Podcasts about baskin robbins

Abbott Elementary is on a two episode streak! Also, this brings Kaya to tell you about how she was about to throw down at Baskin Robbins. Lastly she gives you the real tea on GLP1's. OZEMPIC WEGOVY MOUNJARO OH MY!Sign up for Mochi and get $40 off GLP1s right to your door: app.joinmochi.com/eligibility?utm_source=influencers&ptcode=oe522aFOLLOW US ON INSTAGRAM HERESUBSCRIBE TO OUR PATREON HEREOH YEAH WE ON THREADS HEREWHAT? YOU WANT OUR FACEBOOK? I GOT YOU RIGHT HERE

Building successful businesses often requires embracing opportunities that find you rather than forcing predetermined plans. In this episode of Building Texas Business, I sit down with Gregg Thompson, who runs multiple ventures with his brothers including landscape operations, nurseries, and the beloved Tiny Boxwoods and Milk & Cookies restaurants. We talk about how their family business evolved from a high school lawn mowing operation into a diversified enterprise spanning Houston and Austin. Gregg shares how their restaurant concept emerged accidentally when customers kept lingering at their West Alabama nursery, leading to an "accidental" expansion into hospitality. He explains their approach to hiring entrepreneurial people and giving them autonomy, plus how they've built robust back-office systems that support everything from landscape project management to baking croissants. The conversation reveals how measuring margins and sharing financial data across divisions creates a culture where creative people start thinking about gross margins. His philosophy centers on being in the "yes business" rather than automatically rejecting new ideas, combined with the belief that there's no limit to what you can accomplish when you don't know what you're doing. This mindset helped them navigate from municipal bonds to nurseries to restaurants without getting paralyzed by industry expertise they didn't possess. SHOW HIGHLIGHTS Sometimes the best business opportunities come from customers eating sandwiches in your nursery at lunchtime, leading to "accidental" restaurant concepts that nobody planned. Giving employees autonomy to try new things without permission first creates innovation - even when it occasionally surprises leadership with what they're attempting. The difference between a good business and a bad business is the back office - if you can't measure it, you can't fix it. Being in the "yes business" means not automatically saying no to employee ideas, since people bringing suggestions are stepping outside their comfort zones. There's no limit to what you can do when you don't know what you're doing, because you don't see the barriers that "experts" assume exist. Family businesses work when siblings have completely different skill sets that complement rather than compete - finance, construction, and wholesale trading each requiring distinct talents. LINKSShow Notes Previous Episodes About BoyarMiller About Thompson+Hanson GUESTS Gregg ThompsonAbout Gregg TRANSCRIPT (AI transcript provided as supporting material and may contain errors) Chris: Hey Greg, I want to welcome you to Building Texas Business. Thanks for taking the time to come in. Gregg: Yeah, my pleasure. I'm really excited about this. Chris: Well, you've got a great story to tell. I can't wait to hear more of the details. So let's start. Just tell us about your businesses. I know there's more than one and kind of what it is that you're doing out there and what you feel like those businesses are known for. Gregg: So I work with two of my brothers and I work with a great partner on the restaurant side. And we have, I think, an interesting little business. I was asked about a year ago to do a little speaking engagement about our company and landscape architecture. That's how it all started. And they asked me to do a quick recap of our company, the history, kind of like this. And I started jotting down timelines and I thought, this is dry. There's really more to how it started. That's all I thought. What was really the genesis of it? How did we get here? And so I call it my dad's lawnmower story and I'm 61 and I had three brothers and we all grew up just working around the house and mowing yards and doing chores and getting allowance and all that stuff. And I think that's how we evolved to where we are today in terms of just being willing to get out and work. And my older brother Lance officially started our landscape company when he was in high school. We all had Chris: Really, Gregg: We all had jobs and chores and I worked at Baskin Robbins. I had one brother that worked at a gas station and Lance was always the most successful entrepreneur. Mowing yards. Well, yeah. So we all mowed the yard and we all got our little allowance and that was great. You get the satisfaction of mowing the yard and finishing and then you get a little economic reward from your dad In the form of an allowance. But Lance was always just really good at making money When we were kids. He bought a new motorcycle when we were kids and I bought a used one. He bought a brand new car when he was in high school, 10th grade off the showroom floor and then traded that in and bought another one. This was like 1980. And so he just was very scrappy and entrepreneurial and was working at a nursery not too far from here over on a sacket. And a lady came in Mrs. Presler and bought a bunch of plants and asked if he could come by and plant them over the weekend. And so he did it. And that was officially his first client. She lived around the corner from us and I'm sure Lance did a good job and she loved having this guy around planting and stuff. And she told some friends and we just evolved and he was wrapping up high school and started making a little bit of money. And by the time he graduated he had some people that wanted projects and he's a really interesting guy. He had really bad dyslexia when he was growing up, still has it. And so school didn't come easy for him, but he had dyslexia and a DD, all those things can be really secret weapons if you know how to work around them. And he just had the ability to visualize things. He's always been into aesthetics and building. And so I think that really gave him some tools to just keep going with this landscape Chris: Thing. And then you ended up joining them at some point. Gregg: And so I went off and did the whole college finance thing and got into the municipal bond business and did that for a few years and I'd helped him with his books, a little glorified bookkeeper when he was starting. And in the early nineties we had talked about he was still growing and had a few employees and a few trucks and moved to some different locations and we just talked about me coming over or getting somebody else in to be the CFO and operations person. And it really wasn't that big at the time. And so I left my job in 94 and joined them and we were just around the corner over on Edlo. We leased some space over there and started a little bitty nursery as well as landscaping. And it was an accidental nursery. It was really a holding yard, and we would get all these plants delivered, we'd buy direct from growers and get all these plants delivered and put 'em in the holding yard and it looked like a nursery. And so people would stop in and want to buy plants and we thought, you know what? Let's see if we can open a nursery. And so that's how the retail nursery Chris: Started. Sometimes you find the business Gregg: And sometimes they find Chris: You. Gregg: Yeah, I call it the accidental nursery. And it was a great location and we were able to secure the real estate and buy it. And then we had some real estate trades that allowed us to move and grow a little bit. And so that was 94. And then that growth occurred throughout the nineties and in late I think 98, we sold that land and moved to the current location on west Alabama. And then we also moved our crews and our administrative offices over to West Park in six 10. And we opened a wholesale nursery there. We bought about eight acres of land there. And that's become the biggest part of our business on the landscape and nursery side is the wholesale. So we sell to other landscapers and over the years we've just grown and we have these divisions. We opened an office in Austin, Lance lives in Austin now. He moved in about 2000. And so we operate out of both cities. We have nurseries in both cities. And then probably our most visible business to the public is the restaurant side. Tiny box woods and milk and cookies. Chris: It keeps me fed. Gregg: Yeah. Well, I wish I could say it was a master plan, but it's been a fun plan. Chris: So I've always been curious how did you go from a nursery and landscaping into the restaurant business? Gregg: So that's I think a fun story too. So nursery people are kind of like book people, book people go and hang out at libraries and bookstores and they just want to be there around things that they love. Plant people are the same way. And our little retail nursery on West Alabama is a really beautiful place and people would just come and hang out. They would come over and on Saturdays there would be three or four people that were there every Saturday just walking around. They'd buy a few things, but they just wanted to be there. A little bit of an oasis. It is. And a lot of the mom and pop nurseries have gone by the wayside over the years. And so it was just a real pleasant space. It's the best patio in Houston. Well, thank you. And so one day, this lady was over there at about noon and she was walking around and she was eating a sandwich and we'd always joked about how people wanted to just be there and hang out and move in. And we got a lot of comments like that. And I saw this lady eating a sandwich just walking around. And so I just imagined that she was there on her lunch break and just wanted to hang out there. And so I called my brother Lance, and we talked probably six or seven times a day. We're always just calling and checking on things and riffing a little bit. And I said, we need to think about Dale coffee shop or restaurant. We've got this beautiful space and people want to be here, so we've got the captive audience and we have a place where they want to be. Let's sell the sandwich or a cup of coffee. We talked about a coffee shopper and we didn't really have a vision. And he said, that's the worst idea. That's a terrible idea. And I was putting this pitch on him. We've got the land, we had the building where I thought we could do it, and we were just using that for storage and mostly for Christmas trees. We sell Christmas trees once a year and we storm in there for about 30 days and otherwise just building was just storage. And I said, we've got the real estate and we can find somebody to cook. I had no idea what I was talking about. And I said, we've got an HR department, we've got the back, we've got all that stuff that's really hard for first time entrepreneurs. We didn't have to sign a lease, we didn't have to learn about hiring people and firing all that sort of administrative stuff. That can be really challenging if you're just a chef and you don't know all that. So we had that in place and we thought, or I thought there wasn't a lot of downside, give it a whirl and if it doesn't work, it's not the end of the world. And he was like, no, that's a terrible idea. Terrible idea. And so I thought, okay, he's probably right. Little Chris: Motivation to prove him wrong. Gregg: Yeah. And so he called me the next day we were talking about stuff. He said, we could probably figure it out. We could probably find somebody to help with the kitchen. And we've got the back office. So he's putting the sales pitch back on me that I was putting on him. And we just decided we had a place where people want to be and they like being there and we're already selling products. Our products just happen to be plants And we could figure out the food part of it. Again, we're pretty naive about it. And so we just started working on it. We hired an architect, we know how to build things and renovate spaces, and we thought we could make it a real pleasant patio and we thought we could do all that pretty stuff. And then we got just incredibly fortunate and found this. He was a young man at the time. He's still pretty young, but I think he's 25 at the time. He's our partner. His name's Bardo, and he's just been the best partner imaginable. And he came in and he was a little bit like us. He grew up mowing the yard and he had a bunch of siblings, but really had this love of hospitality, really outgoing, loves to cook and loves to feed people. And we met him through a client of ours who would come by our nursery and she asked, what are y'all doing over there? And we told her and she said, I've got the perfect guy for you. Chris: How about that? Gregg: And so we think, we still talk about what a miracle all this stuff is, just how things lined up. But Chris: Well, a lot of entrepreneurs will say that being naive in the beginning was a blessing because had they known what they were getting into and all the reality of it, they probably wouldn't have done it. Gregg: Yeah. I call that there's no limit to what you can do when you don't know what you're doing because you're not. That's a good one. You don't know the barriers that are there and you're naive. And if you knew all the stuff that's involved, you would probably be not always. It's tough to think through everything, especially when you don't know what you're doing Chris: Well, and I say just put your head down if you're passionate about it, which you all clearly are. Put your head down and just keep going and you figure it out as you go. Gregg: Yeah. And we did a lot of that, a lot of problem solving and figuring it out. And Baron was just amazing. He learned a lot of skills as we were building this building and he learned how construction works and he learned how software works and he had a really interesting sort of chefy background, but had never been run a restaurant and built one. So it was great. We all developed great tools and we called Lightning in a bottle with the first restaurant. So that's Tiny Boxwood. That's tiny boxwood. And then, let's see, and then in 2010, another one of those little bitty miracles happened and we were able to buy the old JMH grocery Chris: Store in Gregg: West University just through happenstance. I was out walking my dog one night and ran into this guy and he told me about it might be for sale. And so we opened that restaurant up and turned it on in 2011 and operated that for about five years. And we had this little bitty space in the middle between, there's a bank in there, and then we had the restaurant and then there was about 1700 square feet in the middle, and we just held that We wanted to see how everything worked with the neighborhood. We wanted to be good neighbors and see how the traffic flows. Parking's such a big deal in any retail establishment. And we just wanted to see how everything flows. And we didn't really have a vision for that space, but we spent a lot of time talking about it and we designed different things and had different ideas. And then about not quite, it's coming up on 10 years, I think, eight or nine years, we opened milk and cookies. We designed that around the concession stand over in West University, that little baseball walkup window. We didn't have enough parking to allow us to have a restaurant where you walk in and have seats. So really out of necessity, we did the walkup window that we thought was really charming, But we couldn't even if we wanted to, we didn't have the parking Chris: Right. And everyone loves it. Gregg: And everybody loved it. And so that has really developed into just a really fun and interesting part of our business and very visible. And people love it. It's like a little bitty Disney world. Everybody kind of shows up happy and leaves happy and the tickets aren't big tickets. And we've made some fun connections with people. And we've opened three of those in Houston and one in Austin. And then we're opening one in the Heights right now. It's under construction. Chris: I saw something about that in the little area there in the Heights. And they've got some other shops and things around there. Gregg: Yeah, we've got these Chris: Milking cookies. I was there this morning, so it's too close. It's dangerous. Gregg: Yeah, it's been an interesting business. Chris: I don't know how my youngest daughter would've made it through high school without being able to go to milking cookies on the way. But my biggest question is who came up with the chocolate chip recipe? Chocolate cookie recipe. Gregg: So I would love to take credit for that. I had nothing to do with it. That was my brother, Lance and Baron. And Lance has just always been a cookie guy. He's chocolate chip cookie. The greatest thing. Wasn't a real big cookie guy, but he's like, I want to have the best cookie. It just got to be off the chart. And he's one of those guys that everything's got to be the best. It's like he has these visions of things and he just wanted it to be the best. Chris: Well, he succeeded. If people haven't had it, they need to go try it. Gregg: Yeah, thank you. Chris: Hands down the best. Gregg: They've become popular. They've taken on a life of their own. And so he and Baron worked on just these different iterations of different ingredients and recipes and processes. And I got the benefit of taste testing for about six months and then stumbled into a little recipe and process. It seemed to work. That's great. And we've stuck with it and it's been really fun and successful. And we built the milk and cookies was really born out of the cookie. We sold the cookies of the restaurants and we'd get a lot of people that would come. They would pick up their kids at school and come and have milk and cookies that they'd sit at the bar in the restaurants. And Baron, to his credit, thought we could build a little business around pastries and the cookie. And we started doing ice cream and coffee. And so we made it what it is today, but it was really born out of that little cookie. Chris: Yeah, that's amazing. So three different businesses, you can't do that. You can't even do a business, no alone. Three different concepts without a good team. So what have you learned over the years that's helped y'all hire the right people? What kind of processes? What's been the learning and the journey around that? So critical to Gregg: Success? Yeah, it is. People are everything. It's a cliche, but it's true. People are everything. Hiring is anybody can hire. You need to know when to fire, getting the right people. I'm not a great manager of people, so I tend to delegate a lot. And I like to hire people that are entrepreneurial themselves and I like the back office and the numbers and the analysis, and I like to be involved in a lot of discussions and problem solving, but I like to delegate a lot. Give Chris: 'em autonomy. Gregg: Yeah, I give 'em a lot of autonomy. We have another saying that if you're not making mistakes, you're not trying hard enough. It's like when y'all were doing this, you made mistakes, I'm sure, and you figured stuff out. Oh sure. And you don't repeat and learning what not to do, it's just as important as learning what to do. And so that's how I operate. It's probably not the best form of management. And over the years we've gotten just some amazing people. We've got this one guy that operates our maintenance division. His name's Bill Dixon. He joined us over 30 years ago and he's created a little business within our business and it's great. He's had a great career and it's helped us build our landscape brand. And we've got some architects that are doing the same thing. We've got one coming up on 30 years. And then our back office, I think the back office, I've always said the difference between a good office or a good business and a bad business is the back office. You got to be able to count, you got to be able to report, and you got to be able to analyze and know if you can't measure it, you can't fix it. And so we've got a great back office and it's pretty robust for the, we do a lot of different things too. We do everything from landscape project management, building pools and fences and walls, and then baking croissants. We've got this whole range of accounting needs and back office needs. Chris: And is it all consolidated to kind of in the one back office space? We have Gregg: Space, what we call shared services, and it's really where we consolidate all of our accounting and we have different heads of different departments and different software for the restaurant side and payroll side, and then the landscape retail side. And that's been a lot of optimization and evolution that continues today. We just engaged a company to come and advise us on how AI can work within our existing software platform. Chris: Yeah, let's talk about that, just kind of innovation. What are some of the things you think y'all have done to innovate and keep the business progressive that's helped fuel the success? Gregg: I think a lot of it comes from the back office being able to report to our divisions. We have landscape maintenance, Houston, we have one in Austin. We have construction divisions, we have a retail division, a wholesale division. We have warehouse distribution. So we have all these different divisions. And I like the numbers piece and I like sharing that. And it's fun to see people that aren't real numbers. People look at 'em and make the connection between what they do during the day to how it translates into commerce and what does that mean in margins. And you see these really creative people that don't think of themselves as numbers people, and they start talking about gross margins and vice versa. We have a joke with Cindy Keen, who is our CFO. She's super great accountant and manager and does a lot more than just accounting, but she's pretty creative. And we've got these numbers, people that probably never thought of themselves as creative that really are. And so it's fun to see all that, but we rely a lot on software and accounting and reporting and trying to measure things where we can. And it's just a continual optimization. Chris: It sounds like you created a culture around focusing on the numbers and the margin, the details of how do you drive Gregg: Profitability Chris: In everything you do, right? No matter what role you have, that's part of the culture Gregg: You've created. So at the end of the day, if we're not making a profit, nothing else matters. We can talk about all this Nice pretty stuff, but if you're not retaining earnings and making money, you can't give raises. You can't get bonuses, you can't do the things you want to do. You can't try new things. And so we have a robust reporting and accounting and we keep optimizing. We can just change some tools last two or three months and how we account for labor, not account for it, but how we manage it within the restaurants or the restaurants are. It's funny, I was listening to the p Terry's podcast that you did, and the stories he tells really resonate with me because every day you're getting out and you're managing, you're hyper managing everything from cost to sales to labor to time to percentages. And so we just continue to optimize and haggle and we have a lot of different skill sets in our meetings. And so it's a continual, I like to think of it as just an optimization. Chris: Yeah. So you mentioned just a minute ago that you don't fancy yourself as a manager of people. I probably begged to differ, but when it comes to leadership, how would you describe your leadership style and how do you think that's evolved over the last several decades of you doing this? Gregg: Well, well, thank you for saying that. My style is to be encouraging and be open. I try to be in the yes business, I call it the yes business where I don't just automatically say no to things and be open. And if somebody brings you an idea, they're really maybe stepping out of their comfort zone a little bit, something that they think might be worth it, or they may just try it on their own. It's funny, some people within our organization now just try stuff without even bringing it to me, which I love. And sometimes I'm surprised to hear they're doing it Chris: Within certain Gregg: Boundaries, right? Yeah. There's usually some boundaries. Sometimes they're like, okay, you could have talked to me about that. So I think hopefully my leadership style is encouraging and I've been accused of being too positive. People from my office that are listening to this will know what it's talking about. I'm usually overly optimistic on a lot of projections. And my accounting department has a bad habit of proving me wrong on more than one occasion. But I love the people we work with. I love getting to know 'em and see 'em grow, especially on the restaurant side. It's been really, the restaurant business was so alien to me. I didn't know all the components that would go along with it, but some of the really fun pieces have just been getting to know the people that work there Are, I don't know if you've ever worked in a restaurant, but I have. Yeah, they're hard worker. The back of the house, the dish guys, it's a hard job. And then you have the front of the house where a lot of, for some people it's career and it's hospitality, and that's their mindset and that's their personality and they're wonderful. And then you get a lot of people that are working their way through college or school or just want to work and make a little money. And so we've had people go through college and we've had some come and a couple have come and work in our accounting department. They went to U of H and got a degree in accounting and just had breakfast with a guy a couple of weeks ago that's wrapping up his accounting degree. And he wanted to know if there are any opportunities and just getting to see people grow. And Baron who runs the restaurant side, is really good about developing young people in general around what he wants. Chris: Well, I just know from experience on the restaurant side, your retention is remarkable. The same people, I've been a loyal patriot for years, and it's a lot of the same people there, which says something about what you're doing something really right. Gregg: Well, so what I did was stumble across Barron, and I would love to say that, but I've learned a lot from him and what he expects, he has really high expectations and loves. He would've been a great football coach. He loves to coach people. And he has these meetings where he talks about culture and words to use and how to present yourself and how to stand up, just really blocking and tackling around interpersonal skills and then the culture of service and hospitality. And he just does a tremendous job. And it's been fun for me to see that and see these young people develop and become more confident. And we've been doing it long enough now where some of the people that work for us when we started, or in their thirties and mid thirties and speak very fondly of their work experience. Chris: That's great. Let's switch gears a little bit. It's a family business and those aren't always easy. What have you and your brothers done to get along on video and make sure there's no real conflict? And how have y'all shared responsibilities or divided responsibilities? Because not every family business is really easy or successful. So anything that you can share in that Gregg: Regard? Yeah, that's a great question. And for me, I think it's pretty easy answer. We all do different things. My skill's a lot different than Lance. Lance. He's not intimidated by building anything. I've learned a lot about building and construction, landscaping, even the restaurant side of it, but my skills are more around the office finance management and really administration. And so we don't really step on each other's toes. Hopefully we compliment each other. I think we do, and we talk a lot and every day. And then my younger brother, Brad is really interesting too. He runs our wholesale division, which is really big division that we're not known for because it sells to the trade. And he's got a completely different skillset too. He's buying millions of dollars worth of plants and trees, and he's almost like an oil and gas trader. He's taken positions on these perishable products and moving 'em to other landscapers and manages a lot of people too. And he's doing over the counter sales. And we have salespeople that work with them. So we've all got different skills and we all contribute differently. And that's, I think really been the key to making it work. And we occasionally bristle and step on each other's toes, but it's pretty rare, thankfully. Chris: Well, it'd be odd if you didn't from time to time, but it sounds like one, you have different skill sets that y'all recognize and appreciate, and two, there's no Gregg: Ego Chris: Because that gets in the way of whether it's family or not. If you have partners in a business and there's some egos in the room that can lead to, and we've seen it here. I call 'em business divorces and they get ugly. I can Gregg: Imagine. We just have different skill sets, hopefully. I know Lance and Brad both very humble. Hopefully I am too. And we just love what we do. Lance is he loves to say, and I'm the same way. I'll never plan to retire. I want to be able to retire. I don't want to retire. There's a difference. There's a difference. One's a little more freeing and we've just got probably overuse the word fun, but we've got a fun business and we work with great, creative, scrappy, entrepreneurial, hardworking people and who we admire and respect and it's great. Chris: So you started in Houston, obviously and grown here that you've expanded out. Has having a business based in and expanding within the state of Texas you think been an advantage for you Gregg: Texas? So I listen to this guy, I don't know if you've ever heard a guy named Peter Zhan. He talks about geographics and geography and demographics and why some states and cities are successful and some countries, and it's been fascinating, but he says Texas is the greatest state in the world to do business. He says Houston is the greatest city. And he goes on to explain why. And Austin's right up there too. Texas is just, it has his reputation for being wide open and scrappy and entrepreneurial. That's true. It's a great place to start a business. The barriers to entry are pretty low. They're getting a little more, I say burdensome, but it's still pretty easy to just fire up a business. And there's a good labor force here. There's good distribution in the form of imports and exports from the ports. We've got one of the greatest ports in the world for sure. We've got I 10 running through here so you can distribute in and out of there. We've got low cost of energy, we've got low cost of food, we've got a ton of real estate, so it's a great place to do business. And Austin has exploded over the last 10 years and it's gotten a little more expensive to operate out of there. They've taken over the world too with tech and opportunities, and you've got this intellectual knowledge base there. And so Texas is just a great place to do business. We're looking to expand some of our little stores to other cities in Texas. Chris: That's great. Yeah, I agree with you. I think of Houston, especially as a city of opportunity. You see entrepreneurial spirited people everywhere and other entrepreneurs willing to support those starting out, which is the whole reason we started this podcast is to share knowledge, pass something on. And when you think about that, if you were to say something, one or two tidbits to an aspiring entrepreneur who may be listening, what would be your advice about taking that first step or something to maybe watch out for that may be around the corner? Gregg: Yeah. Yeah. So my overly optimistic personality would say, do it, measure the downside. Can you handle if it doesn't work? Worst case scenario, can you handle that? And if you can, the upside will hopefully take care of itself. But I say, go for it. I love to talk to young people that are thinking about starting a business or want to know how you do it. And I love to talk to them. And it's never too late. I love to had a lot of great conversations with older people that have retired or become empty nesters and started a little jewelry business, and then other people that have started wildly successful, much bigger public companies. And so businesses, it's such a creative endeavor and there's a gillion ways to make a living and to start businesses and to try things. And you never know what you can do until you give it a world. Yeah, I love, Chris: I'm always amazed at how the different things people do to actually have a business or make an income, it's fascinating. Some of 'em are obvious, and then there's so many that you're like, wow, I had no idea that someone would've a business around that. Gregg: It's really remarkable. And the more you drill down and get into it, and the more you discover how people have just built great businesses, wildly successful financially and big and small, and yeah, it's great. I love entrepreneurship and I love people that think about it and want to give it a whirl. Chris: Yeah. Well, it's obvious because y'all have been wildly successful yourself and been cool to see how it's evolved from just a nursery to, like I said, a restaurant. I mean people that are passionate about restaurants and can fail at 'em. And it's cool to see someone knew nothing about it, but have it be so successful. Gregg: Yeah. I'm probably a little too capricious about saying, we got really lucky with some of the people and we went into it not knowing, Chris: Well, no sub super hard work. Right? Gregg: Yeah. Chris: So all that to say, then you got all this going on, what do you do to just rest and recharge and find some time for yourself? Gregg: Well, so when my youngest, who's same age as your oldest went off to college, we became official empty nesters. And I had a couple, a little more time on my hands and I wanted to fill it. I'm not good with time on my hands. And so I was trying to decide between, I used to fly airplanes and I was trying to decide between flying or taking up golf. And thankfully I took up golf. It's a little easier to do every day. Chris: Tends to be safer on life expectancy Gregg: Too. If you fall out of the golf cart, it's not fatal. And so I play a lot. I've just become really passionate about golf. I love golf. And so I enjoy that. And Carol and I are traveling a little bit. We got a little place in Florida where we go to, and I still stay pretty busy with work. We are going back and forth to Austin a lot. Catherine, my youngest is still there, so I stay pretty busy. Chris: Good Gregg: Doing stuff I like to do Chris: And well, they say, right, you love it and passionate about them until work. Gregg: Yeah. Yeah. Chris: That's great. Alright, so last question is, do you prefer Tex-Mex or barbecue? Gregg: Oh, that's so tough because I was just at our little shop and somebody who works there who knows I'm into certain types of foods and ingredients and stuff, she gave me these great, because she knows I love chips. And she's like, oh, I got these, they're seed oil free and all this stuff and you got to try. I'm like, oh man, I'm going to have something to snack on. So I love chips, I love Tex-Mex and I love barbecue. But if I were to choose, I would probably choose Tex-Mex. Okay. Some of my early fondest food memories are Tex-Mex. Chris: Yeah. So it's funny, it's the hardest question that I ask on the podcast for everybody, and it's a hard one for me to answer, but I go to, when I've been gone traveling for a while, what's the first thing I want when I come back? And as much as I love barbecue, the answer text Gregg: Message. Yeah, it's our comfort food. I literally remember the first time I had chips and queso the day I remember where it was, where I was. And it just changed my life. Chris: Well, maybe there's a new restaurant concept for y'all to go after. It could be, yeah. Although there's a lot of competition here, right? Gregg: I know there's good competition. Yeah. Chris: Well, Greg, thanks so much for coming on. Love your story. Congratulations to you and your brothers and your whole team there for what y'all do. And again, from a personal standpoint, I love it. I take advantage of it being just two blocks away more times during the week than I care to admit. Gregg: Yeah. Well thank you and congratulations to you on your podcast. I just love that you're doing this. It's very entrepreneurial. It's like this, the definition of an entrepreneur is Chris: Trying something. Well, I appreciate that. We consider ourselves here. We talk about it all the time within our partnership that we're entrepreneurs. For sure. And to your point, we look for people that have that ownership mindset to work here because we think that's what makes this firm successful. And it helps us with our clients because our clients are entrepreneurs. And so I think we're, those connections help form deep Gregg: Relationships for sure Chris: With the clients that we have. And we think that's part of why we 35 years and going strong. Gregg: Yeah. That's great. Chris: Thanks again for coming. Appreciate you taking time. My pleasure. Take care of Hello. Gregg: I will. Thank you. Alright. Special Guest: Gregg Thompson.

Today, Mike, Pam, and Scott are here to get that Labor Day Weekend started with some fun Disney talk! We are continuing the discussion we had last Friday about finding comparisons to chain restaurants around Walt Disney World! However, we wanted to get Pam's thoughts on this topic and today, we added hotels and retail locations into the mix! Where would your Walt Disney World equivalent for Baskin-Robbins be? Chi-Chi's? Wal-Mart? Cracker Barrel? Hear these and many more! Please share your thoughts over on the Discord channel at www.beourguestpodcast.com/clubhouse. We hope you enjoy today's podcast!  Please visit our website at www.beourguestpodcast.com.  Thank you so much for your support of our podcast! Become a Patron of the show at www.Patreon.com/BeOurGuestPodcast. Also, please follow the show on Twitter @BeOurGuestMike and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/beourguestpodcast.   Thanks to our friends at The Magic For Less Travel for sponsoring today's podcast!

Don Felder is on Celebrity Jobber with Jeff Zito this week. What type of work would Don be doing if not for being the former lead guitarist of the rock band the Eagles, from 1974 to 2001, co-writing major hits like "Hotel California"? Many celebrities will tell you that if not for that one lucky break or meeting, they would have been scooping up ice cream at Baskin-Robbins like Barack Obama or a Hooters girl like Amy Adams. They may have been just a jobber. Thanks for listening. Please rate, review, and subscribe to the Celebrity Jobber with Jeff Zito wherever you pod.

This Patreon sample episode is brought to you by our incredible sponsors. The boys will be back with fresh news tomorrow! Brooklyn Bedding -  Go to brooklynbedding.com and use code HARDFACTOR at checkout to get 30% off sitewide. This offer is not available anywhere else.   DaftKings - Download the DraftKings Casino app, sign up with code HARDFACTOR, and spin your favorite slots! The Crown is Yours - Gambling problem? Call one eight hundred GAMBLER Lucy - Let's level up your nicotine routine with Lucy.  Go to ⁠⁠Lucy.co/HARDFACTOR⁠⁠ and use promo code (HARDFACTOR) to get 20% off your first order. Lucy has a 30-day refund policy if you change your mind. Timestamps: (00:00:00) Story lineup (00:05:00) King Charles is giving Canada their marching orders (00:22:31) Sidney Sweeney is doing Baskin-Robbins ads  (00:24:20) Man Who Married Almost 30 Women, and Pacino having more kids (00:36:50) - Zuck buying up whole neighborhoods, and WNBA Dildo Bandit Discussion (00:45:14) - Mark and Will try to comprehend "67" Thank you for listening!! Go to ⁠patreon.com/hardfactor⁠ to join our community and get AD-FREE bonus episode like Florida Man Friday. We love you, and most importantly HAGFD! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the 5 AM hour, Larry O’Connor and Julie Gunlock discussed: Weekend Recap; Baskin Robbins vs Carvel DC Crime Update Protests Against Trump's DC Crime Crackdown Where to find more about WMAL's morning show: Follow Podcasts on Apple, Audible and Spotify Follow WMAL's "O'Connor and Company" on X: @WMALDC, @LarryOConnor, @JGunlock, @PatricePinkfile, and @HeatherHunterDC Facebook: WMALDC and Larry O'Connor Instagram: WMALDC Website: WMAL.com/OConnor-Company Episode: Monday, August 18, 2025 / 5 AM HourSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Longtime cohost Mike D rejoins the show for a special 3 hour + investigation of the new Baskin Robbins new advertisement, Dunkin Donuts ingredient lists, and American school lunches vs those from oversees. As the MAHA movement seeks to change schools lunches, opponents argue that it is difficult, expensive and laborious, yet other countries with less money and resources have already perfected the school lunch. So what is going on in the U.S.?*The is the FREE archive, which includes advertisements. If you want an ad-free experience, you can subscribe below underneath the show description.FREE ARCHIVE (w. ads)SUBSCRIPTION ARCHIVEX / TWITTER FACEBOOKWEBSITECashApp: $rdgable EMAIL: rdgable@yahoo.com / TSTRadio@protonmail.comBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-secret-teachings--5328407/support.

Robert Horry, aka "Big Shot Bob," is on Celebrity Jobber with Jeff Zito this week. What type of work would Bob be doing if not for being a 7-time NBA Champion, current sports commentator, and podcaster? Many celebrities will tell you that if not for that one lucky break or meeting, they would have been scooping up ice cream at Baskin-Robbins like Barack Obama or serving at Red Lobster like Nicki Minaj. They may have been just a jobber. Thanks for listening. Please rate, review, and subscribe to the Celebrity Jobber with Jeff Zito wherever you pod.

We survived Mexico. We survived the wedding. We even survived the resort's “complimentary” robes (shoutout to DudeRobe for saving my honeymoon). And now… we're back.This week, I catch you up on the Cabo Wabo chaos — from my son crushing his first flight, to a surprise Backstreet Boys dance on the beach, to me promising Los we'll get him in the water with the dolphins NEXT time.Then it's straight into the news you didn't know you needed: Donald Trump declaring it's officially a Sydney Sweeney Summer (triple S, baby). We're talking jeans, ice cream, ad campaigns, and how the internet will find a way to call everything racist — yes, even Baskin-Robbins rainbow sherbet.We also address the crime of the century: Gypsy Rose stealing my business idea for “Blown Booby Art.” I can't make this up — she's peddling canvas blow art on TikTok while I'm here with an actual art degree, a Dyson dryer, and a commission already sold. Lawyers, get ready.From there, we hit Soulja Boy's latest “first rapper” achievement: getting arrested twice for the same thing. Sprinkle in Sean Kingston scamming a home theater system, the anxiety of going to Trader Joe's in America, South Park trolling Trump on a pro-Trump network, and my growing temptation to get the hell out of the U.S. for good.Also, the other “What Are We Doing” podcast? Still sitting on the floor. Boys, call Daddy. I'll let you use my set.Sponsors this week:

Zorhan Mamdani has vowed to become President Trump's nightmare, plus Joe Biden has been visiting a lot of Baskin Robbins lately.  Visit the Howie Carr Radio Network website to access columns, podcasts, and other exclusive content.

These two powerful segments explore the growing intersection between global instability and America's cultural and political battles. In the first, South Carolina State Treasurer Curtis Loftis discusses the deeper implications of U.S. foreign policy decisions — including the sudden $15 million bounty on Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro — and raises concerns about cartel infiltration, border security, and how international crime can impact states like South Carolina. In the second, Tara shifts to the domestic culture war, highlighting the backlash against actress Sydney Sweeney's Baskin-Robbins ad and what it reveals about shifting beauty standards, corporate virtue signaling, and cancel culture. A caller from Chesnee brings the discussion back home, urging young conservatives to get involved in local elections and push back against cultural and political apathy. Together, these conversations underline a central theme: the fight for America's future isn't just happening in D.C. — it's playing out on the world stage, in the culture, and right in your hometown.

In this open-line Friday segment, the show dives into the cultural firestorm surrounding Sydney Sweeney's Baskin-Robbins ad — and what the backlash says about beauty standards, cancel culture, and political identity in America today. Tara explores how major brands are pushing back against left-wing cultural dominance and why the reaction to Sweeney's image is about more than just aesthetics. Listeners also join the conversation, including a compelling call from Riley in Chesnee, who makes a heartfelt plea for younger voters to get involved in local politics — especially in critical races like sheriff elections. The episode wraps with practical advice for digital activism, including how to build influence and spread truth on platforms like X. A thought-provoking blend of cultural commentary and grassroots organizing, this episode challenges listeners to reject fear, engage the culture, and take back the narrative — one post, one vote, and one conversation at a time.

Mark Long is on Celebrity Jobber with Jeff Zito this week. What type of work would Mark be doing if not for being a reality television personality, actor, host, and professional wrestler known for his appearances on MTV reality television series Road Rules: USA – The First Adventure, Challenge, The Challenge: All Stars, and an appearance on Even Stevens? Many celebrities will tell you that if not for that one lucky break or meeting, they would have been scooping up ice cream at Baskin-Robbins like Barack Obama or serving at Red Lobster like Nicki Minaj. They may have been just a jobber. Thanks for listening. Please rate, review, and subscribe to the Celebrity Jobber with Jeff Zito wherever you pod.

A lot of sugar in this edition.

Jamie Lissow is on Celebrity Jobber with Jeff Zito this week. What type of work would Jamie be doing if not for being a regular comedian on the #1 rated late-night show, Gutfeld? Many celebrities will tell you that if not for that one lucky break or meeting, they would have been scooping up ice cream at Baskin-Robbins like Barack Obama or selling Timeshares like Jennifer Aniston. They may have been just a jobber. Thanks for listening. Please rate, review, and subscribe to the Celebrity Jobber with Jeff Zito wherever you pod.

This week on Own It we're talking to Genna Franconi from 22squared and Trade School. She and they are based in Atlanta, Georgia. As you probably noticed, she runs two agencies. One is over a century old. The other was born out of a client need for scaling audience-based content.  Gemma came up through the account side of the business and worked her way to the C-Suite at 22squared before founding Trade School as a spin-off firm, eventually earning leadership and partial ownership of the company. The two firms work with great brands like Home Depot, Publix, Baskin Robbins and many more.  Genna has also become an avid pickleball player in addition to her work and her children. We have so much in common. I loved this discussion. I know you will as well. You can find links to Genna's LinkedIn profile and the agency websites for 22Squared and Trade School in our show notes at untilyouownit.com.  If you're enjoying Own It, please find it on your favorite podcast app and drop us a rating and review. Those help more people discover the show and join our community.  Also, if you're a female or non-binary agency owner, or you want to own an agency someday, join our growing community at that same address … untilyouownit.com.

Donna D'Errico is on Celebrity Jobber with Jeff Zito this week. What type of work would Donna be doing if not for being an actress, best known for her starring role on the television series Baywatch? Many celebrities will tell you that if not for that one lucky break or meeting, they would have been scooping up ice cream at Baskin-Robbins like Barack Obama or working as a beautician at a morgue, like Whoopi Goldberg. They may have been just a jobber. Thanks for listening. Please rate, review, and subscribe to the Celebrity Jobber with Jeff Zito wherever you pod.

Go to http://shadyrays.com and use code THESIP to get 35% off polarized sunglasses! Go to http://zocdoc.com/THESIP to find and instantly book a top-rated doctor today! Cancel your unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster at https://rocketmoney.com/sip Go to https://www.harrys.com/SIP and get a $10 trial set with a 5-blade razor, weighted handle, foaming shave gel, and a travel cover for just $8 plus a free gift!

We've gotten chosen to participate in some extreme versions of children's playground games. But not the stuff you're used to, like licking wafers. We're talking games like zoo jogging, wing sauce mixology, and sneaking into Baskin Robbins after dark.Suggested talking points: Squid Game Den Mom, Deadly Cornhole, Five Nights at Louvries, Sydney Sweeney Todd, Gesticulatory ExcitementImmigrant Defenders Law Center: https://www.immdef.org/

Why the Heir to the Baskin-Robbins Ice Cream Empire Walked Away From It All The son of the ice cream behemoth chose veganism over inventing the 32nd flavor. In this VegNews exclusive, John Robbins reveals what it's like to walk away from an ice cream cone-shaped swimming pool. Listen to today's episode written by Tanya Flink at VegNews.com #vegan #plantbased #plantbasedbriefing #johnrobbins #dietforanewplanet #mayallbefed #foodrevolution #baskinrobbins  ========================== Original post:https://vegnews.com/the-untold-vegan-story-of-baskin-robbins  Related Episodes: Use search feature at https://www.plantbasedbriefing.com/episodes-search    ======================== Launched in 2000, VegNews is the largest vegan media brand in the world. They have a best-selling plant-based magazine, and they create amazing content from food and fashion to travel, celebrity interviews, beauty and health info, a meal planner, and vegan travel excursions. Their Guide section on their website is full of great information and they have an online shop where you can find cookbooks, foods, kitchen tools, vegan meal delivery services. They also have a website, VeganWeddings.com. Please visit www.VegNews.com for a wealth of resources.  ======================== FOLLOW THE SHOW ON: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@plantbasedbriefing     Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2GONW0q2EDJMzqhuwuxdCF?si=2a20c247461d4ad7 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/plant-based-briefing/id1562925866 Your podcast app of choice: https://pod.link/1562925866 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PlantBasedBriefing   LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/plant-based-briefing/   Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/plantbasedbriefing/   

Do you fear aging? Do you dread getting older? Do you think that you'll likely be sick or have a disease? Many people are living longer yet not living healthier. Today's guest is health expert, environmental pioneer, and best-selling author John Robbins. John is the author of the best-selling books “Diet For a New America,” “The Food Revolution,” and “Reclaiming Our Health.” He talks about the growing population of people who are currently over 65 years old. Globally it continues to increase. John would like our older years to be a time of celebration and not a time to fear. It is possible to become much healthier as we age. It can be a time to be stable and connected. If we feel more positive about aging, we can add many healthy years to our life. On the other hand, if we shun it, and try to protect ourselves from the aging process, we close down possibilities. In the US especially, we can feel divided and separated. Many people ultimately die of loneliness. John talks about four cultures that he has explored where people live to be healthy at 100. The older people in these cultures are not interested in fast foods. They tend to have much more community. They eat simply, with many being basically vegetarian. This diet includes nuts, seeds, vegetables, fruits, and no artificial sweets. They don't have processed sugar. They are connected to the local food and eat seasonally. Family and friends are extremely important. The communities work together. By comparing the diets and attitudes of different world cultures with the American lifestyle, John shares the truth about the health effects of the foods we eat. The only son of the founder of the Baskin-Robbins ice cream empire, John was groomed to follow in his father's footsteps but chose to walk away from Baskin-Robbins and the immense wealth it represented to “…pursue the deeper American Dream…the dream of a society at peace with its conscience because it respects and lives in harmony with all life forms. A dream of a society that is truly healthy, practicing a wise and compassionate stewardship of a balanced ecosystem.” We air this interview today to honor health pioneer John Robbins, who passed away in mid-June.  Info: www.johnrobbins.com

The girlies return from their summer break with a chatty episode recapping their travels, including our bodies yet again keeping the score, a shocking Alec Baldwin sighting, and the transcendent beauty of Nerds Gummy Clusters. Digressions include: Aura ring-induced health spirals, the evilness of snoring, and Baskin-Robbins' haunting Trolli milkshake. This is a teaser for a Patreon-exclusive episode. To listen to the full episode and access over 50 bonus episodes, mediasodes, and monthly zoom hangs visit patreon.com/binchtopia and become a patron today.  

Today on the show, we have the phenomenal Ocean Robbins — the dynamic CEO and co-founder of the Food Revolution Network. This esteemed network boasts a membership exceeding 500,000, establishing itself as a colossal community of advocates passionately promoting healthy eating on a global scale. With an impressive portfolio of live seminars and events numbering in the hundreds, Robbins has successfully impacted millions of lives across 190 nations through his transformative efforts. But who is Ocean Robbins? His roots trace back to an intriguing family history; his grandfather founded the famous Baskin-Robbins. However, it was his father, John Robbins, who bravely walked away from a lucrative ice cream empire to pen bestsellers like "Diet for a New America" and become a respected health advocate. Today, Ocean Robbins is on an audacious mission: transforming our industrialized food culture into a supportive ecosystem for healthy individuals and a thriving planet. He extends a warm invitation to YOU, urging you to become an active participant in this vital food revolution."31-Day Food Revolution" unfolds as a carefully crafted plan comprising 31 accessible, step-by-step actions, serving as your roadmap to ethical, nutritious, and sustainable food consumption. This holistic plan is segmented into four pivotal parts: Detoxify, Nourish, Gather, and Transform. With Robbins as your guide, embark on a transformative journey towards less sugar, fewer processed foods, and decreased unhealthy animal products while embracing whole plant foods and consciously sourced fare.Please enjoy my conversation with Ocean Robbins.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/next-level-soul-podcast-with-alex-ferrari--4858435/support.

This show is a tribute to Mr. John Robbins, who passed away on June 13th. His family is the "Robbins" of "Baskin-Robbins." His story has a connection with my Momma's story.

What do a 1946 Western film, a fight for independence in the Balkans, a celebrity Engagement, a Fulbright Scholarship and Baskin-Robbins ice cream have in common? They are all part of the life story of a charismatic, hardworking, and big dreaming winemaker. Meet Sonja Magdevski of ⁠Clementine Carter Wines⁠ in Santa Barbara County's Los Alamos, where she's one of the OGs who turned the sleepy little town into a must visit wine destination.But, her first job in wine was planting a vineyard with no experience.We explore how Sonja fell in love with Grenache, her pioneering role in the Los Alamos wine community and her passion for storytelling through both wine and writing. Join us for an inspiring conversation about taking risks, following unexpected paths, and creating something truly unique. We're excited to have Sonja, a fellow journalist and an inspiration to so many people, joining us to share her story.

What do a 1946 Western film, a fight for independence in the Balkans, a celebrity Engagement, a Fulbright Scholarship and Baskin-Robbins ice cream have in common? They are all part of the life story of a charismatic, hardworking, and big dreaming winemaker. Meet Sonja Magdevski of Clementine Carter Wines in Santa Barbara County's Los Alamos, where she's one of the OGs who turned the sleepy little town into a must visit wine destination.But, her first job in wine was planting a vineyard with no experience.We explore how Sonja fell in love with Grenache, her pioneering role in the Los Alamos wine community and her passion for storytelling through both wine and writing. Join us for an inspiring conversation about taking risks, following unexpected paths, and creating something truly unique. We're excited to have Sonja, a fellow journalist and an inspiration to so many people, joining us to share her story.

EPISODE 131: Philadelphia native Tim Johnson Jr. has established himself as a dynamic singer, songwriter, producer, multi-instrumentalist, and actor. At just 10 years old, Johnson's talents led him and his family to Las Vegas, where he landed the coveted role of Young Simba in Disney's The Lion King. His acting career continued to flourish with roles in Everybody Still Hates Chris (Paramount), Saturdays (Disney), Ballers (HBO), Meet the Blacks 2, Fist Fight (Lionsgate), FBI (CBS), and critically acclaimed films such as We Were Meant To (Sundance 2023) and Pens and Pencils (2023 NAACP Image Award nominee). His commercial credits include major brands like Nike, Apple, Verizon, Baskin Robbins, and Sprite. In 2018, Johnson captivated audiences as a semi-finalist on FOX's The Four: Battle for Stardom, reaching millions worldwide. Since then, he has continued to carve his own path in the music industry, independently releasing singles, EPs, and two albums, all written and produced alongside his father. His signature blend of R&B, pop, and soul resonates deeply with his growing fan base, while his electrifying stage presence brings undeniable energy to every performance. instagram.com/cityboyjrContact us: makingsoundpodcast.comFollow on Instagram: @makingsoundpodcastFollow on Threads: @jannkloseJoin our Facebook GroupPlease support the show with a donation, thank you for listening!

Are you wondering: ✓ How to use the Matterport Merge Tool? ✓ When to use Auto-Align vs. Manual Align? ✓ How long it takes to process the merged model? Stay tuned! On this WGAN-TV Podcast (above), our WGAN-TV Podcast Guest Host is: ✓ Tom Sparks, Founder and CEO of ScanYourSpace, a division of Sparks Media Group @ScanYourSpace Our topic is: ✓ WGAN-TV | Mastering Matterport Merge Tool (Beta): How to Combine Interior & Exterior Scans! Tom walks through how to merge two Matterport models: a scan of a Baskin-Robbins interior and a separate scan of the exterior plus 360s—using Matterport's new Merge Tool (Beta) in Workshop. Watch as he demonstrates the step-by-step workflow, shares tips on alignment, and reveals the final results the next day. What You'll Learn Here's what we cover during this WGAN-TV Podcast: ✓ When and Why to Use the Merge Tool • Ideal use cases for merging separate scans (interior + exterior). • Why photographers may shoot spaces in separate sessions and need to merge. ✓ How the Merge Tool Works (Beta) • Step-by-step demo using Matterport Workshop. • When Auto-Align fails—and how to fix it manually. • Previewing, rotating, and positioning models for alignment. • What the processing stage involves and what to expect after submitting. ✓ Post-Merge Review & Lessons Learned • What worked well and what to watch for (e.g., 360º bubble limitations). • How entry and exit points between merged models may behave. • Importance of open pathways (like doors) for seamless navigation. ✓ Pro Tips for Success • Why you may want to trim the final model. • When not to expect perfect walk-through transitions. • Best practices for communicating merge limitations to clients. Why This Matters For Matterport Service Providers, the Merge Tool (Beta): ✓ Expands creative possibilities by combining separate captures ✓ Makes hybrid indoor/outdoor tours easier to deliver ✓ Saves time and adds value by connecting previously disconnected scans Among the Questions Tom Answers: ✓ Can you align outdoor and indoor scans if the door was closed? ✓ What are the limitations of 360º navigation in merged models? ✓ What happens to the original models after merging? ✓ How long does the merging process actually take? Got Follow-Up Questions for Tom? ✓ Visit: www.SparksMediaGroup.com ✓ Learn more: www.ScanYourSpace.com ✓ Post below in the We Get Around Network Forum ✓ Subscribe on YouTube: @SparksMediaGroup Best, Dan

It is a privilege to welcome Tim Johnson, Jr., to The Jake's Take with Jacob Elyachar Podcast.  Philadelphia native Tim Johnson, Jr. has established himself as a dynamic singer, songwriter, producer, multi-instrumentalist, and actor. At just 10 years old, Johnson's talents led him and his family to Las Vegas, where he landed the coveted role of Young Simba in Disney's The Lion King.  In 2018, Tim captivated audiences as a semi-finalist on FOX's The Four: Battle for Stardom, reaching millions worldwide. Since then, he has continued to carve his path in the music industry, independently releasing singles, EPs, and two albums, all written and produced alongside his father.  His signature blend of R&B, pop, and soul resonates deeply with his growing fan base, while his electrifying stage presence brings undeniable energy to every performance.In addition to his recording career, Tim's acting career continued to flourish with roles in Everybody Still Hates Chris (Paramount), Saturdays (Disney), Ballers (HBO), Meet the Blacks 2 and  Fist Fight (Lionsgate), FBI (CBS), and critically acclaimed films such as We Were Meant To (Sundance 2023) and “Pens and Pencils” (2023 NAACP Image Award nominee). His commercial credits include major brands like Nike, Apple, Verizon, Baskin-Robbins, and Sprite.On this episode of The Jake's Take with Jacob Elyachar Podcast, Tim Johnson, Jr. spoke about his experience on The Four: Battle for Stardom and American Idol, songwriting, and voicing Young Chris on the animated series Everybody Still Hates Chris. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/jake-s-take-with-jacob-elyachar--4112003/support.

Yesterday, we spoke with one of the most brilliant minds in politics in America, and one of the most brilliant in the world: Anat Shenker-Osorio. She's a messaging guru, who I met when I was reporting my book, The Persuaders — there's a whole chapter about her in it — and ever since at The Ink we have often turned to her whenever we need the best advice.But she's so much more than a messaging guru. She's a comedian. She is a person who, in spite of her messaging prowess, will always say something that really pokes and inflames people, but she does it intentionally, to provoke them into seeing what they might not otherwise have recognized. And in a moment when so many people do not know what to say, or how to say it — or seem to have lost the use of their vocal cords and spines — she is someone we can ask to tell people what they should be saying, because she knows just how to frame the most important questions of this time, and has answers for so many of them.For those who've been looking for leadership from above, she made it very clear that nicely asking Democrats to do something has never brought about real change. So stop doing that. Stop trying to get Chuck Schumer to do something.This conversation is an incredibly practical guide to what you need to — and can — do. Anyone and everyone can lead: we make the future, and it's time to do it by stepping up. If you want to, you are a leader!Congrats! Sorry. But congrats!You can start by creating social proof locally — which is to say, create a perception in your community that lots of people feel the way you feel. You might start with signs, hats, talking to people, or, as she put it, the painting of a barn. Just pick something, and get started. And soon enough you'll be leading.If you're not sure where to jump in, Anat's team keeps track of actions across the country, so visit her ever-evolving list of Ways to Resist. And read her Freedom over Fascism toolkit for tons of ideas and insight into how to communicate all of the ideas you'll find below.We know some of you prefer reading to watching, so we're publishing text excerpts of the conversation below. If you missed our live conversation, we encourage you to watch the entire video above.In the public interest, we are opening this video and transcript to all. But we're also asking candidly that folks support the half dozen or so people who now write for and edit and otherwise support the work of The Ink by becoming a paying subscriber today.Take a moment to support fearless, independent reporting, and to help us keep bringing you conversations like this one. Or give a gift or group subscription.Your support allows us to open these ideas to as many people as possible, with no paywall.I wanted to start maybe on a positive-ish note by asking you who is telling the right story right now? Who do you see in the pro-democracy movement? And I know that your answer to this may not take a lot of time because it may not be a very long list of people, but who is telling the right story?Well, let's start with a story that you helped bring to light, in your Live with Senator Chris Murphy. I thought he was absolutely spot-on in many ways. I don't know whether we'll come back to this, but I thought his response in particular when you held his feet somewhat to the fire about why other Democratic leaders are not stepping up. That was probably him at his most diplomatic. But I thought his description of reality was really spot on.Unsurprisingly, he's an MVP, is always there, always prescient, always saying the thing, speaking truth, not just to power, but ensuring we're speaking truth to each other.AOC, Jasmine Crockett, obviously. Governor Pritzker's responses yesterday were extraordinary. Exactly what's needed. And then outside of the elected official space, there's a lot going on. There are burgeoning protest movements, both from known organizations like Indivisible and Move On and Working Families Party, but also from brand newbies that just self-assembled on Substack, like the 50501 movement, and the burgeoning general strike movement.And because there's no up without a down, as they say, who is getting it most dramatically and maybe for you infuriatingly wrong?Do you want to open this Pandora's box? You know, the list is very, very, very long.One might say infinite.Most infuriatingly, it's the siren song of the authoritarian that they are fomenting a counterrevolution against a revolution that never occurred. This has always been their story, time and place immemorial, that you're being attacked, you're being put upon by some usurping minority, whether that be immigrants, whether that be Roma people in Hungary, whether that be people seeking asylum in Australia, whether that be Southern Europeans in the case of Brexit, whether that be trans people. It's always some other who is coming to get you and they have amassed too much power.And so I think what is most infuriating beyond just the absolute unwillingness to locate a single vertebra let alone a spine is the layering on of the misdiagnosis of why we are here when we blame when we make believe that the people with too much power in our society are undocumented immigrants and trans people. If it weren't so pathetic and sad it would be funny. So I think that that is what is particularly infuriating.Talk to me about specific moments in the last month where you've seen someone give a press conference, you've seen someone give a floor speech — give me the hall of shame because I consider you one of the only people, frankly, who I could ask to do that and you'll just do it.I mean, who am I most disappointed by? I think I'm extraordinarily disappointed by many of our senators. I'm thinking in particular, really sadly, because of all the extraordinary work that I know movement groups like Lucha in Arizona went to, putting him into power. But Ruben Gallego, not only refusing to stand up to this administration but also actively sponsoring the Laken Riley bill, which let's not kid ourselves, is about eliminating due process rights. It is about creating an unjust — even more unjust — legal system in the name of genuflecting at the altar of immigrants are the problem.I think that Amy Klobuchar has said things that are really infuriating and incensing. I think obviously Chuck Schumer's stance of, “We'll just rap about the price of eggs.” Hakeem Jeffries, in a very similar vein, and just a lot of, “Well, we can't do anything. We don't have any power.” Excuse making.It's so interesting when you see a lot of the folks on TV and when you're under a Biden presidency or an Obama presidency maybe you don't notice the mediocrity as much because it doesn't like risk the republic — and now to see some of those same people, they're not evil or awful the way that we're talking about on the right, but they are so profoundly mediocre and not up to the task of responding to a once-in-a-century emergency.You know, I referenced earlier before the conversation that you had with Senator Murphy and I was reflecting, because obviously I spend a lot of time listening to people because if you want to be decent at messaging, you have to spend a lot of time listening to people.And by listening to people, I mean in focus groups where we are asking them deep questions, we are extracting metaphors, we are uncovering their underlying assumptions and beliefs about what is going on. What is the origin story behind it? What are their desired solutions?And so I think a lot about what people's underlying motivations are, and the psychology of how they came to be where they are and doing what they're doing. And I think when I think about these folks who have risen to the halls of power, it kind of makes sense because to be honest, that they're behaving in these milquetoast ways.Is that what it takes to get there?Well, partly it's what it takes to get there, but also it is an accurate fact that that has worked for them. The things that they have done in their life have brought them to The New York Times newsroom, because — let's just widen the net of culpability a little bit here — has brought them to the pinnacle of journalism, has brought them to the pinnacle of politics, has brought them to the pinnacle of whatever it is I assume they desired to do once they became old enough to have a thing that they really wanted to do.And so… If taking certain steps and engaging in certain ways and refusing to upset people has been successful or at least successful within a trajectory that you define for yourself, then it actually kind of makes a lot of sense that random lady with big hair being like, “What the actual f**k are you doing? There's a hostile takeover of our government happening on your watch, friend.”It feels like, well, this has worked for me and it has achieved the things that I desire to achieve. So why would I change course?So here's something I'm struggling with. I think part of what explains the election loss going back to November is this problem you and I have talked about before of a tendency to kind of misappraise what is really, really salient with people. And you are someone who studies this and measures it. There are things you and I are worried about. There are things you've been screaming about that it turns out, way more people should be worried about it than are.If you were right about the election, if I was right about the election, a lot more people should have been concerned about things that, maybe did not reach the top rank.And so even now, now that we're in this presidency, I struggle with my own sense of how grave this is, how serious this is.This is a coup. This is that. And then sometimes I just, I live in New York City. Like I've walked down the street. I see people living their lives. These are people, 90 percent of them vote for Democrats, but you can just tell, if you sit in a restaurant, you hear conversations or you watch a normal TV show, the Jennifer Hudson talk show, you see normal life. And normal people living their lives are not living as though, as Senator Murphy says, this is the most serious crisis since the civil war and we may be a few months from irreversibly losing democracy.So my maybe difficult question for you is, is this thing that you and I share, this concern that everybody watching this shares. Is this concern out of touch in some way, maybe accurate, but is it out of sync with how regular people read things? Are we too ahead of the curve? Is it not landing with people?Talk to me about that disconnect.Yeah, it is not landing with people.So I want to say two things about that. The first is that in the lead-up to the election, I coined this phrase, the credulity chasm. And what the credulity chasm means is that when we look at the fundamental attitude that was most predictive of voting for Harris versus doing something else, and by something else I mean voting for Trump, staying at home, voting third party, etc.It wasn't, “Wow, that Project 2025 agenda, that sounds real sweet. That's like a Baskin Robbins tasty level of flavors. I'm excited.” It was whether or not people believed the agenda would come true. So this notion that the country has shifted rightwards is actually not supported by data.What has actually happened — and what happened through the election — was what the people who got it were saying: “No, it's for realsies. This is not hyperbolic. This threat is real. And all of this will come to pass and come to fruition.”And in fact, there's a Project 2025 tracker that shows that already within this first month of being in a hostile takeover, they have made good on one-third of the Project 2025 agenda. Just a little side note.So that credulity chasm, which I would argue we are still in — it is a basic facet of human psychology, and we see this among respondents in many, many parts of the world.This is not a uniquely U.S. phenomenon, but there's a U.S. layer on top of it that John Jost, the psychologist at NYU, calls system justification theory. Basically, there's kind of a fundamental human need to feel like I can predict what's going to happen. Tomorrow is going to be somewhat like today. Things are more or less okay. Things happen for a reason. Good things happen to good people. Bad things happen to bad people. There's a fundamental explanation for the universe because to question that and to really truly be living within that — the badness or the recognition of the badness, I should say — it requires a level of upset and a level of agitation and a level of awareness that is understandably very difficult for most people, because for most people, the basic facets of life, like being able to see a doctor, being able to help out your parents when their water heater breaks and being able to send your kid to university, et cetera, is pretty challenging.And so to ask people to layer on another thing is a lot. And I think that what we are experiencing over and over again, and it's been happening for a while. It's the frogs in boiling water problem, where we truly think this is a hot tub. And a little toasty, get a little cozy. But, you know, it's winter and a hot tub is nice and winter in most parts of the country. And I'm joking, but not by much.Anticipating this is actually why it is absolutely so fundamental that we be crystal clear and that our leaders be crystal clear that what's happening is in fact what's happening because not every problem that is named can be faced, but zero problems that we refuse to name and refuse to recognize can actually be faced. And this is where I think the strategy of hat in hand, please, sir, may I have a tuppence begging Democrats to locate a spine is wrong. And we need to stop pushing in that direction.Okay, but I guess what I'm wondering is, and I wonder this very personally, because I'm afraid that I'm doing it wrong.When I see Elon Musk shadow presidenting his way through these agencies. It basically gets rid of Congress. I mean, it's as grave a series of things as you know. And I talk about Elon Musk's anti-constitutional coup. I feel like I am describing reality as clearly as I can. I feel like I'm saying things that, given what I understand about this country and what people claim to care about, should be ringing bells.And I also feel like I can almost hear with that double consciousness, people are not going to care about that. Everybody watching this is going to care about this, right? But not all the people not watching this, who actually outnumber the people watching this. And so, is that even just doing it wrong? Like, should it just be, “Your grandma's social security check is in danger?” Like, just the practical things?Because this kind of parallels the whole thing in the election about crime and eggs and democracy, all that stuff. Am I doing it wrong when I really fixate on the anti-constitutional coup by Elon Musk?You're right to fixate on it. You're wrong in voter-facing and public-facing messaging to call it that. And it's for the reasons you've already intuited. The Constitution is an abstraction, even though it is actually a physical document, I am aware. Whenever we are in the language of protecting institutions, protecting norms, protecting democracy — democracy never bought anyone dinner.And in point of fact, the way that most people, the way that the average American thinks about democracy, if they think about it at all, is the system as it is presently construed. The thing that we have now. And by the way, the thing that we have now, I'm not loving. I'm not very fond of it.So anytime our language, our messaging implies that what we are asking for is a return to January 19th, 2025, meaning right before inauguration, people weren't psyched about that day either. And so the answer is, As you've already intuited, is how do we make it person-facing, voter-facing, American-facing? How do we make it tangible?So what do we say? We say: “This is a government of the bullies for the billionaires.” Trump and the billionaires who bought him, Musk — you can name both of them, you can name either of them — are coming for your life and your livelihood. He is coming for your freedom. He is coming for your privacy. He is coming for your information. And he is conducting a hostile takeover of our government so he can take our money.”That's the simplest way of expressing it.But do you think that is working? Right now?It's not happening enough. But, you know, I can tell you from experimentation, both within focus groups and within our own internal polling that we continuously do. Yes, the most the highest impact way that we can characterize what Musk is doing is, “a hostile takeover of our government and an armed robbery of our money and our and our very deliberate there.But ultimately, there is absolutely nothing that we can say that will ever be as loud as what we can do.Yes, we should be calling our representatives. And yes, we are rightly incensed about the fact that these people who purportedly have sworn an oath to govern in our name apparently can't be bothered to work on Fridays and, you know, don't want to use the mechanisms at their disposal to throw sand in the wheels of government in order to stop this hostile takeover.Infuriating. Rightly so. Call them. Call the Republicans, too. But understand what has stopped autocracy in other places and within our own history, when we think about the civil rights movement, when we think about ACT UP, when we think about the movement to get the Americans with Disabilities Act, and women's suffrage.Imagine if the Montgomery bus boycott folks were like, “I know, here's an idea. Let's ask the Democrats if they would pretty please end this whole completely unjust, horrifying segregation thing.”Or when folks newly in the throes of the HIV AIDS crisis, dying en masse from this disease that apparently came out of nowhere, watching their loved ones suffer and struggle, if they were like, “You know what we should do? We should ask the Democrats if they would pretty please do something about this.”No, that isn't what they did. They broke into the New York Stock Exchange, as you may know, and they hung a banner from where the bell gets rung saying, “Sell Burroughs Wellcome” which is the pharmaceutical corporation that was making AZT at the time.And sure enough, by the end of the month, the price had dropped. And not that much later, there had been an appropriations bill, the Ryan White bill, to actually bring money into this fight and force research and so on.And so what we do is so much louder than what we say, because what we do, people being out in the world saying, physically opposing this and speaking about it and writing songs about it and making parodies and making TikToks and painting “F**k the Fascists” on the side of their barn.That is actually what sways public opinion. What sways public opinion is what we call social proof. People do the things they think people like them do.And so it's this chicken-and-egg problem where you're walking around New York or I'm walking around the Bay area or someone's walking around in the middle of America and you don't see anyone else freaking out. You don't see anyone else angry. You don't see anyone else upset. And so you're like, I guess really nothing's happening. And so it's about the doing more than it is about the saying.This is so important what you're saying. And it's reframing something for me.It's almost like when we talk about protest, mass mobilization right now, resistance, I think the frame in people's mind is, the object of that is the right. You're protesting against the right, you're resisting the right. And you're hoping for maybe Democrats to be part of this. You're the subject opposing that object and you're kind of inviting them to be part of the subject.And you're reframing this like, no, no, no, the Democrats are like a second object. They're not here. They're there. They're another thing you are mobilizing against for different reasons. It's a different kind of mobilization. But you are mobilizing against their passivity and then against the things the right is doing.Does that sound right?I mean, yes and no. I think… and feel free to lob the charge of hypocrisy at me. Bring it on, because I'm about to perform a big old hypocrisy on you.I'm obviously extraordinarily pissed off at Democrats. I have spent the last many years of my career helping elect Democrats. And so you can understand how it feels especially galling to me and many of you. However, it is the fact that when our public discourse — this is where you're going to come at me, come at me because I'm guilty. Do as I say, not as I post, I would say.When we are loudly saying, “Democrats aren't doing this, Democrats aren't doing that, Democrats are weak here, Democrats are weak there, Democrats refuse.” Then that is the narrative. That is the discourse that is in the public. And insofar as people continue to view the Democrats as the rightful centerpiece of the opposition — which is a reasonable conclusion, they're purportedly the opposition party in a duopoly — it looks like the regime is unopposed. What the regime is doing is fine. People are largely O.K. with it.And so because in life you cannot actually make other people do things — it is very, very unfortunate. It's one of the hard lessons of parenting. You can't actually physically make people do things. You can only really focus on what you're doing.I'm not saying stop pressuring them, but I'm saying what would actually cause a sea change among the calcified leadership — and yes, hashtag not all Democrats, there are extraordinary Democrats who are doing the right thing, as we said earlier — is when there is a mass movement.Actually they're not leaders, they don't go first, literally, to lead means to go first. That's really all it means. And so that means that every single one of you listening right now: If you want to, you're a leader. If you want to, you're a leader.Let's look, for example, at the Black Lives Matter resurgence that happened in 2020. During that protest, during that June, public opinion of BLM moved ahead by 12 points. It was only when the protests stopped And the right-wing coordinated backlash happened that opinion swayed back, which was an intentional thing.The same thing with the Muslim ban. When Trump was first promising the Muslim ban during his first run, it polled popular.But when it actually happened, and people took the extraordinary step of driving to the airport. And you live in New York. Nobody drives — your wife doesn't drive you to the airport. I don't know your business, but I'm telling you that. Who drives to LAX? Who drives to SFO? Nobody drives to these airports. That is not a thing that happens to everyday Americans.It's showing, not telling — showing, not telling — that they are against this. That is actually what altered people's perceptions of whether or not the Muslim ban was okay or not.So that's really it. And that is what drags Democrats along. It's ordinary people showing that they disagree.So this is so helpful and you are always so helpful. Even though I've spent so long engaging with your work, there's like a particular unlock here. And a lot of people are responding to that also. I'm just going to try to summarize.I hear your point on managing the correct level of infighting or criticizing Dems. You talk about calling your representative, pressuring them to do things.Your idea about painting the barn really struck me because a lot of people — everyone who subscribes to The Ink, all their comments are like, “I call everybody, I do this, nothing's happening.”And I don't think a lot of people have thought of it as what you said, which is, yes, you're trying to pressure some leaders, but a very tangible thing you can do is increase the perception of people around you about the number of people who feel this way.Exactly. Because that is something you can do and you can measure. I'm not saying don't do the calling your reps and stuff, but that stuff just feels so remote to people I know.And people are so frustrated, like changing the perception about the number of people who feel that way around you. That is like a marching order.And the other thing to recognize and to realize, and we have a running list that we just keep for ourselves for our team of the actions that are happening right now. It is by no means comprehensive. It couldn't possibly be comprehensive — stuff is popping up everywhere. It's just the stuff that comes across our radar.Do you know how many people go to the average school board meeting in most towns? Do you know how quickly and easily you and two, three, four of your friends will be the only people at the school board meeting?A lot of what has happened in our politics is that we actually stopped organizing. And a lot of the heroic, extraordinary, wonderful organizations that I admire and respect and like count as colleagues, we all became so fixated on channeling ourselves through the electoral process. And that means that instead of organizing, everybody moved to field and called it organizing. And by field, I mean getting people registered, getting people to vote. Fine, do that. I'm not knocking it.But that's not organizing. That is not organizing. And we need to stop kidding ourselves. Organizing is finding out who runs the PTA in your town? Who runs the biggest church? Who are the Boy Scout leaders? Who are the Girl Scout leaders? Are you actually talking to people and radicalizing them in the original definition? You know, radical just means “to the root,” right? Are you actually radicalizing them in a new political understanding of what is happening? Why is it happening? And what is the origin of it? Where does it come from?So that they can withstand all of these constant right-wing drumbeats that say it's the immigrants or it's the Black people or it's the trans people or it's whomever, it's the Muslims. So that they actually have an authentic consciousness and that they themselves then are talking to other people.That's organizing.And so go local. I cannot emphasize enough, especially if you live in a smaller place, especially if you live in a red state, in a purple district, whatever.You show up at your school board meeting and the two of you or the three of you or the four of you, you show up at your city council, you're the only people there. These fascist policies, yes, they are being constructed at the national level. Of course, they are. But they have to be implemented at the local level. And it is at the local level.Let's just take, for instance, Aurora, Colorado. That is where they want to massively expand a detention facility. In order to continue with their evil draconian plan of concentration camps for people who happen to not have been born here and, you know, speak English with the wrong accent, apparently.So Aurora is not Manhattan. It is not Los Angeles. It is not D.C. It is a particular town with a particular city council with a particular set of folks. And right now there is a battle going on to define Aurora, to massively expanded detention facility there.People in that town and surrounding communities could go and say, “We are Aurora.” They could do food trucks of every ethnicity, and nationality. They could do giant dance parties saying, “We are Aurora. This is what we believe.”I'm going to go to Aurora as they do all this. I mean, as God is my witness, I will. This is my pledge: I am going to make a 10,000 or however many food truck caravan from every contiguous state to D.C, in order to have the largest bhangra, K-pop, salsa, samba, polka — I'm not intentionally leaving out any kind of music fill in all the musics — dance party to show not tell that immigrants are awesome.Because we can not live, we can not survive in a dual narrative or a three-part narrative in which immigrants are either villains, which is of course what the right says, or they're victims, which is all too often, sadly, where we have been in advocacy. What I call the ay pobrecitosnarrative. You know, with due respect to the Statue of Liberty, give me your tired or your poor. Most people feel tired and poor. They're not really out seeking that. Or the third narrative, that being immigrants are our valets. You know, they do the jobs that no one wants. They help us.Immigrants are awesome. Immigrants are joy. Immigrants are life. Immigrants are interesting. They're entrepreneurs. You know, America is supposed to be the land of the free and the home of the brave. And that's a good thing. And so let's make it that way, as you recently wrote.One of the only silver linings for me of this whole era is that the thing that I wrote about before I met you, before I did Persuaders, was a book about billionaires. And it was very difficult to convince people to care. A lot of liberal and even progressive people were like, “Why are you going after these people? Like, sure, they're not the best, but like, really? These are your enemies? You know, Bill Gates or whoever?”It was actually hard in 2018 when that book came out. It was hard. I was often on the back foot, right? I really had to make a case. People were very, very skeptical of why anyone would say anything negative about the ones who give money away and do all this stuff.It is really different. Seven years later, like everybody gets it. Everybody understands what oligarchs are, you know?Thanks to you.Well, I don't think that's the case. It's thanks to AOC and Bernie and Elizabeth Warren and others. But I wonder whether you think, again, with Elon, the oligarch frame, the warning of oligarchy — is this as salient and helpful with the mass public as we seem to think it is?Having people truly understand that this is a government by the bullies for the billionaires, that concept.I guess just the wrinkle is in a country where still a lot of people kind of want to be billionaires, is it as cool a message as I think it is?Yeah.It is, in fact, the case, as people often report, that in America, no one is poor. They're just pre-rich, right? We're all just temporarily embarrassed. You know, we just haven't made our billions. Oprah hasn't given us the car or whatever she's supposed to give us. So there is still that very, very, very deep kind of yearning and with it an admiration and a cultishness around the extraordinarily wealthy.But wow, are people pissed at the rich. I mean, that may be the only thing that has bipartisan agreement in this country is just how extraordinarily furious people are, because I think the fundamental difference is that in the olden times, this cult of people are rich because they're made out of awesome, because they're uniquely smart, because they're uniquely capable and hardworking and so on. That's largely been punctured. And people understand.So it's not just that they're rich. It's how they're rich, why they're rich. And the fact that the reason that they're rich is because they've stolen from you. It's that connection.Because sure, people can aspire to have their own, you know, whatever their dream is. In my case, an extensive shoe collection. But, you know, you do you.But the notion that the reason why people have so much money is because you don't — that is increasingly salient. And that's really the crux of it.Now, where this gets hard — and this brings us back to the earlier conversation of you can't just articulate the problem for people, although that is absolutely extraordinarily essential — they also have to feel that the articulation of the problem lends itself to something that they can do.And so in the universe in which what people are “supposed to do” is petition their government in some way or another. And I say that broadly, right? So vote, register to vote, get other people to vote, call their member of Congress, ask for policy change.It's extraordinary the degree to which people, even low information, low engagement folks, think the jig is up on that particular theory of change.And so I think we are now in a place in which people need to be directed, their anger and their ire need to be directed into what I am calling the “Mangione without murder” strategy. Without murder. Hear that whole phrase.You really do know how to coin a phrase.Yeah, we don't need to be murdering people. I just want to say on the record here that I'm telling you. Anti-murder. I'm anti-murder, whatever you heard, whatever they told you. Sharp messages, no sharp weapons.That's right.Imagine if we actually had people doing, you know, die-ins where corporate CEOs are. If we actually had people going to the places, it's easy to look up. These motherfuckers are all hypocrites. They all go to church. Why aren't we showing up in the parking lots of their churches? And this could both be MAGA Republicans and CEOs. Singing hymns that are actually about what Jesus preached. When they get out of church, say it to their faces.And so I think that the challenge with the billionaire articulation is not that it is not landing. You are correct in your supposition that it is absolutely landing. It's that it quickly becomes, well, every election is a contest between their billionaires and our billionaires. And so the solution, which presumably has been, well, that's why you should vote for Democrats.I know people are really responding to how clear your advice is. And I think it's making a lot of people feel like they know what to do more clearly than they did before. So thank you. I want to go back to that and compile all of your advice. Let's focus on marching orders for everybody here.People are in agreement with you about how grave this is and how serious it is. People feel incredibly undefended by elected Democrats in general and are not expecting them to change very soon. People are doing things already, like calling Congress, but maybe don't know the third, fourth, and fifth things to do.Can you just give us some very, very, very tangible marching orders?So the first thing I would say is in the preservation of your own mental health and wellbeing. Pick a thing that you care about and can be motivated to stay the course with.For some folks, that's going to be education. For some folks, that's going to be immigrant rights. For some folks, that's going to be policing, whatever. There are so many things happening at once that we can all become like cats with a laser pointer and make ourselves nuts.So you pick the thing. You go as local as possible about that thing. And so if it is education, just take that for instance, then you decide with yourself and a handful of your friends, you have a potluck beforehand, you do you. Do something fun and entertaining and get together beforehand. You look up in the public record when the next school board meeting is in your local community. And you go there and you make statements about ensuring that all children have the freedom to learn the truth of our past, and that all children have the freedom to belong and be who they are within their schools. And you oppose any kind of effort to implement the draconian fascist agenda in your own community.So that is one thing. You can do that within the context of immigrant rights. You can do that in the context of disability justice, racial justice, et cetera.The next piece of advice is to wear your beliefs. Get yourself a “Fabulously Fighting Fascism” t-shirt. One of the things that is most important to the right and to any authoritarian force is to suck our joy, is to suck our uniqueness, is to suck our our being. I say all the time, put up a billboard in the middle of nowhere that shows people across the gender spectrum just having themselves the best possible time, and say “Fabulously fighting fascism.”You will get so much local media and local attention, even if it's in the middle of nowhere because it is a saucy message. Show, not tell that you do not agree with this, that you refuse it.So I think the name of the game is really resistance. refusal, and ridicule. And ridicule is a key and essential element that I have danced around.Join a union, if you can join a union. Support union efforts. That is a place where deep and authentic organizing actually happens and needs to happen much, much more expansively. One of the most important keys to fighting autocracy is a strong, integrated, active, in-your-face labor community.Before we go, to leave people on a note of hope, in a lot of the messaging that you do and the formal proper messages you draft for TV ads or other communication, there's a certain structure, which I wrote about in my book. It's often the beginning and the end where more hope and uplift come in and in the middle is where you explain the obstructions to that promiseA lot of people really can't see the after of this. It's very hard to see anything. I find it very difficult to visualize 2026. I find it very, very difficult to visualize 2035. I could see a scenario where it's totally fine, this thing blew over, it imploded, and my kids are just living a normal life, vaguely remembering this. And I could imagine a scenario in which most people I know don't live in this country anymore. It's so hard to picture the after.Can you help us picture the after in a hopeful way if we get this right, if we do all the things you're talking about?The fact that you can't picture 2026. I can't either. And that is either extraordinarily terrifying or fantastic. The reason why it is potentially fantastic is because it takes a fundamental rupture, a big rupture that we think that we have already had, but we have not — because we are still waking up in the morning and going to the store and answering our telephones and checking our social and getting our kids to school and all the things that, of course, we need to continue to do.That rupture has not happened for most people. And it is only in a fundamental rupture that we get a period — and obviously, the decimation of it is one of the most tragic and horrible things in American history. But Reconstruction wouldn't have happened without the Civil War. The New Deal wouldn't have happened without the decimation of the Gilded Age and God forbid, the Depression.Moments of extraordinary rupture are moments of extraordinary possibility where, as my colleague, Mike Podhorzer points out, pre the Revolution, when people were hanging out in the colonies, and trying, you know, to do the Boston Tea Party and to petition the king, “Hey, yo, like, we're not fond of this. We're not keen.”And I'm not discounting the fact that things were pretty bad for most people and enslavement and no women's rights and so on. I'm not making believe that that period was a beautiful era in American history.The only point that I'm making is that there has to be a rupture so fundamental that people are like, “Oh no, how about we just don't have a king? How about we just don't be a colony anymore? How about we decide that we are going to invent a new country from scratch?”Obviously not really from scratch because of the destruction and usurpation and genocide of Native people — again, I am not trying to say this was like a beautiful era.All I'm trying to say is that in the unknowing, in the what-the-f**k-is-going-to-come-next, is actually where invention comes. And it requires us recognizing that. To give you a tautology, the problem is made out of the problem, as we were discussing at the top of our conversation. To think that a system that is working largely as designed, to bring us representatives who, with notable and noteworthy and laudable exceptions, are not actually serving our interests and are not stepping up to the plate. To think that they would behave any differently is to not understand that the entire progressive movement is begging the master for money to buy tools to take down his house, and it always has been.And because we've continued to limp along in this, “But maybe we'll win this election, but maybe we'll get people to vote, but maybe we'll pass this one little policy,” is not to recognize the fact that actually within U.S. politics, there is no correlation between majority support for a policy and that policy passing. And so we have to stop thinking that tinkering at the edges of the old ways, as we have done, is going to yield a new result.And I don't know if this isn't sounding hopeful, but to me, it is always the case. The most fundamental truth of life is that the future is made out of the decisions that we take collectively.We make the future. What comes next will be decided on the basis of what we do. And that's up to us.Readers like you make The Ink possible and keep it independent. If you haven't already joined us, sign up today for our mailing list, support our work, and help build a free and fearless media future by becoming a paying subscriber. And if you're already a part of our community, thank you! We hope you'll consider giving a subscription to The Ink as a gift. Get full access to The.Ink at the.ink/subscribe

After kicking off the hour with a new beat for Gelo feat. Lavar Ball, Stugotz calls Mike Vrabel the most overrated coach in NFL history. Then, did Williams Shakespeare invent every modern phrase? Did he invent swagger? Plus, A.J. Brown is a big reader, Greg "teaches" the crew about Mike the headless chicken, and Chris Cote did what he could to kill a cockroach this morning. Also, it's time for Stugotz's Weekend Observations including the Washington Commanders, Jordan Like, the Patrick Mahomes of Ryan Tannehills, Jim Harblah, and an affair with a pint of Baskin Robbins ice cream. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We are back!! We missed you guys so much and decided to come back with a 2 parter. In part 1, we will discuss the murders at Captain Ds, McDonalds, and Baskin Robbins that happened in early 1997 in the Nashville and Clarksville areas. Tune in to hear the details we know about the crimes and the victims.Instagram: @caffeinatedcrimespodTwitter: @caffcrimespodEmail: caffeinatedcrimespod@gmail.comFacebook: Caffeinated CrimesSupport the show

Chris Egan, KING 5 TV, joins Jason “Puck” Puckett for his weekly visit.  You never know where the conversation goes and since Puck celebrated his 49th birthday on Thursday, Puck and Egan want to bring back 1980's birthday parties for adults.  Tecmo Bowl. Shakey's Pizza. Baskin-Robbins ice cream birthday cake.  Jolt cola. VHS tapes and Nerf hoops! They wonder how much money adults would pay to have an '80's themed party?  It would include a sleepover and sneaking out to meet up with girls, or wives for that matter! The high school football season wraps up this weekend and they discuss and preview the championship games.  

On Friday's Daily Puck Drop, Jason “Puck” Puckett is joined by Jim Moore, the Go-2-Guy, who pops on every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.  Former Seahawks linebacker Lofa Tatupu, our football handicapper TroyWins.comand Puck wraps up every Friday show with Chris Egan from KING 5 TV. Puck and Jim open up the show talking about the Seahawks, why don't they talk more about the Kraken, Stephen A. Smith making big dollars and celebrating Puck's 49th birthday and looking ahead to 50! Lofa Tatupu joined Puck and Jim to chat about the Seahawks and the defensive turnaround since Ernest Jones joined the team. What has his impact meant to the defensive and specifically Leonard Williams.  Does Lofa feel the pressure on Ryan Grubb is warranted?  Is it a must win game against Arizona?  Also, Lofa, Puck and Jim go around the room and give their “Highest Performer of the Weekend” brought to you by 1937farms.com Puck and Jim switch gears to their gambling expert,Troywins.comand they go over all the championship games for the weekend, including Troy's “Lock of the Week” and their “Dogs of the Week.”  Chris Egan, KING 5 TV, joins Jason “Puck” Puckett for his weekly visit.  You never know where the conversation goes and since Puck celebrated his 49th birthday on Thursday, Puck and Egan want to bring back 1980's birthday parties for adults.  Tecmo Bowl. Shakey's Pizza. Baskin-Robbins ice cream birthday cake.  Jolt cola. VHS tapes and Nerf hoops! They wonder how much money adults would pay to have an '80's themed party?  It would include a sleepover and sneaking out to meet up with girls, or wives for that matter! The high school football season wraps up this weekend and they discuss and preview the championship games.  Finally, Puck wraps up the show with “Hey, What the Puck!”   Puck goes back to high school football and tells kids and parents to enjoy the last weekend of football.  It's a time that you never get back and it's the absolute best period of time to go through. 

Tom and Julie and Producer Brett celebrate Threatsgiving 2024 with an ice cream taste test featuring seasonal flavors from Baskin Robbins, Salt & Straw, and Jeni's. Plus Ayn Rand, Frank Zappa album names, the Oakwood Apartments, the chicken big mac, and more!SUPPORT DOUBLE THREAT ON PATREON Weekly Bonus Episodes, Monthly Livestreams, Video Episodes, and More!https://www.patreon.com/DoubleThreatPod  WATCH VIDEO CLIPS OF DOUBLE THREAT https://www.youtube.com/@doublethreatpod  JOIN THE DOUBLE THREAT FAN GROUPS *Discord https://discord.com/invite/PrcwsbuaJx *Reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/doublethreatfriends *Facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/doublethreatfriends  DOUBLE THREAT MERCHhttps://www.teepublic.com/stores/double-threat  TOTALLY EFFED UP T-SHIRTS https://www.teepublic.com/user/dttfu  SEND SUBMISSIONS TO DoubleThreatPod@gmail.com  FOLLOW DOUBLE THREAT https://twitter.com/doublethreatpod https://www.instagram.com/doublethreatpod  DOUBLE THREAT IS A FOREVER DOG PODCASThttps://foreverdogpodcasts.com/podcasts/double-threat  Theme song by Mike Krol Artwork by Michael Kupperman Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Tom and Julie and Producer Brett celebrate Threatsgiving 2024 with an ice cream taste test featuring seasonal flavors from Baskin Robbins, Salt & Straw, and Jeni's. Plus Ayn Rand, Frank Zappa album names, the Oakwood Apartments, the chicken big mac, and more! SUPPORT DOUBLE THREAT ON PATREON  Weekly Bonus Episodes, Monthly Livestreams, Video Episodes, and More! https://www.patreon.com/DoubleThreatPod   WATCH VIDEO CLIPS OF DOUBLE THREAT  https://www.youtube.com/@doublethreatpod   JOIN THE DOUBLE THREAT FAN GROUPS  *Discord https://discord.com/invite/PrcwsbuaJx  *Reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/doublethreatfriends  *Facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/doublethreatfriends   DOUBLE THREAT MERCH https://www.teepublic.com/stores/double-threat   TOTALLY EFFED UP T-SHIRTS  https://www.teepublic.com/user/dttfu   SEND SUBMISSIONS TO  DoubleThreatPod@gmail.com   FOLLOW DOUBLE THREAT  https://twitter.com/doublethreatpod  https://www.instagram.com/doublethreatpod   DOUBLE THREAT IS A FOREVER DOG PODCAST https://foreverdogpodcasts.com/podcasts/double-threat   Theme song by Mike Krol  Artwork by Michael Kupperman Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Keith and Chad recap their 31 FOR 31 where they watched and discussed 31 Horror flickS in October 24'! Soooo many delicious flavors...grab a tiny spoon and try a few.....Ya get it?... Baskin Robins 31 flavors.... DON'T MAKE ME STOP THIS CAR!!

This week the gang breaks out the fall flavors and talks tear-based whiskey in the Snews! Support this podcast at https://www.patreon.com/LetsTalkAboutSnacks    -- Snack News: Wendy's Is Releasing A New Frosty Flavor That's Perfect For Fall: https://www.delish.com/food-news/a62705197/wendys-salted-caramel-frosty/ Reese's Debuts DIY Deconstructed Peanut Butter Cup Kit: https://hypebeast.com/2024/11/reeses-deconstructed-peanut-butter-cup-kits-release-info  You won't brie-lieve Baskin-Robbins' latest cheeseboard-inspired ice cream flavor: https://www.today.com/food/news/baskin-robbins-cheese-flavored-ice-cream-rcna178374 Fireball Introduces Crierball — a Limited-Edition Whisky That Allows Football Fans to Actually Drink Rivals' Tears: https://people.com/fireball-limited-edition-whisky-with-football-fans-tears-crierball-8737714  Locate Lauren on Twitter (@rawrglicious) and check out her Onlyfans! Find Conrad on Twitter (@ConradZimmerman) and peruse his other projects on this Linktree thing. Linda can be located on Instagram (@shoresofpluto)! Logo by Cosmignon! See more of her cool art at https://www.cosmignon.info/ Music by Michael "Skitch" Schiciano. Hear more of his work at https://skitch.bandcamp.com/

Today on the Woody and Wilcox Show: Fun With Football Audio; The man that did the voice for AOL passed away; Escaped monkeys are still on the loose in South Carolina; Intel is bringing back coffee for its employees; TGIFridays files for bankruptcy and you should use your gift cards; Guest/family horror stories; Royal Caribbean ship encounters unexpected waves; Black balls of goo are appearing on Australian beaches; Baskin Robbins offers brie cheese ice cream; And more!

Sanjay shares how to run a successful franchise by following brand processes and adjusting to the shift towards digital, loyalty-driven operations. He also discusses the value of enterprise risk management, compliance, and consistency. Welcome to Elevating Brick and Mortar. A podcast about how operations and facilities drive brand performance.On today's episode, we talk with Sanjay Jain, the Chairman of the National DCP Board of Directors and independent franchise business owner. NDCP brings global expertise in strategic sourcing, distribution, restaurant solutions, business services, and supply chain to serve Dunkin', one of the world's leading restaurant brands.Guest Bio:Sanjay Jain serves as the Chairman of the National DCP Board of Directors. He brings 35 years of Accounting, Finance, and Information Technology experience with Fortune 500 companies to the supply chain management cooperative.Jain joined the NDCP Board in 2016, representing Series C. Prior to becoming Board Chairman, Jain served as the Treasurer, co-chaired the Sourcing Committee, and spearheaded the Internal Audit function at NDCP through his role on the Finance/Audit Committee. He currently owns a large network of Dunkin'/Baskin Robbins stores in Queens and Long Island, New York. As an elected District Advisory Co-Chair franchisee from Queens, he is actively involved with the Development Committee, Compliance, NY Sales Taxes and the Wage Group. In his capacity as a member of Dunkin's Brand Advisory Committee, he works with the Menu Management and Development Advisory Sub-Committees.Jain's work as a financial executive and certified public accountant in the retail, food and supply chain industry has included an emphasis on internal controls, financial reporting, tax, and risk management. As the Executive Vice President and Chief Internal Auditor of Abovenet Inc., Jain helped turn the Company from bankruptcy into a publicly traded company on the New York Stock Exchange by working closely with the Audit Committee and the Board of Directors. He developed their annual strategy, conducted risk analysis, and developed corporate plans for both domestic and foreign entities.He also has ten years of public accounting and consulting experience. In his role as Audit Director at Ernst & Young and BDO Seidman in the Metro New York area, Jain helped clients streamline both their operations and control processes, managing and leading groups of professional auditors worldwide that saved his clients millions of dollars. He has been actively involved as a Board member with the Institute of Internal Auditors and has presented at the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants forum.Jain has a Management Information Systems degree from the University of Hartford, a Master of Business Administration degree from Dallas Baptist University and a Master of Commerce degree from the University of Rajasthan in India. Timestamps:13:45 - About NDCP05:17 - Sanjay's venture into franchise ownership08:53 - Following brand guidelines10:24 - Handling consumer expectations20:31 - How do you ensure consistency? 28:35 - Dealing with scarce human capital33:49 - The consumer of the future39:35 - Advice for franchisees41:13 - Where to find SanjaySPONSOR:ServiceChannel brings you peace of mind through peak facilities performance.Rest easy knowing your locations are:Offering the best possible guest experienceLiving up to brand standardsOperating with minimal downtimeServiceChannel partners with more than 500 leading brands globally to provide visibility across operations, the flexibility to grow and adapt to consumer expectations, and accelerated performance from their asset fleet and service providers.Links:Connect with Sanjay on LinkedInConnect with Sid Shetty on LinkedinCheck out the ServiceChannel Website

In this edition of BaskTrend-Robbins, Jack and Miles discuss The Rizzler's Jimmy Fallon appearance, Baskin Robbins introducing the "Brie My Guest" flavor of ice cream, McDonald's finally being allowed to "fix" their own ice cream machines, Harris' Ellipse rally, a vulgar billboard featuring Kamala Harris, a MAGA candidate caught stealing ballots in Indiana and much more!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I saw one of those bumper frames for your license plate. It said, "Happiness is being a grandparent." Oh, that's the truth! I mean, I remember when I was a little kid. Happiness was having a grandparent with you, especially my grandmother. Because it always meant surprises; it meant going out to eat, and it almost always meant money! That's what grandparents are for, of course, to spoil kids. Any time I knew that I would be seeing Grandma I was excited to see what surprises she would bring. If we're that way about grandma, we should really be looking forward to what Father has for us today; that's Father with a capital F. I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Praying, Then Expecting." As you know, life is divided into 24-hour chunks. We have this sort of death and resurrection thing that takes place every day. You know, we sort of die about 10:00, 11:00, or 12:00 o'clock at night, and sort of start all over again the next morning. It's like beginning again the next day. So, life isn't this big old blob - life. It just really comes down to these 24-hour things doesn't it: Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, etc.? There's a very interesting look in the Bible at a day in the life of a child of God, because that's really what it amounts to...have a good day. That's how you live the life of a Christian, you have a good day. Go back to the book of Psalms, and here's what a day in the life looks like at beginning and end; sunrise and sunset in the life of a child of God. Our word for today from the Word of God, Psalm 5:3 - "In the morning, O Lord, You hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before You and wait in expectation." Okay, that's one end of the day. Let's go to the other end of the day. The sun has gone down now. Psalm 4:8, same page in my Bible, says this; "I will lie down and sleep in peace, for You alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety." Now, it's interesting as you read this morning beginning with the Lord, beginning this 24-hour period of time. It talks about the many moods of praying. There's not just one mood of praying; it's sort of like Baskin Robbins. There are a lot of flavors you can pray in. It says, "Give ear to my words, O Lord." Okay, that's just kind of making a statement. Then it says, "Consider my sighing." This is the kind of praying when you're totally depleted; you don't even know what to say. "O Lord, I can hardly get this out." And then it says, "Listen to my cry..." my cry for help. This is desperation. And then he says, "I lay my requests before the Lord" every morning laying out the concerns of my heart. By the way, did you do that this morning? Do you do that every morning? Talk to Him and say, "Lord, here's what I'm afraid of today; here's what I'm hoping for today; here's what I'm dreaming about; here's what I'm crying about; here are the people I love; here are the needs I'm anticipating." You empty your hands. Now, how can you tell if you've really prayed or if you just went through the motions? Notice that it says, "I lay my request before the Lord and wait in expectation." Hey, that's like Grandma's visit; waiting in expectation for her surprises. You know you've really prayed when you get off your knees expectantly and you go through your day looking for the fingerprints of God on that day. It may not be like I thought it would be, but there will be His surprises. Expectation is the byproduct of faith. So, are you uh... expecting? You say, "No, I'm a man. How could I be expecting?" No, I mean expecting good things from God. Expecting God's touch on what you've turned over to Him. No wonder at night we can lie down and sleep in peace. You allow time each morning to turn over the specifics of that day to Jesus, and then you live in an air of expectancy. My grandmother seldom disappointed me, and your Heavenly Father never will.

The return of Depesci Alex Mode, wrong Dave, Ralph and Kevin moments, Mustafa, Cheap Trick, a Soggy doggy, Mike is mad, haircut chat, some Rodney greats and Baskin Robbins!

You can use these points for cruises, hotels and some really compelling deals on flights, of course. In this episode, we'll discuss some of our favorite uses for Virgin Points. (01:28) - Tips for using AutoSlash for car rentals... (06:50) - The Amex Gold card's Dunkin' benefits can apparently be used at Baskin Robbins! Read more about the Amex Gold Card here. (09:58) - Qatar devaluation impacts using Qatar Avios to book American & Alaska (14:06) - Read more about award ticket change and cancellation fees here. (16:02) - LifeMiles devaluation (not all bad news) (17:44) - Catch our Learning to Love LifeMiles episode 257 here. (19:03) - Air France/KLM is bookable again with Virgin Points Main Event: Best uses for Virgin points (21:56) - Virgin Red & Virgin Atlantic Flying Club share same points, just link your accounts (22:29) - It's easy to get Virgin Points (22:49) - Learn more about frequent transfer bonuses here. (23:10) - Learn more about the Virgin Red credit card here. (23:19) - Delta One to Europe is effectively dead (24:37) - Now, fly Air France / KLM short distances in/near Europe (29:36) - Fly Air France/KLM to/from Europe (33:11) - Economy to/from London (fly Delta or Virgin Atlantic) (35:50) - Learn more about Virgin Voyages here. (39:39) - Read Nick's post on getting free cruises from status matches here. (42:34) - More rare Virgin Point deals... (47:25) - What do you do when a Marriott nightly upgrade award would put you in a suite with a lower room occupancy than the lower, standard room (and a lower occupancy rate than you need)?

Were these strange ice cream flavors really served at Baskin Robbins?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Reilly and Alf are reading Reviews on Baskin Robbins while trying to depose of the young king and put clothes on dogs. >>>>>

Are participation trophies ruining kids? Jason Feifer debunks myths and reveals the surprising century-long history behind the debate on Skeptical Sunday! Welcome to Skeptical Sunday, a special edition of The Jordan Harbinger Show where Jordan and a guest break down a topic that you may have never thought about, open things up, and debunk common misconceptions. This time around, we're joined by Jason Feifer, the editor in chief of Entrepreneur magazine, host of the Build for Tomorrow podcast, and author of Build for Tomorrow: An Action Plan for Embracing Change, Adapting Fast, and Future-Proofing Your Career. On This Week's Skeptical Sunday: As it turns out, participation trophies aren't some newfangled millennial invention. These shiny symbols of showing up have been collecting dust on shelves since your great-grandpappy was in short pants. We're talking 1922, folks — when the biggest participation trophy was surviving the Spanish Flu! All of these folks bellyaching about participation trophies probably have a few lurking in their own attics. It's like complaining about kids these days and their gimmicky rock music while air-guitaring to Led Zeppelin. Pot, meet kettle — you're both made of participation trophy material. Despite what the armchair psychologists down at the local watering hole might tell you, there's no scientific evidence that participation trophies turn kids into snowflakes. As they grow, kids naturally get more interested in winning than just showing up — like trading in their tricycle for a Harley. The whole participation trophy hullabaloo is less about plastic awards and more about our collective freak-out over parenting, work ethic, and why these darn kids won't get off our lawns. It's just generational anxiety dressed up in a well-worn, borrowed suit. Want to level up your success game? Ditch the black-and-white thinking. Winning's got more flavors than Baskin-Robbins, so keep an open mind for what's possible. Embrace the past, eye the future, and you'll be batting home runs with life's curveballs like a pro. Connect with Jordan on Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. If you have something you'd like us to tackle here on Skeptical Sunday, drop Jordan a line at jordan@jordanharbinger.com and let him know! Connect with Jason Feifer at his website, Twitter, Instagram, and

With a dose of mindfulness and a we bit under the influence, Chris dives into work secrets that would terrify the public, celebrates a podcast milestone, grows grateful for a new stage in his career, talks quitting Lexapro cold turkey, ugly sobs to Ariana Grande's new album, hops back on the toxic gossip train, squirms as everything root canal is revealed, winces at housekeeping horror stories, applauds hotel receptionists, condemns Brandy Melville style checks, reveals who receives animal heads in the mail, buzzes about blowouts, dishes out some bad news about Baskin-Robbins, gets blown away by biology, and condemns all things corporate.Follow Unhinged with Chris Klemens: • http://instagram.com/unhingedwithchrisklemens• https://www.tiktok.com/@unhingedclipsProduced by Chris Klemens (https://www.youtube.com/chris), Jake Wachtel (https://www.instagram.com/jacobwachtel/ ) & Justin Bretter (https://justinbretter.com)Filmed and Edited by Justin Bretter (https://www.instagram.com/fieldsobriety/)Special thanks to Jake Wachtel (https://www.noworriesentertainment.com/about-us-01) Please note that this episode may contain paid endorsements and advertisements for products and services. Individuals on the show may have a direct or indirect financial interest in products or services referred to in this episode.Produced by Dear Media.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.