Podcast appearances and mentions of Brad Butler

In today's partner episode of the 'My DPC Story' podcast, host Maryal Concepcion discusses the rise and successes of the Direct Primary Care (DPC) model with guests Dr. Brad Brown (fellow DPC Doctor and My DPC Story Alum) and Brad Butler, Head of Sales at Hint Health. They delve into the significance of the DPC community, tech innovations from Hint Health, and the continuous growth of the DPC movement. Dr. Brad shares his experiences from starting Strive Direct Care during residency to contributing to the Hint ecosystem. Brad Butler discusses Hint Health's role in supporting DPCs through resources like the startup toolkit, their bootcamp program, Hint Connect and the upcoming Hint Summit (Aug 24-27th, 2025). GET YOUR HINT STARTUP KIT HERE AND GET PLUGGED INTO THE HINT COMMUNITY TODAY!Support the showBe A My DPC Story PATREON MEMBER! SPONSOR THE PODMy DPC Story VOICEMAIL! DPC SWAG!FACEBOOK * INSTAGRAM * LinkedIn * TWITTER * TIKTOK * YouTube

A kitchen fire at the Labrador Inn forced an evacuation in Happy Valley-Goose Bay. Hear from fire chief Brad Butler and Nunatsiavut Government's Krystal Saunders on the quick response and what's next.

Welcome to Another Look, our weekly podcast where we look into last Sunday's sermon and explore its meanings and applications. This week, we're excited to be joined by —Brad Butler and Duke Atwell—as we dive into Romans 12:3-8. Together, we discuss the dangers of comparison, the significance of understanding our spiritual gifts, and how each of us plays a vital role in the body of Christ. Tune in as we explore how we can better serve God and each other by recognizing and using our unique gifts for His glory.

This is T-ENT SPORTS PODCAST EPISODE 140 and this morning I have motivational speaker Brad Butler ll and we discussed his journey to becoming a motivational speaker, his collegiate football career and more please check this episode out you don't want to miss it.

The town of Happy Valley-Goose Bay shut down its Emergency Operations Centre at 5 pm on Thursday. We hear an update on the town's emergency response from Brad Butler, the Happy Valley-Goose Bay fire chief

Around 1910, Black farmers collectively owned over 16 million acres of farmland. A century later, over 90% of that land is no longer owned by Black farmers. In Lee's own family, the acquisition and loss of land has been a contentious issue for nearly every generation, sometimes leading to tragic circumstances. In this episode, Lee heads back to Alabama to meet his cousin Zollie, a longtime steward of the family land, to learn more.Lee is later joined by Jillian Hishaw, an agricultural lawyer and author, who has devoted her life to helping Black families keep their land. They discuss the tumultuous history of Black land ownership and what Black families should do to keep land in the family.TranscriptLee Hawkins (host): We wanted to give a heads up that this episode includes talk of abuse and acts of violence. You can find resources on our website whathappenedinalabama.org. Listener discretion is advised. Hi, this is Lee Hawkins, and we're about to dive into episode four of What Happened In Alabama. It's an important conversation about the history of land in Black communities – how it was acquired, how it was taken, lost, and sometimes given away, over the past century – but you'll get a lot more out of it if you go back and listen to the prologue first. That'll give you some context for putting the whole series in perspective. Do that, and then join us back here. Thank you so much. [music starts]Around 1910, Black farmers collectively owned over 16 million acres of farmland. A century later, 90% of that land is no longer in the hands of Black farmers. Economists estimate that the value of land lost is upwards of 300 billion dollars.This is an issue that's personal for me. There were large successful farms on both sides of my family that we no longer own, or only own a fraction of now. How we became separated from our land is part of the trauma and fear that influenced how my parents raised me. I want to get to the heart of what happened and why. That's the goal of this episode. I'm Lee Hawkins, and this is conversation number four, What Happened In Alabama: The Land.Zollie: I may not have money in my pocket. But if I have that land, that is of value. That is my – my kids can fall back on this land, they'll have something.That's Zollie Owens. He's my cousin on my dad's side, and Uncle Ike's great-grandson. Zollie lives in Georgiana, Alabama, not far from Uncle Ike's farm. Uncle Ike is a legend in my family. He was my Grandma Opie's brother, and very much the patriarch of the family until he passed in 1992. I only met him once, back in 1991 when my family drove down to Alabama. But his name and presence have held a larger-than-life place in my psyche ever since.Zollie: And so that was instilled in me back then from watching Uncle Ike and my uncles, his sons, do all that work on that land.For the first time since my visit with my family in 1991, we're headed back there. Zollie's lived his whole life in this town. It's where he played and worked on the farm as a kid, where he got married, and where he raised his family. And because Uncle Ike had such an influence on him, he's made working and farming the land his life. I would say that out of all my cousins, the land is the most important to him. And that was instilled in him through Uncle Ike. Zollie: This man. I don't know if he was perfect, but he was perfect to me. I didn't see him do anything wrong from my understanding. And reason being, because whenever he said something, it generally come to pass.He was extremely respected and well-liked. So much so that years after his death, his impact is still felt.Zollie: I have favor off of his name now today. When they found out that I'm his grandson, I get favor off of his name because of who he was. And that's not for me to just go out and tear his name down, but it's to help keep up his name.Lee: Oh, that was one thing that was mentioned about credit – that way back in the day he had incredible credit around the town. That even his kids, that they would say, “Oh, you're Ike's kids. You don't have to pay. Pay me tomorrow,” or whatever, [laughter] which was a big deal then, because Black people didn't get credit a lot of times. Black people were denied credit just based on the color of their skin. But he seems to have been a very legendary figure around this town. Zollie: Being amenable, being polite, speaking to people, talking to 'em about my granddad and everything. And so once I do that, they get the joy back, remembering, reminiscing how good he was to them – Black and white.[music starts]Cousin Zollie spent a lot of time at Uncle Ike's when he was a kid. Like all my cousins who knew Uncle Ike, he had fond memories of him. Zollie: He passed when I was like 12 or 13, but I remember him sitting me in my lap or sitting on the shoulder of the chair and he would say, “Man, the Lord gonna use you one day, the Lord gonna use you. You smart, you're gonna be a preacher one day.” And like so many of the men in my family, Zollie is very active in the church. In fact, he became a preacher, and even started a gospel group. And he's preached at Friendship Baptist, where the funeral services for my Grandma Opie were held.We bonded over both growing up in the music ministry, listening to our elders singing those soul-stirring hymnals they'd sing every Sunday.Lee: And now, of course, they didn't even, I realize that a lot of times they weren't even singing words. They were just humming –Zollie: Just humming. Lee: You know? Zollie: Oh yes. Lee: And then the church would do the call and response. And the way that that worked, somebody would just say [singing], "One of these days, it won't be long," you know, and then –Zollie: [singing] “You're gonna look for me, and I'll be gone.” Lee: Yup. [laughter][Lee humming] [Zollie singing]Lee: Yeah. [Zollie singing]Lee: Yeah. [Lee laughs]Uncle Ike owned a 162-acre farm in Georgiana. Zollie and his wife took me back to visit it. The farm is no longer in the family, but the current owner, Brad Butler, stays in touch with Zollie, and he invited us to come and check out the property. Zollie: There was a lot of pecan trees, which he planted himself. Kyana: These are all pecans? Brad: Yup, these are pecans. These are, the big ones are pecans. That's a pear.Zollie's wife: And that's a pear, okay.Brad: Yeah.Lee: Did he plant that too? Zollie: Which one?Lee: The pecans? Zollie: Yes, he did. Yes, he did. Brad: But now, come here. Let me, let me show you this pear tree. This pear tree will put out more pears than any tree you've ever seen in your life. Lee: Oh, yeah?Brad: Yup, there'll be a thousand pears on this tree.These are all trees Uncle Ike planted decades ago. It was an active farm up to the 1980s – and a gathering place for family and so many other people in the region. The property is split up in two sides by a small road. One one side is where all the pecan and peach trees are. The other side has a large pond about twice the length of a pro basketball court. Beyond that, it's all woods. [walking sounds]As we walk, I look down at the ground beneath my feet at the red soil that many associate with Alabama and other parts of the deep south. It's a bright red rust color, and it's sticky. There's no way to avoid getting it all over and staining your shoes. Lee: Why is the dirt so red here? Zollie: It's been moved in. Lee: Okay.Zollie: The red dirt has been moved in for the road purpose – Lee: I see. Zollie: It get hardened. And it is hard like a brick, where you can drive on it. The black dirt doesn't get hard. It's more ground for growing, and it won't be hard like a brick. Zollie's referring to what's underneath this red clay that makes the land so valuable: the rich, fertile soil that makes up the Black Belt – a stretch of land across the state that was prime soil for cotton production. This land wasn't just valuable for all the ways it offered sustenance to the family, but also for everything it cost them, including their blood. When I was 19 years old, I found out that Uncle Ike's father, my great-great-grandfather, Isaac Pugh Senior, was murdered. Isaac Pugh Senior was born before emancipation in 1860, the son of an enslaved woman named Charity. His father remains a mystery, but since Isaac was very fair-skinned, we suspect he was a white man. And the genealogy experts I've worked with explained that the 18% of my DNA that's from whites from Europe, mainly Wales, traces back to him and Grandma Charity. The way it was told to me the one time I met Uncle Ike, is that Isaac Pugh Senior lived his life unapologetically. He thrived as a hunter and a trapper, and he owned his own farm, his own land, and his own destiny. And that pissed plenty of white folks off. In 1914, when he was 54 years old, Isaac was riding his mule when a white man named Jack Taylor shot him in the back. The mule rode his bleeding body back to his home. His young children were the first to see him. I called my dad after one of my Alabama trips, to share some of the oral history I'd gotten from family members.Lee: When he ran home, her and Uncle Ike and the brothers and sisters that were home, they ran out. And they saw their father shot full of buckshot in his back. Lee Sr.: Mm mm mm. Mm hm.Lee: They pulled him off the horse and he was 80% dead, and he died, he died later that night.Lee Sr.: With them? Wow. Lee: Yeah.Soon after Isaac died, the family was threatened by a mob of white people from around the area, and they left the land for their safety. Someone eventually seized it, and without their patriarch, the family never retrieved the land and just decided to start their lives over elsewhere. Knowing his father paid a steep price for daring to be an entrepreneur and a landowner, Uncle Ike never took land ownership for granted. He worked hard and eventually he bought his own 162-acre plot, flanked by beautiful ponds and acres upon acres of timber. [music]Over four years of interviews, Dad and I talked a lot about the murder of Isaac Pugh Senior. Uncle Ike told us about it during that visit in 1991, but years passed before I saw anything in writing about the murder.Before that, I'd just been interviewing family members about what they'd heard. And their accounts all matched up. For years, some family members interested in the story had even gone down to the courthouse in Greenville to find the records. On one visit, the clerk looked up at one of my cousins and said, “Y'all still lookin' into that Ike Pugh thing? Y'all need to leave that alone.” But they never gave up. Then, I found something in the newspaper archive that would infuse even more clarity into the circumstances surrounding the murder of my great-grandfather Ike Senior. It brought me deeper into What Happened In Alabama, and the headline was as devastating as it was liberating.There it was, in big, block letters, in the Montgomery Advertiser: WHITE FARMER SHOOTS NEGRO IN THE BACK. The shooting happened in 1914, on the same day as my birthday.It read: “Ike Pew, a negro farmer living on the plantation of D. Sirmon, was shot and killed last night by a white farmer named Jack Taylor. An Angora goat belonging to Mr. Taylor got into the field of Pew and was killed by a child of Pew. This is said to be the reason Taylor shot the Negro. The Negro was riding a mule when he received a load of buckshot in his back.”My dad was surprised to hear all the new details. Grandma Opie herself only told Dad that he'd died in a hunting accident. Lee: Do you realize that when your mom's father was killed, she was nine?Lee Sr.: She was nine?Lee: She was nine. And she never told you that her dad was killed? Lee Sr.: Well, let me think about that. My sisters told me that. Not my mom. My mom didn't talk about anything bad to me.I asked Zollie about Isaac, and if he ever remembers Uncle Ike talking about his father's murder. Zollie: No, I never heard that story. No, no, never. Not that I can remember him mentioning it. No sir. I can't say that I'm surprised by this answer. By now, I've seen how so many of our elders kept secrets from the younger generations, because they really didn't want to burden us with their sorrow. But I couldn't help but think, “If these trees could talk.” Walking around the family property, I feel the weight of history in the air. To me, that history makes the land valuable beyond a deed or dollar amount.Uncle Ike's farm is no longer in the family. It wasn't taken violently the way his father's farm was, but it fell victim to something called Heir's Property, which as I realized talking to Zollie, can be just as heartbreaking and economically damaging to generations of Black landowners. Zollie: I may not have money in my pocket. But if I have that land that is of value, that is money. [music starts]When Zollie was younger, he lived on part of Uncle Ike's land and he paid lot rent every month. When Uncle Ike passed in 1992, he had a will. In it, he left the land to his living children, but it wasn't clear how it should be divided up. His son, Pip, was the only one living on the land, so that's who Zollie paid rent to. But when he died, there was no documentation to prove that Zollie had been paying rent. Zollie: And so when it came up in court, I did not have no documentation, no legal rights to it.After the death of a property owner, and without proper estate plans, land often becomes “heirs property,” which means that the law directs that the land is divided among descendents of the original owners. The law requires “heirs” to reach a group consensus on what to do with the land. They inherit the responsibility of legal fees to establish ownership, property fees, and any past debt.Zollie wanted to keep the land in the family. He was ready to continue farming on it as he had been for 17 years. But some other family members weren't interested. Many had long left Georgiana and the country life for Birmingham or larger cities up north, like my father and his sisters. Some didn't want to take on the responsibilities of maintaining the land.Zollie: The part of the land that I was living on, on the Pugh family estate, it got sold out from up under me. I could have never dreamt of anything like that was gonna happen to me. Where I would have to move off the family land. The family didn't come together. They couldn't even draw me up a deed to take over the spot I was on. In the South today, “heirs property” includes about 3.5 million acres of land – valued at 28 billion dollars. Heirs property laws have turned out to be one of the biggest factors contributing to the loss of Black family land in America. It's devastating not just for the loss of acreage but the loss of wealth, because when the court orders a sale of the land, it's not sold on the market, it's sold at auction, usually for much less than it's worth. Brad: When this thing sold at auction, Hudson Hines bought it, and they cut the timber. That's Brad Butler again. He bought Uncle Ike's farm at auction in 2015.Brad: And we were just gonna buy it, kind of fix it up a little bit and then sell it and go do something else. Towards the end of our tour, my cousin Zollie turns to Brad and makes him an offer. Zollie: You know, some of the family, like myself and Mr. Lee, want to get together and make you an offer. Would you be willing to sell? Brad shakes his head and points to his son, who's been hanging out with us on the tour of the land. Brad: Not right now. Now right now. This is, this is his. And we've done so much trying to get it ready.It's his land, he says. His son's. It's heartbreaking to hear, but I didn't expect any different. It makes me think about Uncle Ike and if he ever thought things would pan out this way. After the property tour with Brad, Zollie invited me over to his house, where I asked him how he thinks Uncle Ike would feel. Zollie: He would be disappointed. That just the way, my memories of it and the way he, he did, I believe he would be disappointed. I really would. Lee: And he did the right thing in his heart by leaving the land and putting everybody's name on it. But then that ended up making it harder –Zollie: Yes.Lee: Right, and I don't quite understand that, but, because everybody's name was on it, then everybody had to agree. If he would have left it to one person, then you could have all, that person could have worked it out. Is that how – Zollie: Yes, that is correct. Lee: The law works?Zollie: And then when the daughters and the sons, when they all passed, it went down to their children. And that meant more people had a hand in it now and everybody wanted their share, their portion of it. Because they're not used to the country living it, it didn't mean anything to 'em. It was just land. Lee: So it sounds like a generational thing. Zollie: Yes. Lee: And especially if you're, not only if you're not used to the country living, but if you didn't grow up there –Zollie: If you didn't grow up there.Lee: And you didn't really know Daddy Ike.Zollie: Mm hm. Lee: Is that also –Zollie: Yep.Lee: A factor?Zollie: I can see that. Yes.Lee: Okay. Zollie: Oh yes.Lee: Man, this is so interesting because it happens in so many families –Zollie: It does.Lee: Across the country. It really does. And this land out here more and more, it's getting more and more valuable.Zollie: Oh yes. It's just rich. Some parts of it is sand, but a lot of part – and it's, the stories that I've been told, Bowling is up under a lake. There's a lake flowing up under Bowling. Lee: Oh.Zollie: That's why it's so wet all the time in Bowling, and it is good for growing because the ground stays wet. That wet ground is fueling an agricultural economy that so many Black farmers – like my cousin – have been shut out of. It's enough to turn people away from farming altogether. I couldn't imagine being a farmer, but Zollie wasn't deterred. After leaving Uncle Ike's land, he and his wife purchased a plot and built a house on it in 2021. It's on the edge of Georgiana, six miles away from Uncle Ike's old farm. It's a four-bedroom, three-bath brick home which sits on three acres Zollie owns. He said it was important for him to own so that he could leave something behind – and he's already talked with his children in detail about succession planning. Lee: What I love about you is that you are one of the people who stayed. Zollie: Yes.Lee: And you are our connection to the past, which we desperately need. Because I think a lot of people feel like, ‘Well, where would I work in Georgiana,' ‘Where would I work in Greenville?' And then they end up leaving and then they lose that connection. And I think a lot of us have lost the connection, but you're still here with a farm. What does it mean to have land and to have a farm? What does it mean to you? What's the significance to you?Zollie: My kids can fall back on this land. They'll have something. Like when it comes to getting this house. My land helped me get my house built this way. And so I thank God for that. [music starts]I'm so glad that I was able to sit with my cousin Zollie and hear his story. Growing up in a suburb outside of a major city, the importance of land was never really impressed upon me. In some ways it felt regressive to make your living with your hands, but I understand so much clearer now how powerful it is to be connected to the land in that way. Imagine how independent you must feel to be so directly tied to the fruits of your labor – there's no middleman, no big corporation, and no one lording over you. When you have land, you have freedom. What must that freedom have felt like for the newly emancipated in the late 1800s? And how did it become such a threat that in the past century, Black people would lose over 90% of the farmland they once owned?Jillian: Land is power, because you not only own the soil, but, it's mineral rights, you know, which is what my family have, you know, is airspace. You know, you own everything when you, when you own acreage. These are some of the questions that led me to Jillian Hishaw. She's an agricultural lawyer with over 20 years of experience helping Black families retain their land. She previously worked in the civil rights enforcement office of the US Department of Agriculture, or USDA, and she founded a non-profit called FARMS that provides technical and legal assistance to small farmers. She's also the author of four books including Systematic Land Theft which was released in 2021. In our wide-ranging conversation, we talked about the history of Black farmland, how it was gained and how it was lost, and what people misunderstand about Black farmers in this country. Lee: I mean, you've done so much. What drew you to this work? Jillian: My family history. My grandfather was raised on a farm in Muskogee, Oklahoma. And when they relocated to Kansas City, Missouri, which is where I was born and raised, my great-grandmother moved up several years later, and they hired a lawyer to pay the property tax on our 160-acre farm. Our land was sold in a tax lien sale without notice being given to my grandfather or my great-grandmother. And so where my grandfather's house is, there's an oil pump going up and down because the land had known oil deposits. So that's why I do what I do. Lee: Okay. And I mean, wow, that, that is just such a familiar narrative. It sounds like this is a pervasive issue across the Black community –Jillian: Yes. Lee: How did Black people come to acquire farmland in this country? And when was the peak of Black land ownership? Jillian: Yes. So the peak was definitely in 1910. According to census data and USDA census data, we owned upwards to 16 to 19 million acres, and we acquired it through sharecropping. Some families that I've worked with were actually given land by their former slaveholders and some purchased land. Lee: Wow. Okay. And that dovetails with an interview that I did with my uncle in 1991 who told me that in his area of Alabama, Black people owned 10 to 15,000 acres of land. And when he told us that, we thought, ‘Well, he's old, and he probably just got the number wrong.' But it sounds that that's true. It sounds like Black people in various parts of the country could own tens of thousands of acres of land collectively. Jillian: Yes, yes, I know that for a fact in Alabama because I finished up school at Tuskegee University. So yes that is accurate. Your uncle was correct. Lee: Okay. And when and how did many of these families lose the land? Jillian: So the majority of land was lost after 1950. So between 1950 and 1975, we lost about half a million Black farms during that time. The primary reason why it was lost in the past was due to census data and then also record keeping. With the census data, they would state, ‘Oh, well, this farmer stated in his census paperwork that he owned 100 acres.' But then the recorder would drop a zero. Things of that nature. And so also courthouses would be burned. So let's take Texas, for example. There were over 106 courthouse fires. And a lot of those records, you know, were destroyed. Now, ironically, often during those courthouse burnings, the white landowners' records were preserved and, you know, magically found. But the Black landowners' records were completely destroyed, and they have no record of them to this day. Now, the primary reasons for the present land loss is predatory lending practices by US Department of Agriculture. Also, lack of estate planning. Lee: So for our family in particular, I mean, I never really understood the heirs property and how that ended up causing our family to have to, you know, get rid of the land or sell the land. Can you tell me about heirs property? What is it and why has it disproportionately affected Black landowners? Jillian: So over 60% of Black-owned land is heirs property, and the legal term is “tenants in common.” But, you know, most Black folk call it heirs property. And heirs property begins when a, traditionally a married couple will own the land outright in their names. And so it'll be Mr. and Mrs. Wilson. And if they don't have a will and they die, what's called intestate, and they die without a will, the state takes over your “estate distribution.” And when I say estate, that's all of your assets that make up your estate. So your property, your house, your car, your jewelry, your clothes, everything. And the state will basically say, ‘Okay, well, since you died without a will, then all of your living heirs will share equally,' you know, ‘ownership in whatever you left' in, you know, with Black farm families, that was the land, that was the homestead, that was the house. And so say Mr. and Mrs. Wilson pass away without a will, and they have 10 kids, and then those 10 have 100 kids and so forth and so on. And so, you know, five generations later, there's 300, you know, people that own, you know, 100-acre, you know, or 200-acre farm outright. And if one of those 200 heirs sells to a third party, oftentimes it's some distant cousin in LA or Pennsylvania for whatever reason, and they just sell their rights, to a developer often, that developer basically takes the place of that, you know, third cousin in LA. And they'll go around, like in the, you know, the Bessemer case in South Carolina, and they'll, you know, get another third cousin in San Francisco and in, you know, Arizona and in Houston and then they'll go to the court and they'll force the sale of the remaining, you know, 195 heirs because 200 were owners in what's called a court partition sale. And that's how we lose 30,000 acres each year so fast, so quick. Lee: Wow. And this is exactly, very similar to what happened to my cousin Zollie. I mean he was just heartbroken, because he didn't have the money to do it himself. And so he ended up getting some other land, but it was really hard for him. People talk about this in the context of saying, “We lost the land.” But there are others who might say, “Well, you didn't lose the land. You sold the land because you couldn't come to an agreement.” Is this a strategic way to wrestle land away from families? Jillian: Yes. In, in part. But, you know, Black people also have to accept responsibility. You know, I, I've tried years to get families to agree. I mean, you know, you have to come to some agreement. You can't just, you know, bicker about stuff that happened in 1979. I mean, you have to get past your own differences within your family. And that's part of the problem. And the families need to come together to conserve their land. Because, you know, I'll tell you right now, if my family had it any other way, we would come together to get our land back. I have taught workshops and written books. You know, I've written about four or five different books, and families have taken those books, you know, attended the workshops, and they've cleared their deed, you know, and it's heirs property. And so what I'm saying is that it can work. And I wish more families would, would do that because I've seen it work. Lee: We definitely don't want to take a victim mentality, but the legacy of white supremacy in this country sort of positions us to have tense relationships, because there's a lot of unaddressed things that happen, and there are a lot of secrets that are kept. [music]Lee: Tell me about the clashes over land between whites and Blacks. What did they look like, especially in the period following the Civil War? Jillian: So during Reconstruction and post-Reconstruction, we all know about the “40 acres and a mule” program and how, you know, within a year the land was given and then taken back. But there were landowners, particularly Black, of course, that got to keep the land, and some were located in South Carolina, primarily South Carolina, Georgia, and a few areas in Alabama. Of course, there were clashes with, particularly when the patriarch passed away, similar to to your ancestors. Whites would go to the land and force the Black mother and wife off of the land, and they would set the house on fire and just force them to, to get off the land. When she shared those details, I thought back to the family members who told me about Isaac Pugh's wife and my great-grandmother, Ella Pugh, and the horrifying situation she found herself in, with more than a dozen kids, a murdered husband, and a mob of men on horses coming by every night, screaming for them to leave. That's the part of this story that the newspaper article didn't contain. Uncle Ike said, “They were jealous of him.” He talked about Taylor, too, but also about a band of whites that he believed were working with him. The news reports said the murder was about livestock, but according to Uncle Ike, it was about land. The assaults on my family and many others were orchestrated, and institutional. And the attacks on Black landowners wasn't just about one white man resenting a Black man. The damage was often done by groups of people, and institutions, including government agencies like the United States Department of Agriculture. Lee: What was the impact of Jim Crow on Black land loss? Jillian: Well, it was definitely impactful. You know, again, going back to the, 1950 to 1975, half a million farms were lost during that time, and the equivalent now is 90%. We've lost 90% of the 19 million acres that we owned. You know, according to the 1910 census data. And, a lot of that is due to, you know, Jim Crow and, you know, various other factors. But, you know, this was predatory lending, particularly by USDA. And so you also need to look at USDA. And the reason why you need to look at USDA is because it's “the lender of last resort.” And that's basically the hierarchy and the present foundation of the USDA regulations right now. And it's admitted guilt. They, they've admitted it, you know, from the 1965 civil rights report, you know, to the CRAT report to the, you know, the Jackson Lewis report, you know, 10 years ago, that they purposely discriminate, particularly against Black farmers. And it's due to predatory lending. You look at the fact that between 2006 and 2016, Black farmers made up 13%, the highest foreclosure rate out of all demographics. But we own the least amount of land. And so, you know, that right there is a problem. Lee: What is the state of Black land ownership today and where is it really trending?Jillian: To me it's trending down. The '22, '22 USDA census just came out last month, and the demographic information will be out, I believe, June 26th. But, we own, you know, less than 2% according to the USDA census, but I believe it's like at 1%, because they include gardeners in that, in that number to inflate the numbers. But, but yeah. So it's, it's trending down, not up. Lee: Okay. And what do people get wrong about Black land ownership in this specific history? I mean, I know that there are everyday folks who have opinions that they speak about freely, as if they're experts, but also educators and journalists and policy makers and lawmakers. I mean, what do they get wrong about this history? Jillian: They portray the Black farmer as poor, illiterate, and basically don't know anything, but that's for, you know, that's far from the truth. I know families – five-generation, four-generation cotton farmers that own thousands of acres and are very, you know, lucrative. And so the, this portrayal of the, you know, the poor Black farmer, you know, dirt poor, land rich, cash poor is just a constant. And a lot of my clients don't even like talking to reporters because of that narrative. And it's, it's not true. Lee: I feel like it's missing that the majority of this land in this country was acquired unfairly. And on the foundation of violence and on the foundation of trickery – Jillian: Yes.Lee: And legal maneuvering. And I don't see that really as something that is known in the masses. Jillian: Correct. Lee: Or acknowledged. Is that true or –Jillian: That's true. Lee: Or am I off?Jillian: Yes. That's true. But with Black folk it wasn't, it's not true. So Black people earned the land. They, they worked, they paid, you know, for it. It wasn't acquired through trickery and things like that compared to the majority. You know, the 2022 USDA census, you know, 95% of US farmland are owned by whites. You know, as you know, similar to the 2017, you know, USDA census. And so that is often, you know, the case in history. That it was acquired through violence. Lee: Mm hm. And how would you like for the conversation around Black land ownership to grow and evolve? Where's the nuance needed?Jillian: I believe the nuance is through – like you referenced – financial literacy. We need to retain what we already have, and that's the mission of my work, is to retain it. And so we've saved about 10 million in Black farmland assets, you know, over the 11 years that I've been in operation through my non-profit. And it's important that we focus on retention. You know a lot of people call me asking, ‘Oh, can you help me, you know, find land, buy land,' but that's not my job. My job is to retain what we have. In my family's case, I wonder if the inability to reach an agreement on whether to keep Uncle Ike's land in the family would have been different if the younger generations would have had a chance to talk with Uncle Ike about the hell he went through to acquire it. Or maybe if they'd all had the opportunity to learn about the history of Black land loss and theft even in more detail. I just don't know. But what's clear is, though I don't hold any resentment about the decision, I do think it's just another example of how important studying genealogy can be. Not just the birth dates and the death dates, but the dash in between. Learning about our ancestors, and what they believed in, what they went through, and what they wanted for us. I know that's what a will was intended for; but in Uncle Ike's will, he thought he was doing the right thing by leaving the land to his children equally. I don't know if he knew about heirs property law. But even if he did, I suppose he never dreamed that the future generations would see any reason to let that land go. Not in a million years. [music starts] Lee: And what do you think about the debate around reparations, especially as it relates to land? I know that there was a really hyper visible case of a family in California that got significant land back. Do you think justice for Black farmers is achievable through reparations? Jillian: I believe it is, but I don't know if it's realistic because it's based on the common law. It's based on European law and colonial law. And so how are we supposed to get reparations when, you know, we can't even get, you know, fair adjudication within, you know, US Department of Agriculture. And so we're basing it, and we're trying to maneuver through a system that is the foundation of colonial law. And, I think that that will be very hard. And I think that we should take the approach of purchasing land collectively. Where are the Black land back initiatives? When are we gonna come together, you know, collective purchasing agreements? Lee: You're blowing me away. Jillian: Thank you. Lee: And I just really want to thank you for this work that you're doing. I believe that as a Christian, I'll say that I believe that what you're doing is God's work. And I just hope that you know that. And I just wanted to, to really just thank you. On behalf of my family, I thank you so much. Jillian: Thank you.Talking with Jillian Hishaw helped me clearly see that the racial terrorism and violence against my Black American family and countless others under Jim Crow was not solely physical but also economic. Hordes of white supremacists throughout America felt divinely and rightfully entitled to Black land, just as their forefathers did a century before with native land. They exploited unjust policies and the complacency of an American, Jim Crow government that often failed to hold them accountable for their murders and other crimes. Before Malcolm X yelled out for justice “by any means necessary,” Jim Crow epitomized injustice by any means necessary. This conversation deepened my understanding of the deadly penalty Black Americans paid for our determination, for daring to burst out of slavery and take our piece of the American Dream through working hard and acquiring land. Since 1837, I've had a family member killed every generation, and this reporting helped me understand why so many of them were killed over land and the audacity to move ahead in the society. So to see the deadly price family members paid only to see it lost or sold off by subsequent generations that are split as to how important the land is to them is truly eye-opening, something I see more clearly now.To understand part of the root of this violence, I have to travel back to uncover a part of my history I never thought about until I started researching my family. It's time to meet the Pughs – my white ancestors from across the Atlantic. Next time on What Happened in Alabama. What Happened In Alabama is a production of American Public Media. It's written, produced, and hosted by me, Lee Hawkins.Our executive producer is Erica Kraus. Our senior producer is Kyana Moghadam.Our story editor is Martina Abrahams Ilunga. Our producers are Marcel Malekebu and Jessica Kariisa. This episode was sound designed by Marcel Malekebu. Our technical director is Derek Ramirez. Our soundtrack was composed by Ronen Landa. Our fact checker is Erika Janik.And Nick Ryan is our director of operations.Special thanks to the O'Brien Fellowship for Public Service Journalism at Marquette University; Dave Umhoefer, John Leuzzi, Andrew Amouzou, and Ziyang Fu; and also thank you to our producer in Alabama, Cody Short. The executives in charge at APM are Joanne Griffith and Chandra Kavati.You can follow us on our website, whathappenedinalabama.org or on Instagram at APM Studios.Thank you for listening.

"Fall Revival 2023 Sermon 3" - October 23, 2023 Bro. Brad Butler

Dr. Amber Gordon is a board-certified neurosurgeon who specializes in surgery and treatment of the brain, spine & peripheral nerve disorders. She is the physician leader of the Infirmary Neuroscience Center of Excellence. Dr. Gordon graduated from Vanderbilt University with a bachelor's degree in biomedical engineering. She received her medical degree from the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Medicine. Dr. Gordon completed her residency in neurological surgery at Birmingham School of Medicine where she also served as chief-resident of neurological surgery. Dr. Gordon and her husband Brad Butler are the proud parents of second grader, Alexander Butler!

Top youth and school motivational speaker, keynote for the Oregon Statewide Transition Conference, Brad Butler II, takes some time to share about his past, work with students and his books, speaking, and mission. He shares his principles for success and encouragement on supporting students looking for their future path.  His message of hope will inspire you. Check out his website: https://www.bradbutler2.com/  

Victor Harbor Triathlon founder Sid James has died at the age of 64. The beloved and proactive community member has died of medical complications yesterday, Thursday 8 September.   His life-long friend Brad Butler joins Jennie Lenman in this podcast to share more of his story.

The RunRunLive 4.0 Podcast Episode 4-476 – MK Lever – Dystopian College Athletics  (Audio: link) audio:http://www.RunRunLive.com/PodcastEpisodes/epi4476.mp3] Link MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks - Chris' other show à Intro: Hello my friends and welcome to episode 4 476 of the RunRunLive podcast. Today we have a super interesting talk with MK Lever about her dystopian college athletics novel Surviving the second tier.  It's a hard book to categorize.  On the one hand it's a near-future dystopian novel about college sports.  On the other it's a scholarly critique of the current college sports power dynamic and some of its most destructive aspects.  And then there's a love story and a rocky-esque championship tension and drama.  Like I said, it's tough to categorize.  And that makes it hard for a novel because we humans love to label and categorize.  Our brains go all weird and fuzzy if we can't.  You can see this in every review where they say ‘it's like X' or even in startup pitches where they will always say something like ‘it's the Uber of grocery'.  And that inevitably makes it hard on books and businesses to gain traction.  They have to forge their own paths.  They have to create their own market.  Sometimes it works, because that cross-pollination finds a new unserved and undeveloped market niche.  Sometimes it doesn't work because it takes a lot of energy to create something totally new.  You have to explain to people what it is before you can sell them something.  There's an old joke about pioneers typically having short lives. Anyhow… That's who we talk to today.  In section one I'll talk about this year's Boston Marathon because it is next week and for the first time in a couple decades I'm not going to be participating.  I feel like I should say more about that, but I'm, let me just say this, and maybe I'm just having a good day, but I feel like I've moved into the 6th stage of grief, which is celebration.  No seriously I was out at Starbucks today and realize I'm wearing a Boston Hat and a NYC jacket and wondering what I'll say if someone asks me about it, like “Are you running the marathon this year?” and how my usual response for the last year has been to apologize, “No, I hurt me knee.” But, thinking about the stories behind this hat and this jacket, all I can really say right now is “No, not this year, but I did, and how cool is that?” In section two I'm going to talk about garbage.  Because, yeah, garbage. I've totally stopped running because my knee was too painful.  It's been a year or so now so my fitness is at an all time low.  It's interesting.  I think about that motivational speech where the motivator says “Running is hard.  Being fat and out of shape is hard.  Choose your hard.” And it's true.  Being unfit is hard. I've got some plans to change that and we'll talk a more in the outro. Going back to the Dystopian novel topic.  What MK is doing here is one of the things I really like about the creative vehicle of fiction generally and science fiction in particular.  Setting stories in the future or on a different planet allows the creator a safe place to play with ideas.  To sketch out alternatives to today.  MK does that.  Think of other novels you may have heard of that do this?  How about HG Wells The Time Machine? It's really a commentary on the class system.  Or Brave new world by Huxley?  Or 1984 or Animal Farm by Orwell.  Or the Hand Maiden's Tale.  Dystopian novels aren't about the future.  They're about us.  They're the equivalent of Marley's Ghost showing us the what ifs of our choices, as people, and as a society. That's your homework.  Read or listen to a dystopian classic and learn something about yourself.  On with the show.   About Zero ZERO — The End of Prostate Cancer is the leading national nonprofit with the mission to end prostate cancer. ZERO advances research, improves the lives of men and families, and inspires action. Link to my ZERO page: (for Donations) … I'll remind you that the RunRunLive podcast is ad free and listener supported.  What does that mean? It means you don't have to listen to me trying to sound sincere about Stamps.com or Audible.. (although, fyi, my MarathonBQ book is on audible) We do have a membership option where you can become a member and as a special thank you, you will get access to member's only audio. There are book reviews, odd philosophical thoughts, zombie stories and I curate old episodes for you to listen to.  I recently added that guy who cut off is foot so he could keep training and my first call with Geoff Galloway.   “Curated” means I add some introductory comments and edit them up a bit.  So anyhow – become a member so I can keep paying my bills.   … The RunRunLive podcast is Ad Free and listener supported.  … Section one – Boston 2022 -   Voices of reason – the conversation MK Lewis – Surviving the Second Tier Former NCAA Division I Athlete's New Dystopian Novel Exposes the Dark Side of College Athletics    Imagine a world where coercion, control, surveillance, and manipulation reign. Where imbalance of power makes exploitation easy and where those at the bottom of the heap sacrifice everything to make a profit for those at the top. M.K. Lever's knockout debut work of fiction, Surviving the Second Tier, weaves these issues and themes throughout a new fictional dystopia to display the real world truths that face athletes in the college athletic system. "I wrote this book to educate readers about the reality of the college sports industry, as someone who has been there before," shares Lever. "Sometimes, facts and statistics don't stick with people and since we are intrinsically wired to follow narratives, I wanted to tell people a story in hopes that the message would resonate in a unique and powerful way. I wanted to give college sports the 1984 treatment and create a narrative that would be impactful and a little unsettling."   "Finally, a novel that both entertains and informs about the college and university paradigm of recruiting, rewarding, retaining and career placement of athletes...A very impressive debut novel by MK Lever, an informed – and experienced – former Division 1 runner - providing an exceptional story and encouragement for students to navigate a changing athletic system." Grady Harp, Amazon Hall of Fame Top 50 Reviewer, 5-stars   M.K. Lever, a former Division 1 athlete and PhD candidate at UT Austin, combines her personal experiences as a student athlete and the weight of her academic research in areas concerning NCAA rhetoric, discourse, and policy to create her stunning and emotionally driven literary debut. Surviving the Second Tier depicts a new day in college athletics in which the old multi-sport model has collapsed and the bare bones, but extremely profitable Amateur Fighting Association has risen in its place. Where students once competed in a multitude of sports on a variety of playing fields, now college athletes have only the AFA ring in which to prove themselves in full-contact, no holds barred fights to the finish.   Undefeated and on her way to a perfect record, Sicily "Sis" Jones pushes her way through injury and intense stress to maintain both her fighting record and her perfect GPA. Financial pressure, family pressure, and a cut-throat coach add to her already driven nature, keeping her right at the edge of breaking and hungry to win. Most of Sis's teammates are in no better place – the AFA taps into the pool of poor, disadvantaged kids and the fame attained in the ring to further the profits wrung from the lives of the athletes. Each member of Sis's team is "fighting scared", battling the personal demons that drive them and having those expertly exploited by their coach to gain maximum control of his fighters. When the AFA pits Sis against one of her own teammates in competition, a violent outcome fractures the fragile bond between teammates, coaches, and the AFA, changing the game in new and unexpected ways. Can Sis and her teammates learn to use their voices, rather than their fists, to fight for change and to survive the second tier?   "A stark view of college athletics in a bleak future where fighting is the main sport, all other sports are gone and an abusive, exploitive, charnel house of multi-division Fight Clubs is all that exists.By stripping out all familiar names or descriptions in a novel focused on the three fighters, M.K. Lever adroitly brings attention to the plight of college athletes and athletics today." Brad Butler, Author, 5-stars   As a graduate student researching NCAA policy and rhetoric, Lever began to describe college athletics as a "dystopia" and soon found that listeners engaged more with the ideas she was sharing. "Surviving the Second Tier is different from other dystopias," explains Lever. "It targets the college sports industry, inviting the reader to spend some time living and experiencing the life of a college athlete rather than just watching them compete or reading about them in the media. I wanted to present the real-world issues that affect college athletes in an engaging and palatable way and give a bigger picture of the issues beyond just economic exploitation, which is where most of the public discourse focuses."   "This is a one of a kind book, an emotionally striking, multifaceted narrative of manipulation and control that is both chilling and revealing. Surviving the Second Tier is a valuable contribution to current conversations around the abuse, control, and exploitation of college athletes. M.K. Lever has given us a knockout work of fiction – college athletics meets the Hunger Games..." Jessica Tofino, Educator and Writer, 5-stars   "I want readers will be drawn into the emotional world of Sis and the other characters and begin to see that the college sports industry isn't as glamorous as it looks from the outside," says Lever. "I want to humanize college athletes, help readers to see them as whole people, rather than just game day statistics or salary totals and educate them about the problems these athletes face."   With its gritty dystopian flavor and emotionally resonant characters, Surviving the Second Tier makes readers take a hard look at the sordid side of college athletics—the personal sacrifices, the politics involved in keeping athletes hungry and ready to compete at the top of their game, and the exploitation of talent and over-the-top drive. M.K. Lever skillfully wraps information, education, and advocacy in a sparse, moving, emotionally enthralling story that will keep readers in its grasps until the last page.    Section two –The garbage Project -   Outro Ok my friends that's episode 4-476 of the RunRunLive Podcast.   Like I said I've been not running at all because my knee is really sore.  But all hope is not lost.  I changed to the ½ marathon at the Flying Pig.  Don't' need to hurt myself anymore. I got my mountain bike in for a checkup.  More on that later.  Invested in a good pair of knee pads and a new pair of glasses.  Getting ready for when the weather finally turns.  I'm going to start by just building some base miles and getting used to the bike.  Stay out of the technical stuff.  No sense in beating on myself.  Start working in some yoga and core strength.   I'm also back on the diet.  I had sky-rocketed to over 190 pounds.  Time to give up the beer.  My pants were starting to not fit.  So – back on the workout track and we'll see if the knee responds well to biking.  If it does, I'll work up to a longer event at the end of the summer. Update here: Went for a nice long MTB ride this morning.  My plan was just to spin up the rail trail and get 2 hours of saddle time.  But when I got to the end of the rail trail I was only 39 minutes in so I went out into some trails that are there at the terminus.  One way it led to a neighborhood.  But the other way were carefully crafted mountain bike trails with nice hand made signs that gave the trail names, like “Barbwire” and such, because part of the MTB culture around here is to give the trails cute code names.  I took it easy and explored the trails.  They weren't that technical and I avoided anything that might result in a crash or stress my knee. It was just the right level difficulty for me.  Then I rode back on the rail trail for just about 2 hours of total seat time.  Interestingly I felt a pretty significant energy loss on the way back.  It took me some time to remember – ‘hey – this is what hitting the wall feels like!'  Good ride.  Baby steps. My new role at work is giving me stress and taking up a lot of my headspace.  But I'm working to remind myself that I choose to do it and I don't have to of I don't want to.  Here are a couple of nuggets for you to consider from my affirmation collection. I.e. you can repeat these to yourself or print them out and hang them where you can see them during the day.  It's one of my habits to collect these things.  You never know when you'll need them. First one is: “No matter what happens, I will handle it.”  That will remind you that you've worked through a lot of challenging times in your life and you've always made it through.  This time won't be any different.  No matter what happens, you will handle it. Second one is a counter point to the first.  Sure you can handle it, but should you?  Consider this: Remove yourself from a bad situation instead of waiting for the situation to change. You can always walk away.  You have the power.  You have the aegis.  There's a nice little Greek loan word you can use to impress your friends.  Aegis.  Didn't originally mean ‘power' but that's the modern usage.  The original meaning is ‘protection' because it is derived from the name of the shield used by Greek gods.  Anyhow, don't forget it's always ok to protect yourself.  You can always remove yourself from a bad situation. But, what do you focus on when things are crazy stressful and expectations are out of whack?  You focus on doing the best job you can do in the time you have on the things that are the most important.  Even if you feel like you're getting railroaded and set up.  Just focus on doing each thing well.  I forgot who said it.  I think it was one of the Apollo 11 astronauts.  They asked him what his secret to success was.  And he replied that he just focused on doing the best e could do with every thing that came in front of him and didn't worry about anything else. That's it.  You can handle it.  If you feel like it's unhealthy or you're being treated badly, you can walk away.  If you want to play along just focus on being excellent at the important stuff.  It will all work out. And I'll see you out there. MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks - Rachel -> Coach Jeff ->

WAJ Writer Melissa Talks To Brad Butler The 2nd | Let's Speak Up | Check out Melissa discusses with Bradbutlerthe2nd speaking about recent pandemic effects and academics. Check out all his links below! Subscribe for more of the hottest indie artists, creatives, businesses, brands and more coming out of New Jersey: ➥ www.youtube.com/wearejersey Topics Covered: Bradbutlerthe2nd discusses the pandemic effecting the youth's academics. Bradbutlerthe2nd discusses speaking positivity into during uncertain times. Bradbutlerthe2nd discusses speaking on other platforms and stages once again. Bradbutlerthe2nd discusses there future plans in 2021. Follow @Bradbutlerthe2nd : ➥ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bradbutlerthe2nd/➥ Link: https://linktr.ee/b_radinspires --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/wearejersey/support

Check out episode #125 of the Versatile Success Podcast where I had an in-depth conversation with Brad Butler II. Brad's childhood consisted of drug dealing, drug use, poverty, and violence before he was moved to the suburbs of East Windsor, New Jersey. There, Brad continued to face adversity in different forms: being placed in special ed classes, suffering from lack of self-esteem, bullying. Still, despite his strife, Brad made a promise to himself and his family that their sacrifices would not go in vain; he would find a way to make them proud. His lifelong Pain fueled his Passion, which ultimately led to him discovering his Purpose—becoming an author, motivational speaker, athlete, and all-around good citizen. Pain, Passion, Purpose is a story about heartbreak and triumph, failure and success, and how to learn from past mistakes and forge a new path. Brads Contacts: https://www.instagram.com/bradbutlerthe2nd/ The Versatile Success Podcast is available on ALL podcast platforms and the video is on Justin's YouTube page. Justin's Contact: IG: Justin's Contact Links: 1 Free Discovery Session with me My 30-Day Lost & Found Program Versatile Success Membership Grab a copy of my book on Amazon:  

There has been much racial and injustice in the news in America about Black Males in society. This news has been sobering and depressing. But good news about Black Males still exist. We have Motivational Speaker, Brad Butler, II and Missouri's Teacher of the Year, Darrion Cockrell to share their stories in their words. Next, Finkley! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/michael-finkley-show/message

I feel them 3 words coming... I'm EXCITED!!! YEAH!!! Had a GREAT time connecting with my Next Level Speakers Academy family!!! Brad is a true life changer! He's a Motivational Speaker, Author, Student Advocate and Speaker Coach. The adversity he experienced in his youth has made him the dynamic man he is today! Get to know this KING!!! You can connect with him on Instagram @bradbutlerthe2nd! The best is yet to come and SUCCESS IS THE ONLY OPTION!!!   MAKE SURE YOU VISIT MY WEBSITE AND GRAB YOUR COPIES OF MY BOOK GOALS GIVE DIRECTION WWW.JBLACKINSPIRES.COM

Our guest today is Brad Butler II. His story brings a new perspective to the Cleverly Changing Podcast because he spoke about growing up in a home where his parents and grandmother were functioning addicts. We believe that all people have the ability to rise from adversity to listen to Brad tell us about his journey from special ed to becoming a Mentor, educator, and motivational speaker.THE AFRICAN PROVERB FOR THIS WEEK'S PODCAST IS (1:40)Many words do not fill a basket ~ Benin ProverbWORD OF THE EPISODE ( 2:10)"Ingonyama" means Lion in isiZulu from South Africa.ABOUT TODAY'S SPONSOR PLAY BLACK WALLSTREET: (2:45)Parents, are you looking for a game that will teach your children financial literacy, history, and confidence. Yes, there is a game that will fulfill all three of those needs: Black Wall Street The Board Game. It's similar to monopoly but more culturally rich. Their site, PlayBlackWallStreet.com, supports the education of financial literacy for families. Please use the discount code: “CLEVERLY” for 25% off sitewide. (* The discount cannot be combined with any other discounts).THE GROWN FOLKS SECTION: (3:47)You're listening to the Cleverly Changing Podcast. Episode 63. Our guest during this episode is Brad Butler II. BRAD is an athlete turned student success and retention specialist. A multi award winning motivational speaker, author, and educational consultant. He helps educators and coaches increase the graduation for students and athletes, using research-based strategies, components of SEL and life experiences. PLEASE CONNECT WITH BRAD BUTLER 2 AND SHOW YOUR SUPPORT: Book: "Pain Passion Purpose" Website: https://www.bradbutler2.com Instagram: Instagram.com/bradbutlerthe2nd Support the Podcast by placing a merchandise order: There are hoodies, t-shirts, sweatshirts, pillows, and more. Place your order at CleverlyChanging.Threadless.com.We Need You To Share This PodcastAlso, please tell your friends about our podcast. While we love having a conversation with each other, the podcast will only be able to exist if more people are listening. If you know some who has children, our tips and tricks are beneficial to parents who homeschool and those who are interested in supplementing the education of their children.Furthermore, wherever you are listening to this podcast, please leave us a review. Lastly, if you want to hear more about homeschooling and how we have managed to make it work, please check out our past episodes.ADDITIONAL DIRECTORIES:SoundCloud | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | TuneIn★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Brad Butler II is the CEO and founder of Brad Butler II & Associates, LLC. Brad is an athlete turned student success and retention specialist. A multi award winning motivational speaker, author, and educational consultant. He helps educators and coaches increase the graduation rate for students and athletes, using research-based strategies, components of SEL and life experiences. His purpose in life is to motivate, inspire, and empower people all around the world to live their dreams and put forth their best effort in everything they do. Brad, known to his friends as B-Rad, holds a bachelor's degree in business management from Kean University despite being placed in special education classes as a child for 10 years. He has spent the last 5 years traveling from school to school presenting for students, athletes, educators, and staff across the nation. Providing in person or virtual presentations, professional development workshops, and coaching mentees on public speaking. Brad's goal is to help others become the best versions of themselves and encourage everyone to take full advantage of their opportunities. living by his motto: “Make your next day your best day."

In this episode of Discoursers, me and Brad Butler talk about the different types of lawyers, Florida politics, a healthy gun control debate and, of course, hope in a post-COVID world.   Available on YouTube, Spotify, iTunes, Podbean, and other podcast places. https://discoursers.com/

School motivational speaker Brad Butler II joins the show to discuss his career and business in speaking. He details his challenging upbringing, adapting to a safer, but different neighborhood, and how being a motivational speaker isn't just about talent. Follow and connect with Brad on: Social media - @bradbutlerthe2nd Website - www.bradbutler2.com --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/bsspodcast/support

This week the iSlide Team Captain is Brad Butler II. Brad grew up in an unstable home environment ( he might disagree because it was also his fuel for success). He was educated in a system that told him he was deficient. Now, Brad Butler II is an award winning speaker, author, and self proclaimed unicorn! Brad's signature topics, for example "IEP's to Degrees," are changing the lives of young people and the people who support them! Listen to my conversation with Brad with a notepad! Teachers, find out how to help students in your charge thrice over. Parents, hear why you don't have to accept the label educators give your child. Students, Brad reminds you, you are not a label!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Liberty Flames Sports Network from Van Wagner 2020 Cure Bowl radio broadcast (Alan York, Brad Butler and Nick Pierce on the call)

Liberty Flames Sports Network from Van Wagner 2020 Cure Bowl radio broadcast (Alan York, Brad Butler and Nick Pierce on the call)

Everyone has a dad or father story that has become a cornerstone of their existence. That story may be a painful one or a powerful one but the impact of it stretches into multiple areas of our everyday lives. Join me as I interview 13 influential men about the impact that a father story has had on their education, business, families, and self-care. Adversity takes many different forms and can be hard for students and athletes looking to succeed. A conversation with Brad and his dad at a Wendy's after breaking up with his ex laid the foundation for the drive he has today. You have to be able to produce despite emotions and feelings. The inability to overcome your feelings can lead you to a life of lack. The mental piece of it is most important. Don't get caught up with just focusing on the rewards of life. You will find that you pull back when the reward is removed instead of being in love with the process. When you fall in love with the process you will usually love the reward that comes with it. That ROI (Return on Investment lines up with seedtime and harvest. When you are focused only on the reward then you will find that detours in your journey will become distractions or reasons for you to quit. A detour does not mean defeat. Brad shared that you haven't been working on this long enough if you haven't wanted to quit, curse, or cry. (How many of you can relate?) To break that mental block or the need to compare yourself you have to see your mind as a muscle. What are you doing to...Put yourself in a positive space? Surround yourself with positive people? Continue to speak positively?Brad Butler II in a few words; I'm simply a motivational speaker, student advocate, and an all-around athlete. My goal in life is to motivate, inspire, and empower people all over the world to recognize their gifts and put forth their best efforts in all that they do.Although I'm known by Brad Butler, my close friends & family call me B-Rad which I'm known for on and off the field! Despite being placed in special education classes after moving from the inner City of Jersey City to the suburban area of East Windsor at an early age, I still managed to earn two college degrees (Mercer County College & Kean University).A few years after graduating from college I discovered my gift of public speaking. I now spend most of my time traveling across New Jersey visiting different schools (grammar, high school & colleges) empowering students as well as teaching leadership development classes, consulting with companies to train employees on public speaking and leadership development.My goals are to help others be the best they can be, show them how to motivate themselves to be leaders and take full advantage of their opportunities no matter their circumstances or what life throws at them. "Make Your Next Day Your Best Day" -Brad "B-Rad" Butler II Motivational Speaker Leadership Development Teacher ConsultantStudent AdvocateCommunity ServiceConnect with Brad on Facebookhttps://www.facebook.com/bradbutlerII

Brad Butler II came by and told us his amazing story and how he became such an inspiring and motivating speaker! We for sure dug deep and even Joe shed a few tears. Listen now and share with a friend! Want a FREE Audiobook? Www.audibletrial.com/therapywithoutadegree Have you heard about our Wings & Visions Sessions? Every Wednesday you can sign up to get a FREE appetizer, game plan and vision board from Joe, come kick it, sit back and plan your future! DM for more details Follow us today Instagram ✅ instagram.com/therapywithoutadeg…gshid=viy2nj4uq1ij Facebook ✅ www.facebook.com/Therapywithoutadegreepodcast/ Website ✅ www.therapywithoutadegree.com Podcast ✅ www.hyperurl.co/therapywithoutdegree Therapy Without A Degree Therapy Without A Degree Therapy Without A Degree Therapy Without A Degree Therapy Without A Degree Therapy Without A Degree Keywords . . . . . #Podcast #Therapy #Failure #LiveShow selfcare recovery happy mindfulness love health quotes loveyourself wellness memes mood mentalhealthawareness selflove sadquotes inspiration music motivation mentalhealthmatters sad depressed mentalhealth fitness aesthetic suicide #depression anxiety art mental illness healing

Vont welcomes author and motivational speaker, Brad Butler II, to Stay Woke. The two go into Brad's empowering upbringing and how his trials and tribulations have led him to his current and upcoming successes. Contact "B-Rad Inspires" to come speak motivation into you or someone you know's life. FOLLOW BRAD: Facebook: B-Rad Inspires Instagram: @b_radinspires Youtube: B-Rad Inspires Email: contact@b-radinspires.com DONATE TO US Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/vontleakstudios GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/vont-leak-studios CashApp: $vontleakstudios PayPal: vontleak12@gmail.com FOLLOW US Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/staywokepod Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/staywokepod VONT LEAK STUDIOS Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/vontleakstudios Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vontleakstudios/ VONT Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vontleak/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/vontleak DIR Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/khadirsings_/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/Pxpi__Chulo MAURA Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/maura.perez_/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/Maura_PerezH

Matt Malatesta is joined by Shadow Creek Head Coach Brad Butler. Coach Butler talks about what it was like making the state champinship game last year and what you can expect from his team this upcoming year. Website: www.vype.com Twitter: @vypehouston Instagram: @vypetexas Facebook: @vypetexas Snapchat: @vype.houston

In this segment, Brad digs into the effects of how heartbreak played a pivotal role in his mental health. This week we are focused on men and mental health

TriJam Podcast! with Kyle Maack, Shae Davis, Jo Rivers, and Will Wright.  Produced by Daniel Kane.   Our guests today - Brad Butler II   Intro (0:00:00) The Scoop (0:12:37) TriJam Live Recap (0:37:25) BRAD BUTLER II Interview / Wrap Up (0:51:51)

The guys recap the truly excellent Texas high school football season in the Golden Triangle, listen to interviews with Alvin Shadow Creek coach Brad Butler and Killeen coach Neil Searcy, and discuss the best helmets in Texas high school football.

In our latest episode, Colton is live with Athletic Coordinator/Head Football Coach for Shadow Creek HS in Alvin ISD. Shadow Creek HS is a fairly new school, which opened in 2016, and Coach dives into some successes they've had in a few of their programs already. A Few Key Takeaways: Growing your athletes into leaders starts with hard work and commitment Never give excuses. Always accept personal responsibility Have a we before me mentality Coach dives into how he helped create and build a program from scratch and explains how the process of starting with a blank canvas has positively impacted his athletes hard work and determination. Coach also goes on to talk about the programs' values and how each program has a we before me mentality, emphasizing the importance of unity both on and off the field. Coach shares their saying, "ACF", which stands for attack, compete, finish and goes into depth on what that means for his program and exactly how they live by that.   Follow us on social: @2wordstv @FullCurlColton @MackeySpeaks Youtube: www.youtube.com/mackeyspeaks www.2words.tv

Alan York and Nick Pierce preview the Flames’ football game at New Mexico State. Others guests include: Liberty baseball coach Scott Jackson and Brad Butler, plus a sit down with LU Punter Aidan Alves.

On this episode of The Oh Hell No Podcast Nicole sits down with motivational speaker Brad Butler, II.  Brad shares how he discovered his voice and how as a student in school he was told he would never be able to publicly speak.  Brad shares why he is ok with doing more for the community than he receives personally and how he is working on bringing some programs to schools that don't exists today. Brad is working on his first book and shares what his plans are for his business.  Brad also talks about the pros and cons of social media and shares a great Oh Hell No Moment.  Follow Brad on Instagram @b-radinspires. This episode was brought to you by www.getnumedia.com. If your cable bill is too high you need to check NuMedia out today. www.ohhellnopodcast.com Follow @theohhellnopodcast  

How can early stage SaaS startups dramatically expand brand awareness and increase lead generation without spending a ton of money? On this week's episode of The Inbound Success Podcast, Sigstr VP of Marketing Justin Keller talks about co-marketing partnerships and how they've helped Sigstr gain traction without requiring a massive budget.  Listen to the podcast to hear how Justin built and nurtured co-marketing relationships and get actionable tips on building your own co-marketing program. Transcript Kathleen Booth (host): Welcome back to The Inbound Success Podcast. My name is Kathleen booth and I'm your host and today my guest is Justin Keller, who's the Vice President of Marketing at Sigstr. Welcome, Justin. Justin: Hello, I'm so glad to be here. Here's Justin and I doing our interview Kathleen: I'm looking forward to interviewing you and learning more about the journey with Sigstr and how you guys have grown. Before we dive in, tell the listeners a little bit about yourself, your background, and also Sigstr and what it does. Justin: Yeah, absolutely. So, I've been doing digital marketing for software companies for about 15 years now. I got my start as the first non-founding employee of a company called ChaCha way back in the day, and that's what really gave me my bug. They were located in Indianapolis and I really wanted to do the high tech thing, like full boar. So I went, I got myself an MBA and the day after I graduated, I packed up my car and I just drove west to try and make it happen in San Francisco. So I was out there for about seven years, running a SaaS marketing team, having a great time learning a lot. And my wife and I decided, you know what, I think it's about time to head back to the Midwest. And so through my network found Sigstr and came on as the Vice President of Marketing about two months ago now. I've been absolutely loving it. What Sigstr does is, we take over -- not take over -- get into the employee email system and we standardize the business card info in an email signature. But what's really cool about what we do, is we insert dynamic, targeted ads in every single email. And employee email is just a ridiculously high balling channel. It's going to extremely engage people and we can get really targeted promotions in every email, and really magical stuff can happen for marketers. Kathleen: That's awesome. And, full disclosure, here at IMPACT, we just started using Sigstr a couple of months ago and it was largely because one of our newest team members in the team that I run, which is our marketing team, came from another company that had Sigstr and she, from day one, was singing your praises about how effective it was and what a game changer it was for their marketing. So, we just implemented it recently and it's been really fun to watch the results. I mean, you're right. There are so many different ways you can use it. I think for us, initially, we've been using it to try to drive registrations for our webinars. We do two webinars a month and email does have such incredible reach, especially when you think about people, like on your sales team, who are really out there emailing people that might not be in your day to day contacts. It's such a good way to get your content and other things in front of people that otherwise might not necessarily see it right away. Justin: Yeah, and it's passive, it's kind of like where it's very frequent and it's not like a hard call to action, right? It's not like a mass email where you get it and you're like, "Okay, I can delete this out of my inbox right now." You're gonna pay attention to that first email and you're definitely gonna see what's in the bottom. We actually ran out of some eye tracking studies with an artificial intelligence company that showed that people's eyes start right down to the bottom of the email if there's a well branded signature there. Kathleen: That's so cool. What I like about it, selfishly as the person responsible for marketing, is it gives my team a lot of control over how the brand is deployed, and the consistency with which it's deployed. Instead of having everybody going rogue and creating their own signatures that may or may not be great, we can establish a format and we can maintain control over that, while still giving the individual some input into what they want to have in there, which is what is so nice about it. Justin: Definitely. But no more Comic Sans in the signature, no personal quotes. Kathleen: Exactly, exactly. Oh boy, I could spend a lot of time talking about that. So, Sigstr's great and everybody should definitely check it out and certainly, if you've ever gotten an email from me, you'll see it at the bottom. What's been interesting to me is, Sigstr as a company, at least from the outside looking in, has really had this meteoric rise in terms of visibility. I've been in the agency world for a long time, and I feel like you guys came onto the scene and it was like, hot and fast. As a marketer, when I see something like that, I'm always curious to dive in a little bit more deeply and learn what was happening behind the scenes that leads to that because, obviously, that's what this podcast is all about. It's like, "Hey, share your secrets with us so we can do it, too." So tell me a little bit about that. Justin: Absolutely. And you're right, we had a really big year last year. We got Series A funding from a bunch of phenomenal investors and that's really when we were able to step on the gas. We were kind of bootstrapped before that. What happened is, it's one of those things where unfortunately it's kind of everything. Everything kind of came together at once. But I think the things that really allow those things to come together is a really strong content program and a really big focus on developing co-marketing relationships and kind of agency relationships as well. Kathleen: Really? Okay, let's start with the content program. That's obviously the heart of inbound marketing, which is what we like to talk about here. Tell me a little bit about your approach to creating content for Sigstr. Justin: So, when you're working with a product like Sigstr, it's one of those things where, email signatures are very familiar but the way we're approaching them is completely novel, right? It's kind of like a brand new channel in many ways. So there's a lot of market building we have to do and we felt like content was the best way to do it. We're lucky to have on our team Brad Butler, whose just a phenomenal content marketer. It kind of heads up the program and he's really, really good at getting in with our customers and learning about the ways that they're using it and celebrating their success in finding different ways to tell a similar story, in repeatable ways, things that we can use for both lead generation but for sales enablement too, and that's been huge. He's also really good at kind of taking what we do, so again, it's a new channel, we need examples, right? So customers are great but we definitely "drink our own champagne," that's the term we use here. We drink our own champagne. Kathleen: Can I just stop you and say how much I appreciate that you say champagne because, maybe it's just that I'm like old, but every time someone says they're drinking the kool-aid, all I can think of is- Justin: Is Jonestown? Kathleen: Mass murder in Guyana and I'm like, "I don't know that it's a positive thing to be a Kool-aid drinker." And the fact that Kool-aid is, objectively, kind of a disgusting drink in my opinion. Justin: Yeah. Kathleen: And this could be controversial, because I have an eleven year old who loves it, but I look at it, and I'm like, "That is just gross. Don't put that in your body." Justin: Yeah, no, absolutely not. And then the other one people, the other thing people say is, eating our own dog food. Kathleen: Oh, which is also just horrible. Justin: Yeah, how much are actually making dog food, in which case that's actually really gross. Kathleen: If we accomplish nothing else on this podcast today, other than getting people to switch to "drinking their own champagne," I will feel as though we've made an important contribution to society. Justin: Yes, yes. Absolutely. Kathleen: This is major. Justin: Cool. Thanks for joining us everybody! Oh, champagne. So, we tell really cool stories. I mean, we're using our product in really, really innovative ways. Just to give an example, and I'm not trying to make this into a commercial, we align the signature message with opportunity stages. For example, when one of our AE's completes a demo, they click the little button in sales, the demo's done, and for the next two weeks, anytime anyone at Sigstr emails someone at that company that we just finished the demo with, they will get a message that says, "Hey, thanks for taking a demo. Click here for more resources, so they can kind of learn a little more, kind of thing. There's kind of an IT process when you're installing Sigstr, and when we go into that phase, the signature's like, "Hey, here's everything your IT team needs to know about onboarding signatures." Telling stories like that, and getting people to think really creatively about how to use the tool is great. And then lastly, developing relationships on the co-marketing thing is one of the biggest legs that a co-marketing relationship stands on is kind of content swaps and developing content together. So we've been really fortunate to make a lot of really good friends in the marketing community and being kind of a unique product, we don't really have any competition, and so we're able to play really well with a variety of different vendors and tell really cool stories together. Kathleen: So I want to get to the co marketing and content swaps in a minute, but first, on the subject of the content you're creating for yourselves, the thing that I always find interesting, especially with companies like Sigstr, that -- you said it, you make a product that helps people create email signatures -- you could very easily have an entire content strategy that revolves around talking about email signatures, but, that can be a really boring subject, right? So I'm curious to know how you guys think about content, how much of your content is specifically about the product, how much of it is about the broader subject of email signatures, and then how much of it really departs from that and is about the broader challenges that your audience is facing? Justin: Yeah, I'd say it's probably 30/70. I think 30% is probably talking about email signatures -- maybe more like 40 -- because you're right, it can get old quick. And so our kind of guiding light, really, in our content program, is, will a marketer read this blog post and walk away a better marketer? So you can get that done with email signature stories, sure, but we really like to focus on the broader industry and figure out how we can tie in our story wherever it's appropriate. But we're really, really focused on creating content that just like is valuable, right? We do a lot of talking at ABM (account-based marketing) events. We kind of have an ABM product ourselves, so we've been driving a lot on the power of aligning content at the right time, whether it be through an email signature or through an email or what have you. We see ourselves as one of many channels that every email marketer, or I'm sorry, every marketer should use. And so we don't just focus on ourselves. Kathleen: And so for anybody listening, ABM -- account based marketing -- and I know you guys, in fact, I went to an event recently where somebody from Sigstr spoke about that; how to use Sigstr for account based marketing. That is such a hot topic right now, so that's pretty cool.  Okay, so you've had this content strategy. Let's shift now and talk about the content swaps, because you're obviously creating content for your own site. When you think about co-marketing, let's take a step back and just, if you could explain a little bit more about how you think about it. Who are you looking to form partnerships with? Is it companies that have an audience you're looking to reach? Or is it companies that have complementary products? Justin: Mmm-Hmm (affirmative) Kathleen: Or is it all of the above? Justin: It is a little bit of all of the above. And like I said, we are pretty neutral in the marketplace. We've got a wide variety of friends that we can pick to work with, the more the better.  Organizationally, Sigstr is all about developing relationships and being just a good partner. And so, yeah, we absolutely are looking for people with sympathetic audiences. We are a reseller to marketers, we provide full marketing to tech companies. And we work with brands that we really admire. There is no shortage of ... I think the most recent marketing landscaping is over 5000 companies. So there's a lot of people to play with, but we really like to find the brands that we look up to. And I mean that, we look up to the brands. We definitely feel like we're lucky to be hanging out with some of the brands we work with. Kathleen: What would be some examples of brands like that? Justin: So we work a lot with Terminus, whose kind of an ABM app platform. We work with PathFactory and with Uberflip. We work with, kind of everyone you know? A lot of people that are in the ABM landscape or demand-based ... those guys. And, it works out really well for us because ... let me back up. The way we approach it is, "Hey we really want to work with you. You definitely have a bigger reach, and a bigger microphone towards the audience we want to get in with, but let us do all the groundwork. Let us, kind of, help you create a great piece of content and if you'll do us the honor of posting it on your website or putting your logo on a piece or whatever" it feels like a fair trade to us. Kathleen: That's great. And funny enough, so, Nikki Nixon who heads up the #FlipMyFunnel community for Terminus has been a guest for us on this podcast in the past and I too ... I look up to them. I think she's done a great job building out communities so, that's an awesome example. Justin: They really have. That whole #FlipMyFunnel thing is amazing and again it's another example of just being super neutral. It spun out of the Terminus company but they are agnostic when you're dealing with vendors. When Terminus goes to the #FlipMyFunnel conference, they are going as sponsor they're not like the people that are hosting it. Kathleen: Yeah, That's awesome! I'm interested in the content swaps because I think there is ... There's a lot of potential there. There's not only the opportunity to get in front of a new audience by creating content on somebody else's website, but there's also backlinks which, as a geeky marketer I'm really into. I guess the question that I have -- because we look at this all the time -- is about bandwidth. You have your own content you're creating for your site and then it can be very time consuming. Do you have a certain target for how much of your marketing team's time goes into creating content for your own platforms versus content for your partner platforms? Justin: I think it's really ad hoc and it's opportunistic for us. The way we evaluate it really is, it's kind of like getting to first base with a partner, right? The content swap is the easy thing to do, right? If you have content laying around that is somewhat relevant to the partner or whatever, it's really easy to kind of repurpose that. Just take it, put a fresh coat of paint on it. Figure out how you can talk about the partner and yourselves in it in a way that tells both of your stories. But then really, when we're looking at it, it's partners with whom we want to partner more deeply, right? We want to be hosting events with them, we want to be doing web events with them. Maybe there's even a product integration down the road and it's really a good way of dipping your toe into a bigger partnership because, it does kind of have lower overhead than, I think, many other marketing initiatives and if you can prove that success there it makes sense to keep the relationship going and getting a little more serious about it. Kathleen: I'm sure there are people listening who are thinking, "this is an approach I might want to experiment with" and I would be willing to put money on the fact that a lot of them are probably in the same shoes you were in when you started, which is, "I'm gonna be approaching partners that have a bigger audience than I do." As a David going after a partnership with a Goliath, can you give listeners some advice on how you approach it so that both parties feel like it's a win? And, how do you then manage and maintain that relationship in a way that's mutually beneficial? Justin: Yeah. One of the ways that we approach it is, usually, we will do the majority of the work. We get really scrappy about it and say "Hey, just by virtue of participating with us ... that's all you have to do. You have to show up and smile, right?" And, we'll kind of do the rest. So offering to just "plus up" whatever their content initiatives were, kind of for free, is usually pretty healthy. I think developing personal relationships is also a really good way to do that though so, a lot of the relationships that we've got are people that we've met out on the road at conferences or just kind of networked with and it started as a buddy-buddy relationship. Having conversations marketer to marketer, kind of like we're doing just now. Not having an agenda really in place. Just kind of be like, "I really think what you guys are doing is amazing, I want to learn more about it. What are your big campaigns and projects this quarter?" And then, ending with "I'd love to have our brands play together one day." You know it's great. I think the more partners you have, the better. It helps kind of edge out competition and it helps really shine a brighter light on both of your brands even if you don't have as big of a reach. You're still introducing new people to that brand. Kathleen: Yeah, definitely. I have a little anecdote about this. I think people are gonna hear you say things like, "Oh, we're big into relationships and individual one-on-one stuff.” It's easy to kind of hear that and be like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah." So the reason that we started talking to Sigstr is that we had a new employee who had used them previously -- and that's Stephanie Casstevens -- and she came from another company that had Sigstr and she was ... She's just like, the most enthusiastic individual on the planet to start with. Justin: It's true. Kathleen: Which is why we love her! But it's easy to find somebody like that who evangelizes your product and say thank you and appreciate it, but I think a lot of companies don't take that extra step and really show the love back. I'll never forget ... I think we were on Slack or on a Zoom call and she's like, "You're not gonna believe Sigstr just sent me this amazing box full of swag and really cool stuff!" And, it was just that little touch. I know that there was a handwritten note in there just saying how much you guys appreciated her, and that kind of thing goes a long way. And so, I think from what I've seen, you all do a really nice job of that. Justin: We spend a lot of time and a decent amount of money doing that. We do send a lot of swag ... If, anyone really wants some Sigstr swag, hit me up! Kathleen: Ooh, what's the best way? Should they Tweet you? Justin: They can Tweet me or they can shoot me an email. @JustinKeller is my Twitter handle and Justin@Sigstr is my email. Hopefully this doesn't come back to bite me. When we get new customers, we send a note. We spend a lot of time doing handwritten notes. And we'll recruit many people. We'll have our design team. We'll get some of our sales people, and we'll all huddle around a table and write personal notes just to ... Kathleen: That makes such a difference. Justin: I one hundred percent think it makes all the difference in the world, and it's not scalable, and that's probably why more people don't do it and why it does have such and impact. Kathleen: Yeah. Justin: It's just rare. I mean, it takes a lot of manpower to pull it off. But, it's kind of one of our core beliefs that we need to be good partners and that's kind of how it shows up for us. Kathleen: Yeah, I feel like handwritten notes are a lost art and I think it's only going to get worse because I was just talking with my son, who is 11, the other day and, you know, he's not ... they're not teaching him cursive and ... Justin: Mmm-hmm (affirmative) Kathleen: I just think all of these things, when combined, and the fact that they all live on devices ... You're only going to see fewer and fewer handwritten notes. But even my son, who doesn't write anything, when he gets something in the mail, he's like, "What? I got mail?" And he's so excited! So, I just think it's such a great opportunity to make a connection. Justin: It's true. And that old school thing is coming back again, right? Back in the day, everything was done via mail. And, back in the day, email was not thought of as a channel. But you know, now here's Sigstr growing like a weed using email signatures. I mean, I don't want to say direct mail but kind of like, really personalized handwritten stuff -- I think that's, it's so old school, its new school again. It's like the vinyl records of marketing. Kathleen: Well, even direct mail -- I think you have to do it right but, we used to do dimensional mail for clients, which is direct mail but in a box. Justin: Yeah. Kathleen: And, there's almost nobody out there who will get a box and not open it. Justin: Totally. Kathleen: You get direct mail and if it's flat mail, you just toss it right in the trashcan so, that's the first hurdle you have to overcome. It's just getting somebody to open your thing. Justin: Yeah. Kathleen: And, everybody thinks, "Ooh it's a box, maybe it's a present." Justin: Yeah. Kathleen: So, I think with all of these things it's just about how you use it, because I can't even count on one hand how many times I've read articles about email being dead, which is just so false. It's how you use it, you know? Justin: It's true, it's true. We actually included in your swag box, we've got stickers that say "Email will never die." Kathleen: Yeah. Justin: And ... Kathleen: Long live email! Justin: Yeah, I agree. Kathleen: I love that. So, you've done all of these ... This co-marketing. You've got your content strategy. Can you share any numbers about the impact this has had on the business, whether that's in terms of traffic growth, or new leads? You're saying that this has been successful for you and it's ... Justin: Yeah. Kathleen: ...really driving your growth. Do you have any data to back that up? Justin: We do, yeah. So, in terms of the content swaps I don't think I can point to any good numbers. Our traffic -- website traffic -- has definitely increased, I mean, substantially for us. Almost 10 times in the past year. Kathleen: Wow, that's amazing! Justin: And I can't point back to any co-marketing initiatives exactly. I think that's just kind of a ground swell. But through these partnerships we've started hosting third party events at all the conferences. So we've kind of got this little branded event that we've called "All about margaritas," which is a different interpretation of the ABM acronym, right? And ... Kathleen: That sounds like an event that I would come to. Justin: Exactly, right? So we worked with BrightFunnel and with UberFlip on hosting these events. And it's one of those things where like, I mean, you know conferences are not cheap. I mean that is ... Kathleen: Yeah. Justin: I would posit pretty much everyone on this call, it's probably their biggest -- if they do conferences -- their biggest line item in the marketing budget. If you kind of have a bad place -- a bad booth place -- or you know, it's a really crummy conference, it's really tough to maximize your investment there. So what we've done is we do these little after parties where we're all promoting it together. We're all having a lot of fun with the promotion. And yeah, I mean for the one we just did -- the Marketo Summit -- we had well over 700 people registered. Kathleen: Wow. That's a lot of margaritas. Justin: It is a lot of margaritas. We actually had to kind of get a waiting list going. It was a very good problem to have and it's been tremendously successful. So we're kind of doing that more and more. We're taking that on the road. Kathleen: So are you getting lists of conference attendees from the conference organizer and that's how you're reaching out or how are you doing that? Justin: Totally organic social, a social promotion. We put it in our, you know, our newsletters or whatever. I will tell you a little secret, and again, I'm so not trying to make this commercial for Sigstr. Ten percent of those -- no twenty percent, twenty percent of those -- registrations came from Sigstr signatures, right? So it's one of those things where you're just passively emailing, doing your thing, but you know, people see the call to action and they're like, "Oh, that sounds like me." Kathleen: And you know that because, as I understand all of the links in the Sigstr signatures, you can build them out as tracking url. Justin: Oh come on, yeah. Kathleen: So concrete proof that that's where it came from. Justin: Yeah. Really, really deep analytics. Everything integrates with marketing automation or with your Salesforce or whatever. So you can get really good analytics and even kind of attribute pipeline to it. Kathleen: That's awesome. Justin: Yeah it's really, really great. So yeah, huge. We did another one. We had almost 200 people register for that, which we were thrilled about because it was the day before the conference even started and it was, you know, it's a smaller conference to begin with anyway. So that's kind of been like the ultimate culmination of these partnerships and how things have really, really shown up in the pipeline for us. Kathleen: That's great. Well all really cool and really interesting stuff. I love what you guys are doing. You were also mentioning that, you know, you have some great strategies for building relationships and what a big part of how you approach things that is outside of, you know, sending people swag boxes. Any other tips you have for listeners on that? Justin: Yeah, we spent a lot of time on social media, like engaging. Not like trying to be like, "Hey, take a demo," you know. I'm just kind of like following him around, like engaging with them, actually keeping up with their tweets, retweeting big moments for them and just kind of being a friendly face in the social crowd. And we think, you know, even the personal engagement, it's tough to fly out and see customers, especially when you're a small company, a growing company like us. We do try and make a point to build in as many customer visits as we can. Just because that face time is so much ... so important, right? When you really connect with someone on a human level, the relationship changes, but you know, people develop an attachment with you and I think that's such ... I think emotion is such a huge buying trigger that people ignore. And I think that's what it all comes down to is really, you know, developing relationships, developing an emotional connection is really what I think helps drive a business and a brand. I may get this quote wrong, so please fact check me audience, but I think it's like 95 percent of all buying decisions are based on emotion. Then the rest of the buyer's journey, I mean, that's like before the purchases or the buying committees even started. And from that point on, the buyer's journey is all about substantiating those emotions, right? And that's why content is so important in showing up data is to prove to someone that their emotions are correct. Kathleen: Yeah, I definitely can see that. And I'm curious, you know? Well, I can see see where emotion is so important, especially because your audience is marketers. Justin: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Kathleen: And I know from being a marketer myself for a long time that one of the biggest challenges we face is tool overload. Justin: Yeah. Kathleen: You know, every organization I've worked in, one of our biggest line items is recurring monthly SaaS subscriptions. Individually, they might be small amounts of money, but it adds up quickly and so what happens when you have this proliferation of software tools is inevitably, you know, there's some percentage of them that you don't use. Certainly you don't use them to their fullest. But I have found in my experience that when I have a good relationship with the vendor then, you know, those are the ones that tend to get the love. And what's great about that for you -- as somebody who is selling SaaS is -- churn goes down with those situations. So I think what you've said rings really true to me as somebody who is a target for you guys, and I know it's true for us at IMPACT. Like, we felt a lot of attention from Sigstr in terms of helping us get started and get going with the product and that makes a huge difference. Justin: Yeah, totally. I think you had the podcast with Dan Moyle. Like, I think he's telling the same story. It's all about developing those relationships and, I think that especially in the age of automation and robots and everything, I think just like how email is kind of important for the same reason, right? Bringing the humanity back into marketing is more important than ever. Kathleen: Yeah, so true. Well I want to make sure before we wrap up that I have two questions I always ask everybody who comes on this podcast and I definitely want to ask you and get your perspective. One of them is company or individual, who do you think is doing inbound marketing really well right now? Justin: So we do this thing and we were trying to get the ball rolling on it, but we do this thing internally we're calling "Brand Crush Monday" where we kind of just find a brand we really like and ... Kathleen: I love that. Justin: And so the most recent one that we're all kind of fawning over is a company called Tunnelbear. Really, really just like, it's just one of those websites where it's like, even if you're not a buyer, you just kinda want to click through and see what all the pages have. They've done a really good job of that. I think Uberflip does a really good job with inbound just because it creates such a good time to experience where you kind of are, okay, piecemealing your information away for an exchange for interesting content. They do a really good job of progressive profiling. So I like what they're doing a lot too. Kathleen: Oh, I can't wait to check out Tunnelbear. I've seen it Uberflip and I agree they're great. Justin: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Kathleen: But I love when I hear new ones that I didn't know about before. So that's awesome. Second question, you know, with the world of digital marketing changing so quickly and especially with it being very technologically driven, the challenge that I hear most from marketers is just keeping up with all that new information and staying educated. How do you keep up and stay educated? Justin: Yeah, I think I try to do about a book a month, either read or listen to. Now that it's nice and I can walk to work, I get a lot more of that in and then podcasts for sure. Kathleen: Any particular favorite podcasts? Justin: Well since we've met, I've grown quite fond of yours. Also like, I liked the Andreeson Horwitz podcast a lot. I like Sangram Vajre's #FlipMyFunnel podcast. I think that one's also pretty great just because it's so frequent and it's pretty digestible. What else? What else, what else? I mean those are my main ones off the top of my head. I do have a lot of guilty pleasure podcasts I listen to as well, but those are the marketing ones that I really, really like. Kathleen: And then a fall onto that, any particular books that you've read lately that you would recommend? Justin: So when I joined Sigstr, I bought for my entire team a copy of Contagious by Jonah Berger. That was kind of like my bio. I was like, "Read this, this is the new Bible." And then Good to Great I think is another. Who wrote that? Jim Collins. Kathleen: Yeah. Justin: Another fan. I think those are both like 101 -- you have to read these if you're a marketer -- books. Kathleen: Yeah, those are some good ones. I just finished Eating the Big Fish, which is about what it means to be a challenger brand. That's also a great book if you want one for your recommendations. Justin: I do. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to need some reading materials. So I appreciate that. Kathleen: Yeah. It's funny because I've been wanting to read more books and so I finally bit the bullet, and I really like actual books because I like to underline and write notes and margins and things, but I just couldn't move fast enough doing it that way. And so I finally bit the bullet and decided to try Audible and now I'm completely hooked because I listen to books on 2X speed and I'm like tearing through these books. So that's one of the reasons I love asking people this question at the end of the podcast. I get to get recommendations from my own list. Justin: Awesome. I will think of some and I'll shoot you an email. Absolutely Kathleen: Great. Alright. Well for people who have questions for you or who want to check out and learn more about Sigstr what is the best way for them to find you individually online and of course then please, if you could share Sigstr's url. That would be ... Justin: So Sigstr is Sigstr dot com. And then if you want to find me online, I think probably the best way is just a twitter, @JustinKeller, one word, is my handle. And then LinkedIn, I think is just Justin Keller, but I think your listeners are probably pretty savvy with the Google. Kathleen: They'll figure it out and if they can't, I will put those links in the show notes. Awesome. Great. Well thank you so much for joining me today. This has been really fun hearing about how you guys approach things. Justin: Thank you so much. This was a treat. I really ... this is my first podcast as well, so thank you for that. Kathleen: Well great. I'm so honored. That's great. Well, hopefully first of many. Justin: Hopefully. Kathleen: Well, thank you again for joining me and if you are listening and you liked what you heard, I would really appreciate if you would consider giving the podcast a review on iTunes, Stitcher, or the platform of your choice. And if you know somebody who's doing kick ass inbound marketing work, tweet me at @workmommywork because I would love to interview them. Thanks again.

Brad Butler's goal in life is to motivate, inspire and empower people all over the world to recognize their gifts and put forth their best-efforts in all that they do. Brad knows hardship, he also knows hard times, but he overcame it all. He challenges everyone to "Make Your Next Day Your Best Day" Subscribe to our email list: http://eepurl.com/c7wqdD https://www.instagram.com/bernardbergan/

Learn more about the inspirations behind part three of our new video installation The Scar in this accompanying audio commentary from Artists Noor Afshan Mirza and Brad Butler. This chapter is titled The Gossip. This three-screen video starts with a shot of a campfire on the left screen and woman on the right screen. When you see this, hit play to hear from Noor and Brad.

Learn more about the inspirations behind part two of our new video installation The Scar in this accompanying audio commentary from Artists Noor Afshan Mirza and Brad Butler. This chapter is titled The Mouth of the Shark. This video starts with a woman walking through the forrest. When you see this, hit play to hear from Noor and Brad.

Learn more about the inspirations behind part one of our new video installation The Scar in this accompanying audio commentary from Artists Noor Afshan Mirza and Brad Butler. This chapter of the film is titled The State of the State. The video starts with a shot of the road. When you see this, hit play to hear from Noor and Brad.

Synopsis: what is said and unsaid at Artspace, Sydney; possession and control; Hainish Cycle fan fiction; uncomfortable artist talks; in-between spaces; memories of a boycott; the possibilities and limits of communication; and, the gaze of a disconcerting bust. Characters (in order of appearance): Ursula K. Le Guin, Kyrafic, Stephanie Rosenthal, Michel de Certeau, Benjamin Forster, Franco Belgiorno-Nettis, Karen Mirza and Brad Butler, and Sarinah Masukor. Biennale of Sydney: Fan Fiction has been written for The Bureau of Writing, a collaborative writing program designed for artists and presented alongside the 20th Biennale in association with Artspace, Sydney.

Brad Butler, President/Founder of Uniglobal Media Group joins #BGEPresents in discussion of the 73th anniversary of Pearl Harbor. @jiggyjaguar    www.buildgrowandenjoy.com

On this episode of the goservelive podcast, our student pastor, Brad Butler, shares a message from Philippians. 

On this epidode of the goservelive podcast, our Student Pastor, Brad Butler, takes us through the early parts of Acts and teaches on Jesus' ascension. 

On this episode of the goservelive podcast we have two sermons packed into one episode. As you may know, we sent a team to Anchorage, Alaska for mission work this past week and your host and podcast producer, Mitch Eckhardt, was on that team so we were unable to publish the most recent sermons. Today you get Brad Butler, Student Pastor, preaching on Habakuk from 06/08 and Michael Haffner, Children and Family Pastor, preaching from Joshua from 06/15. Enjoy this week's double shot, next week we'll be back to normal posts.

Brad Butler, Tahiti TahitiVacations.net Anna Abdelnour, Blossomtime Festival BlossomtimeFestival.org