JOIN OUR MASTER COURSE Ready to get organized? SCHEDULE A VIRTUAL SESSION Grab the books: The Beautifully Organized Series  Connect with Nikki on social: Instagram | Facebook | TikTok   Thank You to Our Sponsor: The Sue Neihouser Team   Questions and Topics We Cover: Where do your clients typically feel most overwhelmed and what is your process for eventually leading them to experience more peace?  Can you give us the best place to begin decluttering today? What is the best way to begin both decluttering and organizing kid spaces in our homes?    Related Savvy Sauce Episodes: Relationships and Opportunities that Arise from Using Your Gifts with Founder of Neighbor's Table, Sarah Harmeyer, Episode 47 Best Cleaning Tips from Clean Mama, Becky Rapinchuk, Episode 128 Experiencing Joy, Nourishment, and Connection at the Table with Abby Turner, Episode 168 Making Your Home a Place of Love and Peace: Special Patreon Re-Release with Devi Titus   Connect with The Savvy Sauce on Facebook or Instagram or Our Website   Gospel Scripture: (all NIV) Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,”   Romans 3:24 “and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”   Romans 3:25 (a) “God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood.”    Hebrews 9:22 (b) “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.”    Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”    Romans 5:11 “Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.”    John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”   Romans 10:9 “That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”    Luke 15:10 says “In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”   Romans 8:1 “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus”   Ephesians 1:13–14 “And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession- to the praise of his glory.”   Ephesians 1:15–23 “For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.”   Ephesians 2:8–10 “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God‘s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.“   Ephesians 2:13 “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.“   Philippians 1:6 “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”   *Transcription*   Music: (0:00 – 0:09)   Laura Dugger: (0:12 - 1:49) Welcome to The Savvy Sauce, where we have practical chats for intentional living. I'm your host, Laura Dugger, and I'm so glad you're here.   Thank you to the Sue Neihouser Team for sponsoring this episode. If you're looking to buy or sell a home this season, make sure you reach out to Sue at 309-229-8831. Sue would love to walk alongside you as you unlock new doors.   I am so excited to get to host my guest for today, Nikki Boyd. Nikki is a professional organizer and also a prolific author. If you can see all of these resources, this is part of the Beautifully Organized series. Nikki is also the founder of At Home with Nikki brand. She is known for her elegant yet practical approach to organization, and she inspires women especially to create homes where they feel calm, beautiful, and intentionally lived in. She's going to share more of that with us today. Here's our chat.   Welcome to The Savvy Sauce, Nikki.   Nikki Boyd: Hi, I'm so glad to be here. Excited to be here.   Laura Dugger: Well, I'm delighted to get a chat with you, and I have to say your career absolutely fascinates me. So, will you share your path to getting to do the work that you get to do today?   Nikki Boyd: (1:49 - 7:21) Absolutely. It was very unexpected because a little secret, well, it's not a secret because I've been talking about ever since I've written my books, but I was a very messy child. So, as a child, you would have thought I would be doing what I do now. And so, it really was unexpected in the fact that I was a military spouse, just traveling around the world, supporting my husband in his dreams of being in the military and doing what he does. And depending on where we were, I would work different jobs. So, I have a very colorful work history and oftentimes frustrated by the fact of not being able to have a career and feeling like I want a career.   But it's funny how God works, and that's why we have to be patient, and we have to have faith because every last job that he provided added to my career today. And it was a necessity, and I didn't see that back then. And so, when he retired, he was like you supported me all these years. Now, it's time for me to do that in whatever your dream is of what you wanted to do. I had no idea what it was. I didn't know. I was like, what? I mean, I think I was right at 40 at the time, and I was like, okay, what is it I'm supposed to do? I'm trying to find myself at 40.   And so, I remember when we lived in England, I had went over a lady's house, and I had met for the first time, and she was having like this crafting party. And we went into a room in her home, and I had the best day. And she had, I believe it was 10 kids. They were a family of 10, yes. But it was the most peaceful environment. We sat there all day and crafted, heard no kids, had a beautiful time. When she was there, she was telling me back, this was years ago when YouTube wasn't a thing. And she was telling me about how, yeah, I like to film my crafts, and I put them on YouTube. And I was like, what is YouTube? Never thought anymore about it.   When we moved back to the States, I remembered just that experience. And I remember her saying the YouTube thing. And so, when I was trying to figure out what I was going to do, I said, you know what? Let me look into this. And just, I started filming myself, just doing whatever I was doing around my house. And then, the only person watching was my mom. Then over time, she said, put that there, put it out there. And I did. No one watched for the longest time, but I just enjoyed the process of feeling like I had that friend girl by my side in my home, as I went and organized and did the different things. And by this point, my home was my everything as far as providing for my family, a beautiful environment when they came home, and just being able to have a home that served others. And so, it just started trickling from then. People started watching. I started building a brand. And then, 2017 opened the doors to my professional organizing business, then started writing the books, five books in now on a Beautifully Organized series.   And even during that journey, I questioned God about it, because I would say I was about three years in where I wasn't really doing anything but filming. And I was like, Lord, this is not what I'm supposed to be doing. This is not a career. This is not... And I was battling with that. And I remember one night, I was in my bed and I couldn't sleep. And so, I got up and I got on my computer, and I had an email from a lady overseas. And she said, I just want to let you know that I got out of my bed for the first time in two years, because I lost my husband. I have three little ones. And I was just laying in my bed for two years, just numb. And I started watching your videos. And today, I got... You can imagine, I was tears. She said, “I got out of my bed for the first time. I organized my fridge. I set spaces for my kids' lunch. And I went out and bought me a teacup just for myself. And that to me was the first sign that God gave me that, Nikki, this does have purpose.   And so, I went on from that, and I just kept trucking along. And then as human as I am, a few years later, I questioned God again. I wasn't satisfied. And I was like, okay, God, yeah, I know, but I don't feel... I'm not feeling it. And he sent me another sign. I used to love covering. I used to love covering my Bible, making Bible covers. And so, I made a Bible cover on my YouTube channel. I was like, okay, I'm going to give away a Bible. We're doing a giveaway for a Bible. And so, I did the giveaway, just randomly picking someone, doing the thing. And then I mailed off the Bible. And I got a message from a lady, and she said, my goal when I got off work was to come home and to commit suicide. When I came home, your Bible was... I cry every time I tell the story. When I came home, the Bible that was on my doorstep, and I knew that was a sign from God that, hold on, hold on, keep going. And then I told the Lord from there, okay, I'm not questioning you anymore. This is the journey that I'm supposed to be on. And from that point, I just settled into it and grew from there. And that's what I do now.   Laura Dugger: (7:22 - 7:44) Wow. We got tears in my eyes from that story as well. Praise the Lord that you waited on Him, and you were still faithful in that journey, even when He wasn't showing you the whole path. But as a Jesus follower, Nikki, why do you think it is a worthy goal to pursue having a beautifully organized home?   Nikki Boyd: (7:45 - 9:48) Because that's how we serve others. That's how we do His work. That's how, not only when I say serve others, it's serving our family, along with our church, our community. When we establish an environment where we can welcome people in, or even if they're not coming into our home, where we're able to be in a spirit to where we can serve others outside the home. My kitchen is not chaotic, so I can make those cupcakes that I can take to church on Sunday, or I feel motivated and rejuvenated. I always say our home is our rejuvenation space. It's a space we come to to rejuvenate, and so that we can do the work we need to do when we walk outside those doors. And so, it just feeds so many things, along with it saves us time, it saves us money, it saves us from stress. And our God's an orderly God, and so we look to Him for that inspiration.   I always share too, is the first time when we open the Bible, we look at creation, and we see how He's the ultimate designer, and how He's so meticulous, and He's so thoughtful. And so, when I'm organizing my home, or decorating my home, I'm thinking like God did when He was creating the earth. He really took time and thought, and He rested Him. It was very intentional. And so that's a lot of how I like to approach our home, and how we set up systems, and how we work through the space. Because when you have a home that is in chaos, and when you have a home that just is overwhelmed with stuff, you're really just taken away from your family, taken away for yourself. I know I bought a wooden spoon. I know I got a wooden spoon here. Where's that wooden spoon? But then you have to go out and buy another wooden spoon when it's already been provided. Mm-hmm.   Laura Dugger: (9:48 - 10:05) So well said. And so, from your years of experience, where do your clients typically feel most overwhelmed? And then what is your process for eventually leading them into a place where they're getting to experience more peace?   Nikki Boyd: (10:06 - 11:38) So, a lot of spaces that clients are overwhelmed by, garages are big. The shoes at the entryway door, I hear that a lot, especially with families. You come in and the first thing, I always say your entryway is your first impression space. That's the first experience someone has when they walk into your home. And so, a pile of shoes is not the most engaging. And so that's a lot in the kitchen. The kitchen is a big... I guess there's a lot of places. Closets are big. Closets for my ladies, they're big. And so how I usually advise people is we have to start small. If you look at everything, the whole thing, you can get overwhelmed and your motivation can just diminish. So, I say, get those small wins in. Okay. So, we're at the entryway. Maybe just start with one thing. I always say, I like to use my senses to put things together. And so, I say, okay, how can I incorporate my five senses into the entryway? What I see, what I feel, what I smell. And just start with one thing. It may be the entryway table, the top of it. Okay. I'm going to take everything off of that. And I'm going to reset that today. I have that small win and then build on it. Tomorrow, it may be the shoes. Okay. The shoes. I'm going to create a system for the shoes. And the small wins is what equals the big... You know the story of the tortoise and the hare where you run that... You don't run that fast race with organization. You run the small race. Take your time. Yeah.   Laura Dugger: (11:39 - 11:57) Okay. That's helpful. So, when we're taking our time, do you even have a specific time limit? If somebody is just an average person with the average amount of stuff, if they want it top to bottom, their ideal home, is there a regular amount of time that that takes?   Nikki Boyd: (11:57 - 13:50) So, what I like to do, and I do this in my home still to this day, is I assign every room has a month. And so that way I'm very intentional. I'm focused on the whole house. I'm able to be very intentional. So, say the... I always start with the home office in January because that's when we need to go through our home files. That's when it's getting tax season. And so that's a great home office month. And that way you have all month to focus only on the office. So, I usually say, let me take the first three days and just sit in the office and think, okay, what works in here? What doesn't work in here? What do I desire for the space? And just kind of give yourself a couple days for that. And then the next day it'll be, the next few days will be about decluttering. Let me get everything out of this room that does not serve me in my current lifestyle, current life, because we want our homes to represent our life today, not our life 10 years ago. And so, then it's about taking a week and just decluttering the space. And then the next week it's about cleaning. Okay, now that we got all this stuff out, let's spend a couple of days cleaning. So having a whole month for a room, it really allows you to really be intentional, take your time, not stress yourself out, incorporate the family. And it's a great way of maintenance plan ongoing. So even though my home feels organized all the way through, it's great for maintenance because organization is not something that you do and you never have to do it again. It's just like cleaning. I wish I could clean one time and it's clean for the rest of my life, but that's not the reality, especially not with family. And so, the same with organization. So, I would recommend that, just kind of assigning every room in your house a month. Laura Dugger: (13:52 - 18:01) I like that pace. And I guess it's initially surprising, but Jesus always seems to have a certain pace that is wise and sustainable, and it does often surprise us.   We'll come back shortly after a brief message from our sponsor.   With over 28 years of experience in real estate, Sue Neihouser of the Sue Neihouser team is a RE-MAX agent of Central Illinois, and she loves to walk alongside her clients as they unlock new doors. For anyone local, I highly recommend you call Sue today at 309-229-8831.   And you can ask her any real estate questions. Sue lives in Central Illinois and loves this community and all that it has to offer. When unlocking new doors with her clients, Sue works hard to gain a depth of understanding of their motivations and dreams and interests in buying and selling their home.   And then she commits to extensive market research that will give them confidence in their decision. Sue truly cares for each of her clients and the relationship she forms with each family along the entire home buying or selling process. This was absolutely our experience when we worked with Sue and her team.   The house that we desired at the time was actually not even on the market, but Sue had a connection and was able to ask those homeowners if they would be willing to sell. She was timely in her response as she walked us through this whole process, and she helped us sell our home with the right offer coming in hours after it was listed. We kept saying she's thought of everything, and Sue's continued generosity was astonishing.   I remember one afternoon after we had settled into our new home and she was knocking on the door dropping off a goodie bag for our family that came from the local bakery. Our daughters also loved getting to know Ms. Sue as she assisted us in finding truly our dream home. So, whether you're looking to buy a home for the first time or looking to upgrade or downsize or making the big decision to move to an assisted living from your home of many years, Sue will be there to help you navigate the big emotions and ensure the process is smooth and stress-free and that the new doors to be unlocked are ready and waiting for more memories to be made.   So, call her today at 309-229-8831 or visit her website at sueneihouser.com. Thanks for your sponsorship.   Nikki, I love choosing a theme for every episode with a scripture verse, and we always include it at the top of our show notes for each episode on our website. So, the one that I selected for today is found in Ecclesiastes 5:13, and it says, "There is a grievous evil, which I have seen under the sun, riches being kept and hoarded by their owner to his own misery." And that just stood out at me when we were planning this conversation. And it reminds me of something that I noticed about the book written, I think I'm saying her name right, by Shira Gill. And it's the one where you were featured. So, it, for anybody who hasn't read it, it highlights various organizers. But you all seem to share this similar conclusion that in America, the most common problem that leads to disorganization and chaos in all of our homes is simply holding onto too much stuff. So, will you share more of your experience with this, whether that's for yourself or with clients that you've worked with?   Nikki Boyd: (18:02 - 20:46) And it's hard because we live in a society where consumption is encouraged. We can't look, right? And so, it's a hard battle to fight. And then it's multiple people in the home a lot of times. So, you got multiple people bringing in stuff. And so, it's important to really have decluttering as a focus always in our home and having a system to just kind of move things out in a timely way, because it's a struggle because we build this attachment to stuff, you know, and we build it up for different ways. Either we paid a lot of money for it, so we can't, it doesn't fit, but I paid good money for this, so I got to keep it, even though it doesn't fit, you know, or someone gave it to us. I really don't like it, but so-and-so gave it to me. So, I have obligation, you know, that sentimental obligation.   But one tool that I have used over the years that has been really successful in helping me rid myself of clutter is to think about it in a way of, I'm being selfish. And so there, you know, I don't ever use this cup. I do, but I'm just saying, I don't ever use this cup. There's somebody out there that needs a cup that could be blessed by it, but it's sitting right here in my home. And I have the opportunity to move it on to be a blessing to someone else. So, when I look at things in my home that I'm not using, I would say, Nikki, stop. That can be right now blessing. And I pray, but I pray, God, please help this to get where it needs to get. Please help it to go where it needs to get. And so that has really, for me, been a way to really, and not only for myself, but for my family, to encourage my family to say, hey, there's somebody out here that could use this toy. There's a kid out there that really, they don't have any toys, but if we donate it, their parents can afford this toy, you know? So just, you know, really thinking outside of ourselves with the stuff and thinking on how we can really serve others with it. There might be even people in our community, young couples that are just starting out, you know, we have silver pieces that we never used. We might've got it 20 years ago and never used it, move it on to someone else, you know? So that's really helped me with decluttering.   And then having a system for it, you know, having a system in your home where you really, really are actively moving things away from your home, you know? And so, one system that I love to use is having a place where I can just drop things that, like a basket that every time I see something that, oh, yeah, that could bless someone, boom. And then that way you can just kind of put it, keep it in, take it to your trunk of your car. And the next time you pass in through a donation center, you can donate it. Yeah.   Laura Dugger: (20:47 - 21:00) That's good. And that gives us purpose in this process. I really like that. So, can you give us, do you even have a recommendation just for the very best place if we want to start decluttering today?   Nikki Boyd: (21:01 - 23:14) In your home, you mean like where to start? Yes. Okay. Remember I said, start small. So, one thing that I recommend is going in your kitchen because I have not met a person who has not had what they call a junk drawer. And I don't like calling anything in our homes junk because we don't have junk in our homes. We have beautiful homes, right? And so, I like to call it the utility drawer. So go in your kitchen. If all the listeners go in your kitchen today and open that utility drawer, and that is the starting point. And what you want to do is the first step you want to do is you want to give yourself an immediate boost by just taking everything out of that drawer and sitting it on the counter and looking at your beautiful empty drawer. That's that instant motivation that you get from seeing it clean and empty. And then the next step is just to give it a nice wipe down and clean so that you know that this is your new, not junk drawer, utility drawer. Rename it. It's important what we say, you know, how we speak, you know, what we come out of our tongue. So, utility drawer. And then from that point, you have all the stuff there. And the first way to start tackling it is because if you're looking at a big pile of stuff, you don't know what you have a lot of times. So, we have to get like items together so that we can realistically see what we have. And so just take a couple minutes and just at the counter sort like items together, pins, sticky notes, just get all those like items together. And then you have a clear visual of, okay, why do I have 20 lighters? I don't burn candles like that, you know. So, then you say, okay, so I'm going to keep two lighters and then everything else goes to donate and just work your way through each category. But what you've done is you've broken it down, something that's a big blob of clutter into something that's reasonable to assess and then deal with. And then from that point, what's left, you then start with the fun part of putting it in your drawer, creating your sections, and then saying, okay, you know what? How about I donate all these lighters and just keep the pretty green one that I love? So that's how I recommend. So, start with that one junk drawer. And once you have that success, you've built the motivation to then move to another part of your kitchen.   Laura Dugger: (23:15 - 23:31) Okay. That's so interesting too, just even how you say pausing to appreciate that beauty of an empty drawer. And it is true that I think even clearing things out, that is an automatic win that makes the space more beautiful.   Nikki Boyd: (23:32 - 24:42) Yes. It feels good. Because you're feeling lighter, right? You got all the junk and stuff, let's not call it stuff, over to the side and you feel lighter. And even as hard as it is to declutter for a lot of folks, they feel so good after it's done. It feels so good once you get that stuff away from you. So, it's the same, you're feeling lighter. It gives you just a kind of room to breathe a little bit, and you don't realize it because we go through our day just working and living around all this stuff that really is just kind of heavy.   Laura Dugger: (24:43 - 24:47) Absolutely. Yeah. Kind of open up the windows and air it out.   Nikki Boyd: (24:47 - 24:49) Open up the windows. Yes, yes.   Laura Dugger: (24:50 - 25:07) Well, maintaining home order and organization becomes a lot more complex when we add more people into our home. So, what's the best way to begin both decluttering and organizing the kids' spaces in our homes?   Nikki Boyd: (25:08 - 30:07) So, when I work with families, a lot of times they want to jump right in and say, okay, they want to talk about the stuff and all that. And I always kind of say, let's back up a little bit because we don't want to go in and create all these systems and then try to introduce it to the family because a lot of times that doesn't work. We have to get everybody kind of together. And one thing that's huge for me, my parents instilled it in us as family meetings, like weekly family meetings, because just like if you think about a company, a company, if they did not have their team meetings and everybody just came to work and did their own thing, they couldn't be successful. No one's on the same page. No one's communicating. No one understands the mission and the goals, and you can't be successful that way. So, it's the same with our family. If we don't talk about our goals, if we don't have a mission statement for our family, how do we know as a family that we're on the same accord and how do we move? We live in the same space. So, it's important to kind of establish a family meeting, whether you even do it every two weeks, even if it's once a month, but just having that time where you come together as a family so that you can all be on the same page.   And I talk about this in my home planner, Beautifully Organized Home Planner, is establishing that mission statement. And that's so important because, especially for our kids, so that they know kind of how we move within our family. And so, as a child, I actually didn't know this, but as a child, I got my mission statement for my family as a child. The very first scripture, Joshua 24:15, my mom, do you remember the little bread box that had all the scripture? You pick a scripture a day. And the very first scripture I ever learned was, "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." The very first, and it's always stuck with me. And so that was when I became an adult, that became our mission statement for our family. And so, it makes it easy to kind of set the tone. And when you have the family meetings, you always want to set the tone with your mission statement to kind of keep reiterating that.   But then you want to also move into having those check-ins. A family is always coming and going all the time, right? And so family meetings give you the time to say, everybody go around, kind of, how are you doing? What's your highlight of the week? And what did you struggle with this week? And that gives you that moment to really make sure everybody is okay. One, the family meetings, you're teaching your kids how to communicate, how to work out problems, how to manage things. Have you ever had that situation where your kid comes to you at nine o'clock at night and said, hey, I got a school project due the next. We need to go to Walmart. I got a school project due. I need a poster board. Family meetings solve that problem because in that meeting, you're talking about, okay, what are our needs for this week? You know, what's the schedule this week? A lot of times as women, we take on a lot of the home responsibilities that really we should be teaching our kids so that when they leave the home, they have it. How to load a dishwasher, how to fold a towel. You can incorporate these small teaching lessons in the family meetings, you know? So, there's so many just benefits from that one, implementing that one system in your home, family meetings. So that's, for your listeners, that's the first thing that I would do. Set a time for family meetings. You may get resistance in the beginning. Push through. Because I tell you, when they get older, they will remember that and they will appreciate the time that you took to really bring the family together and have those meetings, even if they're kind of not appreciating it as young teenagers or kids. But that sets the tone. And even if you're single and you live alone, have your family meeting. You're still a family. You know, have that meeting where you sit down and you look at your budget, you look at your schedule, you look at kind of check-ins with yourself. You know, what was the tough for me this week? What was, you know, so whether you're a family of one or a family of 10, you know, that's the first start in that.   The next start is to not create systems on your own. You want the family to be a part of the process. So, one of the issues, I'll share a real-life issue that I really had in my home was I had, we're empty nesters. And so, it's just my husband and I and our two Yorkies. And my husband, he is who he is. I'm not trying to change him. When he comes in, he's going to put the work shoes here and he's going to drop this. You can follow the trail. And so, I was like, okay, by the front door, we don't need these shoes, you know? And so, I was like, okay, what can I do about the shoes to make him comfortable and me comfortable? So, I came up with, we got family shoes. So, I got these family shoes. They're the same shoe. They look kind of like, what's the shoe? Like clogs, but they're waterproof. What's the ones everyone has?   Laura Dugger: (30:08 - 30:09) I'm blanking on the name.   Nikki Boyd: (30:09 - 31:39) I can't remember. But anyway, they're shoes that, you know, I said, okay, these are home shoes and they're color coded. I have yellow, he has blue, but the simplicity of it being the same shoe takes away the visual color when you, visual clutter when you walk in the house. And it's great because we put them on to go walk the dogs. We go in and out all the time. We put them on and that's the only shoes that stay by the door, but it works. So how I had the buy-in, because if I just bought those shoes and put them there, he would probably walk past the shoes, and you know. So, what I did was I was like, honey, can we make a beautiful tray? I got this idea for us having home shoes. Can we make a tray? So, we Saturday, him and I together, we built this tray. He got out there doing this and he was invested because he built the tray. I ordered beautiful gold labels with his name on it, metal labels and very intentional. And it's gorgeous sitting by the door. It's so cute. He's sitting by the door and he has buy-in now because he made that tray. He's proud of that tray and he uses those shoes. He loves those shoes. And so, when we create systems, we want to make, find ways to incorporate the family so that they have a connection to the system. You don't want to just go put a bin or a basket and they expect the family to all kind of have buy-in with it. So that's how I would kind of move forward with incorporating the family with that kind of thing.   Laura Dugger: (31:40 - 32:30) I love all of that. And really, I just absolutely adored your recommendation for the family home meetings. I loved reading about that in your books. And one of them, it was from the Beautifully Organized Home Planner. You laid out even these titles. I'll just read a few of them. Going over the family schedule, meal planning, home issues, successes and struggles, home needs, like you said, maybe a family need for a field trip or home products to purchase, and teaching time, such as how to budget or how to fold a towel. And I love those practical tips. So, are there any other success stories from your family or others or final tips that you want to share about that home meeting, that family meeting specifically?   Nikki Boyd: (32:31 - 33:40) One tip that I think could be very helpful is when it comes to the meal planning, because that's always a stressor for a lot of families, coming home, what are we going to have for dinner? I didn't meal plan. So, one thing you can do is create a list, a running list of all your ideal meals for your family. It may be spaghetti and meatballs or steak and potatoes, just different meal combinations. And that is your master list of meal combinations. Then in your family meetings, it's not necessarily about trying to figure out meal planning. You just have every family member, okay, pick your meal that you want for the week. So, everybody is kind of contributing. If you're cooking five days out of the week, everybody picks a meal from the list. So, it's like you don't have to kind of think up a combination. You just kind of pick and plug and play. You know what I'm saying? So, I would recommend that creating a master list of combination meals, and then everybody just kind of choose a meal or you can use it solo. You can say, okay, I'm just going to shop my list and put it on the calendar. So that solves a big problem. That's been very useful for a lot of families when it comes to meal planning.   Laura Dugger: (33:41 - 33:55) Okay. I literally am going to start that today. Usually, my husband and I will come together and sync up our calendars and everything for the week, but this is good motivation. I think it'll be so much more beneficial to include the whole family.   Nikki Boyd: (33:55 - 34:27) And also, what's great about that is all of these things have multiple benefits. The other benefit for that is you're teaching the kiddos how to kind of coordinate, how to come together and coordinate together our meal for the family. Also, if you have that picky eater, you can kind of get buy-in because they've had the opportunity to really choose what we're eating. And so, they'll have a little more buy-in because that was their selection. So, there's several benefits from having the family put the meal plan together.   Laura Dugger: (34:28 - 34:40) I love that so much. And Nikki, do you also have suggestions for the simplest ways to stay on top of all the paper that comes into our home?   Nikki Boyd: (34:41 - 39:27) When you asked me in the beginning, what's a big problem? I didn't mention that, but paper clutter is huge. In fact, before the podcast, I had a client session and that's what we dealt with was paper. And so, one thing is just figuring out how can I stop the paper from coming in? Let's stop the problem, try to kind of halt the problem, and then we'll deal with the backlog. So, one is with mail. So, I like to say treat mail like it has a disease, like it has COVID or something. You don't want COVID in your house. So okay, when I go to mail, as I'm walking from the mailbox, I'm kind of like pulling. And then another thing is to have a sorting station. So, if you have family members that multiple people that have mail, or even if you're single and you have mail that's like maybe bills, and then you have maybe magazines, you can have a sorting system right in your kitchen or wherever you tend to drop that mail. But instead of having a basket where it just kind of piles up, have more of a sorting system.   And so, I like recommending... In fact, can I grab it real quick? Because in my session, I was sharing this with my client. Because so say you have, I love something like a box like this. It's an acrylic box and it's multifunctional in the fact that you can put your family calendar down in the front. And because it's acrylic, you can use a dry erase to kind of put your calendar items on. So, it's double duty. So, on the counter in the kitchen, you have your family calendar, or you can use it for the meals or whatever you want. But then you have your hanging files, and you can have one for each family member. Because sometimes you have kids in college that live at home and they get mail or your husband or whatever, or however you want to set it up. Everybody has your phone. That way when you come in, it's easy to drop in there. And I would even have one for magazines. What I would not allow in here is junk mail. I would take junk mail directly to the trash. I would also try to kind of eliminate as much junk mail coming into my mailbox. So, if you can stop getting the advertisements and getting the things with your bills, doing more electronic statements versus having to mail the statements, that can always be a game changer too. But this could be a great system for the mail and it's neat and clean and it kind of minimizes the paper clutter when it comes to that.   Another way is paper clutter that outside of mail that a lot of folks have is just like their home files. So, they don't really have a system for keeping home files. And so, it just tends to create piles around the house. And so, I've always, and again, when I told you that, you know, I had all those jobs in the past. And so I was in England, I was a registrar at a school, and I learned about a binder system there. They kept all their files in binders. And that's what I use for my home files ever since, because it was just like a light bulb. It was my aha moment. And it's basically having a binder for kind of the different categories of things that you need to keep on file. So, your home mortgage paperwork. So, I have one file where all the homes that you bought, you keep all of that paperwork in there. You have one for vital records, you know, just different things that you keep, you have in a binder. And it just is a really efficient way to create that home management, you know, that home file system and not have the papers all over.   With that, one thing that, so with that, like even with the system that I showed with the mail coming in, you have to tack on that component of, okay, I have to address things. So even if you come in and you put the mail in there, you have magazines in one, you have your mail, you can't just leave it, or it starts to pile up and that will get crazy. So, what I do is I always say Fridays at 2 PM is my cutoff. So, every Friday at 2 PM, I have to, before I go into my weekend, I have to clear out. So, setting a, just a intentional time that you do a clear out. So that is the component that a lot of people miss. Some people are good about putting things in a system, but that follow-up. And so, with any mail system or any filing system, you have to have that, that component. And I like to tie it to my weekend, just like if you were working a job, you know, you have to, if you don't clock out, you might not get paid. Right. They need to see that timecard, you know, back in the day now. But the same with, with this, before I start my weekend, I gotta clean up the mail bin.   Laura Dugger: (39:29 - 40:49) By now, I hope you've checked out our updated website, thesavvysauce.com, so that you can have access to all the additional freebies we are offering, including all of our previous articles and all of our previous episodes, which now include transcriptions. You will be equipped to have your own practical chats for intentional living. When you read all the recommended questions in the articles or gain insight from expert guests and past episodes, as you read through the transcriptions, because many people have shared with us that they want to take notes on previous episodes, or maybe their spouse prefers to read our conversations rather than listen to them or watch them now that we're offering video rather than just audio. So, we heard all of that, and we now have provided transcripts for all our episodes. Just visit thesavvysauce.com. All of this is conveniently located under the tab show notes on our website. Happy reading.   You also teach that another crucial factor of maintaining a beautifully organized home is keeping it clean and tidy. So, what's a realistic cleaning schedule that we could try out?   Nikki Boyd: (40:52 - 43:11) So, the thing that is just a game changer is the 10-minute sweep before you go to bed. Taking 10 minutes and just walking around your house and in 10 minutes, everybody in the house stops and just do whatever you can do. Put the remote control back, clean up the dinner dishes. Because if you think about it, if you're a family of four, 10 minutes is 40 minutes. That's 10 minutes of work per person. So that's a 40 minutes of cleaning. So that's one thing is incorporate a 10-to-15-minute sweep every night before you go to bed. And that's just walking around doing whatever you can do to pick up. Not structured, just everybody just pick up for 10 minutes, play music, play a song and do it for five minutes.   The other thing that works for a lot of folks that I've shared is when you end your workday or end your day, add on an hour. So, what I used to do is when I worked outside the home, when I got home, I used to love watching Law and Order all the time. And so, I would get on and I would put Law and Order on and that was a one-hour episode. And I would not sit down, and I would do everything for that one hour. I would clean up, I would get my clothes ready for the next day, I would prep dinner. So, I always told myself, I don't get off work at four o'clock, I get off work at five o'clock. And so, I had Law and Order in the background, it made me feel like I wasn't just not miss cleaning. I've grown since then. Now I love my inspirational music more. That was back in my day. We grow. But that one doing it that way, adding, tacking on an extra hour, it was great because the rest of the evening I had for myself. I mean, clothes were picked out, dinner was done, house was clean, no pressure. And so sometimes what we do is we come in and then we get distracted by the kids asking for this or doing this. And then we sit down, let me sit down a minute from work. And it just is, it takes our time. It just, it takes our time. But if we're very intentional about, okay, no, I'm not off work yet. Let me do this. And then I have the rest of the evening.   Laura Dugger: (43:12 - 43:26) So that's good. And I feel like that's kind of low hanging fruit that we can apply right away. Are there also any tips you have for what we should be doing weekly or monthly or quarterly or even annually?   Nikki Boyd: (43:27 - 45:37) Yeah, there's different routine. I think there's there in my book, I have it broken down. I think when you think of cleaning, you want to think of it, you have daily cleaning, you have weekly cleaning, you have monthly cleaning, and then you have quarterly cleaning, seasonal cleaning. Because there's seasonal things that you want to do to, again, go back to saving that time, saving that stress. And it's things like cleaning out the vents and even having the air conditioner service so that when the summer hits, you're not dealing with an issue. So, if we have these systems in place to tackle our cleaning at certain points, then it really solves a problem from having issues.   And so, what I would do is I would sit down and I would say, okay, the sweep that I talked about 10 minutes, that's a daily. So that would be my daily thing. And then I would not create a system at this point for me, I don't like to have to think about outside of my 10-minute sweep cleaning every day. I just don't. And so, I would just say, create a routine where you could maybe have one day a week where that's where you're tackling kind of the bulk of your cleaning, such as if you're mopping floors and handling your floors, handling the deeper items, dusting, those are weekly. So, I would do those weekly. But daily, the sweep, that helps maintain all of the other stuff in dishes daily, you have to do that. I like doing a dishwasher system of my family know, don't put anything in the sink. When you wake up, my job is the dishwasher stays empty for them. And then that way they always know dishes don't touch a sink, dishes touch the dishwasher. And then I make sure to have it unloaded by the morning at the start of their day so that they can then always unload. So, there's little systems like that to help keep things maintained as far as cleaning up, but I just don't encourage having a routine where you feel like every day I have to just spend a lot of time cleaning. But that 10-minute sweep is the secret weapon guys, the 10-minute sweep.   Laura Dugger: (45:38 - 45:57) I love it. And even the dishes example, it really doesn't take more effort to put it into the dishwasher. So, I love time-saving tricks like that. Are there a few more helpful ways that you can share how we can maximize function throughout our home?   Nikki Boyd: (45:58 - 50:39) Yeah, sure. So, God has given us a beautiful thing in our senses and what we see, what we taste, what we smell. And so, I'm always, you hear me say that all the time, use that tool he gave us to implement the systems in your home. So, when you go in a space, say, okay, when I walk in this space, how can I engage what I hear? How can I engage what I see, what I taste? And use that to start implementing the system of organization. And then the first step that I always tell everyone outside of that is, if you have a home right now that you feel it's just overwhelming, you don't know where to start, the family's just all over, it's just, we got a lot going on and I don't have time even at night because I got to go somewhere tonight. So, what I'll say is one, give yourself grace, start there, breathe, it's going to be okay. And remember, you can do this. The next thing is give yourself a small win, just immediately go to the utility drawer and say, that's the first, for everybody, that's the first thing, give yourself, because it's a proof to you, you know you can do it.   And then next, when everybody goes to bed tonight, get you a cup of tea or your preferred drink and go sit in the first space that's frustrating you, the main space. And don't put pressure on yourself to try to figure it out. Don't run out to the store trying to buy things and say, I'm going to get this place in order, the worst thing you can do. Just go have a cup of tea and sit in that space and breathe. And I promise you, and I think it's the point of just letting God, let you relax and give you the information you need to do what you need to do. And I find that when I sit in the space, it saves me money, it saves me time because I'm not going on my own accord, going out, running the target. I'm sitting here and I'm thinking, okay, this is a lot, this is a lot, help me figure this out. And when, after I just sit there and be, I start the process of just trying to figure it out and say, okay, the first step I'm going to do is I'm going to go get a box and everything that's trash, I'm going to put in here and get rid of all the trash and just steps, incremental steps, trash, then things. Okay. I'm going to shop. And I like using that word shop. I'm going to shop my room, this room, this is the room of the month. I'm going to shop this room for help. Who can I bless? Who can I, what can I take and bless? You know what? I really don't, I don't use this. Let me send that off. And then you'll start lightening your load. So that's kind of the steps I would take. It's not the traditional step of walking in and it's just, let's declutter. Sometimes you got to sit back, and you got to be a little bit before you, you jump in so that you make smart decisions.   One thing, please don't ever, I never encourage anyone to just kind of get motivated and say, okay, run a target and buy a bunch of bins and baskets. And I'm going to come back and organize the pantry. It's a temporary fix because you haven't given yourself the opportunity to just really think out what you really need. And a lot of times you have what you need right in your home. It's about thinking outside of the box. For example, yeah, I could go out and buy an expensive jewelry box, but this is my jewelry box. I had this beautiful bowl in my kitchen. I was like, oh, this is the perfect jewelry. I love it. It's easy. It functions. I don't have to open anything when I want my bracelet. It has just my jewelry that I'm wearing in this life. It's gorgeous. No one knows what it is. It works. So, a lot of times in our home, things are multifunctional and we don't even think about it. For example, I like sitting out little games and cards in my office to remind me to do something fun before I start work. This is a soap dish I had. This is where I keep my little cards in my soap dish. It used to be a soap dish, but now it's a beautiful card rest and it looks so cute. So, I challenge you not to go out into the store and consume more, but think about how can the things that I do love, how can I bring new life to them and use them to incorporate in my home to help function? So, there's so many things, even that tray that I talked about for the shoes, you might have a tray that's sitting on your dining room table that you could use for a shoe tray. So that's another thing to think about when you're implementing systems in your home.   Laura Dugger: (50:40 - 50:50) I love that. Okay. So that answers some of the function, but you're also starting to tie in beauty. How can we level up our style in our home as well?   Nikki Boyd: (50:50 - 54:24) Yeah. So, the thing with style is everybody's style is different. And so, what I find a lot of times when I'm working with folks is they Pinterest and they'll see all of these things and that's what they feel they want, but they seem to never can achieve it. And it's actually because I find a lot is because they have their own style and they need to tap into that instead of tapping into everyone else's. I think it's good to use inspiration. I love inspiration but use it as that to bring you back to what you truly love, because you don't want to go paint your wall green and think, oh, I really don't like green. I forgot about that. So that's one thing is to really know that we all have our own, God's given us all our own. We're all different. We're all special. We all have a beautiful style about ourselves.   And I'm going to say it again, because it's such a powerful tool. Those senses, that is the secret weapon to incorporating style in your home. So, when you come in and you say, okay, let's take the entry way, for example, again, we go to the entry way, because that's such an important part. That's the first space that welcomes people. Okay. When someone comes into my home, how can I engage their sense of taste? Ah, I'm going to create a little drawer. I have these little bowls here. I'm going to put little bowls in the drawer and I'm going to put mints in different candies so that when guests come over, I can say, hey, before you leave, make your little candy bag or grab some candy taste. What can I do with the sense of touch? Now, so I always like to have a bench in my entryway because I love to sit and look out the door when I have my coffee in the morning. So, I put a nice cozy blanket there so that I can have that sense of touch. So just walk your way through and challenge yourself. Okay. What I see. Okay. Oh, flowers. We need something that... So, use those senses and then say, okay, I'm going to incorporate one for each one. And that's a great tool to use to help if you're... Because some folks are like, I don't have, I don't know how to incorporate beauty. That's a way, a tool you can use to help you kind of try to implement it.   And then challenge yourself to only shop your home. Don't go outside the home for it. I did that with my recently with my entryway. I was like getting bored with how it was looking and I was like, ah, okay, Nikki, challenge yourself. How can you totally redecorate your entryway and beautify your entryway without buying the thing? And so, I had in my attic, my old kitchen table and its white kitchen table from my previous home. I said, oh, let me use that. Instead of having a bench in my entryway, I have a center round table now. And it's just a whole different look. I went to my guest and then I was like, okay. And this is the other thing. I was like, oh, I want a different color in here. Well, I was like, hmm, I got yellow in my guest bedroom. So let me shop my guest bedroom and pull a few of those and I can add it into the entryway. I took some books. I took some things and I had a new entryway in no time. So that's a wonderful way to do it. And a lot of times too, if you have a lot of books in your home, take those covers off of your books. You would be surprised how they have beautiful linen and embossed gold and different colors. And that's just such a beautiful way to display, create beauty in your home. It's just kind of looking behind those covers and then displaying your books that way. Yeah.   Laura Dugger: (54:24 - 55:03) I'm a book lover. So that speaks to me for sure.   Nikki Boyd: (54:28 - 54:28) Yeah.   Laura Dugger: And so, speaking of books, then I loved your quote on page 15, where you talk about this process of decluttering and organizing that leads to a place where, here's your quote, where life becomes more meaningful and enjoyable and it all starts at home. So, Nikki, we've talked about how to start with our home, but if we consider our whole lifestyle as well, are there any other additional ways to elevate both our function and our delight?   Nikki Boyd: (55:04 - 57:46) Yes. So, when you are living within your home, you want to think about it being your vacation spot. You know, when we go on vacation, we have expectations, right? We want to feel good. We want to relax. We want the nice hotel room. But ideally the thought process should be, we want that at home because that's where we're at most of the time. That's, you know, where we, you know, our family nurturing, we nurture our family, all the things. So, step one is to think about how do you start your day. If you, for me, I can't do the alarm clock. You, you wake up to this banging. That's a stressful way to wake up. So, think about how can I wake myself up and make it on time without it being so stressful? And what I've come up with is I have a clock that is, it's a sunrise clock where it wakes you up slowly with the light. It kind of just eases you into your day like sunlight. And it has been a game changer for that. Even if you don't do that, does your spouse get up before you? Talk with your spouse and say, “Hey, I want to get away from the alarm clock. I know you get up before me. Can you just wake me up by kissing me on my cheek?” Just wake me up with a kiss. That's, you're going to be my alarm clock. Okay. You'll find those creative ways to have a better start to your day.   You know, even that night, my husband and I, we started a while ago where we sleep to inspirational Christian music. And it is a game changer for how you wake up. And it's just listening to that all night, not too loud, just softly on. It just, when you wake up, you are just in a whole different mood, you know? And so that's one simple thing to implement to have a great start to your day. And even playing instrumental worship music all day throughout your house, it changes the atmosphere. It changes the environment, you know? So again, going back to those senses, what do we see? What do we hear? So just your routine is so important. You know, we talk organization but incorporating that routine in our home is so important. You know, even when our kids come home from school, do they run into chaos? We're fussing. No, get that, get that. No, no, no, no. Say it's, no, don't get me wrong. It can be hard as a mom. It can be hard, but we have to, before we walk in the door, talk to ourselves and say, okay, I'm going to set the tone for my children when we come in. We're going to set the tone. And it may be sitting down and laughing before we get into homework and doing the things. And so, but being intentional about creating those routines. Yeah.   Laura Dugger: (57:47 - 58:04) So much wisdom packed in. And one other thing that I appreciate about you is the high value that you place on the hospitality. So, will you share all of your best practices and motivations as it relates to hospitality?   Nikki Boyd: (58:05 - 1:01:36) Yes. In fact, I just did this weekend at my, I'm the hospitality coordinator at church. And so, I just did a training with my hospitality team. So, I'm fresh off of this. So it was, we had a blast, but you know, it's hospitality. And I want to say this to anybody, anybody, we all have that ability to do it. And you don't have to have a big, beautiful home. You can live in a cardboard box and have a beautiful time. I've had my most beautiful experiences have been in small apartments where we're all sitting there and we're just having a great time. And that's the best memories. So, it's about, how can I create a beautiful experience for anyone who walks through this door? And so that's what you want to think about when you're trying to create a home that has a beautiful element of hospitality embedded in it.   And so, for me, again, simplicity. One thing I said in the training this weekend is I had a white serving bowl and I said, take two minutes and give me 20 uses for this bowl that does not pertain to food. And so, they thought about all kinds of things. A simple bowl with a little intention can do great things. So, something you have in your home, as simple as it is, it can have the opportunity to serve so many people, can be so hospitable to so many people. So, it's just about using that creativity with the things that we have and also about being present. When people come in our home, you want to be present. It's not about, you know, because I, whenever I'm asked, who do you, what woman in the Bible do you most connect with? And a lot of times I say Martha, because I can tend to be that person. I'm so busy trying to get everything right and doing, I'm missing the point. The point is to be with that person. The point is to sit down and be hospitable and to just create that memory. And so, I always tell people, I'm trying to get away from my Marthism and just really, really, when someone comes over, it's about really sitting down and being with them and creating that memory. And so just have fun with it, you know, and don't feel like, I always tell people, don't feel like you have to have the best or have to have the biggest menu. That's not, that's not what you need.   Now, one thing, a tip that a friend did share with me that is a good tip to share is always have something out small, like a bowl of nuts or a little charcuterie cheese, something on your table, because it's a good tool. If you see people grabbing for it, that means they're hungry. So, then that cues you, let me offer them something to eat. Or let me, you know, so if people are snacking, that means they're hungry. You know, if they're grabbing content, so it's a good little tool to see if you need to kind of just put something else out or offer something else. You know, also having water, just simple things, having water right in your entryway, having on a tray as they walk in. I always like to have a welcome beverage. So, when you come in, if it's winter, having hot chocolate, a craft with some hot chocolate, when people come in, giving them a, you know, a nice welcome gift that tells people that, you know, I'm happy you're here, you know, so just, you know, and be creative. There's so many things that you can do with what you have that can just really make people feel so special.   Laura Dugger: (1:01:37 - 1:01:42) I'm not surprised that you're the hospitality coordinator at your church. That's amazing.   Nikki Boyd: (1:01:43 - 1:01:44) I love it. I love it.   Laura Dugger: (1:01:44 - 1:01:57) And if we want to continue learning from you, can you share the places where we can go to follow you for more inspiration and more about the work that you offer that we could reach out or inquire about?   Nikki Boyd: (1:01:58 - 1:02:28) Yes, yes. I'm At Home with Nikki all online and it's, I spell my name N-I-K-K-I and my website is athomewithnikki.com and then social media and all the places At Home with Nikki is the brand. And I do virtual organizing sessions. So, I work with women all over the world in their homes every week. And so, on my website, you can learn more about that. And yes, I do YouTube over 900 videos of talking about all the stuff. So, you definitely check that out too.   Laura Dugger: (1:02:29 - 1:02:49) That is incredible. We will add links to all of those places in the show notes for today's episode. But Nikki, you may be familiar that we're called The Savvy Sauce because savvy is synonymous with practical knowledge. And so, as my final question for you today, what is your savvy sauce?   Nikki Boyd: (1:02:50 - 1:03:23) I would say my savvy sauce, and you probably, Nikki, you've been talking about it the whole time, but it's just so, it just so is, is the senses. Like everything I do, I'm always like, how can I engage that? And I'm so thankful to God for that, because it's like, it helps me solve problems all of the time. So, whether I'm planning a meeting, okay, how do I engage their senses? If I'm entertaining, how do I engage their senses? If I'm organizing, okay. So that is my savvy sauce is those senses that God gave me. So, it's the tool that I use all the time.   Laura Dugger: (1:03:24 - 1:03:59) I love it. Even with you using the visual aids today that came alive, but Nikki, you are just an absolute joy. And I wish I lived closer and could come be a guest in your home and learn firsthand from you. And have a cup of coffee around the table. But this has just been a treasured conversation. And so, I just want to say thank you for boldly stepping into this calling that the Lord gave you. You're clearly blessing so many of us through exercising your gifts. So, I just want to say thank you for being my guest.   Nikki Boyd: (1:04:00 - 1:04:02) Oh, thank you for having me. I'm blessed to be here. Thank you.   Laura Dugger: (1:04:02 - 1:07:18) One more thing before you go, have you heard the term gospel before? It simply means good news. And I want to share the best news with you, but it starts with the bad news.   Every single one of us were born sinners, but Christ desires to rescue us from our sin, which is something we cannot do for ourselves. This means there's absolutely no chance we can make it to heaven on our own. So, for you and for me, it means we deserve death, and we can never pay back the sacrifice we owe to be saved.   We need a savior, but God loved us so much. He made a way for his o

This weekend, get ready to tackle those pesky home projects and learn from the experts. On this hour of At Home with Gary Sullivan, we're diving into the world of driveway sealers, concrete maintenance, and more. From preventing carpenter bee infestations to finding the perfect solution for your gutters, this episode is packed with valuable tips and tricks to help you tackle your to-do list. Gary Sullivan is joined by a caller who's looking for advice on how to deal with a cracked concrete driveway, and they discuss the importance of preparation and the benefits of using a two-coat system for driveway sealers. They also talk about the pros and cons of using piers versus a standard thickness for concrete driveways. Additionally, Gary shares his expertise on how to prevent weeds and ants from taking over your pavers, and how to seal them effectively. The hour also covers a range of other topics, from how to deal with rusty metal surfaces to how to eliminate carpenter bees from your home. Gary shares his knowledge on how to use insecticidal dust and carpenter bee traps to get rid of these pesky insects. He also talks about the importance of maintaining your gutters and how to use a gutter guard to prevent water damage. If you're looking for expert advice on how to tackle your home maintenance projects, this episode is a must-listen. Tune in to hear Gary's tips and tricks on how to keep your home looking its best, from driveway sealers to carpenter bee infestations.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This weekend on the show, homeowners are getting ready to tackle their outdoor spaces, and we're talking about the importance of curb appeal. From painting front doors to landscaping, our guest expert shares some valuable tips on how to make your home stand out. But before we dive into the world of gardening, we're tackling some common home maintenance issues, like sump pumps and basement flooding. And, as always, we're answering your questions on everything from thermostats to exhaust fans. This hour is packed with helpful advice and expert insights. Gary shares some surprising facts about the most common mistakes homeowners make when it comes to home maintenance. We're also discussing the benefits of tankless water heaters and how they can save you money in the long run. Plus, we're talking about the importance of ventilation in your home, including a fascinating discussion about mold and how to prevent it. One of the biggest topics of the day is curb appeal, and Gary and Scott share some fantastic tips on how to create a beautiful and inviting outdoor space. From choosing the right plants to designing a functional and beautiful landscape, we're covering it all. And, as always, we're answering your questions and providing expert advice on a range of home-related topics. If you're looking for solutions to your home improvement problems, you're in the right place.... At Home with Gary Sullivan.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This weekend, get ready to tackle those pesky home projects and learn from the experts. On this hour of At Home with Gary Sullivan, we're diving into the world of driveway sealers, concrete maintenance, and more. From preventing carpenter bee infestations to finding the perfect solution for your gutters, this episode is packed with valuable tips and tricks to help you tackle your to-do list. Gary Sullivan is joined by a caller who's looking for advice on how to deal with a cracked concrete driveway, and they discuss the importance of preparation and the benefits of using a two-coat system for driveway sealers. They also talk about the pros and cons of using piers versus a standard thickness for concrete driveways. Additionally, Gary shares his expertise on how to prevent weeds and ants from taking over your pavers, and how to seal them effectively. The hour also covers a range of other topics, from how to deal with rusty metal surfaces to how to eliminate carpenter bees from your home. Gary shares his knowledge on how to use insecticidal dust and carpenter bee traps to get rid of these pesky insects. He also talks about the importance of maintaining your gutters and how to use a gutter guard to prevent water damage. If you're looking for expert advice on how to tackle your home maintenance projects, this episode is a must-listen. Tune in to hear Gary's tips and tricks on how to keep your home looking its best, from driveway sealers to carpenter bee infestations.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This weekend on the show, homeowners are getting ready to tackle their outdoor spaces, and we're talking about the importance of curb appeal. From painting front doors to landscaping, our guest expert shares some valuable tips on how to make your home stand out. But before we dive into the world of gardening, we're tackling some common home maintenance issues, like sump pumps and basement flooding. And, as always, we're answering your questions on everything from thermostats to exhaust fans. This hour is packed with helpful advice and expert insights. Gary shares some surprising facts about the most common mistakes homeowners make when it comes to home maintenance. We're also discussing the benefits of tankless water heaters and how they can save you money in the long run. Plus, we're talking about the importance of ventilation in your home, including a fascinating discussion about mold and how to prevent it. One of the biggest topics of the day is curb appeal, and Gary and Scott share some fantastic tips on how to create a beautiful and inviting outdoor space. From choosing the right plants to designing a functional and beautiful landscape, we're covering it all. And, as always, we're answering your questions and providing expert advice on a range of home-related topics. If you're looking for solutions to your home improvement problems, you're in the right place.... At Home with Gary Sullivan.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As the weather warms up, it's time to tackle those pesky home maintenance tasks that have been lingering on your to-do list. This hour of "At Home with Gary Sullivan" is packed with expert advice on how to keep your home running smoothly, from septic tank issues to plumbing problems and DIY projects. Gary and his guests dive into the world of septic tanks, discussing the importance of regular maintenance and troubleshooting common issues. They also chat with Paul Abrams from Roto-Rooter about the importance of checking your outdoor faucets and sump pumps before the season starts. Gary also shares some valuable tips on how to keep your floors and counters clean, and how to tackle those pesky spiders and dust bunnies. One caller shares a common problem with a septic tank that's been causing issues, and Gary and his guests offer some sage advice on how to diagnose and fix the problem. They also discuss the importance of checking your sump pump and floor drains to prevent water damage and unpleasant odors. With the right tools and knowledge, you can tackle these tasks with confidence. Don't miss this hour of "At Home with Gary Sullivan" for expert advice on how to keep your home running smoothly and prevent costly repairs down the line. Tune in to learn more about septic tank maintenance, plumbing tips, and DIY projects that'll make your home shine.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This weekend, get ready to tackle those pesky home improvement projects with the help of a seasoned expert. On this hour of At Home with Gary Sullivan, Gary dives into the world of DIY fixes, sharing his expertise on everything from popcorn ceilings to septic tank issues. From the basics of removing textured ceilings to the complexities of plumbing problems, Gary offers practical advice and solutions to common household headaches. Gary tackles a range of topics, from the importance of proper ventilation in the garage to the best ways to eliminate odors and moisture in the home. He also delves into the world of septic tanks, discussing the potential causes of clogged pipes and offering tips on how to fix the issue. With his signature blend of humor and expertise, Gary makes complex topics accessible and entertaining. One caller shares a particularly puzzling problem - a septic tank that's consistently filling up despite being pumped just three months prior. Gary offers a range of potential solutions, from using a septic tank conditioner to digging up and inspecting the pipes. He also discusses the importance of proper insulation and ventilation in the garage, highlighting the potential causes of mildew and moisture buildup. If you're facing a home improvement challenge, don't miss this hour of At Home with Gary Sullivan. Gary's wealth of knowledge and experience make him the perfect guide for tackling even the toughest DIY projects. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As the weather warms up, it's time to tackle those pesky home maintenance tasks that have been lingering on your to-do list. This hour of "At Home with Gary Sullivan" is packed with expert advice on how to keep your home running smoothly, from septic tank issues to plumbing problems and DIY projects. Gary and his guests dive into the world of septic tanks, discussing the importance of regular maintenance and troubleshooting common issues. They also chat with Paul Abrams from Roto-Rooter about the importance of checking your outdoor faucets and sump pumps before the season starts. Gary also shares some valuable tips on how to keep your floors and counters clean, and how to tackle those pesky spiders and dust bunnies. One caller shares a common problem with a septic tank that's been causing issues, and Gary and his guests offer some sage advice on how to diagnose and fix the problem. They also discuss the importance of checking your sump pump and floor drains to prevent water damage and unpleasant odors. With the right tools and knowledge, you can tackle these tasks with confidence. Don't miss this hour of "At Home with Gary Sullivan" for expert advice on how to keep your home running smoothly and prevent costly repairs down the line. Tune in to learn more about septic tank maintenance, plumbing tips, and DIY projects that'll make your home shine.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Phil once confronted a man who was pretending to be part of the Robertson family for personal gain, and his method of calling him out was pure Phil. John Luke revisits a bizarre faith-healing claim involving a supposedly regrown body part and wrestle with the danger of confusing blind belief with biblical faith. The guys dig into Abraham, Job, David, and Solomon to show why faith and reason are not enemies, and why a life centered on yourself eventually collapses. They conclude with a simple idea: human beings flourish when they begin with God instead of self. In this episode: Jeremiah 20:7; Psalm 139; Psalm 51; Genesis 22; Hebrews 11; Romans 4; Job 1; Ecclesiastes 3:11; Psalm 19; Romans 1; Genesis 1:28; Ecclesiastes 12:12-13 Today's conversation is about Lesson 10 of Theology 101: The Western Theological Tradition taught by various Hillsdale Professors. Take the course with us at no cost to you!  More about Theology 101: Examine the great questions of Western theology from the ancient Hebrews through today. The gift of speech, or reason, given by God to man, enables us to think about God and to worship Him.  This free online course pursues this purpose by examining the nature of God as revealed in the Bible, exploring the great theological questions and controversies of the early Christian church, studying the history of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, and much more.  We invite you to join us and explore the nature of the relationship between God and man, and how a proper understanding of this relationship can lead to a free and happy life. Sign up at ⁠http://unashamedforhillsdale.com/ Check out At Home with Phil Robertson, nearly 800 episodes of Phil's unfiltered wisdom, humor, and biblical truth, available for free for the first time! Get it on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, and anywhere you listen to podcasts! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/at-home-with-phil-robertson/id1835224621 Listen to Not Yet Now with Zach Dasher on Apple, Spotify, iHeart, or anywhere you get podcasts. Chapters 00:00 The Hillsdale Homies  04:47 Randy Travis Takes Notice of Zach 07:44 Phil Confronts the Fake Robertson Son 10:56 Psalm 139 & the God You Can't Escape 20:13 Everyone Starts With a Presupposition 25:16 The Miracle Toe Story  30:11 Faith & Reason Can Work Together 34:21 Why God Never Gave Job the Answer 42:23 Everyone Worships Something — Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Zach's bizarre dream about getting canceled for his beliefs takes an unexpected Phil Robertson turn and launches the guys into a deep dive through Daniel, Revelation, and the kingdom of God. Al, Jase, and Zach trace an ancient timeline that may pinpoint the exact timing of God's kingdom and make a prophecy of their own. The guys wrestle with the identity of the fourth man in the fire, why ego can blind people to truth, and challenge one of the biggest assumptions Christians make about the end times. In this episode: Hebrews 10:19, 22, 35; Daniel 2; Daniel 3; Daniel 7; Acts 17; John 2; Matthew 16:13-19; Hebrews 12:27-29; Colossians 1; Revelation 1:1, 5-9, 13; Revelation 17:3, 9-14; Revelation 21; Ephesians 2; 1 John 3; Mark 3; Mark 10; Hebrews 2:14; Colossians 2; Romans; 1 Peter 2 Want to watch the Lost Episodes of Unashamed, only on EKKL? Get 20% off with code UNASHAMED, and watch faith- and family-friendly movies, podcasts, and more: https://ekkl.com/ “Unashamed” Episode 1416 is sponsored by: https://duckstamp.com/unashamed - Get your digital duck stamp online and keep it right on your phone! Taking care of your health just got easier - start here with Zocdoc: https://zocdoc.com/UNASHAMED #sponsored https://myphdweightloss.com - Find out how Al lost 80+ pounds. Visit the website or call 864-644-1900 and mention "Al Robertson" to get 2 weeks free in the program! https://cozyearth.com/unashamed - Get up to 20% off when you use our link and code UNASHAMED! http://unashamedforhillsdale.com/ - Sign up now for free, and join the Unashamed hosts every Friday for Unashamed Academy Powered by Hillsdale College Check out At Home with Phil Robertson, nearly 800 episodes of Phil's unfiltered wisdom, humor, and biblical truth, available for free for the first time! Get it on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, and anywhere you listen to podcasts! https://open.spotify.com/show/3LY8eJ4ZBZHmsImGoDNK2l Listen to Not Yet Now with Zach Dasher on Apple, Spotify, iHeart, or anywhere you get podcasts. Chapters 00:00 Zach's Dream About Getting Canceled 05:06 Daniel, the Fiery Furnace &Faith Under Pressure 10:22 Nebuchadnezzar Misses the Point 15:48 The Kingdom That Can Never Be Destroyed 19:37 Jesus Fulfills Daniel's Ancient Prophecy 26:19 Has the Kingdom of God Already Arrived? 32:42 Daniel & Revelation Tell the Same Story 40:18 Why the End Times Debate Matters 46:11 Jesus Defeated the Powers of Evil 51:32 Christians Are Already Part of the Kingdom - Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today's episode is filled with self-inquiry--from Willie, who feels there is more he should be doing in life, to Melanie, who fears death, and Laurie, whose daughter is heading to a mental health facility.  Their open minds invite us to contemplate the thoughts that cause our suffering and how, by questioning them, we can find peace. Join us and let's do The Work! xoxo bk The podcast is recorded during "At Home with Byron Katie"—join me live on Zoom on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays, starting at 9 a.m. Pacific Time. Register: athomewithbyronkatie.com  

The Lindsay Clancy case sparks a heated debate in some circles as the guys wrestle with mental illness, personal responsibility, and whether modern culture has become too quick to diagnose away evil. Jase and Al draw on their own family's experience with mental illness, while Zach reflects on his years working in pharmaceutical sales and questions how America approaches mental health treatment. Jase turns to Genesis and James to make the biblical case for justice and accountability, even when compassion is warranted.  In this episode: Matthew 28; Genesis 6; Genesis 9:1-5; Proverbs; James 4:10-17; James 5:1-6; Psalm 127; Ecclesiastes 1-2; Matthew 6 Want to watch the Lost Episodes of Unashamed, only on EKKL? Get 20% off with code UNASHAMED, and watch faith- and family-friendly movies, podcasts, and more: https://ekkl.com/ “Unashamed” Episode 1416 is sponsored by: https://www.wildalaskan.com/UNASHAMED — Get $35 off your first box of wild-caught, sustainable seafood delivered right to your door. Download the FREE Upside App and use promo code Unashamed to get an extra 25 cents back for every gallon on your first tank of gas https://duckstamp.com/unashamed - Get your digital duck stamp online and keep it right on your phone! https://www.bruntworkwear.com/UNASHAMED - Get $10 Off at BRUNT with code UNASHAMED and enter THE BRUNT POTTY OF GOLD SWEEPSTAKES for your chance to win $50,000. No purchase necessary. Ends 9/18/26. Official rules apply. #Bruntpod #sponsored http://unashamedforhillsdale.com/ - Sign up now for free, and join the Unashamed hosts every Friday for Unashamed Academy Powered by Hillsdale College Check out At Home with Phil Robertson, nearly 800 episodes of Phil's unfiltered wisdom, humor, and biblical truth, available for free for the first time! Get it on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, and anywhere you listen to podcasts! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/at-home-with-phil-robertson/id1835224621 Listen to Not Yet Now with Zach Dasher on Apple, Spotify, iHeart, or anywhere you get podcasts. Chapters 00:00 Jase's New Tennessee Setup 05:08 The Lindsay Clancy Debate 15:05 Zach Looks Back at His Pharmaceutical Career 20:54 Why Accountability Still Matters 28:34 The Problem With Outside Blame 33:32 Mia Finds a New Way to Help Kids 39:28 James Leads Straight to Ecclesiastes 45:16 Why Jesus Points Back to Solomon 51:08 Solomon Had It All & Still Came Up Empty 54:41 There's Nothing New Under the Sun - Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dr. Frank Turek confronts a culture where even basic truths about sex, life, and reality have become political battlegrounds. Al, Jase, Zach, and Dr. Turek reflect on his eyewitness account of Charlie Kirk's murder, the recent trial of his alleged killer, and the surge of evangelistic urgency that came afterward,  His new book, The War on Reality, ties these cultural battles together by arguing that people can deny reality, suppress it, and rename it, but they can never defeat it. In this episode: John 3:16, 19-21; John 8; John 18:37-38; Romans 1; Romans 13; Genesis 1 Want to watch the Lost Episodes of Unashamed, only on EKKL? Get 20% off with code UNASHAMED, and watch faith- and family-friendly movies, podcasts, and more: https://ekkl.com/ “Unashamed” Episode 1415 is sponsored by: Get 15% off OneSkin with the code UNASHAMED at https://www.oneskin.co/unashamed #oneskinpod https://andrewandtodd.com or call 888-888-1172 — Get a FREE no-pressure mortgage and refinance review and see if your deal still makes sense! https://www.quo.com/unashamed - Try for free PLUS get 20% OFF your first six months https://chministries.org/solution - Get a better solution at half the cost of traditional healthcare! http://unashamedforhillsdale.com/ - Sign up now for free, and join the Unashamed hosts every Friday for Unashamed Academy Powered by Hillsdale College Check out At Home with Phil Robertson, nearly 800 episodes of Phil's unfiltered wisdom, humor, and biblical truth, available for free for the first time! Get it on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, and anywhere you listen to podcasts! https://open.spotify.com/show/3LY8eJ4ZBZHmsImGoDNK2l Listen to Not Yet Now with Zach Dasher on Apple, Spotify, iHeart, or anywhere you get podcasts. Chapters 00:00 Frank Turek Returns 03:15 Charlie Kirk's Impact on College Campuses 08:47 Why the Resurrection Changed Everything 15:06 Frank Relives Charlie Kirk's Murder 19:21 America's War on Reality 27:14 Why People Reject the Truth 34:38 Why Christians Can't Ignore Politics 42:02 Politics Can't Fix the Culture 47:47 Truth Quest vs. Happiness Quest 53:38 Surrendering to Reality and Jesus - Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

John Luke opens up about deconstructing his faith after years of hearing Christians use the Bible to defend conflicting ideas. Al and Christian wrestle with a local tragedy of a child's unexpected death and the questions it raises about grief, justice, and God's presence. The guys trace the rise of “my truth” back through the Enlightenment, naturalism, and the split between faith and reason, then consider whether artificial intelligence could be ushering in another massive shift in how people understand truth.  In this episode: Psalm 139; Acts 17; Daniel 3:17-18; Jeremiah 20; Isaiah 55:8-11; Isaiah 1:18; Genesis 22; Hebrews 11; John 1:1-14; Job 2:3; Job 42; John 9; Romans 1; Romans 10 Today's conversation is about Lesson 9 of Theology 101: The Western Theological Tradition taught by various Hillsdale Professors. Take the course with us at no cost to you!  More about Theology 101: Examine the great questions of Western theology from the ancient Hebrews through today. The gift of speech, or reason, given by God to man, enables us to think about God and to worship Him.  This free online course pursues this purpose by examining the nature of God as revealed in the Bible, exploring the great theological questions and controversies of the early Christian church, studying the history of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, and much more.  We invite you to join us and explore the nature of the relationship between God and man, and how a proper understanding of this relationship can lead to a free and happy life. Sign up at ⁠http://unashamedforhillsdale.com/ Check out At Home with Phil Robertson, nearly 800 episodes of Phil's unfiltered wisdom, humor, and biblical truth, available for free for the first time! Get it on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, and anywhere you listen to podcasts! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/at-home-with-phil-robertson/id1835224621 Listen to Not Yet Now with Zach Dasher on Apple, Spotify, iHeart, or anywhere you get podcasts. Chapters 00:00 Facing the Comment Section 03:05 90s Nihilism & the Culture That Eroded Truth 06:20 How We Arrived at “My Truth” 11:10 Christian Wrestles With Unanswered Prayers 15:20 Al's Four-Year Walk Away From God 18:45 Two Types of Crises of Faith 24:05 Could AI Spark a New Enlightenment? 31:20 Job, Suffering & the Limits of Human Reason 37:10 John Luke Rebuilds Faith After Deconstruction 42:40 Naturalism Pushed God Out of Universities 45:00 What Happens When Everything Becomes Subjective — Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Christian artist Ben Fuller opens up about the secret addiction that followed him all the way to Nashville, even as he began building the music career he thought would finally make him happy. Ben recounts the devastating loss that forced him to confront where his life was headed and the unexpected church invitation that changed everything. Jase, Al, and Zach connect Ben's story to their own experiences with Phil, fatherhood, and growing up in a generation where men rarely expressed affection. Ben also reveals the recent breakthrough with his dad that finally gave him the words he wanted to hear for most of his life. In this episode: Genesis 9; Psalm 91; Romans 10:9; James 4:7-8; John 6:68; Psalm 139; 1 Corinthians; Revelation 12:11 Want to watch the Lost Episodes of Unashamed, only on EKKL? Get 20% off with code UNASHAMED, and watch faith- and family-friendly movies, podcasts, and more: https://ekkl.com/ “Unashamed” Episode 1413 is sponsored by: https://trees.com/ - Get an additional 20% OFF with code UNASHAMED at checkout https://myphdweightloss.com - Find out how Al lost 80+ pounds. Visit the website or call 864-644-1900 and mention "Al Robertson" to get 2 weeks free in the program! https://preborn.com/unashamed - Visit the PreBorn! website or dial #250 and use keyword BABY to donate today. https://homechef.com/unashamed - Get 50% off and free shipping on your first box plus free dessert for life! http://unashamedforhillsdale.com/ - Sign up now for free, and join the Unashamed hosts every Friday for Unashamed Academy Powered by Hillsdale College Check out At Home with Phil Robertson, nearly 800 episodes of Phil's unfiltered wisdom, humor, and biblical truth, available for free for the first time! Get it on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, and anywhere you listen to podcasts! https://open.spotify.com/show/3LY8eJ4ZBZHmsImGoDNK2l Listen to Not Yet Now with Zach Dasher on Apple, Spotify, iHeart, or anywhere you get podcasts. Chapters 00:00 Ben Fuller's Surprise Flight to Louisiana 04:25 Jase & Ben's Unlikely First Meeting 09:25 Willie's San Quentin Baptism Mishap 14:15 Uncle Si Takes Over San Quentin 19:30 Ben Fuller's Hidden Struggle 26:25 Addiction Follows Ben to Nashville 30:20 Ben Lands a Gig at Tootsie's 34:10 One Church Invitation Changes Everything 38:20 Ben Encounters Jesus for the First Time 47:35 Ben's Dad Finally Says “I Love You” 53:17 Breaking the Cycle Before Marriage - Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

(Part 2 of 2) My guest Kevin is heartbroken because he just lost his 9-year-old husky. He feels a void in her absence.  As he sits in inquiry, he asks, "Is she really gone?"  Join Kevin and me for this powerful grief Work.  The podcast is recorded during "At Home with Byron Katie"—join me live on Zoom, Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays, starting at 9 a.m. Pacific Time. Register: athomewithbyronkatie.com

John Cooper of Skillet recruits the Robertsons for his plan to reclaim music and culture for Jesus. John reflects on meeting Phil during his Alzheimer's journey and learning Skillet's music helped inspire a Duck Commander cameraman's dramatic transformation. Jase, Al, and Zach also compare Skillet's path through Christian rock with the criticism the Robertsons faced on ‘Duck Dynasty,' while exploring anxiety, identity, and the enemy's distortion of God's creation. In this episode: John 14:15; Luke 15:4; John 4:10-14; Colossians 3:23; 1 Samuel 16:23; John 10:10; Galatians 5:1; Psalm 34:8; Genesis 1:27; Genesis 4:21; Psalm 127:1 “Unashamed” Episode 1412 is sponsored by: https://chministries.org/unashamed - Get a better solution at half the cost of traditional healthcare!  https://duckstamp.com/unashamed - Get your digital duck stamp online and keep it right on your phone! https://ponchooutdoors.com/unashamed - Get $10 off your first order and free shipping when you enter your email! http://unashamedforhillsdale.com/ - Sign up now for free, and join the Unashamed hosts every Friday for Unashamed Academy Powered by Hillsdale College Listen to Not Yet Now with Zach Dasher on Apple, Spotify, iHeart, or anywhere you get podcasts. Check out At Home with Phil Robertson, nearly 800 episodes of Phil's unfiltered wisdom, humor, and biblical truth, available for free for the first time! Get it on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, and anywhere you listen to podcasts! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/at-home-with-phil-robertson/id1835224621 Chapters 0:00 John Cooper Remembers Phil 5:17 Skillet's Robertson Connection 12:57 John's First Christian Rock Concert 21:05 How Skillet Got Its Name 25:32 Taking Back What Evil Distorts 30:44 ‘Duck Dynasty' Defies Reality TV 36:34 Skillet's Secret to Longevity 42:35 Anxiety, Identity & After the Storm 49:15 The Weight Crushing Young People 54:03 Why the Gospel Is Breaking Through - Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Todd Lollar has lived with cerebral palsy his entire life, but the Robertsons see in him the same relentless fire for Jesus that defined Phil. Todd opens up about the moment he stopped viewing his weakness as something holding him back and began seeing it as a place for God's power to work through him. Jase and Al reflect on the emptiness of worldly success, the cost of openly following Jesus, and why Christians shouldn't wait for people to walk into a church before bringing the Gospel to them. Todd gets an emotional surprise reunion with longtime friend Gary Osborne and challenges believers to intentionally bring Jesus into their families, friendships, workplaces, and everyday encounters. In this episode: Jeremiah 20:9; Romans 1:16; Psalm 127; Matthew 5:11; Matthew 9; Colossians 2; 2 Corinthians 12:9-10; 2 Timothy 2:2; Luke 8:1; Luke 9:1; Luke 10:1; John 9; 1 Thessalonians 5:4 “Unashamed” Episode 1411 is sponsored by: https://myphdweightloss.com - Find out how Al lost 80+ pounds. Visit the website or call 864-644-1900 and mention "Al Robertson" to get 2 weeks free in the program! http://unashamedforhillsdale.com/ - Sign up now for free, and join the Unashamed hosts every Friday for Unashamed Academy Powered by Hillsdale College Check out At Home with Phil Robertson, nearly 800 episodes of Phil's unfiltered wisdom, humor, and biblical truth, available for free for the first time! Get it on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, and anywhere you listen to podcasts! https://open.spotify.com/show/3LY8eJ4ZBZHmsImGoDNK2l Listen to Not Yet Now with Zach Dasher on Apple, Spotify, iHeart, or anywhere you get podcasts. Chapters 00:00 How Jase's Unashamed Journey Began 05:48 Zach Finds Confidence in the Gospel 10:32 The Emptiness Behind Worldly Success 14:18 Jase Brings Jesus Into a Public School 21:30 The Greatest Comeback Ever 26:11 Jase Refuses a Meet-and-Greet 30:12 Meet Todd Loller 37:46 Todd Finds Strength in His Weakness 41:11 A Surprise 20 Years in the Making 45:48 A Culture Paralyzed by Fear 53:41 The Gospel Is Simpler Than You Think - Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Korie Robertson is taking steps to restore something generationally important that many modern families seem to have lost: the intentional work of keeping families connected. She puts a name to that work — “kinkeeping” — as the guys and Korie look at the Robertson family's own traditions and the importance of passing faith, stories, and family life forward. Jase opens up about missing Phil daily, why working the family land still makes him feel close, and teaming up with Willie to give Zach a hard time over a squabble that becomes a full-fledged family pile-on. For more on building a lasting family legacy, check out Unashamed's conversation with Hobby Lobby CEO David Green: https://youtu.be/JrHYzYOpdAs?si=Cu4rFIfU88feeFlt In this episode: James 1:5; James 1:27; James 4:1–3; Matthew 5; Matthew 7:1–11; Proverbs 26:17; Romans 8:24–25; Genesis 1:28; Genesis 12; Genesis 26; Exodus 1:1–7; Matthew 9; Luke 20; John 7; Acts 15; 1 Corinthians 15; Matthew 25 “Unashamed” Episode 1410 is sponsored by: https://branchbasics.com - Get 15% OFF the Premium Starter Kit with code UNASHAMED. https://duckstamp.com/unashamed - Get your digital duck stamp online and keep it right on your phone! http://unashamedforhillsdale.com/ - Sign up now for free, and join the Unashamed hosts every Friday for Unashamed Academy Powered by Hillsdale College Listen to Not Yet Now with Zach Dasher on Apple, Spotify, iHeart, or anywhere you get podcasts. Check out At Home with Phil Robertson, nearly 800 episodes of Phil's unfiltered wisdom, humor, and biblical truth, available for free for the first time! Get it on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, and anywhere you listen to podcasts! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/at-home-with-phil-robertson/id1835224621 Chapters 00:00 Willie Twists Jase & Zach's Argument 04:05 Al Reflects on a Robertson Family Funeral 07:05 What Jesus Really Meant by “Do Not Judge” 15:20 When Judgment Turns People Into Enemies 21:15 ‘Right' Beliefs Alone Won't Transform You 26:20 Does Your View of God Change Everything? 31:00 Korie Introduces the Lost Art of “Kinkeeping” 36:35 Why Keeping Families Together Takes Intention 40:05 Jase Opens Up About Missing Phil 45:15 Robertson Legacy Lives Beyond One Generation 50:10 Why the Enemy Targets the Family - Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Christian reflects on inherited ideas about salvation and the questions that arose when his beliefs didn't match his life. The guys explore justification, sanctification, and glorification, and why salvation is more than simply getting into heaven. They also challenge caricatures of opposing traditions and consider how Catholics and Protestants can find common ground despite theological differences. In this episode: Philippians 2:1–5; Colossians 2:13–15; 1 Corinthians 15:1–2; 1 Peter 2:5, 9; John 6:51; Genesis 1:28; 1 Thessalonians 4:3, 7; Romans 6:19; 2 Thessalonians 2:13; 1 Peter 1:2; Hebrews 10:26–29; John 16; Philippians 2:10–11 Today's conversation is about Lesson 8 of Theology 101: The Western Theological Tradition taught by various Hillsdale Professors. Take the course with us at no cost to you!  More about Theology 101: Examine the great questions of Western theology from the ancient Hebrews through today. The gift of speech, or reason, given by God to man, enables us to think about God and to worship Him.  This free online course pursues this purpose by examining the nature of God as revealed in the Bible, exploring the great theological questions and controversies of the early Christian church, studying the history of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, and much more.  We invite you to join us and explore the nature of the relationship between God and man, and how a proper understanding of this relationship can lead to a free and happy life. Sign up at ⁠http://unashamedforhillsdale.com/ Check out At Home with Phil Robertson, nearly 800 episodes of Phil's unfiltered wisdom, humor, and biblical truth, available for free for the first time! Get it on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, and anywhere you listen to podcasts! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/at-home-with-phil-robertson/id1835224621 Listen to Not Yet Now with Zach Dasher on Apple, Spotify, iHeart, or anywhere you get podcasts. Chapters 00:00 Martin Luther's Three Powers of Faith 07:36 How Indulgences Became an Economy of Sin 12:03 Why the Reformation Finally Boiled Over 15:32 Justification vs. Sanctification 19:04 Al's Works-Based View of Salvation 24:28 The Three Ps of Salvation 29:11 Can You Be Saved Without Changing? 34:26 Why Sin Changes the Way You See Truth 38:54 What Glorification Will Actually Be Like 43:20 Catholics, Protestants & Common Ground 47:08 The Council of Unashamed - Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Miss Kay's famous banana pudding sends all the Robertsons running as Al's daughter, Anna, recreates the family recipe and sparks a late-night rush for a taste. The guys swap memories tied to Dolly Parton, from childhood family traditions to the kind of old-school American culture that still feels frozen in time. Al and Zach reflect on why certain songs, foods, and places can bring decades of memories rushing back, while Jase gets unexpectedly sentimental about what first drew him to Missy. The guys explore the fleeting nature of life and the hope Christians have in the face of loss. In this episode: Psalm 90:4–6, 12; Ecclesiastes 3:11; Daniel 3:16–18, 19–25; Matthew 9:18–26; John 10:10; John 11:35; 1 Thessalonians 4:13; James 1:2–4; James 4:13–17; James 5:1 “Unashamed” Episode 1408 is sponsored by: https://preborn.com/unashamed - Visit the PreBorn! website or dial #250 and use keyword BABY to donate today. https://trees.com/ - Get an additional 20% OFF with code UNASHAMED at checkout http://unashamedforhillsdale.com/ - Sign up now for free, and join the Unashamed hosts every Friday for Unashamed Academy Powered by Hillsdale College Listen to Not Yet Now with Zach Dasher on Apple, Spotify, iHeart, or anywhere you get podcasts. Check out At Home with Phil Robertson, nearly 800 episodes of Phil's unfiltered wisdom, humor, and biblical truth, available for free for the first time! Get it on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, and anywhere you listen to podcasts! https://open.spotify.com/show/3LY8eJ4ZBZHmsImGoDNK2l Chapters 00:00 Miss Kay's Banana Pudding Lives On 05:06 Remembering Dolly Parton 09:18 Why Dolly Rose Above Politics 13:43 When an Era Starts to Disappear 17:22 Your Life Is Just a Mist 21:05 Why Christians Grieve Differently 25:10 Jesus Confronts Death 29:26 Mourning Without Losing Hope 33:15 The Fourth Man in the Fire 37:50 Jase & Missy's Duet Turns Into an Argument 43:02 Searching for a Song He Can Actually Sing 47:16 Missy's Voice Still Captivates Jase - Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jep Robertson's surprising new chapter has Al reflecting on how far his youngest brother has come, from a season marked by drugs and fear to using his story to encourage others. Zach gets a bizarre notice from the IRS, and Jase and Al revisit their sketchiest childhood job that put them face-to-face with black widows, ant beds, and more danger than most kids ever face. The guys dig into James and Proverbs to make the case that biblical wisdom is something you live, not just something you know, and that God's jealousy is rooted in covenant love, grace, and a desire for our full loyalty. In this episode: Matthew 28; Revelation 21:8; Hebrews 4:15-16; Hebrews 2:17; James 1; James 4:4-6; Proverbs 1:1-7, 20-33; Proverbs 2:9, 12, 16-18; Proverbs 3:5-6, 13-18, 34; Proverbs 4:5-9; Proverbs 5:1-5; Proverbs 6:16-19; Proverbs 7:4-27; Proverbs 8; Proverbs 9; Matthew 7; John 8; Revelation 22 “Unashamed” Episode 1407 is sponsored by: https://homechef.com/unashamed - Get 50% off and free shipping on your first box plus free dessert for life! https://duckstamp.com/unashamed - Get your digital duck stamp online and keep it right on your phone! https://myphdweightloss.com - Find out how Al lost 80+ pounds. Visit the website or call 864-644-1900 and mention "Al Robertson" to get 2 weeks free in the program! http://unashamedforhillsdale.com/ - Sign up now for free, and join the Unashamed hosts every Friday for Unashamed Academy Powered by Hillsdale College Check out At Home with Phil Robertson, nearly 800 episodes of Phil's unfiltered wisdom, humor, and biblical truth, available for free for the first time! Get it on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, and anywhere you listen to podcasts! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/at-home-with-phil-robertson/id1835224621 Listen to Not Yet Now with Zach Dasher on Apple, Spotify, iHeart, or anywhere you get podcasts. Chapters 00:00 Zach's IRS Surprise & Robertson Argument Style 05:04 Jep Overcomes His Fear of Public Speaking 09:02 Jase Teases a Future Guest 14:21 Al & Jase's Childhood Water-Meter Job 20:35 The Robertsons' Outrageous Water Bills 26:09 Jesus Faced Every Temptation We Do 32:46 Wisdom Is Something You Live Out 38:25 The Fear of God That Removes Fear 43:18 Two Kinds of Wisdom 48:05 What It Means That God Is Jealous 53:08 The Controversial Meaning of James 4:5 56:15 God's Grace After Unfaithfulness - Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Max and Laela, Zach's eldest children and the duo behind Dasher the Band, open up about the whirlwind of life on the road, from the unexpected phone call that landed them a tour with Larry Fleet to figuring out how to protect their marriages, stay accountable, and keep their faith at the center as new opportunities come their way. Zach, Jase, and Al reflect on building something bigger than yourself and why keeping family close may be one of the best defenses against losing yourself as success grows. Max and Laela bring the conversation full circle with a special in-studio performance. Pre-save Dasher the Band's new single “You're an Oak,” out August 28, here: http://vere.lnk.to/YoureAnOak and find Dasher the Band on Spotify, Apple Music, or wherever you listen to music. In this episode:  “Unashamed” Episode 1406 is sponsored by: https://duckstamp.com/unashamed - Get your digital duck stamp online and keep it right on your phone! https://bravebooks.com/unashamed - Get both of the Robertson books completely free, plus a free starter kit, all for 70% off! http://unashamedforhillsdale.com/ - Sign up now for free, and join the Unashamed hosts every Friday for Unashamed Academy Powered by Hillsdale College Check out At Home with Phil Robertson, nearly 800 episodes of Phil's unfiltered wisdom, humor, and biblical truth, available for free for the first time! Get it on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, and anywhere you listen to podcasts! https://open.spotify.com/show/3LY8eJ4ZBZHmsImGoDNK2l Listen to Not Yet Now with Zach Dasher on Apple, Spotify, iHeart, or anywhere you get podcasts. Chapters 00:00 Zach's Kids Dish on Growing Up Dasher 06:28 Layla Goes Viral & Mia's Cleaning Obsession 11:02 Dasher the Band Hits the Road 15:36 The Nerves Before Their First Real Show 20:08 The Song That Brought the Crowd to Tears 25:03 ‘Unashamed' Fans Take Over the Tour 28:14 Jase's Buc-ee's Business Plan 34:18 Family, Legacy & Building Something That Lasts 40:44 Jase Remembers Doubting ‘Duck Dynasty' 44:15 Dasher the Band Performs - Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Willie's questions about the old Robertson property send Al deep into family history and uncover details about the family's earliest years that even Willie never fully knew. Jase, Al, and Zach look back on the Robertson family's famously argumentative style and why their fights, however heated, don't turn into lasting grudges. Jase and Zach also find themselves analyzing their own family backgrounds through a new men's group, while the conversation turns to why Christians can get distracted by theological arguments and miss the larger purpose of the Gospel.  In this episode: James 1:12-17; James 3:9, 16; James 4:1-7; Proverbs 3:18-19, 34; Genesis 1:28 “Unashamed” Episode 1405 is sponsored by: https://helixsleep.com/unashamed — Get 27% off sitewide and make sure you enter our show name after checkout so they know we sent you! https://chministries.org/unashamed — Get a better solution at half the cost of traditional healthcare!  https://rocketmoney.com/unashamed — Join Rocket Money and let them help you reach your financial goals faster.  http://unashamedforhillsdale.com/ — Sign up now for free, and join the Unashamed hosts every Friday for Unashamed Academy Powered by Hillsdale College Listen to Not Yet Now with Zach Dasher on Apple, Spotify, iHeart, or anywhere you get podcasts. Check out At Home with Phil Robertson, nearly 800 episodes of Phil's unfiltered wisdom, humor, and biblical truth, available for free for the first time! Get it on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, and anywhere you listen to podcasts! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/at-home-with-phil-robertson/id1835224621 Chapters 00:00 Jase & Zach Enter Group Therapy 04:42 The Snake That Helped Al Buy a House 08:18 Zach Meets the Family's Pet Snake 13:37 Willie Takes Zach's Side Against Jase 19:16 Why Robertson Family Fights Never Last 25:48 Jase Connects the Tree of Life to Wisdom 35:10 We Keep Asking the Wrong Questions 44:39 James Gets to the Root of Our Fights 50:42 Are Christians Cheating on Jesus? — Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices