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It's already 2025! What goals do you have for the year for yourself? For your property management business? In this episode of the #DoorGrowShow, property management experts Jason and Sarah Hull discuss their goals for 2025 and how they will impact property management business owners. You'll Learn [01:36] DoorGrow's Yearly Planning and Goals [07:30] DoorGrow in-Person Events in 2025 [13:05] The Future of Property Management: DoorGrow Live 2025 [16:11] DoorGrow's Commitment to Rescuing Dogs Tweetables  ”Strategic time invested in the business is what actually grows businesses.” “Most of y'all are focused so heavily on the tactical, the day-to-day tasks that just come at you and the business isn't moving forward.”  ”Broke people often have a broke mindset.” “You can do it. You just need a really good plan.” Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive TalkRoute Referral Link Transcript [00:00:00] Jason: Most of y'all are focused so heavily on the tactical, the day to day tasks that just come at you and the business isn't moving forward.  [00:00:09] Welcome, DoorGrow property managers to the DoorGrow show. If you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, make a difference, increase revenue, help others, impact lives, and you are interested in growing in business and life, and you're open to doing things a bit differently, then you are a DoorGrow property manager. [00:00:27] DoorGrow property managers love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges, and freedom that property management brings. Many in real estate think you're crazy for doing it. You think they're crazy for not because you realize that property management is the ultimate high trust gateway to real estate deals, relationships, and residual income. [00:00:47] At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management business owners and their businesses. We want to transform the industry, eliminate the BS, build awareness, change perception, expand the market, and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. We're your hosts property management growth experts Jason Hull and Sarah Hull the owners of DoorGrow. [00:01:07] Now, let's get into the show. All right.  [00:01:10] So today, we're going to be... [00:01:12] Sarah: It's new year's eve!  [00:01:13] Jason: It's new year's eve as we're recording this episode. So those of you watching us live, happy new year's. And those of you that are not, then I hope you had a happy new year, and you didn't like drink too much and you are like ready to go for the new year. [00:01:28] So we're going to be talking about the new year. What are we going to chat about today?  [00:01:33] Sarah: I thought we were going to talk about where we want to go.  [00:01:36] Jason: Yeah. So we're going to tell you a little bit about what's up with DoorGrow. We do our annual planning in the middle of the year. We offset it by two quarters. [00:01:45] We find that to be a lot more effective. So we actually coach our clients to do the same. Why? Because this time of year, everybody's a little bit too focused on other stuff, holidays, family, all good things, right? And not as focused, maybe, on the business. [00:02:00] Sarah: Can you imagine if today was the deadline for all of your big annual goals? [00:02:05] Like, man, we gotta do that one thing! Today's the last day. Hard push, guys! Everyone's like, "..." [00:02:10] Jason: Or just even this whole month of December or even like Thanksgiving time. Like just trying to push your end of the year goals and trying to achieve as a team, your team are like, "cool. I'm glad you are motivated, Mr. Business Owner, but..."  [00:02:24] Sarah: "I'm taking two weeks off for Christmas, and I'm off for Thanksgiving, I'm taking time off for Christmas, I'm taking time off for New Year's." [00:02:31] Jason: "That's cool, you want to hit that end of the year revenue goal, or sales goal, or whatever your goals are, but I need to figure out what to get my Aunt Susie for Christmas, and who's bringing what for Thanksgiving." [00:02:43] Sarah: "I'm cooking, and I'm cleaning." [00:02:44] Jason: And, "what party am I going to for New Year's? Who am I going to kiss at midnight?" Like, it's hard stuff. That being said, some of the goals we have for 2025 I think one of the things we've really put a lot of attention into over the last three, four years, maybe even longer is just making our program better and better. [00:03:05] We've just added a lot to the program, like focusing on decreasing churn, keeping our coaching clients longterm improving systems. We just rolled out some cool stuff, our client workbooks. What are some of the things we've done in the last year? We rolled out this new Accountability Sales Tracker. [00:03:19] We rolled out, you know... [00:03:20] Sarah: all kinds of client workbooks content...  [00:03:23] Jason: new courses,  [00:03:23] Sarah: operations revamp.  [00:03:25] Jason: DoorGrow, we get a lot done. Part of that is because of DoorGrow OS and our planning process. It allows us to really focus on Goals and outcomes, strategic growth of the business instead of just tactical day to day work. [00:03:38] And strategic time invested in the business is what actually grows businesses. Most of y'all, because I've talked to thousands of property managers, most of y'all are focused so heavily on the tactical, the day to day tasks that just come at you and the business isn't moving forward. So our goal for this year, because we've got a really good program, we're getting great results. [00:03:59] We're keeping clients for a decent time now. You know, we even got rid of over the last several years, we got rid of any sort of annual contract. A lot of vendors like DoorGrow have annual agreements or whatever. We got rid of those because we could keep clients longer than a year. And so we didn't need that. [00:04:16] Like it increases the risk of people wanting to like get on board with us. So we're like, let's lower the risk to come on board with us, prove ourselves and just keep them. So the next goal for us really at DoorGrow is to focus on lead generation. That game has changed so much over the last decade plus that we've been in business. [00:04:37] We've used LinkedIn to get business for a while through automation. We used our Facebook group and we've used organic stuff through SEO. Like we've used a lot of different strategies and we still have several things going at a time, but the game always changes. And so lead gen is something where we're shifting our focus. [00:04:57] As you focus on the business, we've got our six core functions, lead gen, nurture, conversion, delivery, lifetime value, pricing, retention, et cetera. And then financial finances. And so we're shifting our focus every year towards what's weakest. Where does our attention... yeah. [00:05:17] Sarah: Every quarter, we're like, "okay, Hey, we solved that problem. Now we have this whole other problem.  [00:05:22] Jason: So our weakest thing right now is probably lead generation. Like we've got a lot of tools for nurture. This podcast or newsletter. We've got lots of content on YouTube. Yeah. Nurture's strong.  [00:05:35] Sarah: Yeah. [00:05:36] Jason: Delivery and fulfillment is strong. Conversion, like we're pretty good at conversion.  [00:05:40] Sarah: Hassan follows up with people like crazy. He's just on top of it. He's done everything.  [00:05:45] Jason: So lead gen, we've been getting a lot of leads, you know, through Facebook ads and through our Facebook group where we funnel people to, but we're getting a lot of unqualified leads. [00:05:54] Like basically there's a lot of startup property managers that are broke and don't have money and we can help them with that stuff if they're willing to invest. But broke people often have a broke mindset. So if you're listening and you're not growing, you're probably not investing any money towards growth. [00:06:10] Like who are you paying to coach you or teach you or help you figure out how to grow? If you're not paying somebody, you're selling yourself short. And we eat our own dog food. How many masterminds am I in right now? I don't know, two, three? [00:06:22] Sarah: I don't know. You just added another one.  [00:06:24] Jason: Yeah, but they're for different areas of the business. [00:06:26] And and we leverage them and allow the team to leverage them and to make sure that we're always innovating or getting new ideas and moving things forward.  [00:06:35] Sarah: Think the answer is four.  [00:06:36] Jason: I think I'm in four different masterminds right now. Yeah. We're in plenty. So, yeah. So, and yeah we've got two online programs that we're in right now related to just leads. [00:06:49] Oh, I wasn't counting those.  [00:06:50] Ads. So we've got access to at least, you know, at least two focused on lead gen. So we're going to be putting our attention and focus this year on lead generation. Like how do we attract more property managers that are struggling, that want to grow, or that are struggling with being able to scale their operations and adding doors is causing a problem for them? [00:07:14] These are problems we solve and we're really good at solving it. So we're going to be shifting our lead gen from just like, "Hey, are you a property manager? Join our free Facebook group and then we'll give you free stuff." We're going to shift it more towards, "Hey, do you have these particular challenges we want to help?" [00:07:28] So that's going to be our focus this year.  [00:07:30] Sarah: I also want to focus on doing some cool events this year.  [00:07:33] Jason: Yeah.  [00:07:33] Sarah: Those are so fun for me. I love that. Like even our jumpstart events.  [00:07:37] Jason: Yeah.  [00:07:38] Sarah: It's a whole day, so it's a lot. Like I am tired afterwards, but I walk away feeling really fulfilled I walk away... [00:07:45] Explain what a jumpstart event is  [00:07:46] ...and I just feel like we just changed the trajectory of people's lives and businesses. [00:07:52] Jason: Yeah, they're powerful. Explain what a jumpstart is for those that are like, what's that? Yeah.  [00:07:56] Sarah: What's a jumpstart session? So the jumpstart session is available for our mastermind clients. They're held here in the North Austin, Texas area, and they're a one day deep dive into the business. So, there's no pre selected topics. [00:08:08] Sometimes I get, "well, what are we going to talk about?" I don't know, what do you need in your business? What are the problems? What are your challenges? What are you working on? What has not been working for you? You know, what questions might you have that you're like, "man, I just, I know I can do this better. I just don't know how." That's what we're going to talk about. So whatever it is. We've done a couple of them we've done pricing. Some of them have been focused on sales. Some of them have been focused more on the back end, like delivery and team operations.  [00:08:37] Jason: Yeah.  [00:08:38] Sarah: So they're different every single time and we never know what we're going to talk about really until we get there and we start diving in and we start asking questions. [00:08:48] So, they're usually smaller events. I like to keep them small because if they get too big, it's hard to go really deep into a business if there's like 20 businesses in the room. Now it's not a deep dive. Now it's just, we're going to talk about some stuff. So we keep them generally pretty small. [00:09:03] There are usually about like three, maybe four businesses there. And it's like a one day deep dive. We do break, we get some really good tacos. We go for lunch and then we dive right back into it. But every single time people walk away with an action plan, they walk away knowing what to do. We update our client workbooks. [00:09:22] So they get a lot of clarity and then we wanted to mimic that, but build on it and do this a little bit in a more robust way. So we're actually hosting an event. This is open to anyone who wants to join. It will be called Thrive 2025 because as we're talking with people, we're realizing we're at the end of the year. [00:09:44] The clock is about to reset. Some people, they have an idea of what they want to do, but they don't know how the hell they're actually going to get there. So, we're going to get into the nitty gritty and help them figure out, well, what is your plan? What are your goals? And then, how are you going to get there? [00:10:01] What are the things that you need to do? And by what time frame do you actually need to do them? So that you can hit this goal that you're trying to hit in all of 2025. So at this event, we're not just planning for like, "Hey, here's what you're going to do for maybe the next month or the next couple of weeks." [00:10:18] "Here's what your 2025 is going to look like, and here's the entire roadmap for your 2025." So that you can be on track and hit the goals that you're looking to hit so that you don't have another year where you're like, "man, it just didn't happen again. I just don't know what's going on. Maybe I'll just never do it." [00:10:38] You can do it. You just need a really good plan. You need a solid plan put together. So we're going to spend the day with a room of property managers. We're going to brainstorm. We're going to create some goals, figure out what is it that you really want for your business? Why do you want it? [00:10:53] And then, what are the action steps that you need to take so that you can get there? So this essentially is going to write the business plan for your business for 2025. And we're going to do that in a really cool place. It's going to be in Nashville.  [00:11:07] Jason: Yeah, we're going to take you through a bit of our planning process the way we do this at DoorGrow I really think this is the technology that has allowed us to surpass any other coaches in the space it's our planning and it's the planning process gets our team in alignment It gets them out of that transactional sort of leadership system. [00:11:28] It gets them focusing on objectives. It gets them functioning more like like intrapreneurs, instead of just waiting to be told what to do. And if you're frustrated and always having to tell your team what to do and always having to answer all their questions, you have a transactional leadership system because that's the least risky thing for them to do is to let you do all the thinking and decision making. [00:11:48] So when we start focusing on a team, figuring out what is the business need? What are the objectives to like brainstorm as a team? And you're the last to speak as a visionary or the people that are running the business and you get feedback, real feedback from your team who are on the front lines, who know what challenges they're running into, then we can start to innovate as a company. [00:12:09] Then they start to focus on those outcomes and they start to move things forward. And so we're going to take you through that process. And come up with a plan. So we're going to spend a day and just dig in. And this will be a game changer for you and your business. So we're going to have a small group. [00:12:24] How many are we allowing to come to this?  [00:12:26] Sarah: There's going to be eight spots total. And some of them are already spoken for.  [00:12:30] Jason: Okay. Eight businesses.  [00:12:32] Sarah: Eight spots.  [00:12:33] Jason: Eight people.  [00:12:34] Sarah: Eight. Yep. Eight human beings. So, a business might just have one person.  [00:12:39] Jason: Or bring a plus one. It can bring a plus one. Yeah. Okay.  [00:12:43] Sarah: Two, two max. [00:12:44] Because if someone goes, Oh, I have three people. So it might only be four businesses. Four people. Like now that's really.  [00:12:49] Jason: Okay.  [00:12:50] Sarah: It's hard then, because it takes up so many spots.  [00:12:52] Jason: So we're going to be doing events as another goal for the year.  [00:12:56] Sarah: Yep. Yeah, so we're going to kick it off with right in January Thrive 2025. [00:12:59] Jason: If you're listening this podcast later on like iTunes or something then you probably missed it, but we'll have other stuff.  [00:13:05] Sarah: But don't worry because we have our DoorGrow live event coming up. [00:13:08] Jason: Okay, that's another event So we've got DoorGrow live coming up. You want to talk about DoorGrow Live?  [00:13:13] Sarah: Yeah, let's talk about DoorGrow Live. So that is going to be a Friday and Saturday. It's May 16th and 17th. And you'll want to make sure that you come in on the 15th because that Thursday, the day before from 7pm to 9pm, we're doing a mixer. [00:13:27] So we're doing some networking. You'll meet the DoorGrow team. You'll meet a lot of other business owners and property managers, and we're going to have some live entertainment. So you're going to get to see some dancers. We're going to have a singer. It's going to be a good time. So make sure that you travel in the day before, attend the mixer. [00:13:46] And then this year we're talking about innovating the future of property management. So we want to talk about where is this whole industry going? Because things change really quickly, especially with all of the developments in AI. So things can change really quickly. So we're going to have some great speakers there. [00:14:07] You can go actually right now. You can go to doorgrowlive.Com and you can get all of the event details. You can book your rooms at the discounted room rate that we've negotiated with the venue for you. It's at Kalahari Resorts in Round Rock, Texas. And you can check out some of the speakers that are going to be there at the event. Every year we do one of these we always try to make it a little bigger a little better, and this year is no exception We've got some great stuff planned.  [00:14:39] Jason: You know, I think a lot of people are burnt out on conferences. A lot of you maybe have gone to a lot of events and conferences. But there's something special and different about DoorGrow Live. [00:14:49] I've been to a lot of different events as well. And there's just something special and different about DoorGrow Live. And one, we're creating a lot of momentum for property managers too. I think we're a lot more holistic in our approach. We're not just focused on property management. All of y'all know plenty about property management, but what I find is usually what's holding you back in business is not even related to business, it's everything else going on. And that's why we take a much more holistic approach. And so we're going to benefit you in a lot of different ways. Like people walk away from these events and become better people. That's our goal. And so, and better people have better businesses and better families and make more money and more contribution and make a bigger difference. [00:15:33] So, so get your tickets to DoorGrow Live. That's coming up as well. And any other events?  [00:15:39] Sarah: Well, there's this secret one that we haven't talked about yet. When we were in Mexico, we were talking about it.  [00:15:45] Jason: Okay, well I guess we're not talking about today 'cause it's a secret . So, so sorry, everybody. [00:15:51] All right. So something cool is coming. All right, so we've got events coming up and then so what other goals do we have for DoorGrow? Those are kind of the key ones for us internally. It's lead gen. Yeah. Yeah. It is going to be our focus, so.  [00:16:04] Sarah: I want to just find it to help more people and [00:16:07] Yeah. [00:16:07] I don't care what that looks like.  [00:16:08] Jason: It doesn't  [00:16:09] Sarah: even matter what it looks like, really, so. Oh, and then my, I have some personal goals, too, I'm going to help more dogs. We're going to save more dogs this year. Jason's going to kill me, probably. I might be divorced by the end of the year. Hopefully not.  [00:16:22] Jason: I will not kill her. [00:16:22] Sarah: What's the number of dogs that we can get before we talk about divorce?  [00:16:28] Jason: Is this, like...? [00:16:29] Sarah: On the pod, we're going to record it, yeah. So, like, what's the number? Because we're at three right now. We just rescued enough.  [00:16:35] Jason: There's no amount of dogs that would make me divorce you. There's plenty of other things you could do that would probably lead towards that, but it's not a dog thing. [00:16:44] Sarah: So we're going to have 99 dogs.  [00:16:46] Jason: We just adopted. Yesterday, we officially just adopted our third dog, who was a foster. We had for, what, a month? And then...  [00:16:55] Sarah: we had him for a month.  [00:16:56] Jason: And then he got adopted. We got him adopted.  [00:16:58] Sarah: We did our job.  [00:16:59] Jason: We took him to farmer's markets and places and we met somebody at one of the things we took him to and got him adopted. [00:17:06] Sarah: And it was a great situation for him. We were super sad because he's such a great dog. He's so perfect for him. And then when we dropped him off, I was just I was crying. I was a mess.  [00:17:15] Jason: Yeah, it was, that was hard.  [00:17:16] Sarah: I was so sad.  [00:17:17] Jason: He's just like the sweetest dog ever. Like, he's so, like, loving, he just loves everyone, like, well, loves us, not everyone. [00:17:24] And yeah, so we got him adopted and then they took him back to the animal shelter.  [00:17:30] Sarah: Yeah.  [00:17:31] Jason: Which is sad. I guess.  [00:17:33] Sarah: Husband wasn't really on board.  [00:17:34] Jason: Husband wasn't really on board with it. No. The wife had adopted him and.  [00:17:37] Sarah: She got him while he was in Florida like. He was out of town. Rebuilding houses from the storm. [00:17:43] Jason: Yeah.  [00:17:43] Sarah: And he was like, yeah, babe, go ahead. And he comes home and there's this dog.  [00:17:47] Jason: I'm coming to Texas. And he's like, I don't know if I like this dog. Yeah. Hans doesn't like new people, so he was probably like a little iffy about him, and it probably just didn't go well. I don't know.  [00:17:57] Sarah: Well, he let me know that it wasn't going to work out, so I said, okay, bring him back, and we'll foster him again, and in fostering him again, we both just, we knew we can't, we just can't, we can't give him up.  [00:18:12] Jason: So we're on number three. If we keep doing this fostering, we may end up with 20 dogs eventually. We'll need to buy land and a farm for dogs.  [00:18:21] Sarah: Y'all heard it. He said there is no amount of dogs.  [00:18:25] Jason: I'm not going to divorce you over dogs.  [00:18:26] Sarah: He said there's no amount of dogs. [00:18:27] So this is recorded. I have video evidence  [00:18:30] Jason: that doesn't mean I'm going to allow any number of dogs. There's only so many we can handle. Do you like taking trips? You like taking trips?  [00:18:37] Sarah: I do, but that's... [00:18:38] we're not boarding 20 dogs. [00:18:40] No, we just need a farm. Need a farm. [00:18:43] Need some volunteers. We'll start a nonprofit.  [00:18:47] Jason: Okay.  [00:18:47] Sarah: Get some people to help out. I'm going to save all dogs.  [00:18:50] Jason: This is Sarah's goal for 2025.  [00:18:54] Sarah: We'll have buses full of dogs. And he's not going to leave me, so that's great.  [00:18:58] Jason: God help me.  [00:19:00] Sarah: Seriously.  [00:19:00] Jason: Please, protect me from this woman and all of her dogs, so. Okay, so that's it. [00:19:07] That's our goals for DoorGrow. What are your goals? Figure them out. Let us know inside our Facebook group. You can go there by going to doorgrowclub.com . And let us know what your goals are for the year. And if you would like some help, we would love to help you with your goals. You know what your default future is. [00:19:25] You know what you achieved last year. You know what you achieved the year before that. And if you're anything like the majority of the property managers I've talked to over the last decade, your results probably aren't super great and you're probably not super excited about it. And you're probably getting a little bit burnt out on your business. [00:19:43] And you probably do not want to keep doing things the way that you're doing it for the next year or the next five years. And so if you would like to have a different year this year than you had last year. Like a great year, like things really going well, like adding a lot of doors, getting a team that actually makes your life easy and you feel like you can just take vacations and step away and the business works swimmingly well, then reach out to us. Reach out to us. This is stuff that we're helping clients do all the time, and you would be amazed how much we can get accomplished even in your initial jumpstart session as a new client, but certainly within the first 90 days, we are changing lives, and we would love to change yours. [00:20:26] We love getting to do this. We just we want to help more people and reach out to us. Have a conversation. We're expensive. Yeah. Not going to lie, like we're expensive, right? But we help you make so much money that you're not going to be worried about the expense. So that's the goal.  [00:20:43] Sarah: What's this, what's the, I don't know what it's called, but there's this framework where you have good, you have cheap, and you have fast and you can never have all three. [00:20:51] Jason: You can only pick two.  [00:20:52] Sarah: There's only two. There's no combination in this world of anything. No product, no service, no nothing that's good and cheap and fast.  [00:21:00] Jason: Yeah. [00:21:00] Sarah: So  [00:21:01] Jason: Yep.  [00:21:01] Sarah: So figure out which one you want to sacrifice, right?  [00:21:04] Jason: Reach out to us. You can check us out at DoorGrow. com and until next time to our mutual growth and happy new year. [00:21:10] Bye everyone. [00:21:10] you just listened to the #DoorGrowShow. We are building a community of the savviest property management entrepreneurs on the planet in the DoorGrowClub. Join your fellow DoorGrow Hackers at doorgrowclub.com. Listen, everyone is doing the same stuff. SEO, PPC, pay-per-lead content, social direct mail, and they still struggle to grow!  [00:21:37] At DoorGrow, we solve your biggest challenge: getting deals and growing your business. Find out more at doorgrow.com. Find any show notes or links from today's episode on our blog doorgrow.com, and to get notified of future events and news subscribe to our newsletter at doorgrow.com/subscribe. Until next time, take what you learn and start DoorGrow Hacking your business and your life.

We look at hope as an expectation or even a wish. I hope I get that present I really want. I hope we all get along at Christmas dinner. I hope Aunt Susie will make it this year. But God offers us so much more. Hope in our God is a confidence. When we put […] The post Come Home to Hope (Isaiah 40) appeared first on PLEASANT HILL COMMUNITY CHURCH.

Kelly Williams Hale is our host today on Celebrating God's Grace and shares three powerful tips on how we can navigate the pressures of the holidays and still stay focused on the reason for the season: King Jesus. For many, Christmas time is difficult. Whether we've lost a loved one or are feeling overwhelmed, peace – that surpasses understanding – is always available (Philippians 4:6). Let us be a beacon of light! It really does make a difference to other people. We can all be beautiful examples of Jesus. ***** Today's episode is about healing and the holidays. We just celebrated Thanksgiving. And I hope each one of you enjoyed a wonderful day of Thanksgiving this year. Thanking God for all the things he's blessed you with, and all the things we're so grateful for. Counting our blessings is so important to do - not just on Thanksgiving, but every day. And so, as we head into the Christmas season, I want to talk about all the responsibilities, all the things that are going to be happening, and all the things that you have to do. The message today is going to be around our journey, growing, becoming all that God has planned for us. It can be defined as a healing journey… inner healing and really becoming the best version of ourselves, acknowledging the gift that we are - that God created us to be. And on that journey of healing and growing and really diving into God's word and believing who he says we are, the holidays can bring up a lot of struggles – in terms of our emotions, our feelings. With relationships and the people in our life. Many of us have a to do list a mile long, wrapping presents, decorating the house, entertaining or being invited to other events and gatherings. So today I'm going to share three tips on how to navigate that, while taking care of yourself. This time of year can bring up feelings of overwhelm - with all the pressures, and we can lose sight of the reason for the season, which is Jesus, and celebrating his birth. And all that that means… Our salvation as women of faith, and the promises that God gives us in the Bible. The scripture I'd like to start with is: 1 Peter 5:7 Cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you. And I can tell you during this holiday season, we can definitely feel anxious. You might want to write this verse down, keep it by your refrigerator, and when you're feeling overwhelmed with all the things, remind yourself that Jesus is with you. And he cares about you. My first tip for healing and the holidays is to remember to take care of yourself. And what that means is really protect your energy, so that you can truly enjoy this season, you can enjoy your family, you can enjoy all the nuances and all the opportunities to celebrate Jesus. When we don't take care of ourselves, we can get overwhelmed, we may say yes to things we don't really want to do – and then beat ourselves up… Or we can feel guilty if we say no. I want to give you permission to take care of yourself - and that it's okay to say no. We need to evaluate our priorities. Our emotions can get the best of us during the holidays – We just want everyone to be happy! We don't want to hurt anybody's feelings by saying no. I remember a Bible Study I did years ago about Mary and Martha. Remember Martha got so mad because she was in the kitchen doing all the cooking, etc – and Mary was hanging out with Jesus. Who did Jesus say was focused on the right thing? Mary It was during this time of this Bible Study that I found myself saying yes to all the requests. Particularly around church needs. But I was reminded that when I always say, I am keeping a blessing from someone else. Just imagine when you somebody ask you for help. Doesn't it feel good to help out? I actually get upset with friends if they don't ask for help and they've ended up stressed and wore out. Women want to help. Part of taking care of ourselves is asking for help if we need it. Consider this another permission slip to do so! And so, taking care of ourselves may mean saying no or asking for help. And honestly, when you get overwhelmed, start to feel frustrated or stressed, just take a deep breath. I encourage you to stop for a moment and take a deep breath when everything seems to be piling up and time is getting shorter and now it's Christmas Eve and you still haven't shopped for your husband. Take a moment to pray, breathe and center yourself. And again, Cast your cares on God. Because God is the keeper of time. I can't tell you how many times I was frazzled, running late or overwhelmed – I took a moment to just to pray and breathe, there was always enough time. It's almost as if God adds an extra 10 minutes to our 24-hour day! Tip number two is to be mindful of your reactions. And what I mean by that is when you're with your family, we can get caught up in different scenarios, different situations, different conversations where, you know, there's nobody like our family that knows what buttons to push. And so being mindful of our reactions is just understanding what triggers us. What triggers our emotions. Like, if Uncle Joe always teases you about, you know, the turkeys dry, or the mashed potatoes are lumpy or whatever, just recognize that you can control your reaction to him, we can control our reactions to the people in our life. When we get caught up in emotional conversations - for example, politics always seems to come up at family gatherings… And if we know we can lose our cool around a particular topic, we need to be aware and also prepared with our responses. Proverbs 16:24 “Gracious words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones.” So tip 2 is to understand that if you're triggered by certain things, be mindful of your response. We should also take into consideration who the comment is coming from. For example, my response or reaction to something my mom says will be different than my brothers. We can then understand and frame our response based on who that person is. It might be safe and appropriate to say, “that hurt my feelings.” Or it might be more appropriate just to say, “oh, please excuse me, I've got to step out for a minute.” I believe all of us know that certain people and certain situations will push our buttons and so being mindful of our reactions will be helpful as we navigate the holidays and holding onto our peace. Philippians 4:6 Do not be anxious about anything. Instead, in every situation with prayer and petition with thanksgiving, tell your requests to God. And the peace that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” Finally, tip number three is really about expectations. Setting expectations for yourself and lowering expectations of others. Determine up front what you're willing to participate in. Now is the time to determine your schedule and what you're available for. So that when your husband says, let's go look at Christmas lights tonight, but you've already committed to baking pies for your ladies' group… you'll be able to say honey, let's go look at the Christmas lights tomorrow night, because I've got to make these pies. Setting expectations up front – so it won't feel bad – for you and for others - when you have to say, “no, I'm sorry, I can't…” And then also, remember that other people are not always going to do the things that we want them to do. Or do things the way we do them. So when I say lower your expectations of others, it will help your nervous system, when someone drops the ball or doesn't follow through. When we have expectations of others - and they don't meet those expectations – that can create anxious feelings as well during the holidays. We expect Aunt Susie to bring the green bean casserole, but she totally forgot. There's less disappointment and more grace when we allow others to be human. We all forget things sometimes! We all want to have a wonderful holiday season filled with joy, love and peace. And I believe it is possible! Let us all remember to share a kind word when we're out and about - shopping at the grocery store, picking up presents, or even at home, wishing the Amazon delivery person a wonderful, blessed day! So many people are hurting this holiday season, whether they've lost someone or they're feeling overwhelmed with all the things… we as believers can be a beacon of light, it really does make a difference to other people. And so, I just want to leave you with this final scripture, John 14, verse 27, that says, Peace, I leave with you, my peace I give you I do not give it to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. So, over the next few weeks, I encourage you all to take care of yourself and remember this is a time to celebrate Jesus' birth. You get to love your family and love the people in your life. We can all be a beautiful example of Jesus.

Today we are talking with Ryan Dranginis and Chris Wesser about their new service, Bid My Listing. It provides transparency to real estate agents and sellers, allowing realtors to bid on listings, not leads. Sellers get the chance to choose from multiple realtors and decide which is the best fit for them. Ryan Dranginis, Chief Marketing Officer, and Chris Wesser, Chief Strategy Officer, are part of an exciting new tool for sellers and agents; Bid My Listing. Be sure to check out their website and social media platforms at BidMyListing.com.Three Things You'll Learn in This EpisodeWhat is Bid My Listing?How it benefits both agents and sellers. How it provides transparency to the selling process. ResourcesCheck Out Their WebsiteReal Estate Marketing DudeThe Listing Advocate (Earn more listings!)REMD on YouTubeREMD on InstagramTranscript:So how do you attract new business? You constantly don't have to chase it. Hi, I'm Mike Cuevas a real estate marketing. This podcast is all about building a strong personal brand people have come to know, like trust, and most importantly, refer. But remember, it is not their job to remember what you do for a living. It's your job to remind them. Let's get started.What's up ladies andgentlemen, welcome another episode of the real estate marketing dude, podcast. What we're talking about today, folks, as Welcome to the shift should happen. So shift happens during the shift, this will be my second one and my career. And there's a major and major opportunities always within shifts. So what I like to say market shares are taken. Because when things are going really good, no one really grows except the ones doing all the deals. And when things start going a little better, a little shaky, there's opportunity for the rest of the people, the most of the people to get in the office or get into the business and make some traction. So we're story today, interruption is here, guys. This is my neighbor I have on the podcast, but he has a company that is called Bid my listing, which is a new listing service for real estate agents. And they're making some waves. As a matter of fact, one of my old friends from Chicago sent me a message on Facebook the other day, he's like this fucking bid, my listing thing is got some traction, I feel bad for the real estate agents out there. And I'm like, well, they're not trying to take real estate out of the agent out of the deal. They're trying to work with real estate agents and give sellers a new alternative to selling their property today, because that's what sellers want. If you guys have been on the show, you've realized that we have a couple things going on in the space as well. Owner advocate, we offer seller multiple options, and no one hires you for what the hell you do. They hire you for how you do it. So we're gonna dig underneath the hood, see what these dudes are up to. And I'm gonna tell you why you should sign up for their service by the end of this because it's free, and you have nothing to lose, and you might get a listing or two. So I'm gonna be coming with some value today. Without further ado, gentlemen, why don't we introduce you guys to the show, Ryan and Chris, why don't you guys go ahead, introduce yourselves. Tell them who the hell you are. And let's get into it. All right,awesome, Mike. Number one. Thanks for the intro number two. Thanks for having us on here. You've got some cute kids and some good smelling barbecue that I constantly see out there in the street. So nice to be chatting with you here on the pod.What else do you expect from a bunch of Mexicans?Good stuff. So I'm the Chief Marketing Officer of Bid my listing. Really excited to be here talking to you and everybody who's listening in the podcast. We are a place where you can buy listings, not leads, and we can talk a lot more about that. But disruption is the right way to position it. And we're you know, we're feeling good about where we are for the shift. So excited to chat here. Thank you for having us.grisco Reddit. Yeah, sure. Thanks, Mike. Like Ryan, super happy to be here. My name is Chris Weser. I'm the Chief Strategy Officer of bid whitelisting. And my job is to kind of make sure we have world class practices, world class people, so that we can deliver a world class product to the world and really thankful for the team we built. Super excited to have Ryan on board because he's crushing it. And we're watching progress happen every single minute, which is cool. What does what has been my listing and why is Josh Altman all over my Facebook feed?That is a great question. And number one is all your Facebook feed because we are good at retargeting you. But number two, Josh Altman is the co founder of good my listing. But my listing is a place where real estate agents can find listings, not leads. So that you know our mission is to help people make smart decisions about real estate. And when I say people, we're talking about home sellers, and we're talking about real estate agents. So the experience on Bid my listing is pretty simple. I come to bid my listing.com type in my property address in a couple of clicks. As a home seller, I can put my listing up for auction. And as a real estate agent, I can come to bid my listing and see real estate listings that are up for auction in my area. So I can place a bid on that listing, I can specify a payment of cash upfront that I'm willing to offer that home seller for the opportunity to represent the sale of their home, specify my commission amount or listing term. I can talk a little bit about my marketing plan and why I'm the perfect fit to sell that home for that home seller. Click a button and the homeowner gets a chance to review the bids and hopefully selects you as the winning agent and you guys march off happily into the future. Sure.So I'm a seller. I want to list my house, you guys. They call me you guys. You say, Alright agents, here's a house who wants to bid on it. And then highest bidder, whoever that necessarily has been or whoever the seller wants to choose to represent them. And this agent would pay for that listing. And now they have a listing. Yep, that's That'sexactly it. So Josh Altman, in our co founder, Matt Perlman got together, Matt was actually selling his home, he, he lived up there in a beautiful property and lawn was good friends with Josh, they went out to dinner. And Matt was like, Hey, here's what's happening, I got a bunch of agents coming to my property, you know, walk me around my house, tell me how awesome they are sitting in my kitchen table, pitching me on whatever the you know, however, they are the best fit to sell my house. He signed a listing agreement in the agent took off went a different direction. And, you know, try to find a bunch of other listings for for themselves. So Matt got together with Josh and said, hey, the process is broken. The way that we fix this is by providing transparency in the process. So they could bid my listing as almost a digital version of the kitchen table, where the home seller is going to receive bids, and the home seller has the opportunity to select the agent that's the right fit for them. So not just based on cash, not just based on commission, but based on that agents reputation, and their plan to market that specific property.So, folks, what I want you guys to get out of the show is that sellers wants something different. The truth is 99.9% of you fucking guys are offering the same damn shit. Hey, I'll put your lesson in amaryllis, I'll put a sign in here and I'm gonna sit there and pray for a buyer to come. And then I might have some open houses and kick you out on Sunday. That's not a marketing plan anymore. And it does not guarantee or warrant five to 6% Commission anymore. Sellers aren't commission compression is a real thing. In Phoenix, you guys, you could talk to my partner out there, the Commission's is getting down to 4%, four and a half percent. And you have the appetite is out there. There's a reason why you have big tech. You have these large funds, these corporations, he's known as I buyers, you have transactional funding, you have fixed endless companies, you have, you have Wall Street involved in real estates and asset class today, which has a lot of interruption. And companies like this are going about to eat your guys's lunch. And the reason for that is because they're doing something different. That's all anyone wants. The only industry that hasn't changed in the last 50 fucking years has been the real estate industry the same way you sold the house and 1950s Exact same way you sell houses in 2022. The car industry has changed. I could go buy a frickin car out of a vending machine today. But yeah, when I saw my house, it's been the same damn thing since our parents bought their first, isn't it? Has anything changed in the real estate industry? Ever? On the listing side?Yeah, so I like to think about it. So, Chris, although I'm a Marine, and he's an army guy, and I don't like to say nice. But when I initially met with Chris, he has a really good, you know, strategy and has done a lot of research on the market. I'll let him talk a little bit about the money that's being spent at the top of the funnel. And kind of how we think about the industry ultimately being able to help agents do what they're good at, which is connect with home sellers directly and provide an incredible experience during the sale at home.Chris is sure what the number is saying what your research as it came out to this idea. What do sellers want?Yeah, so so Like Ryan said, So Matt Perlman, our co founder was selling his house, he realized the interests are not really truly aligned. Right? Number one, number two, you just mentioned the word asset class. No one had ever treated the listing as an asset before Matt, being a serial founder who's incredibly insightful about things like that said, Wait a minute, my listing shouldn't be an asset like these people want to go make commission from my house, they should pay me for that opportunity. I should have something up front for that. So we developed Bid my listing. And once we got started about a year ago, and started digging into the numbers, and substantiating sort of where we thought we could be in the market, something popped out at us. And that is today, agents spend about $22 billion a year in marketing to secure listings, right. So they do that through all of the standard channels, that most agents can't tell you how it works, or why it works, right. They're there. They're giving their money to digital marketers and others who are hopefully delivering them leads that hopefully turn into listings. So what we realized is, wait a minute, we can just bring the two parties together directly. The agents can spend that 22 billion through our platform, and they can buy the exact listings that they want, right and with our sort of matching algorithms will be able to match the buyer and the seller and the agents so that you have the best data truly the best agent for you and the homeowner is going to get some cash up front, you know Agent has skin in the game, you get compensated for that asset. And the interests are truly aligned. So that was the theory. What's really cool and Brian can speak to this better than me. As we're watching it play out and we're and we're pushing, you know, marketing dollars out there into the world ourselves and bringing people in. The value proposition is so overwhelmingly good and the interests are so overwhelmingly aligned, that our that our marketing spend is just more efficient than anything you're seeing out there in the market because people love it. I loveFirst off, let's be honest, 90% of agents who are buying leads, don't even call back any follow up on them, but they just don't know what's wrong with our industry. But, and you guys know this, like you guys will get leads, but you don't follow up with them. And then the other problem that so many agents have in the online space, at least with digital marketing is they don't have the either technology, the wherewithal, the skills, the autoresponders, the lead capture tools to actually effectively do it at high scale. And you're right, it's very expensive. And that's why most people don't do it. They lack skills, or they lack the knowledge. Many, many times and you guys are solving that for agents, because you're right, an agent that is going to try to go out on Facebook ads and generate, you know, we have some contract costs up to 700 $800 for to acquire a listing contract, you could determine if you really know what you're doing your cost of acquisition for listing contract, but 99% I just don't understand what I just said. And it's right, and then you just end up we just throw we call wishful marketing, right? Yeah. So my own agents on my team is like, Mike, I'm gonna go out there and go farm this area. I'm like, bro, you have 5000 friends on Facebook. Why are you gonna go farm a bunch of strangers? farm that people you know, they all have a referral for you. So we spent you're right, we spend our money carelessly. I think a lot of the reasons we get paid a lot. And we do close a house. Like shatters 20 grand myself throw one at this. See what happens, right? But no one is approaching adspend in a business mentality. Very few people. Yeah, yeah.100% agree with you there, Mike. And if you if you can look out your window and see my whiteboard here on the wall. The way that we like to think about it is so you're looking at a marketing funnel, right? top of the funnel, you have people that are thinking about selling their house, bottom of the funnel, yet people are actually doing something, there's an entire industry hundreds, if not 1000s of companies that exist in that funnel that are helping real estate agents get those thinkers to the point where they're doers, the way that we're approaching the industry is we're taking that funnel and we're overlaying a tee on top of it. And we're saying to agents come to us, we're going to connect you with those doers. We're going to connect with home sellers that are ready to transact. And we're gonna allow you to focus your time and most importantly, your marketing dollars on the thing that matters the most, which is getting in front of those home sellers, knowing your ROI being in complete control of your marketing budget, sitting down on a Monday morning and saying instead of spending the week you know going out and working my farm knocking on doors doing all the things I want to do acquire home sellers. I can sell my calendar not am on Monday morning, I'm logging into my listing. I'm deploying my marketing budget to get seller listings. And it's you know, it's that simplekeep turning my mute on here, guys, but what do you guys think that I like it a lot. I think that I'm I'm curious to know what your research shows on and I'm sure Chris sounds like a really really smart dude here. And I'm sure you did some research and you guys did stuff of what sellers want. What do sellers want today from their agents? Do you guys have any color on that?I'll take it past that. And on the Chris of the, you know, I mentioned we're Think of us as the digital version of the kitchen table. So you know right now I can pull up my phone, I can click a button and you and I can have a burrito delivered in the next 10 minutes. I can click another button and Uber picks us up and brings us to downtown Encinitas. You know, the world is used to transparency the world is used to removing friction. So digital products that are removing friction, and that's what homeowners want. So homeowners want to sit down, they want to treat you know, they want to treat the sell their home like it's the most one of the most important business transactions in their life and be able to see transparently, I want to see 20 agents who are bidding on my listing I want to see their reputation I want to see their marketing plans. And you know, I want to I want to be able to make a decision smartly. I want to make a decision on my terms and that's what we're providing to a home sellers and that's that's what's really resonate and that's what they're loving about the platform.What I like about this is I used to lose a couple of listings to little cousin Billy who just got his license a little prick or Aunt Susie the realtor, you know, every year this happens to agents. This is though such a USP though I could see that occurring. Because with anything you guys you have to first generate attention the first time you get the opportunity pitch your business, whatever it is in any business if you don't generate the opportunity and I Think what the interrupt is like, hey, I'll buy your listing or I'll pay for your listing. Like that's sexy. Like every seller just say, Wait, what? I'm gonna hire a realtor anyways, they're gonna charge me five or 6% of your time me, I'm gonna have a way to get my best, the best realtor out all of them, and then they're gonna pay me to represent me. And then they're that means that they're gonna fight for it. So there's a very famous tagline by LendingTree says when banks compete, you win. It's very similar, right?Yes, yes. The tool, Priceline adage says thatPriceline Yeah, when banks compete, you win. Was that Priceline? Travel? Travel? Travel? Yeah.So but it's, you know, it's the same exact thing. It's, it's giving homeowners you know, both transparency, flexibility, and they be able to make a decision on their terms. And it's, you know, one of the stats that we pulled is 75% of people that are selling their home meet with less than two agents? And are they're basically making a decision, because it's easy, you know, like, if, without my listing, you know, I'm going to call up the first guy that drops me a postcard, or the first guy that I see on Facebook, or I'm going to go ask you, Mike, across the street. And yeah, you know, refer me to or yourself. So the, we're helping people make smart decisions, which means, you know, I can pull on my phone and see all the the price of every stock in the US or, you know, whatever I want to see, we're helping home sellers do the same thing.I like it. I like it. I just it just, it's it seems so simple. But yet so effective, you know, and you're just like, Why isn't anyone thought about this before? But again, it's because we're a bunch of dinosaurs. No one's ever done anything differently before. And anyone who's doing anything differently is getting buzz and the buzz is what you need, especially in a shift like this. What do you got? What do you guys think's gonna happen? With this market? Right here? We're seeing the shift some places more than others. I'm seeing that all over the country. How do you think this plays in into all of that? I think it's a positive for you guys.Yeah, I mean, yeah, I'm too I think the you know, there's inventory constraints across the board. That's something that we're, you know, we're all dealing with the, you know, what we've found, in our early days of working with a bunch of different home sellers is this number one, it solves a real problem. So inflation is on the rise, putting cash in the homeowners pocket is a good thing. Number two, it's a very effective tool for people that are publishing listings at scale. So you know, there's a shortage of housing across the board, new housing developers, it's a very efficient way to get their listings to market. So whether you're architect developer, big builder, there's a lot of traction there. So you know, I think, whatever direction the market decides to go, we're gonna be well positioned to receive it.I like it. Any other things that you guys think you want to add in on here? And where do you guys find most of your sellers at? Is this all online marketing? You guys doing a lot of different channels? How are you finding sellers? What are you targeting? If you're willing to share any of that?Yep. So I think an important caveat here is, we're you know, we're early days, I've been my listening. So we officially launched the platform on June 2, we've seen tremendous traction, most of our marketing to date on the home seller side has been primarily direct response, you know, using Facebook, and other digital channels. It's an incredible for us to have somebody like Josh Altman, as a co founder, he has an incredible sphere of influence that he's been activating for us, which is, you know, which is great, especially on the agent side, keep an eye out for us agents in the National Association of REALTORS publication that's coming out here in a couple of days. So we'll be doing some introductions there. So the important thing on the marketing side is the word network product. So you know, a lot like Tinder, where if there's not two people that want to date in an area, then the product doesn't make a lot of sense. For us, we're a network product. So think of us as an extension of your marketing team. You come to my listing, you sign up, it's fast, easy, and it's free. We see a concentration of agents in a zip code, and we go out and turn our marketing laser on that zip code, and we're acquiring homeowner listings. So and we've, you know, I feel like Chris alluded to it. Right now, positioning is Get Paid cash upfront and make a smart decision about selling your home really resonates. So it's been a real good interaction in the early days.Yeah, so different. Chris, how about you?I guess the one thing I would want to add because this is just it's resonated with everybody I've spoken to I spend a lot of time speaking to VC analysts to spend their entire lives studying this industry. And the thing that really really resonates a lot with me is today if you look at NAR, NAR says that agents spend somewhere around 75% of their time hunting for business. And to me, it's just really, really cool that agents can now spend 99% of their time selling listings that they buy on Bid my listing. Anytime you talk about that with with economists, they just see that as a massively disruptive thing, because it allows the agent to spend the vast majority of their time doing what they're really good at. And it's kind of kind of one of my favorite pieces of the entire company's puzzle.Like it. Why don't you guys go ahead and tell them one more time where you could get any other closing thoughts you want to add in here. But make sense, folks, this is very simple. These guys are doing some different setup for their stuff. But regardless, you have to do something different. You don't get noticed. That's what this is all about. Differentiation is a good thing in real estate because everyone's doing the same thing. It's not that hard to stand out. There's only one real estate marketing Dude, that's done on purpose. Right? There's one other dudes out there. And that's done for brands. I get it all the time. There's a reason brand matters. USP matters, differentiation matters. So go ahead at right once you guys close it out.Awesome. Well, again, thanks for having us, Mike. we've chatted about this over beers and excited to be talking about it. You're on your podcast. For everybody who's listening, signing up for bid my listing. It's fast, it's easy, it's free. Go to bid my listing.com. Follow us on Instagram. You'll see alerts come out. When we have listings. If you sign up, you'll get alerts when there's listings in your area. But we're here to make a real change. We're here to help agents deliver a great experience to home sellers. And we're excited to be here and look forward to seeing you there. My listening.Sir, I appreciate you guys. Thanks for coming on to the show. And thank you for listening to another episode of Real Estate Marketing podcast. Folks, if you want to build a personal brands very simple script, edit and distribute your videos and put you on the map. Real estate is not hard. It's a giant popularity contest. And the more people know who the hell you are the more opportunities that arise because 10 to 15% of them are moving this year and 100% of them have a referral. And the one they always hire is the one they know first and foremost, at least to the tune of 80% So visit our website at WWW dot real estate marketing do.com Subscribe and schedule a demo with a dude quit waiting. What are you doing schedule now? Thank you guys for listening and we'll see you next week peace. Thank you for watching another episode of the real estate marketing dude podcast. If you need help with video or finding out what your brand is, visit our website at WWW dot real estate marketing dude.com We make branding video content creation simple and do everything for you. So if you have any additional questions, visit the site, download the training, and then schedule a time to speak with the dude and get you rolling in your local marketplace. Thanks for watching another episode of the podcasts. We'll see you next time.Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Update— My Mic was not working today. Fun. Shit. Episode 23. Thanks.

A beautiful spring day. Shattered by the sounds of gunfire. In this episode we walk in the shoes of Aunt Susie, Uncle Max, Julia, Laura and others in our family who woke up to a day none of us will ever forget. But this was not the end of Paul's story, it was only the beginning.

Paul didn’t fit the mold of a police officer. He was the mold. After his death, people reached out to my Aunt Susie and Uncle Max to tell their story of Paul. How he treated them with respect. Gave them a second chance. And made a difference in their lives.  In this episode, you will hear the stories that came out after Paul was killed in the line of duty. One person who was arrested by Paul came to the funeral home to tell my Aunt Susie and Uncle Max how Paul treated them with kindness and respect. People would knock on my Aunt Susie’s and Uncle Max’s front door and ask if they could come in and talk about Paul. Letters and cards would arrive, sent by people describing an interaction they had with Paul and how he made a profound impact on them. 

It’s been a day of frustration for both Michelle and Suzanne, so the orange juice is completely optional for this episode. To provide an uptick to their day, they have chosen to follow the example of one of their favorite TV shows (especially for Suzanne), Seinfeld, and host an episode about nothing. As you will quickly discover, however, any conversation between these two best friends always results in some entertaining and profound moments for themselves and their listeners, and today is no exception.   They start off by describing the reasons behind their frustrating days, the notion of making this a Seinfeld-esque episode, some Star Wars trivia, and the definition of ‘making dinner’. They also venture into what it means to babysit, Aunt Susie’s Rules, grandkids and Disneyland, Mother’s Day and their own experiences as children and mothers, and some of the dumbest things they did as teenagers. Born out of frustration and with a plan to be about nothing, this episode is anything but, as it celebrates the ease and warmth of a conversation between great friends and the variety in both lightness and depth that can be found there. Episode Highlights:   Michelle and Suzanne’s frustrating days Seinfeld Star Wars trivia Making dinner Babysitting Aunt Susie’s Rules (ASR) Grandkids and Disneyland Mother’s Day, moms, and children The dumbest things they did as teenagers Quotes:   “Some days that's what you need to do is just bitch about it.”   “Give me a fucking break, you idiot!”   “That guy needed a Xanax, and now you need one.”   “While you were releasing to the universe, you made me laugh.”   “You're in charge of the kids. Therefore, you are babysitting.”   “I think it's an aunt's place or a grandparent's place to spoil those children.”   “You were only thrown out by the Disney police once. It's not like it happens every single time you go in there.”   “If I have to go to Disneyland, they better remember it.”   “You will be the grumpiest grandma there.”   “I think I lied through my teeth to my parents about what I was doing.”   “I don't see you ever doing anything stupid.”   “I got in so much trouble for that one.”   “At that point, it was the drunkest I had ever been.”   “It's a miracle no one was killed that day… and looking back on it, I am totally horrified by it.”   “That's a direct shot at me.”   “Were you too drunk to remember winning it?”   “She had strict rules and we were all the better for it.”   “I think God gives us the children we're meant to have, and we raise them because God knows how we're going to raise them.”   “God never gave me more than I could handle.” Links:   Homepage:  Orange Juice Optional   Goodnight Sweet Bear:  Goodnight Sweet Bear   Why Hello! Modern Home:  Why Hello! Modern Home                   Why Hello! Modern Home Facebook                       Why Hello! Modern Home Instagram   A Milne Shares:  A Milne Shares To share comments & podcast ideas please email:   OJO Email

This synopsis isn't. It's quite hard, almost as hard as Ashley during this episode. What caused Ashley's mess? Well, we preform Vore ASMR and play Guess What Guine is Eating. We also talk about Ashley's quirky bathroom habit. Ashley also explains her bondage situation with Guinevere. What would our parents think? :O This episode is all about the holiday spirit as it takes place during Fourth of July, Christmas, and Valium-times day. Guienevere also talks about her secret way of escaping This Shitty Country, by collecting Dog Tokens. The girls also dub the international classic film "Oh Oh De Robot Komt Me In Elkaar Slaan" All while cooking a delicious Harold the Mime in the oven. Will the girls burn Harold? Listen to this episode to find out! Also in the world of Crazy Aunt Suzy, Aunt Susie's Crazy Show, Crazy Aunt Suzy tries to paint over a picture but gets interrupted by Sister Suzy and the Grandpas. Give us money, we're celebrating 10,000 subscribers.

Bible Reading: Psalm 37:23-24, 39-40Silas grinned as he and his sister stood in line for their first ride on the new Thrillinator roller coaster. "Before you know it, we'll be zooming down those slick metal rails--upside down, downside up, and every which way in between," said Silas. "I can hardly wait!" "I can!" replied Hadley. "I can't believe you like doing this stuff! This thing will hurl us at incredibly dangerous speeds through insane twists and turns and drops. I don't know what I was thinking when I agreed to ride this thing with you!" Silas laughed. "I know what you were thinking. You wanted the funnel cake I promised to buy you for going on the roller coaster with me." He had agreed to buy it for her because it always felt weird to ride a roller coaster alone. "Besides," he added, "roller coasters teach us an important lesson. Remember what Dad compared them to?""Sure," said Hadley. "Dad said a roller coaster is something like life--full of ups and downs." She shook her head. "It seems like our family's been going through a lot of the downs lately. Aunt Susie died, and Mom's been sick, and our dog is lost." She frowned. "Like I said, I don't really like roller coasters." "Well, don't forget what else Dad told us," said Silas, grinning as the Thrillinator came to a halt. It was their turn next. "Dad said roller coasters were carefully designed with safety in mind, and since Jesus has saved us and given us eternal life, our lives are safe too."Hadley nodded as they both moved forward to climb into the waiting car. "I remember," she replied. "He said we're in the hands of the Great Designer--a loving God who knows what's best and helps us face all the high and low points ahead.""Right," said Silas. "And we're never riding that roller coaster alone--Jesus is right next to us through all of life's ups and downs." Hadley shrieked as the roller coaster suddenly jerked ahead. They were about to begin racing through corkscrew turns and zooming down steep drops. "Don't forget--it's safe," Silas yelled to his sister. He smiled, knowing they had nothing to fear in life either. Mike A. DizeHow About You?Do you get scared when you think about the future? Maybe someone in your family is sick or school is becoming too difficult. You can't know what's going to happen in life, but you can trust Jesus to take care of you as you go through it. Even when you face scary twists and turns, He is right there next to you. You are safe with Him.Today's Key Verse:He knows the way that I take; when He has tested me, I shall come forth as gold. (NKJV) (Job 23:10)Today's Key Thought:Trust God through ups and downs

To know my cousin Paul is to know his family, especially his mom and dad, my Aunt Susie and Uncle Max. Although they love each other and have a funny way of saying it, they love talking about Paul way more. He was the “love of their life” (their two daughters don’t mind them saying it, either, because they know it’s true.) So when Paul was killed in the line of duty, their world was turned upside down. This is how it all started. If you listen closely, you can hear Paul laughing.

HOLIDAY WEIGHTLOSS SPECIAL! Today I walk you through an exercise so you can show up at that family holiday party with CONFIDENCE. Walk in like the boss babe you are and lose weight no matter what Aunt Susie says. Follow me on Instagram  @bb.risboskin for daily health and mindset tips.   To learn my 3 steps to lose 15lbs in 3 months, sign up for a free session here:  https://billierisboskin.com/  

What is a Saint? A Sermon for the Feast of All Saints November 4, 2019Rev. Bingham Powell Who is your favorite saint? Is it St. Mary, Jesus’s mom, with that courage she exemplified by saying “yes” to God’s request that she bear the incarnation of God to the world, the courage to declare God’s prophetic vision, or her courage to stand there at the foot of the cross when most of the other disciples had abandoned Jesus? Or maybe St. Peter is your favorite saint. That saint who didn’t quite seem to get it and yet was made the rock? Or maybe your favorite saint is St. Mary Magdalene, the first witness to the resurrection, the first one who got to proclaim the Good News that Christ had been raised from the dead, the apostle of the apostles? Maybe it’s not a Biblical saint that is your favorite. Perhaps it is one of the later saints, like one of the martyrs, Perpetua and her companions, Ignatius, Lucy, one of those people who gave their life in witness to the transformative power of God in this world. Or maybe your favorite saint is Francis, who so beautifully exemplified love and graciousness and kindness, not to just people but all of creation, who preached to the birds, who once converted a wolf. Do you remember that story? There was a wolf terrorizing a town, so Francis went out and preached the Gospel and got that wolf to stop. He probably read theGospel that we heard today. Maybe your favorite saint is one of the great theological thinkers, like St. Augustine or St. Thomas Aquinas; or perhaps one of the mystics like St. Teresa of Avila, or St. John of the Cross. Or maybe your favorite saint is one of the modern saints, like Oscar Romero, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., or Dorothy Day fighting for justice, fighting to bring about God’s Kingdom into this world. Who is your favorite saint? Maybe it’s none of these famous ones. Perhaps your favorite saint is Aunt Sally or Uncle Joe, grandma, grandpa, mom, dad; someone who put you on their lap and told you Bible stories, or brought you down to church. Maybe they never talked to you about faith, but they are a saint to you because you witnessed the powerful impact that faith had in their life, the silent witness they had when they would wake up on Saturday mornings and serve breakfast to the hungry. Maybe it’s one of the names here on the wall around us, or one of those candles on the altar, someone famous to just a few, or maybe just to you. Who is your favorite saint? More and more over the years, my favorite saint is you. Now you might be thinking, but I’m not dead. St. Paul talks about saints today in the Epistle reading, and when St. Paul uses the word, saint, he is not talking about people who have died. In fact, he starts this letter out by saying, “greeting to all the saints,” because a saint for St. Paul is anyone who follows Christ, or anyone who is trying to follow Christ. By virtue of your baptism you are a saint. Today at the 9:30 service we baptized the newest member of the Body of Christ, a little baby named Reed. In Paul’s way of seeing things, we baptized him as a saint, which is a remarkable thing to say because he hasn’t done anything yet. He was born, but that was more of his mom’s good work. Parents up late at night, that’s sainthood, but what has Reed done? All he has done is been baptized. But that is the most profound thing of all because that baptism is the perfect and most profound symbol of grace. It is nothing of Reed’s own doing. It is God’s grace, that power of the Holy Spirit that came into that moment and made him a saint. It is an important reminder that it is not about us, and that is what Paul gets at in this Epistle to the Ephesians. He is very concerned that they are beginning to trust in their own works, their own power, their own strength, their own doings, their own being. They are beginning to forget they had once set their hope on Christ and are beginning to set their hope on themselves, they are beginning to set their hopes on the principalities of this world. Paul is trying to bring them back to reality: those things are fleeting. If you put your hope in your own strength, I encourage you to spend some time at a hospital or a hospice center. Strength is going to fail you one day. It is all fleeting, our strength, our wealth, the powers of this world. So what Paul is trying to do is to bring them back to that hope that is set on Christ, that rock, that foundation that will never go away, that will be there through it all, that light that shines in the darkness we experience in this life. Paul is trying to bring them back to that reality, and that is pure grace. What the saints are about is not about themselves, but what the saints are about is Christ. Those famous saints did it in a profound way. They are a powerful witness that has lasted generations, but so is Aunt Susie. Even if it was a light lit in a single person, it was important. That’s what the saints do. They point us towards God’s grace, God’s mercy, and God’s love. That is what I see in you with every single passing year, with every single passing day. I see that love that pours out of you as you take care of each other. I see that love that pours out of you when you take care of the stranger and you welcome them. When you feed the hungry, I see that love, that grace, that mercy. It’s not about the work in and of itself, it’s about the God of love and grace and mercy towhich that work points. All of that flows out of your sainthood, for you are saints. There is a section in one of my favorite books, The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky. The elder Zosima is talking a lot, and at one point he gets into this whole thing about the priests who are complaining. Now, we are not going to get into why they are complaining, although he does say they are right. The priests are complaining, and Zosima tries to get them to stop. He has a long, beautiful monologue, and towards the end of it he says that you just need to believe in the people. For when you believe in the people of God you will begin to see God’s holiness, even if you didn’t believe in all that before. It is by the witness of the people of God, it is by your grace and your love and your mercy that God’s holiness becomes a reality in this world. I believed that before I got here, but it has deepened as I have gotten to know you. It has nourished me. It has been a light for me in the darkness of this world. All the famous saints are important, all the names on this wall, all the candles on the altar are important, and they are surrounding us right now, this great cloud of witnesses. But you also are part of that cloud. My fellow saints in Christ, by virtue of your baptism you became a saint, and you lit a light for Christ in this world. Thank you. AMEN

Today I've got on psychic, medium and astrologer Rachel Lang - who also happens to be a reiki master. It's  safe to say that Rachel is a quadruple threat! Oh and for good measure she also has a masters degree in theology. Doesn’t hurt right? Today we are going to talk about astrology and the year ahead, we get a visit by my Aunt Susie, which FYI she’s no longer in this world, and we talk about theology and spirituality from a quasi intelligent, mostly hippie point of view!

When was the last time you took a big deep breath? Today we're talking about the B in my H.A.B.I.T.S. model- breath. There are so many biological benefits to breathing deep on a regular basis but today I'm taking about the mental and emotional benefits. When I was working with one of my 1 on 1 clients recently she expressed that she doesn't have time alone in the day, when I brought up a meditation practice. I shared with her this simple way of finding space to pause, breathe, catch up with your emotions - in the cracks of our days. You see, many people think meditation has to be this 45 minute, on a pillow with chanting and a candle lit type of thing. While yes, that is a beautiful way to practice - for the newbie, it's overwhelming. Which is exactly the OPPOSITE of why we meditate! Today I want you to find the cracks in your day to do the following: Pause, feel your feet on the ground or weight of your body in the chair Feel the vibration of your energy, try to even it out Take a BIG deep breath and exhale fully Then another Then another If you have a sweet feeling mantra, repeat it. Or just say “thank you” to yourself for taking that breathing break. You can do this while sitting on the toilet, just before entering your home, while in the shower, while waiting for colleagues to join a meeting - find the cracks to breathe. So often we run from task to task to task without ever thinking of what we want to bring to the situation or what we need to get from it. We are in constant reaction - it's time to breath and set intention. Check in with yourself. Center your energy. Breathe. Let me know how you're sneaking a little breathing in to your day! I can't wait to hear how this small practice will change everything! New Age Tool of the Week: I'm a moon child all the way - with Cancer as my sun sign I've always felt drawn to the mystery of the moon. Each New and Full Moon I get the Spirit Daughter workbooks and I'm in LOVE with them. They give you meditations for the moons, insights as to what the cosmos are up to, crystal recommendations and lots of fabulous journal prompts. You can get the digital or printed guide and each one is for ANY Astrological sign - not just the one the moon is in at that time. Check it out at https://www.spiritdaughter.com/collections/workbook Up-Leveling My Mindset: Does your job suck? Maybe you're okay with it but would like it to be better? Or does it rock and you want to honor that? Either way, sprinkling a little gratitude in there will help! How I do this is starting out by writing “I am thankful for X about my job BECAUSE…”. This hails back to last week's episode - the WHY behind your gratitude. Try it out and let me know how it goes! For more amazing gratitude practices check out the book The Magic, you can thank me later! ;) Upcoming Craft Your Life happenings: Meal Prep the Magical Way is here! Learn to make meal prep your bitch in this self-study class for just $33.33. Get details at www.craftyourlifecoaching.com/alchemylab As always, find me at www.craftyourlifecoaching.com - can't wait to help you craft YOUR life, 200 feet at a time. Got ideas for future topics? Questions you want explored? Email me at jennifer@craftyourlifecoaching.com *Remember - it's craft YOUR life. Not your mom's, not your judgy Aunt Susie's life... yours. Yank that hand back, put it on your heart, listen. Craft your life.

You DO have a gratitude practice? Right?! You've probably heard it 100000 times - be grateful, focus on your blessings, write down your gratitude in a journal each day. Maybe some of you are doing this… but maybe some aren't. First - I HIGHLY recommend starting one for a few reasons: It's impossible to focus on negative shit when you're being grateful Being grateful for things makes you LOOK for the bright side, therefore noticing it more often I'd call both of those things a win. So, my tip for you this week if you are just starting one or have been doing one for a while - add the “why”. For so long I was writing my ten things each day… “I am grateful for my car”, “I am grateful for Ryan and Zeke” etc. and it was becoming very rote and without feeling. I began reading the book The Magic (more on that under how I'm up-leveling my mindset, below) and for 28 days they recommend writing down 10 things you're grateful for and WHY you're grateful for them. Game changer. This helped breathe life back in to my gratitude practice AND allowed me to track WHY I was grateful for things. I began to see patterns - things that offer me security, make me feel heard/seen, things that make me laugh… kept coming up again and again in different forms.. It's ALL about the tracking (which is what I always coach / preach about) and doing your gratitude practice with WHAT you're grateful for followed by WHY is powerful. If you're interested in doing a more deep and guided gratitude practice be sure to read the book below. If you own it or are ordering it - let me know, I'd love to be your gratitude buddy! New Age Tool of the Week: Human Design, ya'll. During my New Age Tools group I hosted Kristen Jett who is a business coach that uses a tool called Human Design. If you haven't seen the video - be sure to join The Alchemy Community on FB and watch it. It's like astrology meets high-level energy work in a SUPER fascinating way. She does 1 on 1 readings, too - you can find her at www.starlitstrategies.com Up-Leveling My Mindset: As mentioned above, I am now doing a 28-day guided gratitude practice using The Magic book as my guide. It's written by the same folks that did The Secret so you know it's going to be all woo-woo and all the things I love! As always, find me at www.craftyourlifecoaching.com - can't wait to help you craft YOUR life, 200 feet at a time. Got ideas for future topics? Questions you want explored? Email me at jennifer@craftyourlifecoaching.com *Remember - it's craft YOUR life. Not your mom's, not your judgy Aunt Susie's life... yours. Yank that hand back, put it on your heart, listen. Craft your life.

What did you last invest in that when you pushed “pay” or swiped that credit card, made you get butterflies? Maybe it was that new home or car. Perhaps it was a higher quality skin care or a fancy massage. It could have been that food delivery membership or subscription service. When we invest money, we exchange energy. That's all money really is - an exchange of energy. I was listening to a podcast recently that articulated this so well and I think it's relevant for women investing in health coaching. Let me chat with those women looking to lose weight. Up-leveling and investing in the services that will really get you results takes skin in the game - and you show up differently. You can pin ALL the Pinterest boards with “quick fat burning workouts”, google all the healthy recipes, piece together a plan - but until you really invest, you don't show up fully. Investing may look like getting the membership with the trainer, hiring the coach (yep, shameless plug!). Isn't that so true? When something is free and there is little to no accountability or investment - we show up differently. When I was running Facebook accountability groups - those men and women who had paid for services and products showed up consistently. Those who had bought once but never bought again- rarely did. That exchange of money is SO powerful - and the pushing “pay” is just the beginning and first promise you're making to yourself. Energy exchange through money paid is pretty powerful, huh? So my challenge to you this week is to finally up-level and push “pay” on something. Invest in the housekeeper instead of grumbling as you vacuum each week. Sign up for that continuing education class instead of watching free YouTube videos. Upgrade to the fancy haircut that includes the scalp and shoulder massage. Go to the personal development conference that'll set your soul on fire. Hire the coach (yep, shameless plug, again!). You're so worth the up-level. You're worth 1,000 times the money you'll invest in leveling up in your life. Treat yo self to the tools to make your dreams happen. It's time to push “pay”! Email me back - what are you committing to push “pay” on this year? To invest in, to get nervous about but do the dang thing anyhow? I'd love to hear! *New Age Tool of the Week: The Spirit Almanac book. Ya'll - this book is SO COOL. I got it for myself from Amazon and love how it talks about living life seasonally. It goes over woo woo tools like tarot/oracle card decks, essential oils, crystals - and gives you seasonal rituals to try out. The topic of living seasonally is a good one and I definitely move my body and eat differently depending on the season. How are you living seasonally? *Up-Leveling My Mindset: Speaking of investments - yes, even a coach needs a coach. I recently invested in astrological career coaching with Natalie at SoulShine Astrology. I knew I wanted to change my business model and doing so aligned with the stars was right up my alley! Her 6-week package took me through so many amazing exercises that really helped me up-level my business. *Upcoming Craft Your Life happenings:  Direct sales changed my life. The tools and products I use not only helped me get healthier but supported a woman-owned small business, and you know I love that. If you're a side hustler with a passion for your business, mindset is key. I put together my top personal development podcasts, books and apps, just for you! Get the list >> As always, find me at www.craftyourlifecoaching.com - can't wait to help you craft YOUR life, 200 feet at a time. Got ideas for future topics? Questions you want explored? Email me at jennifer@craftyourlifecoaching.com *Remember - it's craft your life. Not your mom's, not your judgy Aunt Susie's life... yours. Yank that hand back, put it on your heart, listen. Craft your life.

The magical, mystical Unicorn of Monday - where all goals come true and motivation exists, right?Wrong.Dead wrong.I want to devote this Sunday Spark to my Monday starters - and give you some insight. You can't hate Monday and also expect it to show up for your dreams and goals, ummmkay? When I work 1 on 1 with my clients and ask them "Okay, so when should we start?" the answer I often get is "Monday". I often reply "No, now".If you have been told you have to meal prep on weekends, do laundry on Sunday and start your new workout program Monday - you're being set up for failure. Here are some tips for slaying that magical Monday lie:*Start now. Today. Small. Don't wait for Monday, after the holidays, the new year. Start now. If you're not going to start now - you'll never start. Look at your schedule - check out it's natural ebbs and flows. If you have more free time every Wednesday - meal prep then! Do your meal prep for Wednesday through Tuesday and use that as your cycle. Don't do more than one schedule change at a time. If you want to get better at working out in the morning - start with simple workouts, not hour long ones that require a new gym membership, new shoes, a specific class time and place. Start small with a walk around the block, an at-home workout, etc. The less barriers and smaller changes initially- the better.When you fail (because, you're human) and miss a Tuesday workout, forget to prep on Thursday or let the laundry pile up - give yourself grace. The key to getting to your goal is letting every failure be a lesson (what'd you learn, how can you do better next time) AND getting up as quickly as possible to start again. The next week, the next day, the next bite - being resilient is so key!What I've found is we often say we'll do the thing on Monday - and then spend the weekend binge eating as if it's the last time we'll ever eat things we enjoy. Or if we say we're going to do laundry on Sunday, but we have a packed Sunday ahead - we feel extra stress on that day. Take a good hard look at your schedule and figure out when your weekly "must dos" (meal prep, laundry, working out, etc.) happen in a more natural way for you and your life. Woo-Woo Tool of the Week: Crystals and candles? Yep - two of my favorite things. I recently fell in love with Jax Kelly candles. They're made by a small business, smell amazing and have a hidden crystal in each one. Plus their messages are empowering - "Success", "Power", "Balancing". Yeah, I'm in love!Check their brand out (they have earrings and other fun woo woo tools, too!), here. Up-Leveling My Mindset: This one is geared toward my side-hustling friends - Amy Porterfield is one to follow. If you find yourself always wondering “but HOW did they do it?” she's your gal. She's the queen of step by step guidance for on-line entrepreneurs. Give her podcast, Online Marketing Made Easy, a listen. You're welcome! Upcoming Craft Your Life happenings: Are you signed up for The Sunday Spark yet? Every week I drop inspiration to help you get your week started off right. I share my woo woo tool of the week as well as how I'm up-leveling my mindset. Go to my site to sign up- and put that spark in your week! As always, find me at www.craftyourlifecoaching.com - can't wait to help you craft YOUR life, 200 feet at a time. Got ideas for future topics? Questions you want explored? Email me at jennifer@craftyourlifecoaching.com *Remember - it's craft YOUR life. Not your mom's, not your judgy Aunt Susie's life... yours. Yank that hand back, put it on your heart, listen. Craft your life.

I think the phrase "you can't pour from an empty cup" tells only half the story. This past summer I went to see the Rise Conference in theaters (featuring my gal, Rachel Hollis) and she used an awesome analogy of the vase. Imagine you're a vase and when you invest in you, work on you, pour in to your vase it keeps filling up, up, up. Eventually - if you keep filling it, it'll overflow. And guess what? It overflows on to those people who are closest to you - your partner, your kids, your friends, your family. How freaking cool is that thought? To fill your vase so much that it overflows onto those people you love the most. This is exactly why I work 1 on 1 with driven women. The women who give, give, give. The women who always want to be a better wife, employee, mom. The women who will burn themselves to the ground before they show weakness or let a ball drop. It's time to begin to fill your vase so full that it overflows in the most beautiful way possible!My challenge for you this week is to invest in yourself. Here are some small ways you can begin to fill that vase:*Say no. Say no to the things that aren't a full body yes. Stop volunteering to bring dessert for the preschool gathering. Stop agreeing to stay late to help out. Say no to the invite to dinner with people who make you feel less than amazing.*Ask your partner to take the kids to the next appointment. It can be for the dentist, the doctor, a haircut.*Hire help. That can be a babysitter, housekeeper, lawn care, you name it. If you can't hire - ask a relative or friend if they'd be willing to help out!*Start a fun money fund. Take $10 a paycheck and spend it on you - on ridiculous stuff that'd make your partner roll their eyes (for me, it's crystals). Create a line in your budget for fun money that you get to spend however you want to!*Schedule your free discovery call with me (shameless plug). I get so energized when folks schedule their free call because even though they're nervous about the investment - I know it'll change their lives in ways they don't even think about it. So go ahead, schedule the call. What ways are you currently filling your vase? If you have creative ones - email back with them! I'll share them in a future Spark email! Woo-Woo Tool of the Week: Crystal of the week: Carnelian. Now, I got in to crystals because they're pretty and I wanted to believe they'd help me do what they're known for. I had heard of people having reactions to certain crystals - heart beating, vibrations, etc. but that had never happened to me until I held my first carnelian. Tune in to hear my story! Up-Leveling My Mindset: Light is the New Black by Rebecca Campbell. THIS. BOOK. IS. SO. GOOD. If you're digging the phoenix rising stuff that's happening with our nation, especially with women, you need this book. I'm a huge fan of her Work the Light oracle deck and this book doesn't disappoint either. A touch of woo woo, a whole lot of “heck yes you've got this sister!” and that tribe backing you up - this book is a must read! Upcoming Craft Your Life happenings: Are you signed up for The Sunday Spark yet? Every week I drop inspiration to help you get your week started off right. I share my woo woo tool of the week as well as how I'm up-leveling my mindset. Go to my site to sign up- and put that spark in your week! As always, find me at www.craftyourlifecoaching.com - can't wait to help you craft YOUR life, 200 feet at a time. Got ideas for future topics? Questions you want explored? Email me at jennifer@craftyourlifecoaching.com *Remember - it's craft YOUR life. Not your mom's, not your judgy Aunt Susie's life... yours. Yank that hand back, put it on your heart, listen. Craft your life.

This week we're talking how your body directly impacts your business. As you know I coach driven side-hustlers to up-level their mindset AND lose weight. While that may seem like an odd combo to coach on, time after time I've seen women held back in their direct sales businesses because they've put their health on the back burner. Reminder - it's never about a number on the scale and ALWAYS about how you feel inside your body. The thoughts running through your mind, how you feel in your clothes, how you keep up with your kids - that's true health. Tune in to hear more about how losing the weight will help you up-level your business! Woo-Woo Tool of the Week: The Oracle Deck. I use this tool to tune in to my intuition and end every client session by pulling an oracle card for them. It's freaky how much they resonate with my clients! Oracle decks are similar to Tarot in that every card has a meaning, but they're less structured in terms of requirements. Decks that I love include Work Your Light, Rebel Deck, Crystal Deck, Crystal Angels and Spirit Animals. Can you tell I'm a fan? Tune in to hear how else I use oracle decks in my daily rituals! Up-Leveling My Mindset: My library card. The #1 reason I hear why people don't do personal development (PD) is “they can't afford books”. {insert mega eye roll} My tool this week is your library card. It's free, it gives you access to free physical books AND audiobooks. I thought it would be tough to get audiobooks on my phone via the library - boy was I wrong! Upcoming Craft Your Life happenings: Are you signed up for The Sunday Spark yet? Every week I drop inspiration to help you get your week started off right. I share my woo woo tool of the week as well as how I'm up-leveling my mindset. Go to my site to sign up- and put that spark in your week! As always, find me at www.craftyourlifecoaching.com - can't wait to help you craft YOUR life, 200 feet at a time. Got ideas for future topics? Questions you want explored? Email me at jennifer@craftyourlifecoaching.com *Remember - it's craft YOUR life. Not your mom's, not your judgy Aunt Susie's life... yours. Yank that hand back, put it on your heart, listen. Craft your life.

Go to bed. This week I chat about the importance quality sleep plays in our lives. I'll share my night time routine, tips to help you sleep better and why good sleep is key to your miracle morning. *Woo-Woo Tool of the Week: Sage and palo santo have been used for years to clear negative energy. While they not only smell good, they have some pretty cool rituals behind them, too. And you know I'm a sucker for a good ritual. Because I can't unscrew all of the smoke detectors - I'll usually sage with a sage spray that I bought. You can sage rooms, your crystals to cleanse them and even yourself! *Up-Leveling My Mindset: Fear gremlins. They're real, ya'll. They especially like to appear when you're starting something new and exciting, but unknown. My tip for shedding light on them is to ask yourself three things: Is it true? Is it really, really true? Is it helpful? Will it matter in a week? These three questions can get to the heart of the fear and help it move along so you can get to creating that amazing life you've always wanted. *Upcoming Craft Your Life happenings: Direct sales changed my life. The tools and products I use not only helped me get healthier but supported a woman-owned small business, and you know I love that. If you're a side hustler with a passion for your business, mindset is key. I put together my top personal development podcasts, books and apps, just for you! Get the list >> As always, find me at www.craftyourlifecoaching.com - can't wait to help you craft YOUR life, 200 feet at a time. Got ideas for future topics? Questions you want explored? Email me at jennifer@craftyourlifecoaching.com *Remember - it's craft your life. Not your mom's, not your judgy Aunt Susie's life... yours. Yank that hand back, put it on your heart, listen. Craft your life. Sign up for The Sunday Spark: http://eepurl.com/dLN_cw

This week on the Craft Your Life Coaching Podcast we're chatting about setting intentions - using crystals! If you read anything about personal development you know that intention setting is key to setting the tone for your days and manifesting your dreams. When I first started using crystals it was to help me set intentions and during this episode I chat with you about how I do that! Woo-Woo Tool of the Week: CBD oil - I use My Soul CBD Up-Leveling My Mindset: My daily gratitude journal- I write 10 things under each category: Thank you Universe, I Want, I wish you well… (tune in for how I use those categories) Upcoming Craft Your Life happenings:  November Dinners on Demand bundle is here! Get yours for just $20! As always, find me at www.craftyourlifecoaching.com - can't wait to help you craft YOUR life, 200 feet at a time. Got ideas for future topics? Questions you want explored? Email me at jennifer@craftyourlifecoaching.com Sign up for The Sunday Spark - a weekly dose of motivation to help you get each week started right. *Remember - it's craft YOUR life. Not your mom's, not your judgy Aunt Susie's life... yours. Yank that hand back, put it on your heart, listen. Craft your life.

A little overview of the {re}Birth of Craft Your Life Coaching and I talk about creating a giving fund. Why the giving fund is important is it's directly linked to your perception of abundance and that there will always be more - listen in for details! Woo-Woo Tool of the Week: The singing bowl- get a chance to listen to my new toy! Up-Leveling My Mindset: The Brendon Show on Nurturing Relationships As always, find me at www.craftyourlifecoaching.com - can't wait to help you craft YOUR life, 200 feet at a time. Got ideas for future topics? Questions you want explored? Email me at jennifer@craftyourlifecoaching.com *Remember - it's craft YOUR life. Not your mom's, not your judgy Aunt Susie's life... yours. Yank that hand back, put it on your heart, listen. Craft your life. Don't forget - November Dinners on Demand is now available. Snag yours! Have you signed up for The Sunday Spark? It's a free weekly email that gives you a little spark to create your best week ever. Sign up on my site!

In this episode, everybody wins a Tony award, The Critic remembers studying "M. Butterfly" while at University, and Easy is talked out of taking Aunt Susie to the show. Enjoy.

In this episode, everybody wins a Tony award, The Critic remembers studying "M. Butterfly" while at University, and Easy is talked out of taking Aunt Susie to the show. Enjoy.

As an African-American child growing up in the segregated pre-Civil Rights South, Sarah Bracey White pushed against the social conventions that warned her not to rock the boat, even before she was old enough to fully understand her urge to defy the status quo. In her candid and poignant memoir, Primary Lessons (CavanKerry Press, 2013), White recalls a childhood marked by equal measures of poverty and pride–formative years spent sorting through the “lessons” learned from a complicated relationship with her beloved, careworn mother and from a father’s absence engendered by racial injustice and compromised manhood. Although born in Sumter, South Carolina, Sarah spends much of her first five years in Philadelphia in the care of her bighearted Aunt Susie and her husband, Uncle Whitey. As her parents fourth daughter, she has been sent north to ease her family’s financial burden, freeing her mother to work as a schoolteacher. Young Sarah loves her life in Philadelphia, and is devastated when her mother comes to retrieve her and take her back to a home she has never known. There, she is shocked and confused to encounter strange signs that read “colored only” and to be told for the first time that black people must behave a certain way around white people and accept their lot as second class citizens. “The point of any successful memoir is to discover what the speaker learns on their journey,” writes Kevin Pilkington, author of Ready to Eat the Sky and The Unemployed Man Who Became a Tree, in his foreword to Primary Lessons. “[I]t is a trip worth taking when it teaches and enlightens and encourages me to revisit and solidify profound truths I already know to be true. Sarah Bracey Whites journey is a continuous struggle to find her way, a struggle I found both difficult and inspirational. Martin Luther King, Jr. said that ‘injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.’ Young Sarah becomes aware of this at an early age, realizing being born poor and black is not the measure of a persons value.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As an African-American child growing up in the segregated pre-Civil Rights South, Sarah Bracey White pushed against the social conventions that warned her not to rock the boat, even before she was old enough to fully understand her urge to defy the status quo. In her candid and poignant memoir, Primary Lessons (CavanKerry Press, 2013), White recalls a childhood marked by equal measures of poverty and pride–formative years spent sorting through the “lessons” learned from a complicated relationship with her beloved, careworn mother and from a father’s absence engendered by racial injustice and compromised manhood. Although born in Sumter, South Carolina, Sarah spends much of her first five years in Philadelphia in the care of her bighearted Aunt Susie and her husband, Uncle Whitey. As her parents fourth daughter, she has been sent north to ease her family’s financial burden, freeing her mother to work as a schoolteacher. Young Sarah loves her life in Philadelphia, and is devastated when her mother comes to retrieve her and take her back to a home she has never known. There, she is shocked and confused to encounter strange signs that read “colored only” and to be told for the first time that black people must behave a certain way around white people and accept their lot as second class citizens. “The point of any successful memoir is to discover what the speaker learns on their journey,” writes Kevin Pilkington, author of Ready to Eat the Sky and The Unemployed Man Who Became a Tree, in his foreword to Primary Lessons. “[I]t is a trip worth taking when it teaches and enlightens and encourages me to revisit and solidify profound truths I already know to be true. Sarah Bracey Whites journey is a continuous struggle to find her way, a struggle I found both difficult and inspirational. Martin Luther King, Jr. said that ‘injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.’ Young Sarah becomes aware of this at an early age, realizing being born poor and black is not the measure of a persons value.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As an African-American child growing up in the segregated pre-Civil Rights South, Sarah Bracey White pushed against the social conventions that warned her not to rock the boat, even before she was old enough to fully understand her urge to defy the status quo. In her candid and poignant memoir, Primary Lessons (CavanKerry Press, 2013), White recalls a childhood marked by equal measures of poverty and pride–formative years spent sorting through the “lessons” learned from a complicated relationship with her beloved, careworn mother and from a father’s absence engendered by racial injustice and compromised manhood. Although born in Sumter, South Carolina, Sarah spends much of her first five years in Philadelphia in the care of her bighearted Aunt Susie and her husband, Uncle Whitey. As her parents fourth daughter, she has been sent north to ease her family’s financial burden, freeing her mother to work as a schoolteacher. Young Sarah loves her life in Philadelphia, and is devastated when her mother comes to retrieve her and take her back to a home she has never known. There, she is shocked and confused to encounter strange signs that read “colored only” and to be told for the first time that black people must behave a certain way around white people and accept their lot as second class citizens. “The point of any successful memoir is to discover what the speaker learns on their journey,” writes Kevin Pilkington, author of Ready to Eat the Sky and The Unemployed Man Who Became a Tree, in his foreword to Primary Lessons. “[I]t is a trip worth taking when it teaches and enlightens and encourages me to revisit and solidify profound truths I already know to be true. Sarah Bracey Whites journey is a continuous struggle to find her way, a struggle I found both difficult and inspirational. Martin Luther King, Jr. said that ‘injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.’ Young Sarah becomes aware of this at an early age, realizing being born poor and black is not the measure of a persons value.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As an African-American child growing up in the segregated pre-Civil Rights South, Sarah Bracey White pushed against the social conventions that warned her not to rock the boat, even before she was old enough to fully understand her urge to defy the status quo. In her candid and poignant memoir, Primary Lessons (CavanKerry Press, 2013), White recalls a childhood marked by equal measures of poverty and pride–formative years spent sorting through the “lessons” learned from a complicated relationship with her beloved, careworn mother and from a father’s absence engendered by racial injustice and compromised manhood. Although born in Sumter, South Carolina, Sarah spends much of her first five years in Philadelphia in the care of her bighearted Aunt Susie and her husband, Uncle Whitey. As her parents fourth daughter, she has been sent north to ease her family’s financial burden, freeing her mother to work as a schoolteacher. Young Sarah loves her life in Philadelphia, and is devastated when her mother comes to retrieve her and take her back to a home she has never known. There, she is shocked and confused to encounter strange signs that read “colored only” and to be told for the first time that black people must behave a certain way around white people and accept their lot as second class citizens. “The point of any successful memoir is to discover what the speaker learns on their journey,” writes Kevin Pilkington, author of Ready to Eat the Sky and The Unemployed Man Who Became a Tree, in his foreword to Primary Lessons. “[I]t is a trip worth taking when it teaches and enlightens and encourages me to revisit and solidify profound truths I already know to be true. Sarah Bracey Whites journey is a continuous struggle to find her way, a struggle I found both difficult and inspirational. Martin Luther King, Jr. said that ‘injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.’ Young Sarah becomes aware of this at an early age, realizing being born poor and black is not the measure of a persons value.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As an African-American child growing up in the segregated pre-Civil Rights South, Sarah Bracey White pushed against the social conventions that warned her not to rock the boat, even before she was old enough to fully understand her urge to defy the status quo. In her candid and poignant memoir, Primary Lessons (CavanKerry Press, 2013), White recalls a childhood marked by equal measures of poverty and pride–formative years spent sorting through the “lessons” learned from a complicated relationship with her beloved, careworn mother and from a father's absence engendered by racial injustice and compromised manhood. Although born in Sumter, South Carolina, Sarah spends much of her first five years in Philadelphia in the care of her bighearted Aunt Susie and her husband, Uncle Whitey. As her parents fourth daughter, she has been sent north to ease her family's financial burden, freeing her mother to work as a schoolteacher. Young Sarah loves her life in Philadelphia, and is devastated when her mother comes to retrieve her and take her back to a home she has never known. There, she is shocked and confused to encounter strange signs that read “colored only” and to be told for the first time that black people must behave a certain way around white people and accept their lot as second class citizens. “The point of any successful memoir is to discover what the speaker learns on their journey,” writes Kevin Pilkington, author of Ready to Eat the Sky and The Unemployed Man Who Became a Tree, in his foreword to Primary Lessons. “[I]t is a trip worth taking when it teaches and enlightens and encourages me to revisit and solidify profound truths I already know to be true. Sarah Bracey Whites journey is a continuous struggle to find her way, a struggle I found both difficult and inspirational. Martin Luther King, Jr. said that ‘injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.' Young Sarah becomes aware of this at an early age, realizing being born poor and black is not the measure of a persons value.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-american-studies

As an African-American child growing up in the segregated pre-Civil Rights South, Sarah Bracey White pushed against the social conventions that warned her not to rock the boat, even before she was old enough to fully understand her urge to defy the status quo. In her candid and poignant memoir, Primary Lessons (CavanKerry Press, 2013), White recalls a childhood marked by equal measures of poverty and pride–formative years spent sorting through the “lessons” learned from a complicated relationship with her beloved, careworn mother and from a father’s absence engendered by racial injustice and compromised manhood. Although born in Sumter, South Carolina, Sarah spends much of her first five years in Philadelphia in the care of her bighearted Aunt Susie and her husband, Uncle Whitey. As her parents fourth daughter, she has been sent north to ease her family’s financial burden, freeing her mother to work as a schoolteacher. Young Sarah loves her life in Philadelphia, and is devastated when her mother comes to retrieve her and take her back to a home she has never known. There, she is shocked and confused to encounter strange signs that read “colored only” and to be told for the first time that black people must behave a certain way around white people and accept their lot as second class citizens. “The point of any successful memoir is to discover what the speaker learns on their journey,” writes Kevin Pilkington, author of Ready to Eat the Sky and The Unemployed Man Who Became a Tree, in his foreword to Primary Lessons. “[I]t is a trip worth taking when it teaches and enlightens and encourages me to revisit and solidify profound truths I already know to be true. Sarah Bracey Whites journey is a continuous struggle to find her way, a struggle I found both difficult and inspirational. Martin Luther King, Jr. said that ‘injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.’ Young Sarah becomes aware of this at an early age, realizing being born poor and black is not the measure of a persons value.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jacqui Ford, Jacquelyn Ford Law, P.C.: Welcome to Your Best Defense podcast. My name is Jacqui Ford. And we are talking this week about sex offender registration. It’s part of the important things you have to consider when you're charged with sex offenses in Oklahoma. Is whether or not you're going to have to register. How long you have to register. And what are some of the constraints within that. registration I'm joined here today with my friend, mentor and law partner Mr. Jack Dempsey Pointer. Jack literally wrote the book on sex offender registration in Oklahoma. He is a go to expert in the field. Lawyers, prosecutors, judges alike rely on his expertise in understanding the sex offender registration act and how it is applied to offenders within the state. So, thanks for joining us Jack. Jack Dempsey Pointer, Jacquelyn Ford Law, P.C.: Miss Ford, thank you very much for your solicitous remarks concerning me. I appreciate that very much. But I’m still going to be a little bit hesitant to talk about some of this. JF: Okay. JDP: Simply, because it’s so fact intensive – literally fact intensive. I had an individual call me about sex offender registration. The man was a Kansas resident. This is out in the panhandle He was a Kansas resident who was convicted of a sex crime in Oklahoma. He then moved, he didn’t move, he just went back to Kansas on probation. And he had to register in Kansas. There are some provisions, I don’t know all the particulars because the attorney’s not coming in until next week. But apparently there are some provisions in the Kansas registration scheme would allow him to get off of sex offender registration. That’s an unusual situation. You’re convicted in one state requiring registration – a crime that requires registration. And you’re serving your registration period in another state that has different provisions. It almost sounds like a law school quiz. But, it basically is. But that remains to be seen. One of the important things, and the reason I’m kind of hesitant to talk about in any specifics, is simply because the law is written so, and has been amended so many times. I can give you just a perfect example. Before April 26, 2004, and individual had to register 10 years from the date of the conviction. After April 26, he had to register 10 years from the date of completion of the sentence. Now, that’s kind of important because the completion of the sentence, for instance, if a guy got 20 years suspended sentence, he doesn’t complete the sentence until 20 years after his JF: Conviction date. JDP: Yeah, after his conviction has expired. And, so, the guy would have to register 10 years after that. That’s a total period of 30 years, as compared to 10 years. JF: And the laws just continue to get worse, it seems like. Each year, more and more crimes are registerable offenses. The Department of Corrections has their own administrative policies. And the legislation really isn’t, at this time, geared towards limiting the amount of registration. Or giving any relief to the offenders. It’s more geared up towards making people register longer, and limiting rights and options of offenders for longer periods of time. And with it being ever-changing, that’s why it’s so important that we find criminal defense lawyers that are qualified in defending sexual offense crimes, and can and understand and explain this to folks. Because it’s complicated. JDP: A qualified attorney in sex offender defense, or sex offender cases, is a critical decision. You’re not going to open up the phone book, or get on the internet, or anything like that, and find somebody who says, “Hey, I’m a sexual defense attorney.” We can’t say specialization in Oklahoma, but a lot of us are. But finding somebody qualified to represent you in a sex charge is important because if there’s a conviction, then sex offender registration comes to the forefront immediately. And not only does if affect where you live. It also affects how you can go to school, church, the things of that nature. JF: It affects the romantic relationships that you’re allowed to be in. It affects the internet use, and computer use. JDP: And who can live in your house. Okay? In another words, if one of the victims of your act of, lewd molestation or something like that, if one of your children is the victim, you can’t live in the house. If you can’t move the kid out, you can’t live in the house. However, grandchildren, step-children, so-on and so-forth, it they were not victims of the crime – that’s okay. Because, in this day and time of blended marriages and divorce and all that kind of good stuff, you get a lot of questions about that. But back to this qualified attorney to represent you in sex offense charges. That individual will, if they don’t know the specifics of sex offender registration, and quite frankly, if they do I’d shocked. Because it’s an entire statute, of 10 or 12 statutes, that are constantly being amended, and also amended by court cases. They at least know to pick up the phone and call somebody like me who knows something about this stuff to answer these questions. Because the judge is supposed to, at the time of sentencing, designate this individual that was convicted, whether it be a jury or plea or whatever, a level, an offense level for registering. And that’s very important. Because in the state of Oklahoma there are three levels. Number one, two, and three. The Oklahoma Department of Corrections has set forth those levels in their regulations. And very few people know how to get to those sites, too. But, you know, the first level is like 20 years. You also, in the state of Oklahoma, can commit a first offense, and actually be designated as a habitual or aggravated sex offender. Which means that you got to register for life. Registration for life means just that. Life. No relief whatsoever. We’ll talk about relief in a little while. But when you’re talking about committing the following acts as a first offense, to become habitual sex offender you got to have a second conviction of a sex crime from any particular date. Or, you enter the state of Oklahoma after 1997 and been convicted of additional sex crimes. They declare you a habitual sex offender, and you register for life. An aggravated sex offender, and this is the one people worry most about. If you commit the crime, the first crime, just the first time (child sex abuse, incest, forcible sodomy, rape one or two, lewd acts with a child, and then rape by instrumentation, or the person was a victim in custody of a school or state institution, etc.) you’re declared an aggravated sex offender and you must register for life. Period. Law enforcement shall notify the family of the offender, the victim of the offender, neighbors, churches, parks, schools, convenience stores, businesses, and other places kids may hang out, nursing, residential, assisted living, and adult day care centers that there’s a habitual or aggravated sex offender living in the neighborhood. Or living in a town. There’s no limit on what they can do. JF: There’s really no hiding from this. JDP: None. JF: So, let’s talk a little bit about how you find yourself getting on the sex offender registration. If you don’t want to be a registered sex offender, it’s real easy to say, “Don’t commit a sex crime.” Right? JDP: Yes. JF: But how is it we find ourselves on the sex offender registration, and what does registration really mean? What does it mean to have to register as a sex offender? JDP: Well, to register as a sex offender, it kind of depends on where you live. In metropolitan areas Oklahoma City, Tulsa, probably Lawton, and maybe of the larger towns, they have sex offender registration units, of those police departments. I think maybe even Canadian County, El Reno has one. You have to go over there, and within three days of moving into the county, or within three days of being convicted, and actually sit down, go make an appointment, find out where it’s at, go sit down, and fill out the information – where you live, social security number, so-on and so-forth, and all that good stuff – and register. The registration requirements depend on what the crime was, how long you’re on registration for, and things of that nature. I mean, there is a Department of Corrections sex offender registration which writes the rules and regulations. But at a local level, you actually sit down to do that. JF: And how many times do you have to that? Do you just do it one time? JDP: You do that one time. Unless, if you move to, say Oklahoma City to Guthrie, you got to go register with the local police department. And the police department’s probably going to send you over to the sheriff’s department. Okay? Fill out the same paper work. So-on and so-forth. Do you have a DOC number? Even though you have not been in prison, you still have a DOC number in the sex offender registration unit. They’ll pull you up, and they say, “Okay. You got to register like this.” The worst kind of sex offender registration is the habitual and the aggravated. You got to, like, every 90 days go in and say, “I live here. I still live there.” You verify and so-on and so-forth like that, for the rest of your life. JF: Are you subject to interrogation or questioning from law enforcement while you’re registering? JDP: It really depends on who you’re involved with. The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals held years, and years and years ago, that when the Department of Corrections had a sex offender unit, and a sex offender treatment plan, that you could not refuse to say, “Hey, I did it.’ Some of the people that went were in prison. They said they we’re wrongfully accused, along with wrongfully convicted. And they were back in there for the sex offender, and they refused to say, “I did it.” Well, at that point in time they were kicked out of the program. Well, one person didn’t like that so he took it to the Oklahoma Court of Crims. And the Oklahoma Court of Criminal appeals said, “Oh, no. You don’t have to admit to it. All you do, is you just go in and do the program and so-on and so-forth.” JF: Acknowledge that you we’re convicted of it without having to admit guilt. JDP: That program no longer exists – state funding. Usually, it’s not a situation of why their trying to interrogate you, or anything like that. When there is a sex offense committed, I think one example here in Oklahoma City was somebody was driving down a street in a pick up truck, and he looked like this, and so-on and so-forth. Making lewd remarks to kids, and trying to get them in the truck. Well, the Oklahoma City police has a handy-dandy list they can pull up. What kind of car the person drives. Where they live. Where the proximity to the area where this took place. And they can go out and talk to these people. So, I have not decided whether sex offender registration is an effort to keep people from re-offending, or it’s just a huge monstrous pot for the cops to be able to go and check out people who are recidivist, and predators, and are always going to be available to the list. I personally am of the opinion that sex offender registration, has never, never stopped an individual from committing sex act after they have been convicted. It is a way, and they use it, and they use it very, very heavily. They rely on it very heavily to go out and talk to people about – you’re kind of automatically a suspect if you want to do it like that. JF: Well, it keeps the neighbors on alert, too. So, the government then gets to pry into your personal and private life. Not only by interviewing those around, but understanding is also during your registration process they get to ask you all kinds of questions. “Who lives in your home? Who are you dating? Does that person have children? How does that interaction work? And so, part of the registration is having to be able to answer those questions that the average Joe is not going to have answer those questions to law enforcement. So, we kind of compel people to give up their Fifth Amendment right to remain silent. And we’ve compelled them also to kind of waive some of their Fourth Amendment rights to be free from warrantless searches and seizures. JDP: If you’ve committed a murder, and you’ve served your time, and you come out, and you’re on parole, they’re not going to ask you all those questions. They want to know where you live. If you’ve got a phone. Where you work. The car you kind of drive. But not all those other questions. Murder, you know? Somebody committed a murder. Sex offender registration they dig in as far as they can. And it’s not an interrogation, but it comes across like one, because if you don’t answer these questions we’re not going to supervise you. I want to talk about people, and where people live. JF: Okay. JDP: There are two different zones of prohibitions for sex offenders. One is 2000 feet. And that’s from property line to property line of any school, church, day care, playground, any state institution that deals with children or anything like that. You can’t live in that area. There’s a second one called a safety zone of 300 feet from a school that sex offenders cannot loiter. You can’t go out there and park your car in the parking lot at a grade school and smoke cigarettes and watch the kids. Bang. That’s 300 feet. They don’t need any probable cause. They come in and say, “Hey, are you a registered sex offender?” “Yes, I am” You’re within 300 feet, there not going to tell you just, “Move,” they’re going to arrest you. The 2000 feet exclusion. They’ve had some problems with that. You start taking 2000 feet, and I think in Cleveland County, in Norman, I don’t think there’s any place in Noman where you can live. JF: I think they’ve almost limited that in the Oklahoma City metropolitan area, too. And when you know this, you start paying attention. You look around and there’s a swing-set on the side of the road. That’s not in a neighborhood. It’s attached to a church, or a day care. It’s just a swing-set in a kept area with the grass mowed. We’re calling that a park. And those swing-sets and playgrounds, are specifically designed to keep sex offenders out. I know one of my old neighborhoods in Edmond had three separate playground areas for one, little neighborhood. And that was why. Because the big neighborhood couldn’t protect everybody with their one playground. So they put one at each entrance, and one in the middle. JDP: Very few people realize this, that when a subdivision, nowadays, is created, I think it’s mandatory that they build in a park - for the subdivision. Or some type of facility where there is a swimming pool, or something like that, where people can go and kind of enjoy themselves, and everything like that. I had a case one time where an individual was charged with being within 2000 feet of park. I drove out there, and there wasn’t any swing-set. There wasn’t anything. There wasn’t anything. It was vacant land. It had never been funded. It had never been built. But it doesn’t make any difference. It was designated as a park, and actually given to the city of, I can’t even remember what town it was, Bank. It was owned by the city. And, even though it wasn’t a functioning park, the guy couldn’t live within 2000 feet of it. The one exception, and this is a huge exception, if you own property, a house, before you were convicted of a sex offense, and it was within 2000 feet of a, one of these prohibited places, you can still go back there and live. They cannot kick you out. It would be a punitive act. There is an Attorney General’s opinion from the state of Oklahoma specifically on that issue. They can’t make you move. Now, rental? Yeah, you’re done. You can’t go back and rent. And it says if you intentionally establish a residence within the 2000 foot, you can be arrested. Whether you’re habitual, or whether you’re a first-time registration, or 15 years, or 10 years, or whatever the hell it is. JF: So, when we talk about these people getting arrested. They’re getting arrested and charged with a new felony of failure of failure to comply with the Oklahoma Sex Offender Registration Act. Right? JDP: Yes. That’s absolutely correct. JF: And that new felony can be used, not only to violate the probation that you may be placed on, but also to give you new time that you’d be facing incarceration on new charges. JDP: And that’s absolutely true. And, in other words, it’s just not, like I gave the example of the guy that was sitting in the parking lot of the school. He probably on some type of probation. And, in other words, he spent some time in prison, or he got probation after he’s still serving out his suspended sentence. There are serious, serious consequences about them doing that. Now, whether they’re all told this – they’re supposed to be told this, and they sign a certificate when they leave prison. By the way, when you’re in prison your sex offender registration period does not run. It only begins to run when you leave prison. Now, these are, the applicability of these provisions are specific statutory provisions of which a person must be convicted to be a sex offender registration - that’s been held by courts. Abuse, neglect, and exploitation of a child under 18, if sexual offense, abuse is involved. Attempt to commit a felony, if sexual offense is involved. Kidnapping, if sexual abuse or exploitation is involved. Caretaker abuse, if sexual assault. Child endangerment, if sexual abuse is involved. Trafficking in children, incest, sodomy, forcible sodomy, child stealing, if sexual abuse is involved. That’s the example that’s that woman that went over, stole her kid, and they were in a domestic dispute. She went over to seize and kept him over there, no sexual abuse involved. Just straight kidnapping, child stealing. Indecent exposure. Computer drawings, CDs, you know, all that kind of good stuff, for child porn. Obscene materials, where minors are procured. Obscene materials regarding, or appearance involved, or children involved. Possession of child pornography. Publishing, distribution of child pornography. Aggravated possession of child pornography. Import, distribute, child pornography. Facilitate sex with a minor. Trafficking obscene materials. Procuring a child under 18 for prostitution. Procure and restrain a child for prostitution. Rape by instrumentation. Rape 1 and 2. And lewd molestation. That involves about 20 or 30 separate crimes in that one statute. And you’ve really got to use it very, very, carefully. Those are all the crimes that, right now, are, you have to register. Now, one other thing, is there’s several crimes that are not on there. ‘Peeping Tom’s’ haven’t seen that. There’s are some exceptions, but they pretty well get them. But, like I said, these are the ones. And most of them are 85% crimes, too. These guys serve 85% of their time. So, that’s how you get on the sex offender registration list. JF: Is there any way to get off, once you’re on? JDP: Yes. There is, and we call that, I think. If you are a Level 1, which means you’re registered for 10 or 15 years, you have not been arrested, arrested only for a felony or a misdemeanor. Now, it remains to be seen, a traffic stop is not an arrest. You’re being detained. So, you got to be straight – no arrests. You were not convicted of felony or a misdemeanor in 10 year, since a release from confinement. You petition where you reside to remove the risk number, and no longer register. The district attorney, of course, has the right to object to that. And, the district judge must, must, agree to that. And then they can take you off. There is one other thing, too. And this we call the ‘Romeo and Juliet’ registration. JF: ‘Romeo and Juliet’ is the scenario, wherein the teenagers who love each other engage in a consensual act. And they fail to recognize that they are not lawfully of consenting to one another. So, it’s a strict liability crime. We’ll talk about some of that in some of the other podcasts. But ‘Romeo and Juliet’ is the boyfriend/girlfriend, no harm, no force, no violent act. Just two kids who didn’t know they couldn’t do what they did. Right? JDP: That’s correct. And, by the way, I just recently heard of some people who were being prosecuted for a sex crime starting at the age of 10. So, you need to be careful. This ‘you show me and I’ll show you’ and this ‘doctor stuff’ for kids is gone. JF: Because sex offender registration we don’t have to spend a lot of time talking about it . But the registration applies to juveniles as well. JDP: It does. JF: If you’re in juvenile court, and you’re charge with a sex crime, especially if it’s one those enumerated as an aggravated sex crime, you may very well be facing lifetime registration before you even hit the age of an adult. JDP: That’s absolutely true. ‘Romeo and Juliet’ – the removal of the requirement to even register as a sex offender. If you’re convicted of 21 OS 1111.1, that’s second-degree rape. And, 21 OS 1114, that’s first-degree rape, or rape by instrumentation. You have no prior violation of the above two sections. You’re required to register based solely on violation of those two section. And your age requirement. Listen to this, the defendant is not more than four years older than the victim. And the victim was at least 14 years of age, or older. But, the victim, not more than 17-years old at the time of the violation. I know that seems a little, if you stop and think about it, the numbers don’t add up. Well, yeah, they do. If the kid’s 17, we’re into an adult situation. If the defendant meets the above requirement, then they can be considered for removal. You must petition the court where the conviction occurred for removal. And the requirement must allege that removal does not conflict with the Adam Walsh Sex Offender Registration Notification Act. And that, is offenses involving consensual sexual conduct, if an adult, or was at least 13-years old. And the offender was not older than four years older than the victim. And then there’s a bunch of other stuff. And you may not have to even register then. JF: But, of course, that’s not automatic. You’re going to have to hire a lawyer, petition the court, have a hearing, and the court’s going to make that determination for us. JDP: This is not what we call pro se. Where you go in and say, “You know, the girl was 15. My son was 18. That works.” The court’s going to, “Who’s you lawyer?” That’s exactly what it comes down to. This is not something that you get training wheels to learn how to get out of automatic sex offender registration. JF: So, when we’re looking for lawyers, not only in our original charge, that might give rise to sex offender registration, but as we’re already registered. And we need relief. We have find someone who has experience dealing with the Sex Offender Registration Act. Because, quite frankly Jack, let’s be real serious, most lawyers don’t like touching these cases. JDP: No, they hate them. JF: And most lawyers will say whatever they can to get that person off the phone. And you can’t necessarily rely on the advice that’s given to you if you’re talking to someone who has some pretty strong experience, and has worked in this field for quite some time. JDP: That’s correct. That’s correct. You cannot, under any situation, when you’re involved with an allegation of committing a sex offense. That’s almost as bad, as I just pointed out here, it’s worse than murder. I mean, the consequences go on forever. JF: Absolutely. JDP: And, you know, think about this, if you commit murder, you’ve served your time, and you were on parole, and you committed another crime. You’re going to go back to prison. They’re not going to charge you with another crime. You go back to prison. Sex offender? You get caught within 300 feet of a school. You’re just sitting there loitering. You’re going to get charged with loitering within 300 feet, and you’re going to be charged. And if you’re on probation, these charges are probably going to be in addition to whatever probation is going to be revoked. JF: This is a ‘stack on’ kind of statute. We can stack on, and pile on the charges. JDP: And the reason that sex offenders are treated so harshly is they don’t have much of a constituency among the electorate. JF: Well, in our Sex Offender Registration Act, one of my big criticisms of it, is it doesn’t really differentiate on the registry the difference between a home invasion serial rapist committing violent acts, offensive to anybody who you ask, versus the ‘Romeo and Juliet’ situation. It’s not like if I want to Google up the sex offenders in my neighborhood, the ‘red’ ones are really, really, bad, and the ‘purple’ ones are. You know? This was just a boyfriend/girlfriend situation that got out of control. There’s no difference when the public is looking at these folks. One is just as bad the other. JDP: Yeah, as a criminal defense attorney, Jacqui, you’re aware that sexual battery is a crime? JF: Yes, sir. JDP: And you aware that it’s a registerable crime? JF: That’s correct. All sex offenses appear to be pretty registerable. JDP: And, I’m going to ask you if you’re been in a bar someplace, and you’ve had a little too much to drink, and somebody walks by, and you pinch their butt. And they don’t seem to, male or female, and they don’t seem to like that, and report that to the police. Is that a crime? JF: That is a crime. JDP: And is it registerable? JF: Yes, it is. JDP: So, we’re not talking about something where you now have free reign to be as wild and crazy as you want to be in some kind of a bar, or something like that. You really, really need to kind of watch yourself. And this, we’re talking about this, a legislator was charged in Oklahoma City, county charges I should say, about 10 years ago. I never heard what happened to that case. Which means if you never heard what happened, it resolved in a very satisfactory manner to the defendant. Very few people know that ice cream truck or vending things. You know? You see the guy walking down the street. If he’s a sex offender he’s got to register. If he engages in ice cream vending without a registration he could be arrested without a warrant. Same for sole proprietors. If you are harboring or aiding a sex offender. If a person believes a sex offender is in violation of sexual registration requirements, and withholds information about their whereabouts, they’re in violation of a misdemeanor. JF: So, if you know someone should be registering, and they’re not, you too have committed a crime if you don’t report them? JDP: That’s absolutely right. JF: If you know someone is, in fact, registered. But their living arrangements are not purported to be true, and you’re facilitating that. You now, have also committed a crime. JDP: See, it says, sex offender is in violation of sex registration requirements. All of them. Living too close to a school, a park, a day care, a victim of sex abuse is in the home. I mean, there’s so many things that a person becomes responsible with. That’s why people don’t want to hang out with sex offenders. They carry so much baggage. Sex offenders are, or were, subject to Sex Registration Act, and child custody and guardianship. There’s a rebuttable presumption, a rebuttable presumption. Miss Ford, can you tell me what that is, please? JF: That means that you are presumed to have violated. And you, the accused, have the duty and burden to prove that you did not violate. JDP: A rebuttable presumption is created that it is not in the best interest of a child to have custody or guardianship granted to a person who has, or is, subject to sex offender registration. So, if you are in a divorce proceeding, and you’re registered sex offender, or a prior registered sex offender, the court’s not going to give you that kid. They’ll allow visitation. JF: Even if that is you’re kid from the ‘Romeo and Juliet’ set of circumstances, if you didn’t go to the trouble of getting off the registration. And, even if you did. That court may deem that you are not suited to raise you own children. JDP: That’s true. JF: That’s a devastating impact that most people don’t think about. JDP: Now, let me tell you some of the things that are not registerable sex offenses: use of profane language in public, or breach of the peace. So, you can get up and curse at the barmaid. Just don’t pinch her butt. Running a whorehouse, keeping a whorehouse, providing property for a whorehouse. Pimping. Being a prostitute. Every possible sex act that you can think of, as long as it’s paid for. Opening and running a strip bar. Outraging public decency. JF: Now, this is the one that everybody says, “I know a guy who has to register on the sex offender registry, and he was doing was peeing in a park.” That guy’s full of crap. He’s not getting on the registration list because he urinated in a park? Am I right? JDP: Under 21 OS 22, it used to be a registerable offense. Now, it’s only registerable if you’re urinating in public, and getting a little excited about it. JF: For the purpose of sexual gratification. JDP: And the only person that could possibly be sexually gratified is yourself. So, be careful. You can’t curse in front of women and kids – not registerable. ‘Peeping Tom’, there it is. It’s a misdemeanor. ‘Peeping Tom’ with a cell phone, and/or publishing such images. I think it says up-skirt photos? At my age you cant’ get down and up that easy. So you’re going to have to read about it. Obscene phone calls – not registerable. A projection that’s showing obscenity. Showing dirty movies in a drive-in theater. Pandering and procuring prostitution. Restraining, pandering, seduction of an unmarried female of previous chaste character by promise of marriage. Abduction of a person under 15-years old for the purpose of marriage, or concubinage. And dealing with seduction, marriage, and abandonment, and indecent exposure. That’s an entirely different section that we really don’t have time to get into. ‘Peeping Tom’ again is not registerable. Unless you do it over, and over, and over, and over. Those are not registerable offenses. They are few and far between. JF: Thank you so much Jack for imparting your knowledge and wisdom to us today. Is there anything about Sex Offender Registration Act that you think we need to know that I wasn’t smart enough to think of to ask? JDP: One of the things of the Sex Offender Registration Act that I think is unconstitutional is if you receive a deferred sentence in Oklahoma JF: And a deferred sentence, for people who may not have listened to some of the other podcasts, is a special kind of probation, in which you enter a plea of guilty or no-contest, but the court does not find you guilty and convict you at that time. He places you on a deferred. Meaning he’s going to set off sentencing for a time. It is not a conviction under any circumstances, except a few. And this is one where it will be treated just like a conviction. Even though you’re not convicted. JDP: Yeah, it’s basically a withholding of the adjudication of guilt. But, the Department of Corrections – you got to register. Period. Okay? Now, if you get a deferred sentence in Kansas, and you come to Oklahoma, you don’t have to register. That’s not fair. That’s what you call unequal protection of the law, which is a violation of the 13th and 14th Amendments. That’s right. We had a decision two years ago, now, I think, called Starkey vs. Oklahoma County, or something like that. And it was a groundbreaking case that said you can’t apply all these Acts, and all these ‘you can’t live here, and you can’t do this, and so-on and so-forth,’ You can’t apply those things retroactively. Starkey was a gentleman that had been convicted before all these things were passed. One of the big things is, and you have to look, and look, and look – aggravated and habitual sex offenders they had a great big go-over ‘S.O.” on their driver’s license. JF: That’s right. We haven’t talked about that. But, much like if you’re on a modified driver’s license for a DUI, and you have to have a Breathalyzer. The new way of identifying sex offenders is they put it in great big letters on your ID. Which you have to present for any reason – buy beer, buy cigarettes, get through TSA. There’s no hiding. JDP: Then all of a sudden everybody’s ears are perked up, “Hey, look at that perv. He’s a sex offender.” JF: And again, the sex offender stamp, doesn’t say, “Had sex with his girlfriend when he was 17 and she was 15.” Right? JDP: That’s correct. Just broadly says bang, you’re a habitual sex offender. Very few people know that that does exist. A normal, or usual, a non-aggravated, non-habitual sex offender, does not get his driver’s license with a sex offender thing on it. It is, what it is. JF: So, there’s room, oftentimes, from the perspective of helping our client. Just because we’re accused of doing it, even if we’re guilty of the violation or guilty of the original act. There’s room for negotiating around the sex offender registration. But, that has to happen at the onset of initial criminal act, almost. JDP: That goes back to: you cannot go down through the phone book and say, “Oh, this guy advertises he does criminal law.” JF: “Or, this guy helped my Aunt Susie with her DUI onetime. I’ll go see him.” JDP: This thing has become such a, the Oklahoma County District Attorneys office has a unit. JF: The Special Victims Unit. JDP: And that’s all they do is prosecute sex offenses. Now, if they are, there’s like four people, I think running that thing. And if they have unit that is dedicated to sex offenses. They don’t have any other unit. I mean, all the rest of the other DA’s can handle it, and everything like that. Why would you go out and hire somebody who helped Aunt Janie get out DUI 20 years ago? When you’re going up against people who have multitudes of years of experience in trying cases, and putting them on, and taking them down here to the nature house, and letting them give good interview, and so-on and so-forth. And use dolls. All of those things are subject of all kinds of problems. And don’t get me wrong. There are some people that practice law, that try cases all the time, that don’t handle sex offenses, that are damn good lawyers. But, by God, you get a sex offense, you better find somebody that knows what the hell they’re doing. And all you have to do is ask one question. “Sir, or ma’am, what is the child accommodation syndrome?” JF: It’s important, at that point, to check your lawyer. Interview them. This is your case. It’s not their interview. They’re not here to pick and choose which case they’re going to have. They have that right. But, you, as the offender, or the accused, have a very, very, very special position where you get to put the lawyer in the hot seat. And we suggest that you do it. Because there’s only a handful of law firms in the metropolitan area that I would think are qualified, and experienced enough, that I would trust them to handle a case for my friends or family. JDP: It’s a situation, and a lot of people go, “I’ve never dealt with a lawyer before.” And they go in. And they think because they’re talking to them, they have to hire them. Not so. Conduct an interview. Ask them if they know what a child accommodation syndrome is. If they don’t, and you don’t have a clear understanding of what it is, excuse yourself and say, “I’m sorry. I need to go to somebody else.” JF: This is not a case in which you want to discount shop. You’re not looking for the cheapest lawyer in town. JDP: And, by the way, finding a criminal defense attorney, that does not judge you, does not question you, does demean you, does not embarrass you, but, yet, is competent to handle these cases ain’t cheap. JF: That’s right. JDP: Because 99% of the lawyers, they don’t want to have a reputation of being next to those people, or next to them. Because they don’t want to answer a question at a party, “Why do you represent these sex offenders?” JF: I get asked that question all the time. And we’ll talk about it in another podcast. Thank you so much Jack Dempsey Pointer for joining us today. I could not be more grateful for you for sharing with us. JDP: You’re quite welcome. And I hope it goes well. JF: You’ve been listening to Your Best Defense podcast. Join us next week.